Thick as Thieves

by Megan Whalen Turner

  I opened my mouth to ask if they had nutcakes, but in Attolia’s kitchens the cooks were notorious for denying sweets to those not in their favor. Straight-faced, they would claim that such treats were unavailable and send petitioners on their way while the kitchen staff laughed behind their hands. I would ask for coffee. There was always coffee—they would grind it and prepare a tray for me, and I would take it back to my room and be done with this unpleasant moment.

  “It’s Kamet,” I heard someone say.

  “Kamet!” said Tarra, looking up from her chopping, and then I heard my name repeating across the room. The chatter died down—the only person seated in the kitchen stood up. At one time this would have been Onarkus, head of all the kitchens, but the king had sent Onarkus away, and in his seat was Driumix, promoted to be head of the soot kitchen. With a wave of his hand, Driumix permitted a lull in activity, though of course those stirring pots or turning spits kept at their work.

  The woman now in charge of all the kitchens was Brinna from the bakery. I remembered her as every bit as dictatorial as Onarkus had been, and even more likely to fly off the handle, but she leavened her shouting with affection and was much better liked. My name had reached her ear far away by the baking ovens, and she came through the crowd gathering around me like the royal barge displacing smaller, less significant vessels.

  “Kamet!” she cried, and opened her arms, but instead of a more enveloping embrace she seized my cheeks between her hands. “A month!” she scolded. “A month you have been here and not come to see us.”

  “Not a month!” I protested, trying to shake my head, held fast in her grip.

  She eyed me sideways.

  “I’ve been busy,” I said apologetically.

  “Hmpf,” she said. “We are not so neglected as we have been by someone else.” She spoke like the queen she was. “And we will not treat you as harshly.”

  “I heard you boxed his ear,” I said.

  “Ah,” she said, unhanding my cheeks and wrapping me in her arms, squeezing hard enough to make my ribs protest. “I would never box the king’s ear. I gave it the merest tweak.” Then she laughed, her bosom heaving, as she released me.

  Brinna’s “tweaks” could leave a large man in tears, and her accuracy was unerring. In fact, this would not have been the first time she’d hung the king up by his ear. She’d caught him often enough helping himself to one of the rolls cooling on racks in her kitchen.

  “He should have come to talk to us sooner. He wouldn’t have eaten so much sand.” She nudged me with her elbow and laughed at my amazement. Then she sent everyone back to work and me on my way, after assembling a tray of pastries for me to take. She told me to come back and visit when they were not so busy. “Stop eating alone,” she said. “I don’t have enough boys to send one up with your dinner every day.”

  I did try to take the advice hidden behind her complaint. I had a standing invitation to the king’s public dinners, and I went to a few. Once I did, I was invited to private dinners by people who thought I might be useful to them. Many of those people were good company. I dined with Relius occasionally, and when he suggested I open a correspondence with Sounis’s magus, I did that. I made the acquaintance of various members of the indentured, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  I poked through the collections in the king’s library. The king had offered again to have a copy made of anything I particularly liked, and as good as his word, he had already set a scribe to preparing a copy of the Enoclitus scroll. I put aside a few other scrolls to be copied, but my heart wasn’t in that, either. As each day passed, I grew more uncomfortable—I had more and more hours to fill and nothing to do. I hadn’t seen Costis since the day we’d arrived. I wouldn’t ask about him if he did not wish to contact me first, but my new life had an aching void in it and I was out of the habit of being lonely. Finally, I told Relius I was leaving. I intended to take what coin the king would give me and head north. I asked him for his help to get out of the city without being seen by Melheret’s spies.

  “Kamet.”

  The king spoke from behind me, and I dropped my pen. I made a blotch on this account, the one in my description of the cargo on the deck of the Anet’s Dream, and that is why I had to recopy that entire paragraph.

  I stood to face him, apologizing as I did. “I’m sorry,” I said. I meant to forgo his hospitality, and I knew that was why he’d come, appearing alone again at twilight in my room. This time I was awake and had the lamps lit, but I still hadn’t seen him arrive. He was already seated in Nahuseresh’s favorite chair before he said my name.

  He waved my apology away. “You wish to leave Attolia. Has someone made you uncomfortable here?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I’ve been very comfortable, but . . . I cannot make a place for myself because I cannot leave the palace.” Not without worrying that one of the emperor’s agents, or my master’s, might find me.

  “You can take the guards outside your door with you.”

  “That’s not . . .” It wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was to not be cooped up like a chicken, but I could hardly say that to the man who was both responsible for my predicament and far more closely caged himself.

  “It’s a nice coop,” he said. “But it’s up to you, of course.” Looking down, he toed the carpet with his boot. The silence stretched between us.

  “Your Majesty,” I said suspiciously, speaking not to His Majesty at all, but to the sandal polisher I knew better.

  “Yes?” he said, looking up with his inviting smile, and I knew he had maneuvered me again.

  I crossed my arms. “Why don’t you tell me your devious plan?” I might have glowered. It was no way to treat the king of the Attolians, but I had not yet made those two images of him align, the work-dodging sandal polisher and the king. I seemed to toggle between one and the other, flipping from deference to overfamiliarity. “You do have one,” I said.

