The Queen of Attolia

by Megan Whalen Turner

  Attolia offered to convey the queen of Eddis to the capital by boat, but Eddis, on the insistence of her minister of war, declined. Attolia sailed with her attendants and guard and a few selected barons. The rest of her retinue traveled overland. It was not a comfortable journey, being very hot and very dusty, but no one who had heard the news of Attolia’s proposed engagement was unhappy to be on the road while their queen traveled by sea.

  Attolia spent the days at the ship’s rail watching the coastline of her country slide past. She spoke very little to her attendants and not at all to her barons. When Teleus stepped forward to address her, one of the attendants warned him away with a look. Teleus ducked his head in understanding and withdrew. Attolia saw but didn’t call him back. Warmed by the sun and cooled by the sea breeze, she was busy with her thoughts.

  The queen’s city of Attolia sat in the sunshine like a gem in a setting of olive trees, on a hillside above the shallow Tustis River. The palace was situated on a gentle rise. There was a steeper hill behind the city, topped by the temple to the new gods. The city and megaron had originally been crowded onto the tiny plateau, but in the peaceful reign of the invaders both had moved down the hill to the slope above the harbor. The harbor was protected by a headland and a breakwater and by the shadowy bulk of Thegmis offshore, stretching up and down the coast.

  The megaron in Sounis’s capital was built of unfaced yellow stones, and Eddis’s palace was small and dark, but Attolia’s palace was built of brick and faced with marble. It glowed in the sunshine, a beautiful building with graceful proportions and ranks of windows that reflected the afternoon light like jewels.

  In the palace, with her retainers surrounding her, the events of Ephrata seemed to Attolia very distant and unreal. The familiar tensions returned as she immersed herself once again in the struggle to exert her will in a world conventionally run by men, where she had to be not stronger but more powerful than her opponents. Making war was easy by comparison. Rumors had already reached the capital when she informed her barons of Eugenides’s marriage proposal, and she watched the reactions carefully. There remained among her barons some who had still considered themselves probable candidates for Attolia’s hand and throne. They veered between outrage and amusement, and under all the shouting she could hear the snickering, sniping glee.

  In the privacy of her rooms, she paced. Her attendants were meticulous as always in their care, but for the first time she was visibly impatient. Where she had always been brisk, she became short-tempered; where she had been even-tempered, she was waspish.

  To her surprise, her attendants drew closer to support her. She looked for fear in their servility, or hate in their attention, but saw none. Their affection and their care seemed genuine even as she surged to her feet while her hair was being braided, suddenly sick of the pulling and tugging, and retreated to her bedchamber, slamming the door behind her as she hadn’t slammed a door since she was a minor princess of the king’s second wife. They surrounded her throughout the day, urging her to eat something when she didn’t want to eat, watching to see that she wasn’t disturbed when she was busy, making the arrangements for the arrival of the queen of Eddis so that there was little for her to do but affirm their decisions.

  Eddis delayed in Ephrata, having summoned her aunt and her sister as well as her attendants to soften the military edge to her visit. Eddis’s aunt, a grand duchess, had insisted that she was too old to travel in anything but comfort, and had ordered out the royal carriage. She had then ridden quite cheerfully over rough ground on horseback to Ephrata while the heavy coach was hauled down the mountain road, carried by hand most of the way. Once in Ephrata, the duchess and the queen’s sister, who was also a duchess, and the attendants combined their efforts to be sure that Eddis represented their country and their court as she should. Eddis had had just this support in mind when she summoned them, and she submitted to their ministrations with equanimity.

  She had invited the magus as well, but he had politely declined. He still hoped to be reconciled with his king and so preferred to maintain the formality of his captivity.

