On the rare occasions the king and queen were in the king’s bedchamber together, the waiting room also held the queen’s attendants, but it was mostly filled with men. Hilarion was married, his wife sometimes joined him in the evenings, but she always left before the heavy drinking began. Dionis, Lamion, and Verimius were married, but their wives lived in the country. That left them free to participate in all the flirtations of the court, which Lamion did to a lesser extent and Verimius to a greater.

One person who was always welcome in the waiting room was the ambassador of the Braelings, Yorn Fordad. He often joined the attendants at the card table and could count on being waved into the bedchamber for a private audience if he caught the eye of the king. Fordad was a solid man with a kind face and a deep, friendly laugh. Unlike so many Braelings, he was not blond, but his skin was just as fair as his countrymen’s, and when he was too long in the sun, it burned a bright pink. He kept his chin bare, but when he was playing cards, he liked to stroke his luxurious mustache.

His fellow ambassador, Besin Quedue, who represented the Pents, no one liked. He’d only recently been sent to serve in the Attolian court, having gotten into some sort of trouble at home. Before his arrival, the small state of Attolia hadn’t warranted an official ambassador from the mighty Pents; they had relied instead on Fordad as an extraordinary ambassador to protect their interests. Fordad bore Quedue’s company patiently and did his best to guide him, but the Pent ignored his advice.

In everyone’s hearing, Quedue had assured Fordad that he didn’t expect to be stuck in a backwater like Attolia for long. “Father says there will be a spot for me in the subordinary council in a year or two. All I need do is amuse myself in the meantime. The queen is lovely, hmmm?”

“She has a husband,” the Braeling cautioned him.

“He is an infant. It is a marriage of convenience.”

“Mmm,” said Fordad.

“I’ve heard he pretends not to recognize the Mede ambassador. He won’t play games like that with me!” said the Pent.

The Braeling rolled his eyes to the heavens—we all saw it. We also saw that when the door to the king’s bedchamber opened and people rose to their feet, the Pent ambassador bowed as low as anyone else.

Later Verimius remarked to Cleon, “Please gods, no one tell that Pent what happened to Nahuseresh. Talking right in front of us as if we were furniture. If he’s going to be rude, you’d think he would do it in his own language.”

More perceptive, Cleon asked, “If we couldn’t understand him, how would we know we were being insulted?”

As the days grew warmer and the rains tapered off, my grandfather began to worry that it would not be as easy as he’d anticipated to get rid of me once his little joke had played out. He knew he would need to remove me from the king’s proximity, and he started laying his groundwork. As if to underscore the precariousness of all things in life, Baron Hippias, the secretary of the archives, went to bed and was found dead in the morning.

Chapter Five

Spring was well begun when Eddis and Sounis returned to Attolia for the Festival of Moira. Cenna of Eddis was competing that year for the Golden Pen, and they came to see the plays performed. Though they were greeted with open arms by the Attolians, their retinues seemed stiff, and some of the Eddisians appeared outright sullen. Lamion commented on it and Ion said they always looked like that.

The city was full for the presentation of new plays and the selection of the best of them for Moira’s prize. The Invaders may have built Attolia’s amphitheater, across the river from the city, but it was the plays written in Moira’s honor that filled it every day in fine weather. It was the first time I’d seen a play, and I still remember every word of all three presented that year, though the first two were nothing out of the ordinary. No one, of course, has forgotten the third play, Cenna’s “Royal Favor.”

When the narrator first strode out on the stage to introduce his play, the people who came to the theater to chatter with one another and enjoy the sunshine hardly paid attention.

Sing, Goddess! Of the lazy king! Emipopolitus, who connived his way to the throne

by marrying the king’s daughter Bythesea! Oh, foolish princess,

swayed by a pretty face!

Tell us, Moira! Of our indolent king, stuffing himself at the banquet table,

shirking responsibilities and shouting of enemies

only he can see!

“Beware! Beware!” The king endlessly warns of war, sending his dinner guests to hiding

so that he can go place to place, drinking up the wine

left in their cups!

Oh, Emipopolitus, it is you who must beware as your enemies unite against you!

Oh, sorry king, who sees his doom upon him!

How shall he save himself?

Watch now and see

how cunning a man can be,

how hard a lazy man will work

when he serves himself.

As the actors filed onto the stage behind the narrator, the audience gasped. If Emipopolitus’s showy costume had left any doubt who was the target of this satire, the oversized hook the actor wore made it unmistakable. By the time the narrator finished the prologue and waited for royal permission to proceed, the whole theater was dead silent.

Many corrupt businessmen or conniving courtiers have seen a thinly veiled version of themselves vilified in Moira’s plays, or painfully ridiculed as a lesson to others, but mocking the powerful is not without risk. Only success protects a writer from retribution. The king, with no real choice, gave his permission for the play to go on, but settling back into his seat, he murmured to the queen, “Swayed by a pretty face.”

Cenna was engaged in a dangerous business indeed.

Fortunately for Cenna, we laughed until our sides ached as Emipopolitus ran around the stage creating more and more complicated plans that succeeded only by accident in confounding every attempt to unseat him. I was delighted at the end of the play, when all of the lazy king’s enemies, including the narrator himself, climbed into a boat to be carried off to exile, convinced they were on their way to colonize the moon. The actor playing Emipopolitus waved them goodbye. When the boat had been lifted into a flyway above the stage, he turned to the audience.

Chorus and all are flown away, and though I could close the play myself

Give all its elements in capsule form for latecomers and the inattentive

I beg you to excuse me, as I must retire

to drink the wine they left behind.

He waved his hook and wobbled off the stage as the audience roared, and the amphitheater filled with claps and whistles and cheers. The king said very mildly, considering how he’d been abused, “I feel I am missing something in the references to wine.”

“I have increased the royal requisitions of it, as well as the other crops we are stockpiling,” Attolia said grimly.

“I don’t see why that’s my fault,” said the king. “Why isn’t Queen Emipopolita the main character of this play?”

Because not even an Eddisian would have dared. It was astonishing that Cenna had gone as far as she had. No Attolian would have had the nerve to create the character of the Princess Bythesea.

At the banquet in the palace that evening, there was talk of nothing but Cenna’s play. Most people had the sense to keep their conversations very quiet, one eye on the high table as they spoke. Only the Pent was sufficiently rude or stupid to laugh out loud.