The sea was dark as wine and the evening breeze warm. Normally the crew would have broken out drink and dice on an evening like this, but the atmosphere on the decks of the three moored ships was subdued and tense. Soldiers muttered among themselves and checked their gear. Part of the quiet might have been respect for the queen in her cabin on the flagship. More likely, though, it was the oppressive cliffs rising to vast heights behind them. They were in the shadow of the Mede Empire. They would reach the capital the next day.
The first decade of the king's guard were lined up on the deck of the flagship for inspection, even though the king was not there to inspect them. The king was away on mysterious business of his own. He had been for several months, and though there wasn't a man among them who wouldn't have claimed he preferred being seconded to the queen, several of them were more worried than they would admit.
There was uneasy shifting in the ranks as they waited for the queen. The senior lieutenant threw a dampening glance over them.
"We should close up the gap," one of the new, junior members muttered. "Looks bad."
The soldier next to him involuntarily turned his head to the empty space. They were one man short. They had been one man short for months, since the last battle against the Medes. The king had declined to promote anyone.
"Not until the king or the queen says," said Aristogiton stubbornly.
"You would say that," said the junior soldier. "But it's been months. It isn't as if Lieutenant Costis was the only one dead."
"The Queen!" the senior lieutenant snapped, and the guard fell mostly silent.
Her attendants opened the door of her cabin. She came out with the swish of heavy embroidered samite, rubies around her neck and gold bedecking her wrists. The guards' backs, already at attention, straightened even further. They might be visiting the Medes to formalise a peace treaty, but both she and they were dressed for war.
The queen's gaze swept over them. It lingered briefly on a badly-tied sandal strap and a speck of rust on a spear; both soldiers responsible wished they could disappear underneath it. But she spoke a few neutral words to the lieutenant, and when she he had finished, her gaze rested on Costis' place.
"Close ranks," she said coolly. "Are we to show our enemies an amateur guard?"
There was a moment of total stillness, and then the soldier behind reluctantly stepped into Costis' place. The men behind him shuffled over to create an even line. She gave them a brief nod and turned away.
"Stupid bastard," muttered Aris. "Trust him to get himself killed."
Costis was having a particularly active time for a dead man.
The chariots slewed around the lower pole in a furious tangle of horses and clashing metal and the crack of whips. The crowd's screaming was a wall of noise in the Mede heat. The dust was everywhere; it stung Costis' eyes and coated the inside of his throat, but he couldn't afford to care.
"Right!" Secius shouted. "Right, you cack-handed barbarian!"
Costis yanked the reins in shorter. His shoulder was aching fiercely, but after six months it was an old scar and he could ignore it. He sheered off to the right as they came up to the pole. A chariot was thundering up between them and the centre wall.
"Closer!" Secius was already leaning over the side of the chariot. His eyes were fixed on the array of bronze rings hanging from the turning pole by horse hairs.
"It's not safe!" Costis shouted. They were falling behind. Any closer would bring their horses into contact with the whirling iron of the other chariot's wheels. Without rings you couldn't place, and so far Secius was only clutching a single one from the start of the race. But there was placing and then there was maiming the horses. And Costis had already failed his country. He couldn't fail the last living things that relied on him.
"Closer! Move, or I'll slit your guts open!" Secius was leaning over as far as he dared, his arm stretched out. Costis leaned out the other side to balance him, though Secius never took much of a risk. Costis dropped back a place, sacrificing speed for rings, and swerved within half a yard of the post. There were already holes in the array where the front runners had grabbed theirs. Secius' fingers grazed the ring, and it swung on its slender tether, but didn't fall. Secius gave a curse so filthy that even Costis' rapidly expanding Mede vocabulary couldn't place it.
In front of them, the crowd roared as two of the leaders tangled with another in a snarl of screaming horse and metal. The leading chariot veered to the side and overturned. One man managed to jump clear; the other rolled right in their path, over and over.
"Straight on!" Secius shouted. There might just be room to get past him, and get the next ring, if they kept to their course.
Costis grabbed the reins.
"You stopped," said Vardanes the overseer. He didn't shout. He said it conversationally, his arms crossed, in a way that said the shouting had only been postponed for a moment.
Costis stood at perfect attention in the clammy shadow of the vaults under the arena. His eyes were fixed on a point over Vardanes' shoulder. Teleus himself couldn't have found any fault in it. His shoulder ached as if the sword had just been pulled from it. "Sir."
Vardanes backhanded him across the face. Costis had been expecting it, and barely moved. "Master," Vardanes said.
Costis didn't say anything. He didn't say he had one king and one queen, and nobody else was getting more than sir from him. He'd have said that six months ago, before he'd been a slave for this long. He didn't say it now.
He didn't know if he deserved to say it. If he'd been worthy of serving either of them, he'd have escaped by now. A guard who raced to entertain the Medes wasn't a guard at all.
So he said nothing. The second blow didn't come as a surprise.
Vardanes shook out his hand and growled. "Attolians," he said, as if the word was an insult. "Fifty silver, I paid for you! You chicken-farmers aren't worth two. Maybe if I pass you off to the gladiators I'll cut my losses."
The gladiator schools bought up slaves by the bundle for easy bait. It was a death sentence. It shouldn't matter, he told himself. You're already dead to everyone. But his chest constricted.