  When Eddis arrived in the capital, Attolia greeted her with grace and ceremony. Never once looking at Eugenides, she welcomed them to her palace and expressed hopes that their visit would be a comfortable one. If Attolia acted as if he didn’t exist, her attending women watched the Thief of Eddis carefully and not as if they were pleased with what they saw. Eddis noted the hostility of the attendants as well as the remoteness of the Attolian queen. She worried that her Thief’s great capacity for mockery might resurface to disastrous consequences, but Eugenides only bowed politely when introduced, and his bland expression was as fixed as Attolia’s, even as she looked right through him, returning a royal half curtsy to his bow.

  That evening Eugenides joined Eddis in her rooms just before supper. Eddis’s attendants wandered in and out, stopping to put earrings in her ears and then discuss among themselves whether another pair might be better. The two duchesses looked on, offering their own sharp-eyed criticisms from time to time.

  Eddis bore it all patiently. Eugenides looked on, amused.

  Xanthe, Eddis’s senior attendant, nudged the queen’s hand, and Eddis obediently lifted her arms so that Xanthe could fasten a belt around her waist.

  “I don’t think Attolia’s attendants treat her like a prize calf, Xanthe,” she observed as the older woman patted the gold-embroidered cloth into place.

  “I am sure they don’t need to,” Xanthe replied. “She is probably quite capable of choosing her own clothes and doesn’t walk like a soldier in them.”

  Eddis bowed to the rebuke with a smile.

  “I’ve seen golden calves guarded less fiercely,” Eugenides remarked.

  “I did notice the number of armed guards in the palace. Is it because we are here?” Eddis asked, her arms still held out to either side.

  “No,” said Eugenides. “They are always around her.” It was an informed opinion, Eddis supposed.

  “There will be music from the Continent and dancing tonight,” she warned her Thief. “Protocol says that as a suitor you are supposed to ask Attolia to lead the first set with you.”

  “I’ve been practicing,” he responded, and after supper, when the tables had been removed and the music was beginning, he obediently stepped to the dais at the head of the room and offered his hand for the first dance. Attolia accepted without looking at him and moved through the dance without speaking. He returned her to the dais at the end of the dance feeling as if he were replacing a manikin on its pedestal. He bowed and returned to Eddis’s side.

  “Attolia’s court does not seem to favor the match,” said Eddis as he settled himself in the space between the queen and her master of protocol.

  “I haven’t seen so many foul looks directed at me since I stole those cabochon emeralds,” Eugenides said.

  “I can’t think they dislike you that much,” responded Eddis.

  “You have seen her guards?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And the minister of ceremonies, and the help right down to the last wine bearer? The queen’s attendants, as you can plainly see, are all ten heavily opposed.”

  “And the queen?” asked the minister of protocol, seated on Eugenides’s other side.

  “The queen abstains,” said Eugenides shortly.

  “Nine against, one undecided,” said Eddis. When Eugenides gave her a puzzled look, she explained. “Attolia’s attendants. I think you have one undecided, still.”

  “Really, which one?” Eugenides asked with his eyebrow raised.

  “Figure it out for yourself and in the process go be civil to them.”

  “And risk being torn limb from limb?”

  “I think you are safe from physical attack,” said Eddis wryly.

  “That’s what you think,” Eugenides answered. “There was sand in my dinner.”

  Eddis looked at him. “I thought you just weren’t hungry.”

  “Sand
,” said Eugenides. “In the soup, on the bread, sprinkled on the meat.”

  “She wouldn’t—” Eddis began before Eugenides interrupted, waving his hand in the air as if brushing away spiderwebs.

  “No, of course she wouldn’t. I’d say the kitchen feels the same as the queen’s attendants.”

  Sighing, Eddis looked around at the beautiful hall, the exquisite tiles on the floor, the mosaics on the walls, the hundreds of candles, and the golden candelabra. The uncomfortable thought came to mind that she would rather sell Eugenides into slavery than marry him into the court of Attolia.

