“I did miss,” said the king.
“That is immaterial,” Susa responded pompously.
“I could have killed him.”
“Your Majesty—”
“Could have winged him anyway,” said the king with a shrug.
“Your Majesty should not have thrown the knife. Your Majesty should not have drawn it.”
“His Majesty shouldn’t have had it if he was going to draw it,” someone muttered, loudly enough to be heard across the room.
Susa waved for silence, having arrived at his conclusion at last. “We are the Greater Patronoi of Attolia, and we say the king shall apologize to the Pents.”
The king was unimpressed. “Say anything you like,” he said, showing his teeth.
“May I remind Your Majesty that a majority vote from the full council of barons overrules even the king?”
“If I say no, you may not remind me, then what, Susa? Will you suck the words back into your mouth?”
It was Susa’s turn to shrug. “It is the law of the land, Your Majesty. In these perilous times, we must remain united. You cannot oppose your Greater Patronoi.”
That was the point of Erondites’s sword sliding in. With the Attolians facing their greatest enemy, the king was vulnerable, so the barons put to him this choice: submit to the barons’ authority and weaken his ruling power, or risk a division that would weaken the whole state. Behind Susa, the barons nodded their heads like woodcocks, some encouraging, some stern, some smug, all of them expecting the king to bow to their demands, because Attolia needed the Pent support and because Erondites had said he would. He’d said that Susa would persuade him.
Susa was not trying to persuade him. Susa, in the guise of an elder statesman, was goading him. “Come now, Your Majesty. You have behaved badly, and you know it. Admit your error like a man and apologize.”
If the king did not submit to the Greater Patronoi, then his barons, having foolishly squared themselves up against him, would have to back down themselves, or revolt. Whether they wanted to defy the king or not, Erondites had guaranteed that a few would—and with the Mede bearing down, a few was enough. Compromises would have to be made, barons bought off. To reunite his patronoi, the king would be forced to make concessions that would weaken the throne even further.
The rest of the barons could not see Susa’s malicious smile, only the king and his attendants. When the king stood to say in Susa’s face, “I am not going to apologize to that mealy-mouthed, self-dealing, bootlicking Pent,” Susa, with his thinning white hair and his stooped shoulders, looked the part of a wounded mentor, and the king looked ever more ridiculous.
“If the barons are unanimous—” Susa began again, ready to repeat his entire lecture, daring the king to stop him.
The king looked from baron to baron. A more experienced ruler, presented with two disastrous options, might have delayed, might have worked to divide his opponents in careful negotiations. The king was not that cautious ruler. Attolia had been prescient when she warned Eddis that he could be pushed only so far.
“The Medes advance, and all of you are still more concerned about guarding the wine in your own wine cups!” he said. Some of the barons had the grace to look ashamed. “Susa has laid out the problem. I have a solution! If you truly think the king may not oppose his united barons”—he paused while he lifted his hand to his mouth and used his teeth to pull the seal ring off his finger—“find yourselves another king.”
He slammed the ring down on the table and stormed out of the room, sailing right past the dithering young men between him and the door.
He left too quickly to be called back, left the barons too stunned to speak, even Susa, all of them staring at the ring on the table, even Erondites taken by surprise. They should have known better. They knew the king was impetuous, knew how much he chafed under the demands of the throne. They had meant to push him into doing something ill-considered, and he had. Desperate to know what the stammering barons would say next, I hesitated as the retinue of the king was vanishing out the door. Knowing that if I fell too far behind, I would never catch up, I cursed and started after Philologos, chasing him all the way to the king’s apartments.
At the door to his bedchamber, the king turned on us, his attendants and his guard. “Why are you still following me?” he asked.
“Where should we go, Your Majesty?” asked Hilarion as we stood shifting from foot to foot.
“Don’t call me that.”