Vardanes was watching him. "Don't like that, do we?" he said. He put a companionable hand on Costis' shoulder, in one of his lightning changes of attitude. It wasn't any less threatening than his anger. "I wonder if we can get this through your thick barbarian skull?" he said. "Racing is a competition. The audience want to see a competition. They do not, let me make this clear, want to see you drive like a little old lady picking through dung on the road."
There was movement at the archway, people bustling, but Costis didn't turn because that was the moment his control broke. "I could have killed the others," he said.
Vardanes' hand was suddenly around his throat. Costis' muscles knotted from his shoulders down to his fists. He could have grabbed Vardanes' arm and thrown him over his shoulder. "Then they die," Vardanes said. "You don't have the stomach for racing, Costis? You want to go out against the gladiators instead?" His grip tightened. "Because I'm an inch away from sending you now."
His hand was blocking off Costis' air. A red anger was building in Costis' chest. If he was going to die anyway he could at least go down fighting— he could at least go down like an Attolian—
"This where all of us sleep?" said a whining voice from behind, rising to a cutting pitch. "This is the famous Mede hospitality?"
—and the strength ran out of Costis' muscles like water. His knees buckled. Vardanes' grip was the only thing that kept him standing.
Vardanes spared the commotion around the doorway a glance and let out a noise of exasperation. "You're early!" he shouted to the trader at the door, with his handful of new slaves. "The quartermaster hasn't given me your money yet!" He gave Costis a shake, clearly anxious to get this over. "So? You want to go to the gladiators?"
"No!" Costis choked out. "No, I'm sorry! I'll do better!" He would have gone on. He would have said anything just then. But Vardanes dropped him.
"Do that again and you'll wish you'd been the one that overturned today," he said. Costis barely heard. His chest felt like it was being branded with hot coals. He turned.
The new arrivals were a scant handful of men standing near the archway. They looked around uncertainly, flexing their newly unbound hands and wrists. Three of them stood like soldiers - the charioteers took in a lot of ex-military, defeated soldiers that the Medes brought back as prizes, like Costis.
The last one slouched against the wall like a printer's apprentice in a wine shop. His right arm ended in a rag-tied stump.
Costis was halfway across the floor before he even meant to start was terrible. This was a disaster. Costis couldn't even find the words in his own head for a catastrophe of this magnitude. Eugenides - the king - made a face at the trader's back, said something flippant to another slave, and turned his head. His eyes met Costis'.
It was like someone had opened a floodgate in Costis' head. Relief and panic and joy washed through him. The king was alive. The last time Costis had seen him had been in the middle of battle – he could still feel the spear in his hand and the ground trembling under his feet from the oncoming Mede charge. Costis had fallen, but Attolia hadn't. The Medes had gone home to lick their wounds. The king was alive.
There were no signs of reciprocal gladness on the king's face. His cool black gaze held Costis' for a long moment, then, deliberately, he turned his back.
Costis stumbled to a halt.
Nobody else seemed to have noticed anything. There was the usual post-race activity: laughter and insults and men rubbing sore wrists and patching grazes. A few called out to the new arrivals or retreated to defend their sleeping patches. The king had turned his back.
Costis had failed Attolia and the king had turned his back.
It shouldn't be a surprise. If he hadn't been able to fulfil his highest duty before, why should the king want anything to do with him now? Costis stepped back, numb. The king didn't look at him again, but slipped around Vardanes and the slave trader, still arguing about money, and stopped to make a sly comment to one of the other new arrivals. The other man laughed and they wandered down to the other end of the vaults.
Costis tried not to watch him for the rest of the afternoon, but he couldn't concentrate on anything else. Surely Costis would have heard if Attolia had fallen since he'd been captured. Even down here, they heard when some great victory or defeat happened. The last he'd heard, the emperor had ordered troops out of the Black Straits – and away from Attolia – to focus on a rebellion in the Issayan desert, at the other end of the empire. But then how had Attolis ended up here?
Secius was helpfully distracting when he turned up to have an argument over Costis' driving and the trouble it had got them into. Two of the new arrivals got into fights over sleeping space. The king hailed some of the other charioteers and somehow got himself invited into the circle of Continental slaves exchanging conversation and stories. He didn't glance at Costis again.
It was evening when he felt a tap on his shoulder. The king was beside his bed, half-hidden in the shadows. Follow me, he mouthed. Then he slipped away. The king had a way of moving that seemed casual but somehow let him disappear as fast as a lizard scuttling into a crack.
Costis froze for a long moment. Part of him felt as if he was about to be pulled out of formation for a dressing-down, only ten times worse. He could imagine some of the things the king might want to say to him.
But as a guard, he had to take what was coming. It might be the last thing he ever did as a guard. He got to his feet, tried to disguise it as shaking out his blanket, and went after the king.
Costis was used to finding the king in unexpected places. He was hoping he wasn't going to have to talk his way past the guards at the entrance to the arena vaults. But he wasn't expecting to find him perched comfortably on a partition in the stables and feeding a handful of hay to one of the horses.
The king gave him a look and his mouth twitched, as if there were mountains of things he was holding himself back from saying. Now they were facing each other, Costis found all words had deserted him. He was a guard who hadn't protected the king and had let himself get captured instead. He had failed as utterly as the first time the king had come to his rooms to let him off a death sentence.
Costis went to one knee.
"Costis," the king said. It was half a question. Costis didn't think his shame could get any worse, but it curdled inside him like sour milk. He didn't have an explanation, except that he was too unworthy to die in battle and too stupid to escape captivity.
"Your Majesty," Costis managed.
There was a silence. Then—
"What?" the king said.
"What?" Costis said, equally confused.
"'Your Majesty?' Did you resign while I wasn't looking?" the king said. "Whatever happened to 'My King'?"
Costis' heart flared with hope. He'd been forgiven once. Maybe he would be again. "Even though I let myself get captured?"
Whatever he'd been hoping for, it wasn't the awful silence that followed. He looked up. The king's expression was taut and ill. There was something appalled around the creases by his eyes – creases he shouldn't have; he was younger than Costis.
Costis bowed his head again, chastened.
"Costis," the king said again, but this time it was different and strained. "I don't want to hear that from you again. Ever."
"But—"
"Gods!" the king exploded. "There are more important things! Look at us and where we are, for a start! How long do you want us to be kept at the pleasure of the Medes?"
He was forgiven. At least for now, until the king was out of danger, which was as it should be. It wouldn't be right to show he was glad, but Costis was sure it was on his face as he rose to his feet. "Yes, My King!" He swallowed. "Is the city—?"
"Still standing," the king said. "The country is fine, too. I was taking care of some business by myself when a friendly bunch of pirates sold me here."
The gravity of the situation hit Costis anew. He stared at his king, in dirty tunic and bare feet and a slave's cuff and only one hand, under a city full of enemies who would execute him if they knew who he was. "We have to get you out."
"Welcome to the current situation," the king said, gesturing expansively with another handful of hay. "So glad you're here, I thought you'd never make it." He shoved another handful of hay towards the horse. "I completely agree, but the guards and slavers weren't of the same opinion. Incidentally, my name is Ambiades."
"What? No, it's n— " Costis coloured from embarrassment. He'd never been able to keep up with the king in his most manic moods. "And I suppose we don't know each other."
"Of course not," the king said. "But we're countrymen. Naturally we're about to strike up an acquaintance. If anyone asks, I'm an Attolian barrel maker's apprentice who stole from his master's strongbox and got his hand cut off for it. I took a job on a merchant ship and was picked up by the Medes after a shipwreck at Zabrisa."
"Can you make barrels?" Costis said, bewildered.
The king held up his stump. "No, but I have the mother of all excuses." He fed the last of the hay to the horse and patted its neck. "So how did they take you captive?"
Costis took a deep breath. So this was where he had to shame himself. He forced himself to utter neutrality in his face and voice, and said, "I didn't fight hard enough."
The king's face was uncomprehending. "Last time I saw you, you were falling backwards with a sword through your chest. I wouldn't say you were lazing around."
"Shoulder," Costis said, and rolled it automatically, feeling the old dull ache. "I – don't remember what happened right after that. I woke up in the Mede camp with the rest of the captives. I tried to escape—" He bit the words off. Excuses.
"Not easy," the king said neutrally.
Costis wasn't sure what to make of that. "I should have tried more." He regretted that on a daily basis. The arena security was much stronger than a retreating army on the march. He'd been in pain from the wound back then, dull-witted from the infection that followed, and the first time he'd tried had nearly got him killed. It had seemed a better idea to wait until he was feeling well. "But then I ended up here."
"How did that happen?"
"They tried a few of us out," Costis said. "To see if we were good with horses and had steady nerves, that sort of thing."
The king seemed to find this amusing. "And are you good with horses, Lieutenant?"
Costis shrugged. "I grew up around animals. They're just more highly strung than donkeys and less stubborn than goats."
"Hm," the king said. In one of his infuriating changes of attention, he seemed occupied in stripping the chaff from a single piece of hay.
Costis clamped his mouth shut on I'm sorry. The king didn't want to hear justifications.
The king looked up. "The Medes retreated, you know, after that battle. They didn't have the resources to hit us again."
No thanks to you, Costis.
"My ki-" Costis started to say, then changed it as the king violently shook his head, "—Ambiades. Does anyone know you're here? Your - wife?"
The question didn't seem to faze the king. "Well, she knows I'm not at home," he said. "I can't go back until I've taken care of what I need to." Costis opened his mouth to ask, but the king made a negating gesture. "But enough talking."
Costis felt as if he'd run up against a wall. He told himself severely that he didn't have any right to that information.
"We've been away long enough," the king said. "We should get back." He dusted his hands off and jumped easily to the floor.
Costis took a deep breath, looked at the king's back as he sauntered out, and just managed to say, "So – I'm forgiven?"
The king didn't hear him. Either that or he didn't want to reply.
Costis didn't know how the king had, in one afternoon of desultory conversations, insinuated himself so thoroughly into the charioteers that he was already the centre of attention.
"They're saying you're some sort of acrobat," Mirus from the Peninsula said suspiciously, over the flavourless soup they were served for supper.
The king opened his eyes wide. "Do I not look like one?"
"With one hand?" Beside Mirus, Secius snorted. "You must have been cheap."
The king was smiling pleasantly. For some reason that made Costis nervous. "Want to see a trick?" he said.
Mirus shrugged. "Go on."
Suddenly, the king was a blur of movement, snatching Secius' and Costis' bowls. They flew through the air. Costis felt his unused eating knife lifted from his belt. When the bowls fell, the king caught them in a stack, knife balanced on bowl balanced on knife in a precarious tower.
Secius slapped a hand to his belt where his knife had been. "You-!"
The king gave him a sardonic look and launched the bowls into the air again. Another deft piece of one-handed juggling, and they were all in front of their respective owners, and the knives in a pile in the middle.
Mirus' solid manner broke into astonishment. "Where'd you learn that?"
"The Attolian queen's bedchamber," the king said. It got a chuckle. He picked up his bowl again.
"Do you all do tricks?" another charioteer said, indicating Costis.
"Yes, hand him your supper and he'll make it disappear," the king said, and got another scattering of laughs.
The talk turned to racing. Costis had never seen the point of dissecting races after you'd finished them, but the king seemed fascinated by everything everyone said. Eventually he went to talk to Mirus' group after supper, invited to share their stash of cheap wine, and Costis, uninvited, withdrew.
The light filtering down the wells had long died and the fire was lit by the time Costis had any chance to talk to the king. Costis had moved his blanket to an alcove behind one of the great stone pillars to give them a chance to speak unheard. He sat with his back against the wall for a long time, thinking.
Finally the king came over, apparently unsteady from the wine. The unsteadiness cleared in the time it took him to sit down. Costis wasn't surprised.
"All right," Costis said. "I've got a plan."
"Let's hear it," the king said.
"I attack the guards at the entrance," Costis said. "You get past them while they're dealing with me. Then you can make for coast and get a ship."
The king reflected on this for a moment. "It's remarkable," he said, "how all your plans boil down to 'punch someone in the face'. That's what got you in trouble last time."
"I didn't plan to punch you."
"That's true. So this represents a step forward," the king said, with fake cheer. "Alas, I'm not going to let you do it."
"Have you got a better idea?" Costis said. "You need to get out of here!"
"We," the king said. "We need to get out of here. Something for which your plan fails to provide."
Costis leaned forward, dropping his voice to a fierce whisper. "You need to get out sooner. You're in danger every moment you're here."
"I've survived four months."
"Four months!" Costis said, appalled.
"Well, yes," the king said. "It took me a while to get out of Lord Orodes' house staff. Then there was a brief but exciting month when they put me with the quartermaster to the palace guard – hah – and then with one thing and another I ended up here." He prodded his jaw experimentally, and winced.
Costis looked at the faint bruise, and at the healing, knotted wound disappearing down the back of the king's neck, and the slash of a recent weal at his hairline. One thing and another, he thought, and put his hand over his face.
"I wasn't that pretty to start with," the king said dryly.
"Tomorrow," Costis said. "We'll get you out tomorrow."
The king straightened his back. "No," he said, and there was nothing at all joking about it. "I have finished discussing this, Costis. We escape when I have a plan. A few days won't hurt either of us. Besides," he said, slyly, "I've always wanted to be in a racing chariot."
Costis raised his eyes to the heavens in frustration. He didn't know if any of the Attolian gods would hear him, far across the Black Straits, but he probably shouldn't ask them to strike the king down just in case.
"We might as well get some sleep," the king said. He yawned. "I've talked my tongue to a wafer today."
"Just today?" Costis said. He pushed the blanket over to the king.
"Costis," the king said, looking down at the blanket, "why do I have this?"
"Because," Costis said, then stopped, because he wasn't going to say you're the king out loud here. "It's your right."
The king balled it up and threw it back to him. "We are sleeping on the ground in an enemy city, one blanket between us, and, oh yes, we appear to both be slaves. If you can't come off your high horse here, you must be glued to the saddle."
"My high horse!" Costis said, stung. "When you won't accept even a—" Then he stopped. He'd spent enough time with the king to recognise some of the things he did, and this felt like – like the king was goading him.
Well, Costis wouldn't be tempted. He shut his mouth tightly. After a moment, he opened it just enough to say, "I humbly apologise, m—Ambiades."
"After that you might just as well tack on all my titles," the king said sourly. Costis knew that tone. It was what the king used to cover up a hit. But there wasn't any way Costis could have scored one.
Costis passed him back the blanket. He was a King's Guard. It was a matter of pride.
"Even here I can't stop you treating me like a glass vase," the king said sulkily, and rolled so his back was to Costis. "I'm going to sleep."
It was odd, Costis reflected, how you could be devoted to someone, and want to help them however you could, and still sometimes want to strangle them with your own two hands.
"So, how do you win?" the king said.
They were watching the race the next day from the shadowed archway to the vaults. Twelve chariots slewed around opposite end of the arena.
"You have to come first," Costis said. "But you also have to have to have five rings."
"And you can't take more than one at once?" the king said. He watched a racer lean out of the chariot to snatch one of the rings at the pole.
"No. And there are only seven laps, so you can only miss two," Costis said. "The first and last laps they usually give you an easy one – they stretch a pole over the whole track, like that." He pointed to where a slave was levering a pole over the stone barrier at the side, lowering it to another one crouched to catch it on the central partition. The rings dangled at head height. Second later, Mirus' team were the first to gallop underneath it and snatch one. "But most of the time they can be anywhere. They hide the poles behind the barrier until moments before they go up."
The king seemed to find something fascinating about the glinting rings. "I heard," he said casually, "that they free the winners of the championship."
"Well, yes," Costis said, then realised what the king meant. "No! Even if that was possible" – he had to suppress my King, which came bubbling out whenever he felt the urge to yank the king away from something ridiculous – "it's a year away."
"I thought it was at the summer solstice? Isn't that next week?"
"I can't qualify for that one. I'm too low in the rankings, and there's only one race left that I'm running in. And you're new, so you haven't got a chance either."
"We'll see. Who's your current partner?"
"Secius, and it's not going to work."
"I suppose I can pry you away from him?"
"Secius will be glad to move, if any new drivers came with you," Costis said, distracted. "He doesn't like my driving. But you'd be better off with—"
"He doesn't know you," the king said. "I do. And since we only have one race, I need someone I can predict."
"It's not going to work!" Costis said. "Even if we win outright, we won't be allowed to race in the finals. The points don't work like that!"
"Let's see the horses," the king said, as if Costis hadn't spoken. Costis threw up his hands.
He and Secius raced two geldings, a chestnut and a grey. They were good horses – fast and hard to spook – and Costis was fond of them. The king made approving noises at them, which didn't change the fact his plan wasn't going to work. "What are they called?"
"The chestnut's Aartes, and the grey is Glaucus."
"Glaucus," the king repeated. "Let me guess, you named him."
"It might have been someone else," Costis said defensively.
"Yes," said the king, "but you just called him "Grey" in archaic." He patted Aartes. "As for you, my friend, you'll have to have an Attolian name now the rest of your team do. Costis?"
"You just said you don't like my names," Costis said.
"'Brown' is still an option," the king said. "But I think not." He took a step back and look the horse solemnly up and down. "'Basileus'."
Costis choked. "You can't—"
The king swung around, a light in his eyes like he was on the crenellations of a tower. "Oh, but I can. Come on, Costis." He put his left hand on Costis' shoulder. "Aren't you with me? Don't you think we can win?"
Costis looked into his eyes and saw the glitter of a handhold in thin air, and let out a breath. "I'm always with you."
"Excellent!" the king said. He clapped Costis on the back. "Let's talk about strategy."
The roar of the crowd made everything unreal. Every time Costis had been here, calming the horses behind the wicker starting gate, he had felt detached from himself, as if he was looking down like the gods from above. He was an Attolian. He couldn't be here, racing horses for the Medes under thousands of eyes.
And there was his king, wandering over from talking to the team next to them and vaulting over the side of the chariot. "Feeling ready?" he said to Costis.
Costis managed not to salute, but only barely. "Ready and waiting."
The starter was still nowhere near the lever that would release the spring-loaded gates. The king leaned his forearms on the high front of the chariot and surveyed the crowds. "Good turn-out of nobles today," he said.
"Is there?" Costis said. He was entirely uninterested in what the Mede lords and ladies did.
"That's Lord Orodes' nephew there, if I'm not mistaken. And – oh yes, the man himself." Distant bright-clad figures moved in the imperial box, gold glinting from their bracelets and headbands. A servant unrolled a tiger-crest banner among the other colourful hangings.
Costis shrugged and looked away. That didn't concern him. He was already thinking about the race in front of them and the various plans they'd talked out the night before. "So we get the first ring, then we—"
The king smacked him lightly on the back of the head. "Pay attention," he said. "This is politics you should know. Who is Orodes' brother?"
"I don't know!" Costis said, exasperated. "Does it matter right now?"
"His brother," the king said, spacing the words for emphasis, "is Nahuseresh."
Costis suddenly felt a little foolish. They all knew Nahuseresh very well. "Wait," he said. "You worked for Nahuseresh's brother? Isn't he the Heir Apparent?"
"Unfortunately," the king said. "Much-beloved by the current emperor, and hates us. He's not in power yet, of course, but he still goes everywhere with as many guards as if he is." He cast an appraising eye over the crowd near the boxes. "At least fifty of those will be soldiers out of uniform. The emperor won't let him have more than twenty in livery, but—"
"M- Eu- Ambiades!" Costis said, cutting him off. His hand shook as he pointed at the imperial box. The lady had just entered and greeted the small knot of nobles was too far away to make out clearly, but her dress and her jewels were Attolian. And familiar.
The king's face clouded. "Ah," was all he said.
"That's the queen!"
"Yes," the king said.
Costis only just stopped himself from shaking him. You couldn't get him to stop talking, and then he clammed up like an oyster when you actually needed to know something. "Why is the queen here?"
The king glanced around casually to make sure the other starters couldn't hear them talking, then shrugged. "She's signing a treaty. I didn't like it, but it's not as if we have much choice."
"She could get you out!" Costis said.
Suddenly the king's hand was on the back of his neck in a gesture that looked friendly and might have actually been friendly, except for the pressure in his fingers. "We're not going to ask," the king said. "In fact, we're not going to have any contact with her at all. Do you know what the emperor would do if he knew he had me? Do you want me tortured so she gives up half our country?"
Shaken, Costis put his hands on the front of the chariot. "I won't say anything."
"You appeal to her as an Attolian, if you like," the king said, relaxing his grip. "If you don't mention your position. I doubt she'll do anything, though. The Medes would use it and she can't afford to give up even the slightest leverage. Aren't we supposed to be running a race?" he added. He tilted his head at the starter.
Costis swore and dived for the reins just as the starter put his hand on the lever. The bell sounded. As the wicker gate in front of him snapped up, he almost lost the thing that had been nagging at him: he's talking as if you're going to see her.
Costis made it three steps into the vaults before he sprawled against the nearest pillar and held it tight, while his legs stopped shaking. "He is going to drive me into an early grave," he said to the nearest person, which happened to be Secius.
The king had just made a lot of enemies. Secius gave both Costis and the king a glare and moved away. But Mirus was in a jovial mood, and slapped Costis on the back as well. It was like being hit by a wrestler. "That was something I've not seen before!" he said. "That part where he leaned out by one leg!"
Costis shut his eyes. That part was still very vivid, but not as vivid as the part where the king had jumped on Ledanix's chariot then vaulted back, and Costis had had to haul the horses round so his king didn't fall to a crushing death between the two sets of wheels.
"Shame you didn't even win," said Mirus, who was always magnanimous in victory. "But second is nothing to be ashamed of."
"What's that?" The king was bright with adrenaline. He gave Costis and Mirus a grin. "Always leave something in reserve. Watch us in the next race."
"Ambiades," Costis hissed, as Mirus' expression turned a little sour. He knew the king wasn't always as careful as he could be in victory. But Costis hardly knew what he was saying either, he had never placed higher than fourth. Anyway, the next race was the championship, which they wouldn't be running in.
The king opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by a shout from the entrance. Vardanes gestured and swore in a state of agitation that only meant one thing.
"Inspection," Costis said resentfully, at the king's questioning glance. "There'll be visitors."
Costis had endured through these before. Though they were slaves, the best charioteers were known by name from the slums of the capital to the palace. Those who won enough to gain their freedom were briefly feted and celebrated before their star faded again. Adventurous younger nobles sometimes came all the way to the vaults to say they'd spoken to them.
The charioteers formed a ragged line and knelt. The king seemed to be expecting it and went to one knee in flawless Mede style. If his king was doing that then Costis couldn't very well object, so he left aside the normal struggle with his conscience and copied him. He could wait through a handful of spoiled younger sons if he had to.
The queen was the third person through the door.
Costis' shoulders knotted up like abandoned yarn. She stood at the back, a demure figure among the laughing group of nobles. Her eyes rested first on Mirus, who had been called forward, and then on each of them in turn.
She didn't even change her expression when she reached the king and Costis.
Costis stared furiously at the ground. He must not give any indication. He was no good at lying – he knew there was colour staining his face. How could the king bear it? How could he stay so still?
"You!" one of the lords called. Costis jumped, but it wasn't aimed at him.
"Yes, my lord?" the king said, rising and stepping forward gracefully.
The lord gestured at him and turned to his friends. "My uncle's little acrobat," he said, showing off a prized possession. "Not bad, was he? I'll have a flutter on him next time." There were tigers embroidered on the hem of his robe. He must be Orodes' nephew.
"Continental?" said the lady at his side. "Not very exotic for a Continental, is he?"
"Attolian, my lady," the king said. He was on one knee again. Costis ached to reach for a sword that he no longer carried.
The lady covered her mouth with her hand and glanced sideways. Without anyone actually doing anything so crude as to turn to her, the queen was suddenly the centre of attention.
She glanced at the rest of them and stepped forward, her face blank as if this was an irritating distraction. "Attolian?" she said.
"Yes, my lady," the king said. His head was still bent. "As is my friend over there."
Costis' stomach clenched. He wished the king hadn't drawn attention to him.
"Would you like them?" said Orodes' nephew. He spoke delicately. "I'm sure we could come to some arrangement with the arena—"
"No," the queen said. It was not even reluctant; just a brusque dismissal. "No one foolish enough to get enslaved is a countryman of mine."
She's bluffing, Costis tried to tell himself, even as his stomach flooded with bile. She wouldn't speak of the king that way. Would she?
A faint, bleak smile hovered around the king's lips. "As you say, my queen," he said. He lifted his head, looking at all the nobles except her. "I hope my lords were pleased with the race. To help you decide where to place your bets, I can tell you now that I plan to win the next one."
"Bold!" Orodes' nephew said jovially. He must have won his wagers that day. "I like it. A good meal for all of them." He gestured to Vardanes, who bowed. It was the usual alms from satisfied noble spectators. There were murmurs of thanks.
But Costis couldn't move. The queen left tracks on his awareness, like smokeless fire, as she moved between the other figures and out the door.
True to the lord's word, a sheep arrived the next day. It was a fine animal, still hot and fragrant from roasting, with spices seasoning the succulent brown meat. "At least we got something out of it," Costis said, attempting to cheer the king up.
The king hadn't said a word since the queen had left. The savoury smell was drifting over from where the others had laid out the meat to carve it. "Not hungry," he said sulkily.
Costis leaned over and pressed his fist against the king's ribs, a friendly jab, like he might have aimed at Aris. "I can feel the bones," he said. "Eat something or I'll make you."
The king gave him an outraged look. "Are you calling me skinny?"
The indignation made Costis realise what he had just done. "No!" he said, covered in confusion. "Sorry."
The king's moment of animation vanished. "I told you, I'm not interested in 'sorry'," he said. "And still not hungry. You go and eat."
Costis sat back uneasily. Had it been real indignation? What was the king like when he was joking with his friends? Costis had no way of knowing: the king, he realised, didn't have friends like that. Not in Attolia.
He got clumsily to his feet. "I'll bring you back something.
"Costis," the king said, halting him. Costis looked back. "Only take meat from the right foreleg," the king said. "The hoof and bone marrow, if you have to."
"All right," Costis said, puzzled but willing to indulge a whim. As he turned, he saw the king touch the stump of his right hand, as if troubled.
"ATTOLIAN!" Vardanes's howl was apoplectic. It made Costis jump, spilling water from the flask he was handing Secius. Secius was doubled up retching and didn't even notice.
It was daylight, but Secius had been throwing up and sweating for hours, and he wasn't the only one. Costis was bleary-eyed from ferrying water around half the night. The king had been snatching cat-naps in between helping some of the others. That might have been why he had moody and barely said anything all night.
("The sheep," Costis had said, helplessly. "It must have been off."
"The sheep," the king had said, and had refused to say anything else, even at Costis' dawning horror.)
Now, the king woke from his last nap and yawned. "Which one?" he called.
"Get over here!"
Costis grabbed the king's wrist and towed him over. There was small knots of men around the overseer – all the charioteers who hadn't succumbed to food poisoning. Vardanes stared at Costis and the king, apparently in disgust.
"You two," he said. "You're in the last slot for the race. Gods help us all." He clapped his hands and amplified his voice. "Check your tack and chariots! Starter assembly at the second gong!"
Costis managed to hold on to his incredulous disbelief all the way to the other end of the vaults. He said nothing as they checked the sickest men were comfortable, and even as they went to see to their horses. The stables were bustling with shouts and grooms and charioteers. He couldn't say anything as they were bringing Glaucus and Basileus out of their stalls, or in that first hot, white wall of light and noise when they jogged out of the archway to the arena. He could say nothing until they were behind their starting gate, when he hissed, "Did you do that to the sheep?"
"When?" the king said bluntly. "You forget, Costis, I have been shut underground with you the entire time."
"But you—"
"Pay attention to the course," the king said. Costis snapped his mouth shut.
The heat of the sun beat like waves on a bubble of uncomfortable silence. Costis shifted from foot to foot. He leaned over and checked the reins for the fifth time, running his fingers along the leather strap. The king didn't move.
"That's the emperor," the king said suddenly.
Costis shaded his eyes and looked over. "He hasn't got a lot of people around him, has he?" he said, remembering the press of Barons and councillors and attendants that always surrounded Attolia and Attolis. The emperor sat in the middle of his box, the only people near him a slave with a palm-leaf fan and another holding a tray of food. Orodes leaned on the rail at the other end of the box. Costis wondered if the king envied the emperor his calm isolation. He knew the king hated his crowds of followers.
"Six guards in that box, fourteen outside," the king said, with barely a glance over. "Over two hundred of the Palace Guard stationed in and around the stadium in addition to the normal city guard. Our exalted Emperor of the Mede has very few friends."
"What?" Costis said, startled. "Why? He's the emperor."
"Do you pay any attention to politics?"
"I've been a slave since I got here," Costis said defensively, then remembered that the king had too.
"I don't want to burden your head with too much new information," the king said. "I'm afraid it might explode."
"My K- Ambiades," Costis said, and the king cracked the smallest of smiles and tossed him the whip.
"Look sharp," he said. "The starter's coming round."
The familiar adrenaline started in the pit of Costis' stomach. He took a deep breath, pushing aside all other considerations. If they could win this – whatever the king had done or hadn't done – they would still go free. That was the goal. Glaucus, the smarter of the horses, knew exactly what was coming, and looked at the gate. Costis tightened the reins until Basileus looked up as well.
The crowd's pitch rose to a screaming roar. The wicker gate snapped up so hard it quivered. Costis cracked the whip high over the heads of his team, and they were going.
"Keep it steady!" the king shouted in Costis' ear. Costis didn't need telling. They found a place in the middle of the pack, kept their course, and the king leaned out and easily grabbed the first overhead ring.
The course got more devious after that. There were two poles set up on the centre partition and one on the outer ring by the spectator's seats. Costis got close enough to those that the king could lean out perilously and grab the ring –"You're not allowed on the centre partition!" Costis yelled at him, but the king just laughed and said, "It was only one foot." – but the fifth pole took them by surprise.
"Ignore it!" the king shouted. "We need to be in second!"
They were neck and neck with the team in third. Mirus was far out in front. "It won't help!"
"He needs two more rings! We only need one!"
Costis bent over the reins and urged the horses on. But luck wasn't on their side. The team in front of them slewed sideways, out of control, at the next turn – and the pole had gone up beside them. There was no way Costis could get near it without ploughing straight through the others.
"No matter," said the king tightly. "One more lap, and the last one is an easy one."
"Mirus has four, too!" Costis shouted.
The king shrugged. Nothing we can do.
Then they rounded the last corner and saw the final pole. It was stretched overhead, as usual. But instead of being propped just above head height, it was raised another yard above that. It was beyond the reach of anyone standing on a chariot. Costis stared at it, stunned, barely aware of the howls from the crowd.
That's it then, Costis thought. The king put a hand on his shoulder, and for one moment Costis thought it was in consolation. And then—
"Hold on very tight," the king said. Before Costis could say anything, he put one foot on the raised metal edge and leapt over the front of the chariot.
"My King!" Costis yelped.
The king landed crouched on Basileus, holding onto his mane. The horse snorted at the unexpected weight on his back, but the king said something in his ear and shifted his weight and the horse didn't miss a step or falter in his traces. The reins in Costis' hands stayed, miraculously, half-tense.
Then the king stood up, balancing on the horse's shifting muscles in his bare feet.
Fear seized Costis' gut. "Get down from there!" he shouted over the rising noise from the crowd. "You madman! The ring's too high!" Basileus wasn't happy. He raised his head and snorted, but kept running. The king raised his arms to keep himself steady, a wild grin on his face.
"You can't reach it!" Costis' throat was going hoarse. "They've made it so we'll all fail! You're going to die!"
