The Queen of Attolia (The Queen's Thief #2)

by Megan Whalen Turner

“Oh, yes,” said the queen without turning her head. “I have caught him.” “Be cautious,” said the other. “Do not offend the gods.”

Turning his head had been a mistake. He crawled to a corner and retched until what was left of his dinner was gone. Then he crawled to the opposite corner of the cell and lay down on the damp stones. He prayed to the God of Thieves. There was no answer, and he slept.

It was bad news that he’d brought, and he knew it. Having come so far to deliver it, hoping to be well paid, he was afraid of his reception.

“What do you know about the arrest of my Thief?” the queen asked,

“They said she’s going to make him pay for taunting her, leaving things in the palace so she knows he’s been there.”

“I was wrong to send him,” she said at last. The admission was as much concession as she could make to the horror she felt at her mistake.

Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her open hand.

“Eugenides,” she said, “what can you steal with only one hand?” “Nothing,” he answered hopelessly.

She dismissed thoughts of the Thief lying on the floor of his cell, but found herself thinking instead of her favorite amphora, broken, and the oil spilled.

He started to pick the boy up, but the minister of war tapped his shoulder and stooped himself to gather Eugenides in his arms and carry him inside.

“do you think that if people are crippled in this life, they are crippled in the afterlife as well?”

“Have you ever . . . ?” “Heard him make a noise like that? No.” Eddis couldn’t remember a time herself. His screams sounded as if they were dragged out of him with a hook.

Because he didn't scream when he was being tourtured.

“My Queen?” Eugenides whispered, still confused. “Go to sleep,” ordered Eddis. Eugenides, obedient to his queen and the lethium, closed his eyes.

It was too obvious to everyone involved that he had brought trouble on himself and was anything but a helpless victim.

She never worried about his complaints. She worried only when he was quiet. Either he was plotting something so outrageous it would bring her entire court to her throne howling for his blood, or he’d been fighting with his father, or on very rare occasions it meant he’d been seriously hurt.

She was in one of the armchairs with her knees up and her feet pulled in under her skirts. “Both of you in tears now,” he said.

He woke with his throat raw from screaming, still in his clothes, lying on top of the bedcovers.

“But give me back my fingers. It is awkward to sit like this.”

He lifted his feet up onto the bench, out of sight of any casual glance under the curtain, and wrapped his arms around his knees.

“That was the message. For me, alone among mortals, the gods send their messenger to tell me to stop whining. That’ll teach me to go hide in a temple.”

He pulled his knees up. “I’m sorry.” He shrugged. “I thought it was a good plan.”

Her people support her, but her barons hate her, ostensibly because she rules in her own right and has refused to take one of them for a king.

“I can’t wait to hear!” He spaced his last words out and finally was finished.

Returning to her room, she sighed again. The accusation about the arranged marriage had been a home shot. It was a good thing Eugenides hadn’t realized it yet.

He patted Eugenides once on the shoulder and left without seeing how the Thief’s eyes narrowed, watching him go.

“Eddis should have married me,” Sounis said abruptly. “Do you think she still might?”

The magus turned to look for the Thief of Eddis and saw a shadow standing in a corner out of the moonlight.

He held up his right arm, and the magus started before realizing that the hand he saw had to be a wooden one, concealed by a glove.

“You said I should do something.” Eugenides smiled in the dark, twisting the knife of his revenge a little deeper into the magus.

“Oh, gods, no. You’re working for Attolia. You have been all along. Poor Ambiades found out, and that’s why you got rid of him. Pol, too.”

The huge animals were normally placid, but the shouting, milling crowds unsettled them, and they jerked in their harnesses and their neighing rose above the sounds of people in the streets.

He seemed to the magus to move as easily with one hand as he had with two.

“Besotted may not be the right word. Obsessed. And not just because he wants the throne. He wants you, though I’m not sure why.”

“Am I supposed to wish that you were dead, Gen?” she asked.

“Well, I patted every one of them on the shoulder like some sort of priest, and then I went outside and threw up.”

“I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like an idiot.” “I think heroes generally do, but those men believe in you.” “I did wait until I was outside before I threw up.”

The magus had meant to work just a few moments more, but after the interruption he fell back into his thoughts and was still in the library when Eugenides’s hoarse screams began.

“I’m sure not,” Eugenides said agreeably, “but he’s caused a lot of bloodshed wanting a woman he can’t have.” “Not a new thing in the history of the world,” the magus said.

He pulled his knees up and hunched over them.

“If she doesn’t indulge in torture for personal pleasure, why didn’t she do the sensible thing and hang me?”

How much of a threat had Eugenides been to Attolia? Not much, Eddis thought, but who measures?

Eugenides covered his face with his arm. “I tell myself that, and I think I believe it, until I go to sleep. I tell myself that she isn’t—that she wouldn’t do those things. But I am afraid that she would,” he whispered. “And then I wish she’d hanged me. I wish in my god’s name that she’d hanged me, and I hate that Mede.” He laughed, and Eddis winced.

“Gen,” Eddis was forced into admitting, “it would be worse than losing you to have you do this and become like her.”

And, My Queen, I do want this.” He looked up at her. “I can’t tell you why. She may be a fiend from hell to make me feel this way, but even if I have to hate myself for the rest of my life, this is what I want.”

“All right,” she said at last. “Go and steal the queen of Attolia.”

“Damn him,” she cursed under her breath, “damn him, damn him, damn him,” as if her curses could weigh down the Thief of Eddis like stones piled one on top of another until he was overcome.

“Good heavens,” said Nahuseresh. “Kamet, you’re love-struck.”

“My Queen?” He turned back, unsure what she required. “Only for that,” said Eddis. Eugenides smiled and bowed his head. “My Queen,” he said again, perhaps for the last time. Then he was gone.

The queen had only smiled and assured him that Eugenides had promised to be tractable.

“I love stupid plans,” said Eugenides.