  “I have a suggestion. That’s all,” he said. “I did mean it when I apologized for bringing you here. I didn’t imagine that you would be comfortable in Attolia, even if as it turns out, most of the court can read and write.”

  I refused to be embarrassed. It was true—the preference for oral recitation did not preclude most of the court from being literate. I had misjudged them. I plead special circumstances.

  The king said, “There is a temple in Roa in Magyar where they have discovered a collection of scrolls in their treasury, quite rare ones. They wish to have them recopied. I wonder if you would be willing to take up the task. The Duke of Ferria is already sending scholars, so you would not be the only foreigner in town, and your arrival would be unremarkable.”

  “And?”

  “The temple is on the heights, of course. It overlooks the Ellid Sea. With a good glass, you could see any ships sailing toward Attolia. We have lost many of our observers of late, and we need people we can trust outside our borders. There would be danger. I can’t tell you how much or how little. Perhaps you would be safer in Mûr. Perhaps safer in Roa as an unremarkable temple worker.”

  “It’s the least—”

  “No.” The king was so firm, I stopped.

  “You owe me nothing, Kamet. You are a free man. It is I who owe you, and I would only be more indebted if you chose to help Attolia further.” He looked at his toes again. “Think about it, will you?” He got up to leave, headed toward the door like any man, but he turned back as he opened it.

  “Nahuseresh has retreated again to his family estate. He won’t be returning to the capital soon, if at all, and he sold off his possessions before he went. Our agent was able to purchase the dancing girls and Laela together without raising any suspicion. He’ll take them to the delta, and they will be freed there.”

  I swallowed and nodded. I had worried over Laela’s fate, fearing for the harm that would come to her when my master learned how he had been betrayed. It may seem foolish to my reader, but I could not entirely forgive her for what she had done. She had meant it
for the best, though, and I hated to think she would suffer for it.

  “It might not have worked out so well,” said the king, and added unnecessarily, “I would have pursued this course anyway.”

  His plan might have sent Laela to a gruesome death, or me, or Costis, who was his favorite. “Why send Costis?” I asked, still puzzled by that.

  “He’s honest, not stupid,” the king pointed out.

  “No, of course not. That’s not what I meant.”

  “You would have eluded a man with twice his cunning,” said the king, and that was probably true. “He is in the Gede Valley these last few weeks. I sent him home to his family.” He was admitting that he’d left me lonely on purpose. What a piece of work he was. I don’t know why I like him as much as I do.

  “Your Majesty,” I called, and he looked back as he was leaving. “Your youngest attendant needs a better tutor.”

  “Thank you, Kamet,” said the king. “I’ll look into it.” And then he was gone.

  A week later I was on a ship in the harbor, waiting for it to sail. I was headed west, though Roa lay to the east. I would take a long and circular route as far north as Rince in the Gulf of Brael, then south again on the River Naden and over the mountains to Magyar and Roa. We hoped to throw off any pursuit by my master or by the enraged emperor of the Mede. Melheret would have relayed my extraordinary contributions to the Attolian state, and I could count on the emperor to be vengeful indeed.

  For the sake of caution, if nothing else, I would not be traveling in style. On the other hand, I had money for the journey and I was quite confident I could manage. I needn’t impersonate a free man—I was a free man—and no one was expecting me to be a caravan guard.

  I would miss the Attolians. I had taken my leave from various people over the previous days with real regret. Setra had no hold on me, nor did I feel I owed anything to the Medes, but to Attolia I felt a growing attachment. I did not know if I would ever return, but I knew I would feel a tie to Attolia for as long as I lived. I would go to Roa and I would copy scrolls and I would be glad to work in her interest for so long as Eugenides could keep her free. I could have been—almost—grateful for the sense of purpose he had given me.

  I missed Costis. I was beginning to believe that what I had thought of as pride all my life was no more than a kind of self-deception, and I wished that I could have apologized to him again for my abuse of his better nature. Almost as if wishing made him seem to appear, I noticed that a man on the dock with a duffel on one shoulder was very like Costis in poise and in gait. The man turned onto the gangplank to board the ship, and my heart lifted, though I tried to squash what I thought was a ridiculous hope. He was almost standing right in front of me before I could be certain it was him.

  “Come to see me off?” I asked.

  “Come to point out that you are far from plying your trade on a dusty street corner,” said Costis.

  “So,” I conceded. “You were right and I was wrong.”

  It was so very good to see him again. He asked seriously, “Are you worried by the journey?”

  “I am sure I will manage, though I am not used to traveling alone,” I admitted.

  “Would you like company?”

  I didn’t think I had heard him correctly. “What of your king? Your position here?”

  “It was his suggestion.”

  Eugenides and his “suggestions.”

  “He sent me to visit with my family for a few weeks and to say good-bye. I took my sister a wedding present. I am going to look a fool if you say you don’t want me along with you, Kamet.”

