The Thief

by Megan Whalen Turner

  There was a small spring nearby, and the magus suggested we have a wash before we packed up. Sophos, the magus, and Pol shucked their clothes and splashed ankle deep into the chilly water. After a few hesitations I joined them. I didn’t want them to think I liked being clean, but the cool water was refreshing. Only Ambiades remained on the bank, still wrapped in his cloak while his small cup of coffee cooled in front of him. He’d been quiet all morning and, I realized, quiet the evening before—no taunts for me and no gibes for Sophos. He wasn’t thinking about a bath in the spring, and I was wondering what unpleasant thoughts were on his mind when he jumped like a startled cat. The magus had flicked cold water on him.

  “Come wash,” the magus said, and Ambiades stood up and dropped his cloak beside the others on the stream bank. It lay next to Sophos’s and made a very poor showing. The other cloaks were well made but ordinary. Mine was probably one of the magus’s old ones cut down, and Pol’s was a plain military cloak, but Sophos’s was a particularly fine specimen, made of expensive fabric generously cut with a stylish silk tassel hanging from the hem at the back. Beside it, the narrow cut of Ambiades’s cloak was flashy but out of fashion, and there was a line of holes, poorly darned, that ran from neck to hem, where a moth had been eating it during its summer storage.

  As he dabbled his toes in the water, Ambiades looked over at the magus and Sophos, who were already stepping out of the stream, finished with their quick wash. His eyes narrowed, and the hair on the back of my neck started to rise. I’ve seen envy before, and I know the damage it can do. Ambiades caught me staring, and his envy was replaced by righteous contempt. If one thing was perfectly clear to him, it was my worthless place in the universe.

  “What are you looking at, sewer filth?” he snarled.

  “The Lord of Rags and Tatters,” I said with a false smile as I bowed elaborately and gestured to his ratty cloak.

  A moment later I was on my back in the cold water of the stream with the sun in my eyes and my ears ringing. Ambiades stood over me shouting something about his grandfather’s having been the duke of somewhere. He would have kicked me, but Pol was there and put a hand on his shoulder to pull him back. A moment later the magus was standing between me and the sun.

  “A little circumspection might be wise for someone in your position, Gen,” he said mildly. “Not to mention an apology.”

  Well, my position was not a good one, I was willing to admit, but it was easily changed. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rolled myself onto my feet. “Apologize?” I said to the magus. “What for?” I walked away, nursing my swelling lip and licking the blood from the corner of my mouth. I paused to filch a comb from an open saddle pack and then sat on the stump of a dead olive tree to get the tangles and maybe some of the prison lice out of my hair. Pol packed his coffeepot into a bag, and Ambiades and Sophos put saddles on the horses.

  The magus stood watching me. After a moment he opened his mouth to comment, and I expected him to suggest I cut the hair off, but instead he asked sharply, “Where did you get that comb?”

  I looked at the comb in my hand as if perplexed. It was a nice one, probably very expensive. It was made from tortoiseshell, and it had long teeth and was inlaid with gold at the ends. “I think it’s Ambiades’s,” I said at last. I’d taken it out of his pack.

  Ambiades turned so quickly that the horse he was saddling reared in alarm. He left it pulling at its head tie and crossed the clearing to snatch the comb out of my hand. He swung his fist toward my face, but this time I was ready, and he hit my shoulder as I turned away. Still, he knocked me backward off the stump where I was sitting and I landed in the dirt on the far side. I landed safely, but I yelped that my arm was broken.

  For the second time that morning the magus was standing over me, this time looking concerned.

  “Did you land on it?” he asked, bending down.

  “No, the one he hit,” I said. “He’s broken my arm,” which was a dreadful lie, and when the magus saw that, he stalked away in disgust.

  He explained to Ambiades, loudly enough for everyone to hear, that if I’d fallen on my arm, I might very well have sprained a wrist and I would then be no use to him at all. “I thought I’d made that clear to you a moment ago.” He punctuated his next few comments with blows to the head with that seal ring of his while I lay and listened to Ambiades yelp and resented being treated like a tool, even a valued one.

  Once he had delivered his lecture, the magus left Ambiades to finish saddling up the horses, and went to repack the soap and his razor into his saddlebag. Several times I saw him look up with a puzzled expression, not at me but at Ambiades. If he thought he’d pounded good nature back into his apprentice, he was wrong. I saw the poisonous looks Ambiades sent back.

  When Sophos was done saddling his horse and Pol’s, he loaned me his own comb. I told him to his face that he was much too nice to be a duke. He blushed deep red and shrugged.

  “I know,” he said.

  “So does his father,” snarled Ambiades, leaning down from his horse as he rode by.

  It was not a propitious start to the day. Ambiades sulked for most of the morning, and Sophos rode with his shoulders hunched, trying to ignore the tension in the air. I reached up occasionally to check the size of my lip.

  At one point I muttered, “You learn something new every day.”

  “What are you learning?” Sophos asked.

  “To keep my mouth shut, I hope.”

  “You mean not bragging in wineshops that you’re going to steal the king’s seal ring?”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking,” I said, “but you can bet I won’t do that either. Tell me, if Ambiades has an exalted grandfather, why doesn’t he have a better cloak?”

  Sophos checked to be sure that Ambiades was riding ahead of the magus and out of earshot. “His grandfather was duke of Eumen.”

  I had to think for a minute. “Of the Eumen conspiracy?” I asked. I was quiet myself. Ordinary people didn’t talk out loud about the Eumen conspiracy.

  “After he tried to return the oligarchy and was executed, his family forfeited their lands and titles. I think Ambiades’s father did inherit some money, but he lost most of it gambling. Last winter, when Ambiades wrote to his father and told him he needed a new cloak, his father sent him one of his old ones.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Poor Ambiades.”

  Sophos looked at me sideways.

  “How can he look down his aristocratic nose at the unwashed masses when he’s as poor as anyone else, and landless to boot? I bet he wakes up every morning and can’t stand it.”

  We stayed away from roads. Although we crossed many dirt tracks, we picked our way carefully between the trees and moved mostly at a slow pace. From time to time the magus checked the compass to make sure we stayed on course.

  We stopped early in the evening as no moonlight would penetrate the crisscrossed leaves, but we were far enough from the nearest town that the magus approved a larger cooking fire, and Pol used some of the dried meat in the provisions to make a stew. There was no conversation around the fire as we ate. After dinner the silence was strained. Finally the magus spoke. “If Gen can take a few liberties with the old myths, I suppose I can, too,” he said, and began to tell Sophos another story of the old gods.

  EUGENIDES AND THE

  SKY GOD’S THUNDERBOLTS

  After her argument with her consort, the Sky, Earth gave Hephestia her power to shake the ground. The Sky had promised to give Hephestia his thunderbolts, but he delayed. He made excuses. He’d sent them to be cleaned; he’d loaned them to a friend; he’d forgotten them by the stream when he was hunting. Finally Hephestia went to her mother and asked what she should do, and Earth sent for Eugenides.

  Earth had promised that she would give no more gifts to him except those which she had given to all men. So she told Eugenides that he must use his own cleverness if he was to acquire the attributes of the gods. Cleverness was a gift she had given to all me
n, although to few had she given as much as to the woodcutter’s son. She told Eugenides that the Sky sometimes lay in the evening with one of the goddesses of the mountain lakes, and when he did, he left his thunderbolts beside him.

  Eugenides first went home to his mother and asked for the moleskin blanket that had covered him as a baby. He took the blanket to Olcthemenes, the tailor, and asked him to make a suit from it, both a tunic and leggings, and Olcthemenes, the tailor, did. Then Eugenides went into the forest and begged from every thrush a single feather, and he took those to Olmia, the weaver, and he asked her to make him a feathered hat and Olmia, the weaver, did. Then Eugenides climbed to the mountain lakes and he sat quietly in the cover of the trees and he waited for the Sky God to come.

  When the Sky came to the lake in the late evening, he removed the thunderbolts from their shoulder harness, and he laid them down beside the lake. When all was quiet, Eugenides moved through the bushes, with hardly a sound, but the lake heard him. She said, “What was that that moved in the bushes?” And the Sky looked, and he saw the shoulder of Eugenides’s tunic. He said, “Only a mole that sneaks through the twilight.” And Eugenides moved still more quietly, but still the lake heard him, and she said, “What was that that moves through the bushes?” and the Sky looked, but not carefully, and he saw the edge of Eugenides’s feathered hat, and he said, “Only the thrush that settles in the bushes to sleep.” And Eugenides moved still more quietly and not the lake nor the Sky heard a sound as he slipped away with Sky’s thunderbolts and carried them across the top of the mountain.

  It was dark when the Sky went to retrieve his thunderbolts and when he could not find them he thought at first they were mislaid and he searched all over the mountaintops and it was day before he knew that they were gone.

  He saw Eugenides crossing the plain at the base of the mountain, and he stopped him and demanded his thunderbolts. Eugenides said that he did not have them, and the Sky could see that this was true.

  “Then tell me where they are,” the Sky demanded, but Eugenides refused.

  “I will take you in my hands and twist you back into dust,” the Sky threatened, but Eugenides still refused. He knew that the Sky could not hurt him without breaking his promise to Earth. The Sky threatened and Eugenides was frightened, but he would not yield until the Sky agreed that he would give him whatever he asked if Eugenides would tell what he had done with the thunderbolts.

  And Eugenides asked for a drink from the wellspring of immortality.

  The Sky raged and Eugenides trembled, but he stood his ground, because bravery was a gift that Earth had given to all men and to her son in full measure.

  Finally the Sky went to the wellspring and fetched a chalice of water, but he laced it with powdered coleus root before he gave it to Eugenides.

  Eugenides told him where he had put the thunderbolts. “Look on my sister’s throne in her hall where she will rule all lesser gods and you will see them.” Then he drank the water and tasted the bitterness of the coleus root, and his mouth twisted.

  “In the water of life,” said the Sky, “the coleus will not harm you. But it has made the cup bitter as I will make your life bitter,” and he left. He went to the Great Hall of the Gods to the throne of Hephestia to seek his thunderbolts, and he found them and Hephestia as well. The thunderbolts were resting in her lap. Hephestia made no mention of Eugenides. She only thanked her father for keeping his promise, and the Sky could not protest.

  Thus the Sky made Eugenides immortal and yielded to Hephestia the power of his thunderbolts. With those and the ability to shake the earth, she became the ruler of all gods except the first gods.

  “Well done,” I said when the magus finished.

  “Why, thank you, Gen.”

  Did he sound genuinely flattered?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GOOD FEELINGS PERSISTED BETWEEN MYSELF and the magus until the next morning, when Pol discovered that most of the food was missing from one of the packs of provisions. He called the magus over to him, and they talked quietly, throwing glances in my direction. The magus looked into the saddlebag himself and swore. He said something to Pol under his breath, and they both crossed the clearing to stand in front of me. The magus was carrying his horse crop in one hand. I stood up warily as they came.

  “I hope you ate well?” said the magus.

  “Not lately,” I answered before I realized that another response might have been better.

  “Hold him.” The magus raised the crop. When Pol grabbed me by the arm, I ducked away, but I was too late. I planted my feet and tried to overbalance him but ended up with my head locked under his arm. I grabbed him around the knee and tried to throw him, but we both went down, and he landed on top. He shifted his weight until most of it lay on my head, and he held me pinned while the magus beat me across the back and shoulders with his horse crop.

  I screamed curses—I am not sure what kind—into the grass and heaved with all my strength, but Pol would not be moved. He only ground my head harder into the dirt until I was exhausted and couldn’t get my breath to yell anymore. The magus went on with a few strokes after that and stopped. When Pol released me, I grabbed his shirt in order to pull myself to my feet. He helped. As soon as I was up, I chopped him under the breastbone and left him gasping while I headed toward the magus. I had never been so angry in my life. Not even in the king’s prison had I been this humiliated. If Pol had not grabbed me by the arm and jerked me backward, interposing himself, albeit hunched over and breathing painfully, between me and the magus, I am not sure what would have happened. The magus had taken one look at my face and was stepping back quickly.

  I wasn’t aware of any sound but Pol’s labored breathing as the magus and I stared at each other. My mouth was so full of things I wanted to shout that I couldn’t get any of them out. Which was just as well. If one thing had come, they all would have. How dare he treat me this way? How dare he? Finally I spat in his face. He jumped back further to avoid the spittle, and I turned away. I went to my blankets, where I threw myself down on my face and covered my head with my arms. I rubbed my face into the wool of the cloak rumpled underneath me, and except for that I didn’t move all the time that Pol made breakfast and the others ate and packed up camp.

  Pol came over and touched me lightly on the elbow. “Get up,” he said very quietly. He didn’t offer to help me, and I noticed when I did get up that he stayed out of arm’s reach and watched me carefully, his weight forward on his toes.

  Sophos was holding my horse. He’d moved it next to a stump that I could use as a mounting block, but I ignored the stump and pushed the horse away from it. Sophos came around the horse’s head to offer me a leg up, but I ignored him as well. I put one foot into the stirrup and jumped onto the horse’s back. I snapped the reins sharply to keep it from sidling, and the horse threw up its head in surprise.

  I stopped to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I could feel my eyebrows pressing together, and my teeth were so tightly clamped that the muscles in my jaw jumped. I took another breath and reminded myself that it wasn’t the horse I was angry at. Nothing but my own ambition was keeping me near the magus. I could walk away from this party of overeducated adventurers if I chose. Neither the king’s reward nor Pol could stop me, but I wanted to be a kingmaker myself. I wanted to be the first one to steal Hamiathes’s Gift in hundreds and hundreds of years. I wanted to be famous. Only I couldn’t steal the damned thing if I didn’t know where it was, and only the magus could find it for me. I would stay with him until he led me to the stone, but I promised myself that someday I would stick a sharp knife into his arrogance and give it a good twist.

  The magus and Pol had mounted their own horses.

  “We’ll swing west then to the stream and hope to find some kind of village somewhere along it? You think that’s our best chance?” the magus asked Pol.

  Pol nodded. The magus stuffed the map he carried in his hand into the bag behind his saddle. “This way then,” he said,
and led us through the trees. My horse followed just behind him as usual.

  As we rode, I looked back over my anger from a little distance. I’d been so mad that I’d frightened the magus, even with Pol between us. That was a new sort of event in my life, and I relished it a little as the morning passed. I was also pleased that I’d held my tongue. Saying things I shouldn’t has been the origin of most of the painful episodes in my past, and it would certainly be an improvement in my character if I had a little more control over my own tongue.

  “Are you okay?” Sophos whispered from beside me.

  I looked at him from under my eyebrows, which were still drawn down. “Oh, sure,” I said.

  And I was okay. The horse crop hadn’t been heavy enough to do any serious damage. The clothes the magus had supplied me with were thick enough to keep the skin from breaking. I wasn’t disabled. My back hurt, but the fire would fade by nightfall, and whenever we got to wherever we were going, I would still be able to do my job. The magus would never do anything to impair my usefulness.

  We came to a shallow river, bordered with scrub, and followed it upstream until we came to a break in the olive groves where other crops had been planted. The magus turned his horse and led us back into the trees.

  “There will be a town somewhere close. Pol and I will ride in to get more food. Ambiades, I’m leaving you in charge. For gods’ sakes, don’t take your eyes off the thief.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke, but Ambiades cast a contemptuous glance in my direction.

  I noticed that I had ceased to be “Gen” and returned to being a kind of unreliable animal, like a cow that’s prone to wandering away. The magus and Pol left their horses and packs with us and set off up a trail that followed the river into town. What food there was they left in the backpacks and told us to eat for lunch. Sophos opened the bags and took out the bread and some warm sweaty pieces of cheese and handed them around. He gave me a loaf of bread to divide, and I kept most of it before passing the rest on to Ambiades. He protested.