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

by Megan Whalen Turner

“Get on with it,” said the king. He hardly seemed to notice when the stitching began.

He looked toward the doorway, toward the queen, but spoke to the Eddisian Ambassador. “I think, in future, Ornon,

I will stick to upsetting my ...

“My Queen,” Teleus began. “Your Majesty,” snarled Attolia. Everyone in the room recoiled, excepting only Teleus. “No,” he said. “Relius was right and I was wrong. You are My Queen. Even though you cut my head from my shoulders, with my last breath as a noose tightens, to the last beat of my heart if I hang from the walls of the palace, you are My Queen. That I have failed you does not change my love for you or my loyalty.” “Yet you prefer his mercy to my justice.”

“I would see My Lord Attolis,” she demanded

“Is there no one that you will see punished?” the queen shouted. “Are you so fond of Teleus now that you preserve his life at all costs?” “I only asked you to reconsider.”

If the king and the queen fought each other, the Baron Erondites would wait until they were both too weak to oppose him and then attack.

The queen did not leave her apartments. The king, when they eventually knocked on his door, got himself out of bed to open it, and told them to go away. He did admit the Eddisian Ambassador, but their conversation did not go sweetly, and Ornon stalked out in a rage. The queen’s attendants refused to admit anyone to the queen, and refused to carry in messages, though some did leave on unrevealed errands.

“Go away!” Eugenides shouted. “Go away!” The attendants backed off for a moment, but then closed in again. They opened their mouths to speak,

but the queen’s voice interrupted from the doorway. “I think His Majesty’s wishes are plain.” Every attendant turned to her, aghast. The queen looked back at them. “Go,” she said, “away.”

Clearly, both he and the queen could travel to the queen’s room in private if they chose.

Costis leaned forward in his chair and said, “Go back to sleep.” Eugenides obediently closed his eyes.

“I didn’t think

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

the king said shakily, “Tell me you won’t cut out my lying tongue, tell me you won’t blind me, you won’t drive red-hot wires into my ears.” 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.” The king opened his eyes and smiled at the queen in a companionship that was as unassailable as it was, to Costis, unfathomable.

“Costis,” said the king vaguely. “Younger version of Teleus? No sense of humor?” “The same,” said the queen, a trace of amusement in her voice.

He sounded more like himself, too, and Costis realized that what he had taken for the roughness of sleep was the king’s accent. 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. It made Costis wonder what else the king could hide so well that no one even thought to look for it.

Costis wondered what signal he had missed between the two of them. “I know something you don’t,” the king told her. “Who put the quinalums in the lethium?” “That, too.” “You will see your attendants. They have run unchecked long enough.”

“I’m very tired,” he said pathetically. “Now.” She rose and left.

“Put the snake in my bed,” the king finished for him. “Yes, I know. He was trying to save you from yourself, but he didn’t need to. I knew who delivered the snake, and who put the sand in my food. Who sent poor naive Aristogiton with the note to release the dogs, and which of you poured ink all over my favorite

coat.” As he looked in turn at each attendant as he spoke, it was undeniable that he did, in fact, know. If they had looked chagrined before, they looked at him now with something very like horror.

Except Sejanus, who still managed to look both smug and amused. The king turned to him last. “And I know who put the q...

Sejanus only smiled down his nose. “You can have no proof, Your Majesty.” “I don’t need proof, Sejanus.” “You do if you don’t want every baron to rise in revolt. Your absolute power really only extends as far as the barons will allow before they rise against you. Not to mention that any member of the barons’ council can question the king’s treatment of one of his men. A majority of the barons can vote to overturn your judgment, and if you have no proof, they will.” “Of course, if the subject in question is already executed, it is merely a matter of paying compensation.” Sejanus stared him down. “I don’t think you would go so far, Your...

“Oh, I might safely go as far as I like without outraging anyone. You can’t tell me you really think your father would lift a finger to help Dite.” “Dite?” Sejanus seemed surprised. “Who else are we discussing? I admitted him to my room yesterday. I admitted him to my confidence, and he attempted to poison me. Who else could it have been? The Lady Themis? Or perhaps her sister? Heiro’s a little young to engage in political murder, don’t you think? “I don’t need any more proof than I already have, Sejanus. I can have him arrested today, and I will. I can have him dismembered piecemeal this evening. We will see how many clever songs he sings and plays with no hands and without his tongue.” Sejanus was still shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Yo...

much you hate your brother. While you, Sejanus, are my very dear friend, whom I will keep by my side even if I were to turn out every other attendant.” Sejanus paled. His disdainful smile faded. “I poisoned the lethium,” he said suddenly, forcefully. “What?” The king raised an eyebrow, as if he’d heard incorrectly. “I put the quinalums in the lethium. I have a friend who is a priest. He got the powder, and I added it to the lethium yesterday.” The king asked, “Now, why would you do that?” “I hate you,” Sejanus answered, as if he were reciting the lines in a play. “You have no right to the throne of Attolia.” The king blinked in astonish...