“But, Your Majes—”
He shook his head. “Merely a Thief, far from home,” he corrected Hilarion. “Or I suppose prince, but no one has ever called me that. Consort?” He appeared to be thinking aloud. “Attolia has never had Continental titles, but Sounis has them. Maybe Irene will make me a duke. At any rate, I have no authority, no responsibilities, and no longer any need for attendants.”
“Your Majesty, no.”
“No ‘Your Majesty’ and ‘Yes.’ You can all go away, go hunting, go to town for a drink, do anything you want.”
“What will you do, Your Majesty?”
“I don’t know,” said Eugenides, and seemed to mean it. He looked back over his shoulder. “Pack?” he said.
“You will not leave!” Philologos cried.
Eugenides’s vicious humor dimmed a little. He had not considered what might come after so strenuous an abdication, that the council might take it at face value, that he might have to leave Attolia. “Philo, the council may be voting to exile me as we speak.”
“What of the queen?” Philologos said in a choked voice.
Eugenides stared into the future. “I don’t know. It’s not up to me anymore.”
He stepped into his room and closed the door in our faces.
“What in the name of all the gods happened?” asked Ion, and Hilarion explained. When he was finished, Ion said, “Someone has to tell the queen.”
“She probably knows already.”
“Even so, we have to send a messenger.”
Hilarion ran his hands through his hair, clearly not relishing this. “You and I will go. The rest of you stay here. Make sure he doesn’t leave.”
The other attendants, all of them having arrived in the waiting room, stared at each other and back at Hilarion. How could they stop him from leaving?
“Send to the stables. Warn them not to give him a horse. Tell the guards they aren’t to let him out of the palace.”
“Are you out of your mind, Hilarion?” asked Lamion. “What guard is going to tell the king of Attolia he can’t leave his palace? And don’t tell me it’s not his palace if he is not king, because this is nonsense.”
Hilarion just looked at him helplessly.
“We’ll talk to the queen,” said Ion, trying for calm. “Tell the stables to delay if they can, that the queen does not want the king to leave the palace.”
That was a good thought.
“You can’t give orders in the queen’s name,” Xikos pointed out.
“Go to the queen,” Dionis said firmly. “Stop talking and go now.”
Hilarion and Ion hurried away and the rest of us sat, the other attendants fearing for their country, while I wondered: if Eugenides truly left Attolia, what would become of me, the unwanted, unwelcome heir of Erondites?
It was an hour or more before Hilarion and Ion were able to convey their message, before the queen rose from her devotion at the altar of Ula, heard their recounting of events, and returned to the palace. Imenia came to the door of the king’s apartments, bowed her head to Philologos, the highest-ranking attendant present, and said, “Her Majesty observes that it is late in the day to start a journey and suggests that His Highness rest for the afternoon and await the council’s direction.”
Philologos swallowed.
“Will you convey Her Majesty’s message?” she prompted.
Philo nodded. “Yes,” he said hoarsely, and Imenia went away again.
After rubbing his shoulders like a man who’s chilled to the bone, Ph
ilologos went and knocked on the king’s door.
Eugenides opened it right away. When Philo gave him the queen’s message, he tilted his head to one side while he considered it. “Her Majesty is quite right, as usual. If she asks for me, please tell her I’ll be reading on one of the porches.” He stepped to his desk and scooped up the book of poetry that the king of Sounis had given him for his birthday. With it tucked under his arm, he headed for the passageway. Over his shoulder, he said, “You all can stay here,” before his eye fell on me. “Oh, Pheris, don’t be so woebegone. You can come with me if you like.”
So I tagged along as he told the guards standing outside his door that they could return to their barracks. They didn’t. They just anxiously trailed along as the king went looking for a quiet place to read. When people we passed stopped and bowed, Eugenides only waved at them, waggling his fingers as he passed, saying, “Never mind all that.” Straightening uncertainly, they stared after him.
We ended up on one of the porches near the Comemnus tower. The day was still hot, but the porch was in the shade. There was a couch with a backrest and several stools scattered around. The king lay down and adjusted himself, then opened his book.
“Wish I’d thought to get some wine from the palace kitchens,” he said.
“I’ll get that for you, Your Majesty,” said Hilarion from the doorway.
I hadn’t realized he too had been following, but Eugenides didn’t seem to be surprised.
“No, thank you, Hilarion, there’s no reason you should go to the trouble.”
Hilarion went anyway.
Eugenides read and sipped his wine. Sometime after that, Susa appeared in the doorway of the porch, announcing himself, humming like a wasp with outrage. “Your Majesty,” he said deliberately.
“No, no, Susa,” said the king, without looking up. “Not Majesty. Highness, maybe. ‘Eugenides’ is always appropriate.”
“Enough of this, you lying, irresponsible whelp.”
“Whelp. That’s new. People usually say viper. Or bastard. My cousins liked to throw that at me.”
“You took an oath before the gods, new and old,” Susa reminded him. “Your gods, and you play at abandoning it?”
“I assure you, I am in earnest, Susa,” said Eugenides.
“And what of the people your games endanger?”
“You still have a queen. I am confident that she will manage,” said Eugenides.
“Attolia says she leaves with you.”
Eugenides’s face went from a studied carelessness to utterly blank, as a slate is wiped clean. Watching from my stool, I thought to myself he had been bluffing. But Susa’s moment of satisfaction was short-lived.
“She will leave with me?” Eugenides repeated.
Susa had made a mistake, perhaps a fatal one, in thinking to shame the king. Eugenides looked at him in wonder. “You ran to the queen for comfort, didn’t you? You expected her to put everything right, yet again, and she refused. Tell me, did you try to order her to apologize to the Pents?”
The barons’ nerves had failed long before anyone could suggest that out loud. They’d gone to the queen assuming she would somehow rein in her runaway husband. To the barons’ horror, she had risen to her feet and, much like her husband, swept from the room, leaving her own ring of office teetering on the arm of her ornately carved chair.
If the barons had been surprised by the king’s reaction, they were panicked by the queen’s. Attolia did not threaten where she did not mean to act.
Susa was shaking with rage. “You see how you have corrupted her,” he said. “It is not enough that you threaten our treaty with Eddis and Sounis, you deprive us of our queen.”
“I have certainly tried to do so,” Eugenides admitted calmly, laying his book on his chest and looking out over the railings at the view. “I asked her to leave with me on our wedding night.”
“What?” my grandfather said, his composure further weakened. He too had believed this was all a childish bluff and suddenly felt the ground shifting under his feet.
“Oh, yes. We could have been in the Epidi Islands by now, or Mur. I would have taken her anywhere she wanted,” Eugenides assured him. “She wouldn’t abandon her people—she knew how Erondites would rule if she did.” He shrugged. “Now, I suppose the acid from your tongue has finally eaten away at the ties that bound her here.”
“And you?” asked Susa contemptuously. “Where is your loyalty to your people? The ones who made you king of Attolia?”
With a gravity I’d never seen before, Eugenides eyed Susa. “You talk about loyalty and call me to task for my oaths. What about yours, Susa? Have I not heard you swear yourself my man, my needs your needs, my honor your honor, my law your law? I was sure I did.”
There was a hiccup in the baron’s righteousness, just a flicker, a hand twitching in protest.
Eugenides returned to his poetry, saying dismissively, “You let Erondites push you into this, Susa. If you want him to be your king, have him.”
“I do not want him to be my king, Your Majesty.”
“One would never guess,” said Eugenides, still looking at the page in front of him.
“We all have constraints that govern us. None of us is free to act as we choose,” said Susa, battling on.
“Except me,” said Eugenides. “I can do anything I want.” He showed his teeth again. “Susa and Erondites, the Laimonides, all the greater barons have always flipped from side to side with every shift in power, always putting their own interests first. Now the Medes are marching, Susa, and you are all still serving yourselves. Well, I cannot rein you in. Nor, it seems, can my queen. We cannot fight the Medes and you at the same time, so we may as well go. Let Erondites be your king.”
