The King of Sounis and the King of Attolia met every spring at the mountainous border between Eddis and Attolia. It was an arrangement that had worked well for three years so far. Even if Sophos was struggling with his recalcitrant coastal barons and Gen was up to his neck in Mede intrigue, in the spring they managed to put their other concerns on hold and meet for a week, as much to catch up as to discuss the alliance.
Sophos took three of his closest advisors. This wasn't unusual, but this year it was in spite of an increasingly brusque exchange of letters he had been having with Gen over the course of the last several months. Gen had taken a sight-unseen dislike to the youngest of the advisors, a Baron's son named Thonus.
I don't trust him, Gen had written in his spidery left-handed writing. Yes, it's very helpful that he showed up just in time to step in front of an assassin's arrow for you. It's also very convenient for him. His father has never supported you and I don't believe in this 'estrangement' for a moment. Think about who you trust.
If I took your advice on everything, Sophos had written back, I would trust no one at all.
The exchange had gone downhill from there. Gen's letters had become increasingly short and exasperated, but he had stopped short of outright ordering Sophos to dismiss Thonus, so Sophos didn't. Sophos liked Thonus. Besides, he was the only one of the fractious collection of Sounisian barons that was anywhere near his age. Sophos was tired of being reminded by his councillors that he was young and hadn't had the chance to grow into wisdom. And Thonos often agreed with him, which was more than anyone else did.
He took him along in the spring to meet Gen. Part of him was hoping that Gen would talk to him and admit he'd been wrong - times when Gen admitted he was wrong were few and far between, and Sophos savoured them. "The trick is not to let your nerve break," he advised Thonos, while they were riding the last section of the journey. "Attolis isn't always predictable."
Thonos laughed. He laughed a lot, which was another reason Sophos liked him. "I'll try, Your Majesty," he said. "I'm more afraid of the wife."
"The Queen," Sophos said, feeling a moment of unease at the way Thonos spoke of her. He wasn't dismissing her, at least, which wouldn't be a survival strategy, but – "She's not an enemy, you know."
Thonos looked surprised. "Of course not, Your Majesty."
"Remember it." Sophos looked up ahead. They were climbing the narrow track out of Methinon Gorge which formed this part of the border between Eddis and Attolia. The dirt path under the horses' hooves rose sharply, and previous sections had been nearly too steep to ride. Once they reached the peak there would be a gentle fall of softer land on the other side and a summer villa nestling in the hills. It was owned by an Attolian baron, and the King and Queen commandeered it for the spring meeting every year. Sophos pressed forward, eager for the first glimpse of it and feeling like a child on holiday. He and Eddis regularly travelled to each other's countries, but he hadn't seen Gen for a year.
"There they are," one of Sophos' guards said suddenly. A moment later Sophos crested the ridge behind him and saw the Attolian party.
"Gen!" Sophos shouted. He stood in his stirrups and waved an arm, unable to stop the wide smile that spread across his face. He saw Gen's face turn from where he was conferring with Attolia. Even at that distance, Sophos thought he saw an answering smile. Attolia said something, and Gen spurred away from her towards the Sounisians. She came behind him, more slowly, flanked by two guards.
"Come on!" Sophos said to Thonus, still grinning. The ground ahead of them was a grassy slope, safe footing, and Sophos pressed his horse into a canter. Thonus started off with him, but Sophos soon outpaced him. His heart felt lighter than it had in weeks.
The first hint he had that something was wrong was he saw was Gen pull up, still some way off, looking over Sophos' shoulder. His mouth opened, calling something that was whipped away by the wind. Sophos frowned and threw a glance behind him.
Thonus had been close behind him, but not anymore. He had pulling his horse to a halt and had something in his hands. Sophos' stomach curdled as everything around him slowed with horror.
Thonus was sighting along the gold-chased barrel of Sophos' own gun. Sighting straight at Gen.
Sophos tried to move in time. He threw himself from his horse, stumbling towards Thonus, but it was too much distance to cover. Thonus only had to close his finger on the trigger. The retort went off in the open air like the distant crack of a whip. Thonus hadn't been expecting the kick and was nearly knocked back. Sophos turned, fear scraping across every nerve like a thousand grinding knives.
Thonus had missed. Gen was unharmed. But behind Gen, the Queen of Attolia crumpled from her horse.
()()()
Sophos only remembered the next events in flashes. His mind seemed filled with fog. He remembered the Attolian guards pouring over the intervening ground, swords drawn. He must have given orders, and they must have been the right ones, because he saw his own men captured without fighting. He remembered Thonus falling backwards from his horse, a knife in his throat and an expression of terminal, fatal surprise on his face. Sophos had no thought left to spare for him.
He remembered dropping down by Attolia, Eugenides beside him with his face more terrible than Sophos had ever seen it and his dagger sheath empty. There was blood soaking her side. Sophos remembered that. Her robes were pale green and the spreading stain was so dark it was black. This is my fault, he thought, and he felt so sick he couldn't remember how to breathe.
"Is she-?" Sophos said. The question was so urgent he could barely get it out.
Eugenides was holding the back of his hand over her lips to test her breathing. He gave a short nod. Others were crowing round now, guards and concerned attendants.
"Everybody back!" Eugenides snarled. His voice carried the promise of sudden, violent death, but his hands on Attolia's robes were as gentle as if he were handling blown glass.
Sophos drew back – nobody disobeyed that voice, from Attolis – and a rough hand gripped his shoulder.
He turned his head to see the grim face of Attolia's guard captain. "Move your hands and you die," the captain said. It was a statement of fact. "Step away from the Queen, Sounisian."
After that was another blank. Sophos knew Eugenides must have sent for a physician, because he remembered horses galloping and new, concerned people crowding around the Queen. Someone had tied Sophos' hands behind his back, like the other Sounisians. It barely registered. Sophos remembered feeling numb and distant, as if he were hovering somewhere outside his own head and watching himself stand there. He remembered thinking I wish he'd thrown that knife at me.
Then men were lifting Attolia onto a litter, carefully, so Sophos knew she lived.
Eugenides passed him, pale and intent, following the litter. The captain stepped in his path and reluctantly cleared his throat. "My King," he said, "What do you want done with the Sounisians?"
"Lock them up," Eugenides said curtly. "Do we have to do this now? Get out of my way."
But the captain was doggedly and respectfully stubborn. "And the King?"
Eugenides looked over and met Sophos' eyes. Sophos finally saw the expression on his face. It wasn't shock. It was pure, glittering fury.
The guilt that had been roiling in Sophos' mind crashed down on him and he made a small sound, bending over himself as if it had been a punch to his stomach. He couldn't hold Eugenides' gaze. He felt of about as much worth as a lump of mud in the gutter.
The captain saw the look too. "Do you want him executed?" he said.
Eugenides paused. "No," he said at last. "Take him away and have him whipped. Get him out of my sight."
()()()
The shock kept Sophos blank until they left him alone, unharmed, in a small, locked cell next to the guard rooms. He sat on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, and eventually he wrapped his arms around himself and started to shake uncontrollably.
Attolia's fall from the horse happened over and over again in his mind, like a soundless echo that wouldn't fade. He wasn't even crying, but he couldn't stop shaking. He could see Attolia's face, her eyes shut. He could see Gen's face as well. He wished he couldn't.
He couldn't find more than a twinge of sympathy in himself for Thonus. He could barely find any feelings apart from the fear for Attolia and the crushing awfulness of his failure. He had sworn Sounis to the country of Attolia – more directly, to Attolis – and Attolis had won him his homeland back. Now he had betrayed both of them. He had failed them, and Attolia was dying.
Nobody came with news. Sophos tried to take some comfort from that. If Attolia died, he would almost certainly be killed straight away. Since he was still here, she must be alive.
He managed to spare a thought to worry about his councillors and guards. But Gen was fair. This was Sophos' fault, and his guards were innocent. They would probably be locked up until things were settled – he didn't think Gen would take revenge on them. Just him.
But whatever happened, Sophos knew he deserved whatever was coming. In the late afternoon he heard footsteps along the stone outside, and fragments of conversation.
"Yes, but the King of Sounis?" someone muttered.
"Wouldn't like to be the one—"
"Think of the Queen," a third, harsher voice said, which shut the first two up and made Sophos flinch.
When the door finally opened, Sophos was on his feet, pale but determined to see it through. He didn't have much honour left. He had to be careful of what was left of it.
The first guard stood in the doorway and eyed him warily. "Your Majesty—"
"I'm ready," Sophos said.
()()()
A day later, and his world was still hazy with pain. He'd been moved to a small room with a bed, a half-robe wrapped around his waist and legs to spare his back. He didn't know if the door was locked. He hadn't tried it.
But when he heard the light footsteps in the corridor, he knew who they were. Nobody else walked with so little sound. He had slipped off the bed and was on his knees on the stone before the door opened. The shock of hitting the ground jarred pain all down his back.
He bent his head, but he knew it was Eugenides at the door. He imagined he could feel it from the way the air folded itself around him.
Eugenides didn't move for a long moment. Sophos strained from the effort of holding himself still, listening with every nerve of his body. His back was a river of fire, but his eyes were dry.
Sophos broke the silence himself. "How is she?" His voice was quiet and rough. To his relief, it held.
"Recovering." There was nothing to be read from Eugenides' voice. It was as detached as if he were reading from a law book.
Sophos bowed his head in sheer relief. It was like cool water running down his back, so comforting that he didn't care that the weals were cracking open again. He had to put his hands on the floor, since it was that or fall on his face.
In the silence, the sounds of the palace carried on. There were footsteps and voices in the distance, a trickle of water. A breeze wove through the shutters and moved the hair on Sophos' neck. His knees and hands were cold, the stone sucking the warmth from them. Gen still hadn't moved.
When he spoke again, Sophos jumped.
"You sent the physician away."
"I," Sophos said, but his voice cracked. He had to swallow, ashamed of himself. "I didn't deserve a physician."
"Really?" There was a light, almost mocking note in Eugenides' voice. It was very familiar. "Did it not occur to you that, had I been of the same opinion, I wouldn't have sent him?"
Sophos took a steady breath. "I thought maybe… he'd come of his own accord."
"To ingratiate himself with Sounis," Eugenides agreed. "That might even be a wise choice, if he wasn't thoroughly Attolian – and with a son in my guard. I introduced you last year."
Before, Sophos' face would have flooded with mortification at being so slow of thought. Now, though, it was all he could do to keep his breathing under control and not let the pain overwhelm him. "Even if you sent him," he said, "I still didn't deserve healing."
"And if I ordered you?" Eugenides said mildly. "I was under the impression I was your King. Correct me if I have this wrong."
He said it so lightly, as if the words left no trace on the world, but they felt like arrows aimed at Sophos' chest. Sophos wanted to laugh, or possibly cry. He held his breath so he could do neither.
Eugenides surveyed him while he struggled to get himself under control. "Breathe," Eugenides suggested eventually. "Nobody has yet got out of a conversation with me by holding their breath until they fainted, though I admit it's a novel tactic."
Sophos let out his breath, his shoulders shivering. The dangerous moment had passed. He could speak and be fairly sure he wasn't going to cry. "You – you aren't My King," he said. "I've lost that right. I betrayed you."
Sophos thought he heard Eugenides let out the ghost of a surprised sound, but he might have imagined it.
Eugenides' footsteps came closer. "Look at me."
Sophos was still for a moment. His back would obey him, he thought grimly. It was just muscle. It was under his control. He pushed himself straight, froze for a moment at the pain, and then managed to look up.
He wished he hadn't. It had been a lot easier to stare at the floor than look at Eugenides' face. His expression was smooth, as usual, his eyes holding that hidden glint of irony that never seemed to leave, and he was looking down at Sophos like he was an intractable problem that had come up in council.
Sophos remembered when he had thought Gen was easy to read. That was before he'd realised that Gen didn't only lie with his tongue, he lied with his face and his eyes and every line of his body. You only ever read what emotion he wanted you to. Gen never let his enemies see his real feelings. Anything Sophos saw now might be fake, because Sophos was just another traitor to him.
"Let me propose an intellectual exercise," Eugenides said, absently scratching his arm. It was the cuff where the hook was strapped onto his wrist; Sophos knew it itched in the heat of summer. "What should I do with you?"
Sophos felt bile rise in his throat. "I- what?"
"It was a simple question," Eugenides said. "There's an Attolian prejudice that Sounisians are slow, Sophos. Try not to prove it. I asked you what I should do with you."
Sophos swallowed. Eddis hovered in his thoughts like air, everything and nothing. He couldn't think of what Eddis would say to any of this, because he would break. "Don't make me do this," he said, his voice low and cracked.
"Indulge me," Eugenides said ruthlessly. "I want to hear what you think."
Sophos shut his eyes. If that was what his King wanted, especially after what he'd done, he didn't have any right to refuse. "You should execute me," he said. "Decapitation, probably. I'd like to avoid being tortured to death, but since it's treason –" he opened his eyes, amazed at how steady his voice was "— well, that's your right. Or Attolia's." He shouldn't hope for mercy. Eugenides was the one who tempered Attolia's judgements, but in this, Sophos could only hope that Attolia prevailed. She often favoured quick deaths.
"Let us presuppose," Eugenides said distantly, "that I wanted to keep you alive."
Sophos could feel sweat prickling at his forehead. His breath was coming fast and shallow, the wounds on his back throbbing in time with his heartbeat. "Why?" he said.
"Ignore my reasons for now," Eugenides said. "Let us suppose alive, and – hah – in possession of all your limbs." He dropped his arm and let his hook hang down at his side. "Continue," he added, offhand.
Sophos bowed his head and tried to think of it as an intellectual exercise. Eugenides was his overlord, even if Sophos had no right to his protection any more.
"You'd have to strip me of Sounis first," he said. He could almost think of it as something that was not actually happening. "Replacement would be… difficult, but Baron Kunios might do. He's not too rabidly anti-Attolian." He pulled his mind back from the maelstrom of problems Sounis could become. It wasn't as if Eugenides couldn't find a way to deal with that. "Then prison, I suppose," he said. He could feel the dreary apprehension seep into his voice. He thought of Nomenus, his own Mede traitor, locked up in a cell half-underground, too cold to sleep. Eugenides himself had been in the Sounisian prisons for a long time. Somehow the idea of never again seeing sunlight made Sophos feel colder than the swift finality of death.
"Prison, that's a possibility," Eugenides agreed. "And the others?"
"Exile," Sophos said, but he didn't hold out much hope for that. "Slavery. The galleys?" He was digging around, now, anything to get this over with. "I don't have ancestral lands to confiscate, if I've lost Sounis. I suppose you could do nothing and let me be an okloi."
"Hm," Eugenides said. He took a step back and spun on his heel, apparently thinking. "And which would you prefer?"
Sophos finally cracked. "Gen," he said.
"Yes?" Mild, infuriating, unreadable. "I thought we were going with 'My King'. Or was it 'Your Majesty'? Answer my questions, Sounis."
Sophos struggled to get himself back together enough to speak coherently. "I want you to do what you think is right," he said. He summoned the last of his strength and bowed his head to the floor, shutting his eyes so he wouldn't weep. He was not a child, he was a king and a liegeman and a traitor. The pain was staining all his thoughts with sharp white tendrils. He welcomed the distraction from his guilt. "If – if my word has any worth, which I know it doesn't, I want-" He broke off, but forced himself to say it, staring at the stone flags inches away from his face. "I'd prefer to be useful. Somehow. Even hoeing fields or being on a war galley would be more use than life in prison."
There was a pause, as if Eugenides didn't expect that. "Useful to whom?"
Sophos had to concentrate very hard to understand the question. The pain in his back seemed to be casting a white veil around the edges of his vision. "To you," he said blankly, once he was sure he had the meaning. He was surprised Eugenides had to ask. "And so to Eddis. To my country. To everyone." He felt light-headed. His voice seemed to be coming from a very long way away.
There was a pause. Then Gen stepped back in front of Sophos and crouched down. "Sophos," he said conversationally, "you're about to fall over."
"I'm not," Sophos said. He had himself braced himself on his hands. There was part of his mind telling him that this wasn't how the conversation was supposed to go, but it was so hard to think.
"A heroic attitude isn't a direct substitute for working muscles," Gen said. Suddenly his hands were on Sophos' arms, supporting him and making him straighten up. "Lie down and stop cracking open your damn back. This is all the grovelling I can take for one day."
Sophos didn't have any strength left to resist, although he muttered an inchoate protest. Gen almost lifted him on to the bed. The next moment, Sophos felt cold cream slap onto his back, right on the worst of the wounds, and yelled.
"Shut it," Gen said amiably, slathering more cream on. "You sent away the physician, you get me."
Sophos bit his lip until it nearly bled. Gen was impersonal and thorough, coating every part of broken skin with the cream. It froze as it went on, painful at first, but then Sophos felt his back going numb. It still hurt – it was impossible to imagine it not hurting – but the bright feeling that he couldn't stand it anymore was starting to recede.
"I failed you," Sophos said, his voice muffled by the mat under his head. "I failed you, and Attolia nearly died. Why are you doing this?"
"Because you're stupid enough to send away physicians," Gen said. "Even for you, that's impressive."
Sophos felt like the whole situation was fuzzily reflected in a bent brass mirror, turned upside down and twisted. He was no longer even thinking about the things that came out of his mouth. "Which part of I don't deserve healing was hard to grasp?"
"Noble suffering is extremely overrated," Gen said lightly. "Believe me." There was the clack of a box shutting, and he stepped back. "It has a soporific in it. My physician will look in on you when you wake up. I still consider you my liegeman, Sophos, so I feel fully entitled to say that if you send him away again, I will take you back up to that damn gorge and drop you in it. Got that?"
Sophos moved his head. He would have formed words, but the rush of relief was so overwhelming that he couldn't find any.
"Was that a nod?" Gen said. He sounded amused.
"Yes," Sophos said. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and that didn't seem to have anything to do with the pain or the cream. He added, "My King."
"Good," Gen said. He pulled up a light, coarse sheet to Sophos' waist, leaving his wounds uncovered. "Get some sleep."
Sophos was starting to feel the effects of the soporific. He turned his head to the side and spoke to Eugenides' retreating back. "Gen."
Eugenides paused in the doorway. "What?"
"What's going to happen to me?"
Gen turned around and leaned casually against the frame, crossing his arms. "I think you'll have to be a slave," he said. He sounded almost regretful. "I'm sorry, Sophos. But I don't want anyone else getting the idea that you can let one of your men shoot my Queen and I will not fall down on you like the wrath of the gods."
Sophos let out a breath, as if he'd been clinging to a spar after a shipwreck and suddenly looked up and seen a desolate shore. "I understand, My King." And he did. He felt cold all over, from more than the effects of the cream, but he understood. "Thank you."
Gen put a hand over his eyes. "Gods, Sophos," he said. "That really isn't something you should be thanking me for. Go to sleep."
He was gone, the door shutting silently behind him, before Sophos could reply. Sophos took his advice.
()()()
He was left alone to rest for the next couple of days. The physician came in to look at him every few hours, and now Sophos cooperated. He was given bread and water, nothing hard to stomach. By the time the third day came around, the physician wrapped his back in bandages to protect the healing scabs and pronounced him ready to get up.
Eugenides hadn't come back. Sophos was both relieved and almost sick with disappointment. He couldn't demand to see Attolia, either, if he was to be a slave. He'd have to wait.
It was a strange sort of limbo, but in the meantime, there was paperwork to do. Eugenides had brought some scribes with him – not, thank the Gods, the Magus – and one of them came to fetch Sophos early one morning. She took him to the villa's small library. There, with her help, he determinedly puzzled over drawing up the documents that would legally renounce his claims to Sounis.
It was slow going. The scribe called him 'You' and cuffed him round the head in exasperation if he started daydreaming, but the library was warm and Attolia was apparently recovering, and it could have been a good deal worse. Sophos was still in the library late one afternoon, when the scribe had left to do her other work. His pen had stopped and he was staring at the sun-soaked wall by the bookcase, daydreaming of the curve of Eddis' arm and the way she crooked her chin down when she was reading, and he jumped when someone cleared their throat.
It was a servant, standing by the door. "Baron Ikastros wants to see you, my lord," he said. He sounded almost apologetic.
Sophos frowned in confusion. Baron Ikastros. Sophos barely knew him, but he was the one who owned this villa. He carefully cleaned his pen and set it aside. "I'm not 'my lord' any more, you know," he said.
"Yes, sir," the servant said obediently. He stood waiting.
Sophos suddenly realised that only a noble would keep a baron waiting while he tidied up. He nearly laughed at himself, but still finished putting his writing tools away, although he hurried.
From what he remembered of Baron Ikastros – a smooth, urbane man with grey hair and a hooked nose – he wasn't much of a friend to Attolis, although not so much of an enemy that Attolia had eliminated him. He racked his brains for any reason he might want to meet. Was it possible that he hadn't heard what had happened? Eugenides had arrested him in public. Everyone knew about Attolia. Sophos should be political poison at the moment.
A short time later, he was seated on a padded bench with a cup of excellent wine in his hand and a silver plate of pastries by his elbow, listening to Ikastros outline his proposal. Sophos couldn't taste the pastries, because his mouth was dry with shock.
He took a gulp of the wine. "Let me see if I have this correctly," he said. "You want to force Attolis to reinstate me. You are… offering to finance my northern Barons, led by Baron Hieron, in an attack on the coast in order to tip his hand." There had been a lot of elliptical talking, since Ikastros liked the sound of his own voice, but that seemed to be the upshot of it. Baron Hieron was one of the central figures of the loose anti-Attolian coalition and had been a thorn in Sophos' side for years.
"You are blunt, for a Sounisian," Ikastros said. In spite of his disapproving tone, he offered Sophos more wine with his own hands. There were no attendants in the room. Sophos wasn't surprised. If this got back to Attolis or Attolia, Ikastros would be disembowelled.
Sophos accepted the wine without thinking about it. "What does this profit you?"
Ikastros glanced at Sophos like he was a rather stupid pupil. "Do you always look gift horses in the mouth, Your Majesty?"
Sophos held his stare. He had faced down the barons at Elisa with nothing but Eugenides' gun and his uncle's sneer. He was long past the point where he could be intimidated by dignified men giving him censorious looks. "Nobody offers mercenary armies for nothing, my lord."
Ikastros sighed. "Sounisians are invariably suspicious. Suffice it to say that I have my own reasons for not wanting our so-called King too powerful. Neither do I like Baron Kunios, who seems to be your de facto heir. I have interests in the lands around the border areas."
"If I took your offer," Sophos said, "I would be indebted to Baron Hieron for the rest of my reign."
Ikastros spread his hands. "But as things stand, you are a slave."
Sophos' chest tightened. He said nothing.
"Let me make clear what your situation is," Ikastros said softly. "You have been, and should be, King of Sounis. Instead, through very little fault of your own, our dear Attolis has decided to strip you of all office, power and dignity and reduce you to less than an okloi. Do you really think this just? I must say, I don't."
Sophos put the cup down on the nearby table. "You seem fairly concerned with justice for someone who has no alliance with you. I assume you'd expect a – a secret alliance, afterwards?"
Ikastros seemed to have got over Sophos' bluntness, since he just smiled. "I wouldn't presume," he said. "It would be on a case-by-case basis. But I cannot imagine you would enjoy bending over backwards to accommodate Attolis' whims after he had you whipped."
"So I can get revenge," Sophos said.
Ikastros spread his hands. "It would not even be hurting him," he said. "But you have been forced to yoke Sounis to Attolia like an ox to a cart. And now you see where this leads. When you are reinstated, it could not hurt to loose yourself a little from the driver."
"I see," Sophos said. "Is that all, my lord?"
He'd surprised him, but all Ikastros showed of it was an unusual hesitation. "That is my proposal, Your Majesty."
"I'm sorry," Sophos said politely, "but it's not 'Your Majesty'. Nor is it going to be." He got to his feet. "Your plan uses me as a tool against My King, my wife, and the peace of the entire peninsula. Find another way to undermine Attolis. This isn't going to work."
"Attolis has already branded you a traitor," Ikastros said, dropping the words into the conversation as delicately as a lady placing a chess piece.
That hurt, but Sophos tried not to show it. "That doesn't mean I want to be doubly one," he said. "Is that all?" He linked his hands behind his back and gave Ikastros an inquiring look.
Ikastros frowned. "You are not thinking this through," he said. "You don't want to spend the rest of your life as a slave." At Sophos' continued lack of reaction, exasperation entered his tone. "You are not suited to it – you cannot even stop yourself looking lords in the eye. You will reach depths of misery you cannot even dream of."
Sophos had put him down as the melodramatic type, and was glad to see he wasn't wrong. "Whatever else you say about Eugenides, he doesn't do damage that he doesn't need to," Sophos said mildly. "And I was a slave before."
That revelation made Ikastros choke. Sophos' less-than-illustrious adventures weren't common knowledge among the Attolian nobility. "Also," Sophos added, "I'd spend my life linked to your and Hieron's schemes and interests. You aren't giving me the choice of being used or not being used. You're just offering a different set of masters."
Ikastros gave him a narrow-eyed look. "You'll change your mind."
"Really?" Sophos said. "Good day, my lord."
()()()
The next day, he finished the documents. They went up to Attolis, complete except for Sophos' signature. Sophos' time was handed over to the steward along with the other servants and slaves that travelled with the King and Queen. The steward gave him an odd look, but read the message scroll and assigned him to a work group.
This proved to be the start of things getting less pleasant. Sophos' day was suddenly filled dawn to dusk with menial tasks, and there was much less time to dreamily build walls when you were running a villa for royals and their dozens of attendants. There was endless hauling water, fetching wood, scrubbing clothes, filling oil lamps, running back and forward with jars and crates of food. Sophos found himself getting frustrated, but every time he did, he reminded himself, you failed, you deserve this. It seemed to work. The most annoying thing was the way Ikastros' men showed up at the very worst times to repeat his offer.
"No," he told the latest one, who'd come in on him in the third hour of doing laundry. Sophos' hair was sticking to his face from sweat and he was thoroughly sick of bedsheets. He knew he looked ridiculous for someone who'd been Sounis, and though he didn't really care who else saw it, he found the idea of word going back to Ikastros oddly irritating. "Go away."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the man murmured as he withdrew.
Sophos bit back stop calling me that and wrung out the latest bedsheet – too fast, since a lance of pain went through his back. He let out an uncharacteristic growl.
As the days went by he started talking to the other servants. They were wary at first, and he got more than a few unkind jokes, but he could trade on their curiosity. He found himself getting interested in seeing how the villa was run from the underside. He was already developing some opinions about how they ran the laundry collection when the Queen's messengers came.
That day, he was in a hole that was eventually going to be a well, grimly digging. It was the worst job he'd had so far, since the steward was pressing for it to be done fast, which meant working with the summer sun directly overhead and no escape from the heat. The steward seemed to have forgotten about his back. Sophos couldn't bring himself to complain and lose everyone's respect.
He dug his spade into the crumbly earth and took it as slowly as he could, but his throat hurt, and his head hurt, and his back was throbbing like it hadn't since the day he got out of bed. He thought one of the scabs might have cracked. All he could think of was that he didn't want to be the one to launder the blood stains, because blood stains were as stubborn as Eddisian thieves.
"I said no!" he called up, as a richly dressed messenger came into view, peering into the hole. "You can tell Ikastros to jump off a cliff!"
The messenger looked taken aback, then frowned. "The Queen has received your renunciation documents," he said. "She commands your presence."
"Oh." Sophos went red and climbed painfully out of the hole, knocking the mud off his clothes. "I'm coming."
He'd been expecting a summons from the King, but Attolia was just as bad. He hadn't felt this much trepidation in years.
He'd half expected to sign his papers in the throne room. It was an official matter, after all. But the messenger led him past the throne room and to Attolia's private chambers, which wasn't at all reassuring. Attolia's attendants whispered behind their hands in the antechamber, casting sidelong glances at him, but that wasn't what was making Sophos' mouth dry. His mind was re-echoing Attolia falling from her horse, crumpling like a puppet. He wished there was a way out. He'd rather dig twenty wells than face her now.
When he entered the room, it was full of summer sunlight made soft by coloured glass. Attolia herself was seated rigidly upright in a high-backed chair by the window. Her face was perfectly made up, expressionless as usual. There were emeralds in her ears.
Sophos had occasionally wondered what it was to be like in a marriage where both of you could conceal your expressions at will. Could they read each other? Certainly nobody else could read them. Suddenly he missed Eddis so badly it was like a cramp in his chest.
Attolia turned her head. There was only a touch of stiffness in the way she compensated with her shoulder, but it betrayed the wound under her dress as surely as if she'd had it announced by general herald, and Sophos felt shabby in a way that had nothing to do with his clothes or his dirt.
He sank to his knees. "Your Majesty," he said, in a small voice. "I-" He broke off. He didn't have any words.
Attolia stared at him. It wasn't like Eugenides' stare; there was something about Attolia's look which pinned you like a dragonfly on a board. Sophos couldn't look away, though his heart was thumping so hard in his chest it felt like it might burst.
"You have mud on your hands," she said coolly.
Sophos blinked, then looked down. She was right. He clasped them behind his back. "I – I was digging a well, Your Majesty." She looked unimpressed. Sophos' guilt was like a solid presence in the room, filling it like shadow filled the space behind a wall. "Your Majesty, I-"
"Yes?" It was icy.
Everything he could possibly say was inadequate. "I'm – sorry," he said. He bowed his head, his cheeks burning.
"So I am informed," Attolia said. There was a note in her voice of – was that impatience? She turned her head. "Attolis!"
The door opened, and Eugenides came in. "I am summoned," he said dryly, then gave Sophos a look of mild surprise. "Oh," he said. "You're still here." He crossed to behind Attolia's chair and leaned over the back of it, his good arm casually draping over her shoulder. She touched his wrist absentmindedly, and their fingers linked without either of them looking anywhere but at Sophos. "I wasn't going to deal with your papers for another week."
"I know," Attolia said irritably, before Sophos could say anything. "I have told you again and again that the longer you drag this situation out the more problems you create for Sounis."
"Well, yes," Eugenides said. "It's a fine line. You can stand, by the way," he added to Sophos. "I really meant it about having had enough of anyone grovelling."
"The grovelling," Attolia said pointedly, "is entirely your fault."
"I yield," Eugenides said, sounding abashed. "It's unpleasant, though, as side-effects go." He drew the papers on the table towards him with the tip of his hook and tipped them expertly into the other hand, rifling them with his thumb.
Sophos had got to his feet, feeling dull apprehension settle on him. There shouldn't be anything to be afraid of here – the worst had already happened – but Ikastros was weighing on his mind. "Gen- My King. I have to tell you—"
Eugenides raised an eyebrow. "—that you've had second thoughts about signing the papers?"
"No!" Sophos was thrown.
"WelI, I still don't see why you're here," Eugenides said. He was flicking through the paper with his thumb. "I gave you enough chances not to be."
"What?" Sophos said.
Eugenides weighted the paper sheets in his hand and gave a quick, malicious smile. He fanned them out with a flick of his hand and sent them scattering to the floor.
"Gen," Sophos said. "I need to sign those!" He crouched down, wincing at his back, and started to gather them up.
Eugenides looked at him, and suddenly started laughing helplessly. Sophos sighed and straightened up with a grunt. Standing up was sore, so he sat on the edge of the hearth. "What now?"
"You win," Eugenides said to Attolia. "Do you want your money now?"
"I don't want my money at all," Attolia said calmly. "You never believed he would break for a moment. You only wagered against him because I told you I would wager for him."
"Are you accusing me of placing bets in bad faith?" Eugenides said plaintively.
"I'm accusing you of being constitutionally incapable of not playing games."
Sophos was looking from one to the other. "Explain," he said, then added, "Your majesties."
"You can stop fishing around for the papers," Eugenides said. "I have no intention of letting you sign them." He pressed Attolia's hand and let it go. "Neither do I have any intention of wasting you as a slave. Although my steward says someone's mysteriously reorganised the laundry collection to be twice as fast, so maybe you've found your niche."
"My King," Attolia said. In her mouth, the words were never just a title. Here, they were a warning.
"I'm getting there," Eugenides said petulantly. "Unfortunately, Sophos, I need you in your other niche. The one where you run Sounis."
Sophos stared at him and then transferred his stare to Attolia. "I let you get shot."
"Had I died, you would have been executed," Attolia said, as if this was a matter of course.
Eugenides' hand sketched an aborted movement in the air, towards Attolia. He let it drop. "You didn't," he said, with forced lightness. "We don't have to make that choice."
"That's not the point," Sophos said. "I still risked it!"
Attolia sighed. "Sophos, come here."
Sophos scrambled to his feet and came to kneel in front of her, wincing.
"He's wounded," Eugenides said neutrally, watching them.
"So am I," Attolia said. It wasn't an accusation, merely an utter dismissal of the idea that either she or Sophos might pay any attention to mere complaints of skin and muscle. She laid a cool hand on Sophos' forehead, and Sophos shut his eyes. "You are forgiven," she said. "No one is dead except for your traitor. You have passed every test thrown at you. Rise."
Sophos felt the knot inside him loosen a fraction. He opened his eyes. Then he looked up at her, puzzled, and replayed her words while he got to his feet. His eyes sought out Eugenides'. "Test," he repeated.
"Idle curiosity," Eugenides said promptly. "Just my taking advantage of an unexpected situation."
"Ikastros," Sophos said, suddenly feeling his suspicions gain ground.
Eugenides leaned his hip on the desk, spinning a solid gold coin on one finger in his good hand. He gave a sly smile. "Closer to the throne than he seems. Has a talent for reporting conversations word-for-word."
Sophos looked at the ceiling. "Am I allowed to punch you?"
The coin spun. Eugenides gave a twisted, sideways grin. "No."
"No," said Attolia, although it came a moment later, as if she'd considered it.
"What about the whipping?" Sophos said.
Eugenides' face lost its mischevious look and grew serious. "That was real." He let the coin drop into his hand. It disappeared up his sleeve. "I should apologise, perhaps," he said, "but you'll understand if I don't. I was -" his gaze sought out Attolia's, who looked back at him with an ironic raise of one eyebrow "—concerned. I lost control."
"I deserved it," Sophos said.
Eugenides let out an amused breath. "You've said," he said. "Several times. Give me your hand." He crossed to Sophos and clasped his wrist, drawing him in, and kissed him on both cheeks. It was swift but affectionate.
The knot in Sophos' stomach loosened further, but he still felt like a ship at sea severed from its anchor. "I still don't understand why, My King," he said. "Did you – did you have a reason to think I was particularly disloyal?" It couldn't just be the Thonus matter. If either Eugenides or Attolia had thought he had meant any of it, he would have been dead before he could even be arrested.
"You tangled up this skein," Attolia said to Eugenides, exasperated. "You untangle it. I am going to inspect my guard, where I should have been ten minutes ago."