“Very well, Your Majesty.” Sejanus was all disdain again. “And your brother.” “No!” “You have confessed. I feel sure you are willing, under persuasion, to reveal his complicity.” “My brother had nothing...

“Your Majesty, I will confess to any crime you name, but my brother is innocent.” “You’ve already confessed to attempted regicide,” said the king. “What else could you confess?” He looked up from where he had been carefully smoothing the embroidered cover, and seeing his face, Costis felt the shock like a physical blow. If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating. “Do you think I intend to leave your father an heir?”

So, piece by piece, did the king hammer out the enormity of the disaster Sejanus had precipitated on his house. “Your father disinherited your sister and all children of hers when she married against his wishes. He did it formally. That’s why he couldn’t disinherit Dite. A wise man doesn’t leave himself with only one heir. He had to keep Dite,

Also, there was a chance that Dite might succeed with the queen and marry her. What a coup that would have been for the house of Erondites. But Dite didn’t succeed; I married the queen. Poor useless Dite.

“Now your father loses both of you together. He could get rid of your mother, remarry, and get himself another heir, but he doesn’t need a baby, he needs a full-grown heir who can fend for himself and support his father.” “You have no evidence against Dite. I won’t give you any.” “And my barons might not like evidence dragged out of your screaming mouth?” the king asked. “I will retract my confession. I can deny that I ever made it.” “You have a point. But I have one, too. I have many of them, sons and nephews of barons, all standing here on the verge of being banished for what even

your most sensitive barons would agree is egregious misbehavior. How ironic that they have been forced into this compromising position . . . by you.” He waved at the attendants. “Do you think they will lie for you, Sejanus? They may not like me, but they hate you by now. And their families hate your father. He has bribed, bartered, and blackmailed his way to power, but mostly blackmailed. No single baron can risk offending h...

“I don’t need to execute him, Sejanus. All I have to do is banish him for being an embarrassment to the throne. I have all the evidence I need for that.” That stupid song, thought Costis.

“What would be the point of an heir who cannot manage the family from exile? Your father will instantly disinherit him and pick another heir. Only . . . if a man chooses someone, not his own offspring, as heir, he must obtain the approval of the throne. Me. My approval.”

If we cannot agree, and your father dies without an heir, the entire estate reverts to the throne. I will choose an heir for him.”

The king looked from the diased bed down at Sejanus. “The house of Erondites,” he promised, “will not survive.”

isn’t revenge, Sejanus,” said this new incarnation of the king. “I wouldn’t destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house. Your brother will be exiled, your house will fall, not because I happen to hate you, but because Erondites controls more land, and more men, than any four other barons stacked together and has proved to be dangerous over and over. Its very existence is a threat to the throne. It will not survive,”

“Ninety-eight days,” said the queen, folding her hands in her lap. “You said it would take six months.”

“I like to give myself a margin. When I can.” “I didn’t believe you,” the queen admitted with a delicate smile. “Now you know better.” The king smiled back. They might as well have been alone.

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!” Dite protested. “No,” said the king. “I did.” “Why?” Dite asked, helplessly. “Why?” “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.” There was no stroke of humility about him, and if Costis had ever wished to see him look more like a king, his wish was answered.

don’t know why you should apologize.” “Because I am exiling you, Dite. I intend to raze your patrimony and salt its earth. You emphatically do not need to thank me.”

“You never said why Sejanus would want you dead.” The king looked sad then, and answered gently, “For your sake, Dite.” Dite’s head came up. “Brotherly love.” The king shrugged.

She said, “If he considers my court a cesspit, I wonder why he has remained here so long.” “He was in love,” the king explained. “With whom?” Attolia asked. The king laughed. “You.” She said nothing, but her cheeks grew pink as she sat in a chair near the bed. “That is a joke?” she asked at last.

The entire court knew that Erondites’s older son was in love with the queen. The entire country knew it. Costis suspected it was common knowledge as far as Sounis. “That is ridiculous,” she said.

The king agreed. “Like falling in love with a landslide. Only you could fail to notice.” She shook her head in disbelief and started to speak. But before she did, she looked from face to face at the other pe...

“You were jealous . . . of Dite?” The king, the master of the fates of men, before their eyes was reduced to a man, very young himself, and in love. Picking again at the coverlet, he answered, with his eyes cast down, “Wildly.”

Her shoulders shook slightly as she laughed. “I shall throw something at you,” the king warned loftily. “You

are embarrassing me in front of my attendants.” The queen lifted her head,

she was almost serene. “As if you cared,” ...