The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3)

by Megan Whalen Turner

She slid her hand around his face to cup his cheek and bent to kiss him on the brow, like a mother kissing her child.

“I only told him what he was going to do anyway,” said Costis. “That would be the trick,” Ileia agreed.

The queen stepped around the end of the bed and came up beside the king to put her arms around him.

She held it for him and stroked the king’s forehead as he threw up.

After one moment of gripped immobility, the queen bent to kiss the king lightly on one closed eyelid, then on the other. She said, “I love your eyes.” She kissed him on either cheek, near the small lobe of his ear. “I love your ears, and I love”—she paused as she kissed him gently on the lips—“every single one of your ridiculous lies.”

“You are treasure beyond any price.”

While half asleep, he had spoken with an Eddisian accent, which was only to be expected, but Costis had never heard it before, nor had anyone he knew. Awake, the king sounded like an Attolian.

“Ah. They have seen me in my nightshirt.” He looked down at his sleeve, embroidered with white flowers. “Not in your nightshirt, though.”

Only Philologos was unwilling to be let off so easily. “Your Majesty,” he said sternly. “We have behaved shamefully. You should not overlook it.”

I think it is all in the past now. We can leave it there.”

“I hate you,” Sejanus answered, as if he were reciting the lines in a play. “You have no right to the throne of Attolia.”

“I am very sorry it didn’t kill you,” said Sejanus venomously. “I thought I put in enough to kill a horse.”

Sejanus thought it through, and like a puppet with its strings cut, or like the temple collapsing on itself, he landed on his knees before the king with a force that must have rattled his teeth in his head.

His father had too many enemies who would be delighted at the fall of the house. There was no hope, and only Dite’s fate lay in his hands.

“Ninety-eight days,” said the queen, folding her hands in her lap. “You said it would take six months.” Eugenides picked at a nub in the coverlet. “I like to give myself a margin. When I can.”

The king’s attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days.

“I didn’t drink any of the filthy stuff,” the king snapped. “Dite, I don’t need quinalums to give me nightmares; they come on their own. The gods send them to keep me humble.”

With Sejanus’s help, of course, and the help of the mistress the baron had picked out for me—only I kept dancing with her sister—who, by the way, has lovely earrings.”

“I will be,” Dite assured him. He glanced at the embroidered screen before the fireplace and then back at the king. Then he said, with a bow and a smile, “Be blessed in your endeavors.” The king chuckled. “Good-bye, Dite.”

Sejanus was jealous of me on his brother’s behalf. He hoped that if I were dead, you might come to accept Dite’s love for you.”

“If you had only known that I would end up here and you there? What a surprise it must be after all your years of service to the queen.”

His steps made no more sound than the moonlight falling through the windows,

“I, Attolia Irene, here pardon my Secretary of the Archives, Relius, for his crimes and his failures, because of his many services to me and for the love I bear him.”

The king sat beside the secretary, neither of them speaking, until Relius was asleep. When the king got up, he stood a moment, hunched over, before he straightened with an almost inaudible sigh.

“Your whole goal in life is to make sure the king stays in bed. Has that been made clear, Lieutenant?”

So, where there is no peace, there are no trees.

“Very well, cover the hills with olive groves, and I will bring the peace they need to live.

“The queen could never be heartless.”

What kind of man, he wondered, referred to himself as “safely dead”?

Eddis looked away. “If Sophos is gone—” she said.

Mostly he lay in his bed as blank and free from thought as a newborn baby. His days were immeasurably restful.

Some of Relius’s longing must have showed on his face because the king turned to him with a smile.

“Perhaps we could forgive each other?” the queen suggested.

“He didn’t marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you.”

She raised her head, and he was aghast to see her eyes bright with tears. “I am tired of driving people and forcing them to my will.

“Take care,” the queen said softly. “Take care, my dear friend.”

Relius looked away. “He said that you . . . cried,” he said softly. “But not that he cried as well,” said the queen, amused at the memory. “We were very lachrymose.”

“Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn’t work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of wine might have changed.”

He said over his shoulder, “Do you know, it’s the first time I’ve ever been caught in something I can’t get out of?” His laughter was bitter. “Because I don’t want out of it, Costis. I’m terrified that if they know how much I hate it, they might take it away.”

When the king finally straightened, Costis didn’t let him go and the king didn’t pull away. He stood, head down, with his hand on Costis’s shoulder, until the shaking finally subsided.

The first thing the king did was walk to one of the fountains along the wall and stick his face into it. He shook his hair off his face, flicking drops of water sparking into the air.

“You haven’t even apologized.” “I’m very s-sorry, Your Majesty,” Costis said immediately. “For what exactly?” the king prompted. “Anything,” said Costis. “Everything. Being born.”

“But I won’t have you accused of not trying your hardest. I know that it is worth my while. How shall we make it worth yours? Shall we make a bet, Teleus? I beat you, and the queen reduces the Guard by half. You win, and she doesn’t.”

“I will die before I let you do it.” “You don’t have to die, Teleus. Just beat me.”

As Teleus approached, she sat in the chair and calmly arranged the folds of her gown.

“People do frequently seem to be surprised once my husband is involved.”

“He whines, he complains, he ducks out of the most obvious responsibility. He is vain, petty, and maddening, but he doesn’t ever quit.” Ornon shrugged. “Ever.”

With a sneer and perfect form, Laecdomon drew the sword back and swung for the king’s head. Costis was not the only one to cry out, but the blow never landed.

“You forgot,” said the king, into the silent air, “that it’s a wooden sword.”

Trailing it on the ground behind him, he limped toward the queen, and the courtyard quieted as he approached and was silent again as he dropped to his knees before her and laid the sword across her lap. “My Queen,” he said. “My King,” she said back.