  “Gods forbid you should look like a fool, Costis.”

  “Is that a so then?”

  “So it is,” I said.

  “Immakuk and Ennikar,” he said.

  “Where?” I snapped my head around to scan the dock, and he nudged me with his elbow.

  “Idiot. Us,” he said.

  “Oh, of course.” I was squinting down at the dock nonetheless, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary there.

  Dear Relius,

  Forgive the briefness of this note. We have arrived as expected and are settling in. Costis acquires a reputation as a naturalist hiking the surrounding hills all day, bringing home grubby specimens to fill the house. I think he’s beginning to like them. He has mapped most of the observation points he was looking for.

  There are a number of scrolls by Enoclitus here that I have never seen before. I cannot help suspecting the king of knowing about them all along.

  To your new student, who I have no doubt opened this private message, my greetings, and you should not have done so. It was very wrong. Be sure you use the smaller brass straightedge—the one that hangs next to the armillary sphere—and press the seams in the paper when you refold it so that they are crisp and Relius will not know right away what you have done.

  Kamet e dai Annux

  ENVOY

  Melheret stood at the rail and watched the capital of Attolia disappear behind the bulk of the offshore island that sheltered it. The emperor had recalled his diplomats from Attolia and Melheret was not looking forward to his homecoming.

  The imperial fleet should have been moved, no matter how adamantly the emperor’s nephew had insisted that his slave could not know its location. Melheret had said as much, as delicately as he could, knowing he risked offending people far more powerful than he was. Ignorant, narrow-minded counselors had disagreed, arguing that the allied navy was too small to be a threat, and the Emperor was nearing the end of any need for secrecy. Melheret had been right, and they had been wrong, and that was far more dangerous to Melheret than the reverse.

  His sense of foreboding only increased as his secretary approached and he held up a hand to caution the man, but it was a hopeless gesture. Ansel blurted out his news for all the sailors around them to hear.

  “The figurine of Prokip by Sudesh is gone. Forgive me, Ambassador.”

  “How?” asked Melheret, surprised by his own calm.

  “I did just as you instructed, sir. I checked its case this morning, I locked it, sir, I know I did. I did not take my eyes off it today, I swear, not once did I look away.”

  “And yet you tell me it is gone.”

  “I do not know how it could have happened. I just opened the case and found this.” He handed over a message with the ambassador’s name written on it in the king’s hand, familiar to them both.

  The ambassador didn’t have to open it to know what it held, but he did anyway. It was a thoroughly civil note wishing him a safe journey home and a reminder that he was always welcome to return. An invitation so warm and so damning it would mean his death if the emperor ever heard of it. It wasn’t on paper. The king had written on thick parchment, deliberately, the ambassador was sure. It didn’t tear easily. He had to wrench it to pieces, growing angrier and angrier with every effort, until he could feel his face suffused with blood and hear himself snarling as he finally gave up and threw all of the pieces over the ship’s rail.

  Ansel had backed away in alarm. “Forgive me,” he said again and again from a safe distance.

  “Oh, shut up,” said the ambassador wearily. “You’re a free man, I can’t throw you over the side, too.” There was no point in blaming the secretary for the theft. Melheret would have sworn on his life that the figurine had been impossible to steal—locked in a case and the case guarded every minute, but the king of Attolia was still the thief of Eddis.

  “You could have waited until I came belowdecks to tell me,” said the ambassador. He looked around at the crowded deck where sailors hastily went back to their work and the other passengers went on pretending to watch the slowly receding shore.

  It was Melheret’s unfortunate task to persuade his emperor that the king of Attolia was a threat. The sinking of the Imperial fleet should have been evidence enough, but Melheret knew that men far more powerful than he were scrambling to convince the emperor that the catastrophe had been an accident, a fluke, entirely unpredic
table and no fault of theirs. Certainly it could not be the result of Eugenides’s careful plans. The Attolian king’s intelligence, his ruthlessness, his cunning were going to be obscured by distance and no matter how much the ambassador tried to convince them that the new king of Attolia was dangerous, the Imperial Court was only going to hear that he was an irresponsible fool who stole the ambassador’s statue.

  “Never mind,” sighed Melheret. “Never mind. Go away.”

  The servant retired belowdecks to the Ambassador’s cabin where he locked the door and opened the case that held the statue of Prokip. It was a lovely thing, the god at once graceful and strong, stern but kind. Even the ragged edge where the hand had been broken off to appease the gods did not really mar its beauty. Ansel opened the porthole. It was a shame, really, but the Attolian king paid well and he was a dangerous man to cross. Ansel dropped the statue into the sea.

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  About the Author

  MEGAN WHALEN TURNER is the bestselling and award-winning author of four previous stand-alone novels set in the world of the Queen’s Thief. Thick as Thieves marks her long-awaited return to the epic and unforgettable story of the thief, Eugenides. She has been awarded a Newbery Honor and a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature. She has won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature and was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award. She worked as a bookseller for seven years before she started writing. Her first book was a collection of short stories called Instead of Three Wishes. Megan Whalen Turner lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio.