Rien à déclarer
The line of squad leaders stopped, one at a time, before the captain of the guard. The coin weighed heavily in Aris' pocket.
The captain of the guard looked up from his desk and asked the same question each time. Three voices echoed in Aris' head:
"...Tell the captain – before Relius does."
"I suppose then my honour would be intact."
"And that's a very important thing."
Aris stepped forwards and stopped. Teleus looked up. "Anything to report?"
Was it really several hours, in which time all the other squad leaders turned round to stare, before he managed to say: "The King went out last night."
Teleus' face went dark, like a thunderstorm coming over the hills. It always was a thunderstorm, when he had to say that, but suddenly Aris was tired of standing in line for ten minutes, getting lectured in vain. "What could I do?!" he protested. "There's no way to stop him!"
This was the king they were talking about: the ruler of the country, the official father of the people, the supreme commander of the guard – not to mention, on a more practical scale, the swordsman who could beat every single member of the guard hollow, and the Thief of Eddis who, if Aris got three carthorses and physically blocked the gateway by jamming them in it, probably knew a hundred other routes out of the palace.
Not that Aris expected any of these points to bear weight against Teleus' perception of a squad leader's duty, even if he had fleshed each and every one of them out. He certainly hadn't expected them to cause Teleus to stare blankly at him.
"No," said the captain of the guard, rather deflatedly. "I don't suppose there is." He paused. "Well, I suppose you could summon the Queen. Guard dismissed."
In the colonnade outside, Aris stopped and pulled out the king's gold coin. It was … compensation. And if he hadn't been yelled at, the troublesome business that was a sense of honour decreed it was not his to keep.
"...Dedicate it to some god … I'm sure they'd be pleased to have it..."
And that, of course, meant a trek over to the temple of Miras. He put his hand back in his pocket, and pulled out the other coin. Come what may, he was not considering the king of Sounis his responsibility. If the Magus of Sounis asked where his king got to at night, Aris supposed he'd have to tell. But until then, he was considering that one a gift.
Two kings running in and out of the palace at all hours.
Once he had been to Miras' temple, he was going to go into town and get drunk on it.