  The negotiations began the next day, as Attolia had supposed, with a military treaty. The queens were not present. Their ministers and counselors met on their behalf. When the queens met face to face, they discussed the weather or the evening’s entertainment. Eugenides, for his part, gravely asked the queen to dance and was as gravely granted the privilege, but Attolia spoke to him only in the most formulaic phrases, and Eddis knew that he responded with the acerbic comments sotto voce for which he was famous. If Attolia returned from the dancing flushed from more than the exercise, no one took it as a positive sign. Her attendants watched the Thief with narrowed eyes, and, as Eugenides said, if they’d had tails, they would have lashed them. Attolia’s guards watched him like hawks waiting for a signal to attack a lure, and even the servants seemed to look down their noses as they addressed him. Attolia’s lords didn’t present a unified front. They were all rigidly courteous, but their courtesy concealed various motivations. Some bitterly opposed any king from outside Attolia; some were amused to see their own queen brought so low. None, so far as Eddis could see, cared if he would be a competent ruler.

  The peace talks did not progress. Attolia, surrounded by her fractious barons, continued to be formal and remote. Eddis, with the well-being of her country at stake, was cautious. Her minister of war, unwilling to forget that the queen of Attolia had maimed his son, was reserved to the point of outright hostility.

  Meanwhile Eddis complimented Attolia on her palace and her gardens. Attolia responded with invitations to musicals and dancing and excursions into the countryside.

  “What snakes and weasels fill your court, Your Majesty,” Eugenides said one evening, in a voice only she could hear, as they turned on the dance floor. Eugenides led with his left side, and his right arm held the queen around the waist. She could feel the wood of the false hand he wore pressing against her back. “Where do you find them all? Do you grow them in the dark somewhere in your hinterlands and then bring them to the capital?”

  Attolia knew every limitation of her feudal supporters. She stared without answering over his shoulder. She was still taller than he.

  “Baron Erondites, for example.” Eugenides continued conversationally. “He slithers up and hisses at me from time to time. And Susa…Do you ever let him off his chain, or is he too dangerous? He told me how pleased he was to see you marrying at last. Droll was the word he used, I think.” He felt Attolia stiffen and chose his next target carefully. “Erondites’s son…” He trailed off as Attolia slowly turned her face toward him.

  “You say another word and I will have you flayed,” Attolia said.

  Eugenides smiled. Erondites the younger supported the queen and had supported her for years against his own father. She wouldn’t stand by and see him insulted, but Eugenides knew he had planted a seed of doubt. She would wonder whether Erondites the younger had also called her likely marriage to the Thief of Eddis droll.

  He was too kind to leave the seed to grow. “I was only going to commend his loyalty,” the Thief said, “or his lack of originality. He stares right through me when we talk, just the way you do.”

  For a moment Eugenides hoped Attolia might say something. Then she turned her head to look over his shoulder, and the Thief’s hopes dwindled. They finished the dance, and he returned her to her throne and her attendants. He smiled at their glares and turned to go back to his queen.

  “Eugenides.” Attolia spoke, and he turned back to her. She lifted her hand and laid it on the side of his face. It was all she needed to do. Though his expression didn’t change, she could feel the tremor that went through him at her touch. He was afraid of her. Some part of him would always be afraid of her. That fear was her weapon, and she would encourage it if she wanted to maintain her authority as queen.

  “Good night,” Attolia said politely.

  “Good night, Your Majesty,” Eugenides answered, and stepped back to bow before turning away.

  Safely back in his seat, he wiped the sweat off his forehead. He thought that the gray-haired attendant had smiled. Was she encouraged because she thought that her queen was showing him favor? Or did she know that Attolia was only putting him, very thoroughly, in his place?

  That evening Attolia dismissed Chloe from her attendants, ordering the girl sent home to her father for no more than a clumsy accident. She had dropped a perfume spoon onto a tiny amphora, and the amphora had shattered. Attolia had risen to her feet, her rage making her seem as tall as the immortal goddess she had taken as a model. Chloe had stuttered an apology, but the queen had dismissed her and then left the room, stalking to her bedchamber without a backward look.

  When she was gone, Chloe had dissolved into tears.

  “Why should she marry him?” Chloe cried. “Why should she marry him if he makes her so angry?”

  “She would be as angry at any man,” one of the other attendants said.

  “If only he were a man,” said another. “If only they didn’t humiliate her by forcing her to marry a boy.”

  “Nahuseresh—” said Chloe.

  “Nahuseresh was a fool,” someone interrupted her.

  “And what is Eugenides?” Chloe asked bitterly.

  Only Phresine had no comment to make as she tacked the sleeve into a dress. Chloe returned to her father’s house the next day. The remaining women glared ever more balefully at Eugenides, drawing their ranks around their besieged queen. Only Phresine dared to say to the silent Attolia as she slid flowers into her braided hair before an evening of music, “Least said, soonest mended, Your Majesty, isn’t the advice for every occasion.”

  Attolia turned her head, dislodging a flower, to stare at Phresine, and Phresine carefully replaced the blossom.

  It had been three weeks, and the two countries were no closer to a treaty. Eddis was beginning to worry that having come so far, Attolia might restart hostilities. Her face was so expressionless, her conversation so polite and difficult to read it was impossible to guess what she was thinking.

  “She won’t give up Ephrata,” she told Eugenides as they walked in the afternoon on one of the palace terraces overlooking the garden. Within the palace she had dismissed her honor guard, and they were alone.

  It was one of Eddis’s demands that the small coastal village of Ephrata become part of her country to provide an access to the sea for her trade, which she had never had before. Ephrata was a poor port but better than none, and she was adamant about having it.

  Attolia was as adamant about refusing to give it up. There were other points of contention, and little progress was being made except between the ministers of trade. Those two were in complete accord and happy to spend their days discussing the exchange of pig iron and wool for olives and wine.

  “Your father isn’t helping. I gather he sits at the table eyeing the Attolians—you know the way he does.” Eddis pulled her face into a stony glare.

  “You must have relayed Attolia’s threat to cut my other hand off. I’m not sure he saw the humor in the situation.”

  “I am not sure I did,” admitted Eddis. “I don’t mean to sound like Hespira’s mother, but I wish you would come home, Gen.”

  “No.”

  Eddis went on hesitantly. “Her barons are part of the problem. They are not pleased at the idea of an Eddisian king. If they had a king, and were getting an Eddisian queen, it would be the cement of a treaty and unobjectionable. As it is, they don’t like bei
ng ruled to begin with, and they like less the idea of a foreigner.”

  “Are you saying it would be easier to reach an accord with Attolia if we didn’t hold her to marriage?”

  “It might be,” said Eddis.

  “And how would you secure the treaty?”

  “I don’t know,” said Eddis. “I’m beginning to see that I don’t know anything about Attolia, really. I hoped you would.”

  “She won’t speak to me,” said Eugenides. “Just formalities.”

  “You talk when you’re dancing,” said Eddis.

  “More platitudes,” Eugenides said.

  “Last night?” Eddis asked. When the queen and Eugenides had returned from the dancing, the queen had been rigid with anger.

  Eugenides stopped walking and leaned against the low wall dividing the terrace from the garden. He crossed his arms and looked at his feet. “She was telling me about the history of the palace. Quite a lecture, in fact. I told her my distant grandfather had been one of the architects.”

  “Really?” murmured Eddis.

  “Oh, yes, that’s why we know so much about the building. There were drawings in your library until the magus came and I moved them out. I told Attolia he’d designed parts of Sounis’s megaron as well. The good parts, I said. She looked at me as if I’d turned into a snake.”

  “I thought I asked you to thank her for her kind efforts to entertain us.”

  “I did that next. She said there would be a hunting party leaving this morning; perhaps I’d like to join it.”

  “And?” Eddis asked, looking at his arm. He hadn’t ridden well enough to hunt on horseback even before losing his hand.