“Erondites will be the death of us all,” said Susa. “The Medes—”
“Will sweep over you like the tide,” Eugenides said. “In a generation,” he added prophetically, “nothing will be left of Attolia but a name on an out-of-date map.”
“You will not leave us to that,” said Susa.
“I am not king of the Bructs,” said Eugenides. “Look to Sophos for that kind of sacrifice.” He cursed mildly. “I’ve lost my place.” Holding the book open with his hand, he tried to slip the hook between the pages. Afraid he would tear them, I came from my stool to turn the pages myself, deliberately stopping at Perse’s poem imploring her faithless lover to return.
Hilarion was still standing in the doorway, agony in his face.
Susa saw a ray of hope. “There are those who are loyal to you, Eugenides. Will you abandon them?”
“I cannot save them.”
“You could.”
Eugenides shook his head. “It is not in my power,” he said. With a reproving glance at me, he said to Susa, “I told you, we cannot fight the Medes and disloyal barons too.”
“Let me bring you loyal ones, then, Your Majesty,” said Susa. “You know there are many who would willingly abandon Erondites.”
“You, Susa? You will lead people away from Erondites? How, when he holds your leash so tight?”
“I will let the Susa land above the Pomea go,” my grandfather said. “All of it. If you will stop this nonsense now.”
He meant my home. The Villa Suterpe was on the Susa land above the Pomea. Though it had long been in Susa’s possession, Erondites had a better claim to it and had held that over Susa’s head for years. In offering to give up that land and all the wealth it brought him, Susa was doing more than rejecting Erondites’s influence. He was offering to break publicly with him.
“And you think others will follow suit? You and I both know how Erondites keeps them cowed. How many loyal barons, truly free of him, can you promise? Tell me honestly. I will know if you lie.”
Susa bowed his head. “One,” he said.
“That’s the sweet taste of truth on your tongue, probably for the first time. One isn’t enough.”
“It’s a beginning,” argued Susa.
Eugenides shook h
is head.
“It’s the one that matters in this farce of yours.”
The king flicked a glance at him from the corner of his eye. “One,” he said, “but a lion?”
Hilarion was holding his breath. So was I. Susa dropped to his knees.
“I am an old man, Your Majesty, but I am your man in every particular,” he swore.
Eugenides snorted. “So, so, so,” he said dismissively. “That’s a vow for a fireside story, Susa. Was the taste of truth on your tongue too sweet?”
Susa had to agree. He said, “In Hephestia’s name I swear, and may lightning strike me if I lie: I am your man, Your Majesty, in every particular, so long as you are high king and the Medes threaten us.”
He held out his hand, the king’s ring on his palm. “Please,” he said.
Eugenides laid his book back on his chest and looked at it.
“I will settle for one, for now,” he said. “But one is not enough, Susa.” He took the ring. Not taking his eyes off Susa, he held it toward me, and using my good hand, I pushed it over his knuckle, back into place.
“I will bring you more supporters, Your Majesty,” promised Susa. “No one wants Erondites for their king.”
The barons, rattled by the outcome of their attempt to intimidate the king, greeted Susa’s announcement that he had returned the ring to His Majesty with relief. Most blamed Susa for mishandling the whole business, claiming they’d only ever wanted what was best for Attolia. Those actually motivated by Attolia’s desperate need for the Pents’ support raged in private. The Baron Casartus threw his lover out of his apartments for merely suggesting that everything would probably work out all right in the end.
“Thank you.” Eugenides bent to kiss the back of his wife’s neck.
“You lost your temper,” she said.
“I did,” he conceded, settling on the bench beside her.
“You know how upset they get at the least hint that you are ill, that we might lose you.”
“I do.”
Attolia’s barons needed a king, but they wanted one they could manipulate, each to their own ends, so that one house might have the upper hand and sometimes another, in a genteel, underhanded, secretive sort of oligarchy.
Return of the Thief Page 15