"Your wish is my command," Eugenides said, laughter bubbling into his voice. He tossed the coin, spinning, through the air. It landed neatly on the arm of Attolia's chair. "Your winnings, my Queen."
Attolia ignored it as she rose, stiffly, favouring her right side. "We will dine in public tonight," she said. "The King of Sounis as well." She gave him a cool nod, and then turned a level look on Eugenides. "Sort this out, My King."
Sophos belatedly bowed. Eugenides caught Attolia's hand as she passed, bowed over it and kissed it. She took it back, and relented enough to lightly touch his bent head before she left.
()()()
The King of Attolia and the King of Sounis sat on the flat roof outside the Queen's quarters. There were shrubs and a bench, a roof garden made pleasant by the airy breeze, but Gen ignored the bench and sat on the very edge, his legs swinging over the drop below. Sophos sat next to him.
"My guards," Sophos said. "And my other two councillors. If you're going to forgive me—"
"I'll let them out for dinner," Gen said easily. "We can all break bread together and everything will be sunshine and honeycake."
"What are we going to tell them?" Sophos said, distracted by the thought of the expression on his councillors' faces.
"It was all a mistake," Gen said promptly. "Sounis and Attolis are the best of friends. There was an awful misunderstanding which was nobody's fault."
Sophos elbowed him for this breathtaking piece of fabrication. "You don't suffer from misunderstandings," he said. "You create them."
Gen gave him a sideways grin. "I didn't say whose misunderstanding. Is it my fault if people constantly misunderstand me?"
"Yes," Sophos said firmly.
"Such distrust from my liegeman," Gen said, assuming a tragic air.
Sophos smiled for what felt like the first time since he'd seen Gen by the gorge. "I'm sorry, My King," he said. "Call it personal experience."
"Hah!" Gen idly kicked his heels against the wall. "You asked why," he said. "I probably owe you an explanation."
Having thought it over, Sophos wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear it. "You weren't certain of my loyalty," he said. "You wanted to see if you could trust me."
Gen, unusually, hesitated. "Maybe," he said eventually. "But not because I wasn't sure of you." He looked down at the maze of courtyards and archways and buildings below. "The truth is," he said, his voice quiet, "I don't see any way of making a permanent peace with the Mede Empire. I've spent two years on it, and all I'm seeing is that they will never stop."
Sophos said nothing, waiting for Gen's plan. There was always a plan. Below, Attolia emerged from an archway into the white sunlight, scarlet-robed, her distant figure upright despite her wound. Her attendants fussed around her like tugboats bobbing around a warship.
"Eventually there'll be war," Gen said soberly, watching her. "Not just here, but on the continent as well. Small countries like ours won't survive. We unite or we fall. And we will unite. But even once we have, the theatre of war won't be played out within our borders. The army will have to travel. I will have to travel. And I need Irene's strategic mind, because I can't be everywhere."
"Leave the peninsula?" Sophos said, startled. "Leave Attolia? Leave Eddis? Who is going to rule?"
"It shouldn't be that hard to grasp," Gen said. "I'm leaving you behind."
"Wait," Sophos said. "You'd leave me in charge of Attolia as well?"
"I would now," Gen said amiably. "The number of people I would trust with my life and my country has just increased from one to two."
Sophos tried ferociously to hide the warm, happy feeling spreading inside him, but he could feel his cheeks heat. "Two?" he said. "What about Eddis?"
Gen laughed. "You misunderstand me," he said. "The other is Eddis. I need the two of you ruling together."
"But," Sophos said, and then stopped. Two people. Gen's gaze was on the courtyard below, like iron drawn to a lodestone. Sophos looked down there. Attolia's hair was veiled in red and fixed with gold chains, and, for a moment, the sun glinted on the gold links like fire. She disappeared into the shadow of an open doorway, and was gone.
"Trust isn't the word," Gen said softly. "My life is in her hands, to do with as she likes." A smile lit up his face as he looked back at Sophos, a combination of affection and acceptance of his fate. "So far I've been lucky."
Sophos struggled for words. Gen seemed to be done with that conversation, though. He swung his legs up and crouched on the edge instead. "Hm," he said. "You know if we took the walls, we could reach the guard barracks before anyone realised we were there. Sentries never look up."
"Why?" Sophos said, bewildered at this sudden change of direction.
"Because it will be a breach of their security during an inspection, and it will keep them on their toes," Gen said innocently. "Besides, it will drive them into fits. I know your back's better. You know you want to see Irene's face. Come on!"
Sophos peered over the edge. Gen was eyeing the straight drop, but to the side there was a guttering slope – this would be more of a walk than a climb. As he slowly picked out the wall-and-arch route Gen had seen in an instant, he realised Gen was right. He could manage it easily. "You are an awful liege lord."
"But you still chose me," Gen said cheerfully.
"You should think yourself lucky," Sophos said severely, shifting along the edge of the roof to the stone gutter.
Gen turned his head, balanced on the edge of the roof on the balls of his feet. He wasn't even looking down. His face was the look of a child who has sneaked into Fate's strongroom and made off with every last chest of the gods' gold. "I do," he said. "Sophos, I do."
He dropped off the roof. Sophos stopped to get over his shock. And then – because this was Gen – he followed him off the edge.