No one but the king could have provided the box, but the king was rarely alone for more than a few moments a day and never, to my knowledge, alone with Relius. Relius was watching me in amusement.

I’d overheard many secrets in my short life, but this was the first time anyone had chosen to share a confidence with me. Being trusted was a heady feeling.

“Before you put the map away, I’d like to compare it to mine,” said Relius, very seriously. “With your permission, of course.”

He smoothed it as flat as possible on his worktable, and the two of us studied both maps, pointing out differences as we saw them. Twice, Relius dipped his pen in ink and made a notation on his own map.

The next day, there was another surprise. The magus of Sounis had sent a packet of information to Relius, and included in it was a folded piece of parchment for me. Opening it, I found an entire page of writing I recognized from the proof Relius had shown me of the formula to determine the area of a triangle. It was a hastily copied excerpt from another scroll, and at the top was my favorite pattern, the bee spiral: one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. It was the order of the cells in the honeycomb, and it was the pattern in the triangles I made that turned so perfectly into a spiral and then back. The scroll said the pattern was in the seeds in a pine cone and the curve of a snail shell as well. It said they all shared the same numerical form. I stared beseechingly at Relius. He expected me to read the History of Savoro.

He shook his head, raising his eyes to the gods. “By all means, spend the morning reading about patterns you can make with orange slices. Why would I think the history of a family that’s held power on the Greater Peninsula for five hundred years would be more important?”

I had a better understanding of his humor by this time and knew he was pleased—that he’d asked the magus for the information and was happy with the results. He had another cause to be happy—the magus’s handwriting was in some places unreadable. Later, I brought the parchment back to Relius to ask him to decipher several words. He laughed at me. “You see the importance of handwriting now.”

He made me recopy the entire excerpt, and I still have it.

With the destruction of the Mede fleet, some tensions in Attolia had eased. The appointment of Drusis, Motis, and Polemus gave all the attendants a chance to begin anew with the king. If Xikos and Xikander and Sotis weren’t supporters, their dislike faded to resignation, and emotions, running hot for so long in the Attolian court, began to settle.

In Eddis, in contrast, sentiment was only growing against the high king. The Eddisians had not liked their queen’s hasty marriage. Though they approved of Sounis, they disagreed with her decision to give up her sovereignty. Even in Sounis’s own country, there were rumblings that the Medes were no longer a threat and that the need for a union of the three countries on the Little Peninsula was over.

My grandfather who was Erondites came to court. He looked me over with disgust and was much astonished when I glared back. He tossed off a laugh as he paraded past. Relius warned me that Erondites hadn’t given up any more than the Mede had.

The Book of Pheris

Volume II

Chapter One

Costis was near enough to the capital that his name and his seal ring had been sufficient to convince the innkeeper to offer his best mount. It was lucky, because most of his emergency funds were spent. He’d ridden the horse hard, and he could feel her beginning to weaken. The sun on the horizon had spilled all but the last of its golden light, and the cloudless sky above had deepened to the hue of a silver bowl tipped upside down over the world. There was no reason to push her further. He dismounted and walked awhile to give the mare a rest. He wouldn’t reach another inn before it was fully dark, so he decided to look for a farm where he could stable her for the night and get a little rest himself. Just the thought of sleep made his eyes smart.

As he walked, night fell. In the moonlight, he remounted and urged the mare on, looking for a glimmer of light on either side of the road that might offer him welcome. All was quiet in the countryside. The only sounds were those of the insects singing and the frogs peeping, the occasional high-pitched whistle of a bat circling over the open fields. In the city he traveled toward, there were long hours still to pass before noises faded, before the streets emptied and the last drunk staggered home, before long-winded arguments and murmured adorations finally dissolved into sleep. When the sun rose over the city, it would be at peace and its people would rise with high expectations of the day, setting aside the usual worries, looking forward to the plays. It was the Festival of Moira. It was a happy time.

The queen paused in the doorway.

“Is that Melheret’s statue of Prokip?”

The king was working at his desk, using his hook to slide around the pages of the reports he was going through. The scattershot of little holes in state documents was the surest sign that he’d read them.

“No, it’s mine,” the king said, not looking up.

“And was it previously owned by the former Mede ambassador?”

“Who really owns anything?”

“Is that the statuette that the former Mede ambassador mistakenly thought he owned, and is he aware that it is here on your desk?”

“I had a cast of his statue made.”

The queen waited.

“This is not the cast,” the king admitted, finally turning to face her.

“And how many of the ambassadors know that you’ve robbed the Mede of his treasure?” She did not seem amused.

“Oh, all of them, by now,” said the king. “It’s been months. Even Melheret might know, though he may be out of touch out on his family’s farm.”

“He did quite well,” agreed the queen, moving to the cushioned chair beside him, wrapping her skirts around herself as she sat, “getting himself dismissed from court before something worse happened.” Eyes still on the king, she said, “We’d like something to eat.”

Lamion ducked his head and excused himself, leaving them alone except for me.

Attolia continued once he was gone. “You were right—he saw past the cheap setting of the earrings.”

“He’d seen those stones in your ears. He knew their value.” The king had gone back to his papers.

“Obviously no one else did, or he wouldn’t have made it home to his wife. You liked him.”

The king thought for a minute. “He wasn’t an ass, which is more than one can say for every other Mede ambassador we have met. I agree with you that he might yet prove useful.”

The queen nodded in agreement and added, perhaps thinking of the contrast her husband made to the Mede’s elegance, “My, how barbarian you look.” The king, who had overridden Ion’s disapproval earlier that day, appeared a little bit self-conscious about his attire. Ion had tried to talk him out of wearing the sleeveless leather tunic with no shirt underneath.

“I was hot,” he admitted. The recent days had been unseasonably warm. “I promise to put on my fancy clothes later.”

“We could move the court to the villa on Thegmis. It is cooler out of the city.” She relaxed into the chair, letting its high back and its arms hold her up, then reached with one delicate foot for the stool. I leaned from where I sat to move it into position for her. She smiled and I ducked shyly back into the corner between the king’s desk and the wall, reassured that she knew that I was there and did not object.