The king was ignoring him. Costis realised, with a sinking feeling, that he hadn't really expected him to do anything else.
The rings were coming up terrifyingly fast. Costis gulped and turned all his energy to keeping a steady pressure on the reins for the horses and steadying Glaucus' course, leaving Basileus as much room as he could. The king turned his head as they thundered up to the bar, his eyes glittering.
"Catch me!" he called.
Catch me? Costis thought. "What—"
He never got to finish. The king braced himself in a lightning movement and launched himself up at the bar. He missed the ring with his outstretched hand. And then he was twisting in the air, his legs tumbling over his head and his foot slamming through the ring so it caught on his ankle. The fragile horsehair binding it to the bar snapped. The king fell.
Costis turned his head up in pure, blind panic to follow the movement. The chariot was passing under the bar too fast. There was no way the king was going to land without crashing fatally to the ground.
Costis reached up and his hand caught the king' flailing arm. The king' onward motion almost yanked his arm out, but Costis jerked him back with all his strength, his other arm straining for grip.
The king hit the floor of the chariot with a bone-shaking thud. The roar from the crowd grew to a wave. Somehow the king managed to raise his head. "The horses!"
By some miracle the reins were still wrapped around Costis' left wrist. He didn't see how the king could possibly be in one piece after that landing, but if he let the horses veer off they might both die, so he turned and grimly gathered the reins. "Hi, Basileus!" he shouted, tugging him back onto course. The chariot lurched as they swerved dangerously but there was the finish line. Costis shut his eyes for one brief moment and prayed.
Someone must have been listening. The swerve never became a crash. He heard the bell ring for a chariot across the line. He opened his eyes quickly enough to control the horses as they slewed to a halt in the open area before the emperor's box.
Slumped on the floor of the chariot, the king rubbed his head and winced. "We need to work on that landing," he said. "I think we lost points for style."
"If you ever make me do that again," Costis said, fervently and sincerely, "I will bash your head in myself."
The king gave a grin, stretched tight with pain, and reached up to pressed the warm brass of the final ring into Costis' hand. "Raise your arm and present the rings."
The crowd was screaming. Costis felt like an idiot for taking even a moment for himself. He reached down to help the king up. "You should do it. You got it."
The king didn't take the hand. "Costis," he said, with apparently infinite patience, "I'm fairly sure I've sprained my ankle."
"Oh," Costis said.
The king looked up, and there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes, although his face was turning ashen with pain. "Put up your damned arm and prove we've won."
Costis slipped the gold ring over his hand and raised his arm over his head, the metal of the bronze rings sparkling around his forearm, and the noise felt like a solid thing hitting him from all sides. Sweat stung his eyes and the light dazzled them. The smell of dust was overwhelming. Part of him wanted to curl up in the dark catacombs and sleep for a week, part of him wanted to get the king out of the arena and see to his ankle now – but underneath all of that his heart was beating an exultant rhythm: we won, we're free, we won, we're free.
Men crowded around to unhitch Glaucus and Basileus. Costis helped the king from the chariot, barely noticing the shouted tallies as the herald announced their victory. The crowd's noise around him had all merged into one ceaseless roar of heat and dust and exultant screams.
The king swore as his feet hit the ground and leaned heavily on his arm. Costis, barely thinking and working on habit, started to lead them towards the vaults. The king jerked him back.
"Bow to the emperor!" The king shouted over the noise.
In the white heat of adrenaline, Costis' spirit rebelled. There were only two monarchs he would bow to, and neither of them were in the Emperor's box. He managed a half-hearted nod of his head.
A man stepped out in front of them in a bronze, feathered helmet. The space around him seemed to fall silent even in the middle of the uproar, as if silence was woven into the fabric of his cloak. His purple cloak: the shade of the Imperial Guard.
"The Emperor will see you now," he said.
As they climbed the steps towards the imperial box, the king limping and hopping, Costis felt himself snap out of the half-daze he'd been in since they crossed the finish line. He might not be as clever as his king, but being a Guard for long enough gave you a well-honed sense of danger, and his was starting to clamour in his ears. They'd won. Seeing the emperor only meant there was one more chance for things to go wrong, although he didn't see there was any way to get out of it.
"If anything goes wrong," the king said, conversationally, "I suggest you try for asylum. The queen is in the next box."
Costis shook his head. "I wish we didn't have to do this," he said. The king had refused his arm and was limping up behind him, slowly and painfully, punctuating each step with a new and inventively rude complaint.
The king broke off from his increasingly foul curses. "What, Costis, you don't want to see the emperor?" he said. "What madman would decline that honour?" He stopped for a moment, just outside the emperor's box, and muttered curses at his foot. Four guards had come to surround them, which was making Costis more nervous as two of them were out of his line of sight at any time.
"I'm already the respectable one here," Costis pointed out. He offered the king his arm again.
"There's dust on your tunic," the king said, ignoring the arm. "You're a disgrace to your country."
The king took a step forward onto his bad foot, and his leg gave way. He toppled to the side nearly fell on the nearest guard, who cursed him and shook him off, his hand on his sword. "Sorry!" the king said. He spent a moment on the floor, trying to sort himself out and fiddling with his belt. Costis seized his shoulder and pulled him up before the guards thought he was trying something and he got himself killed. The king put his whole weight on Costis' arm and muttered, "Think I might need that help after all."
Costis nobly refrained from commenting, which was made easier by the fact they were being prodded into the emperor's box.
The emperor sat on a wide bench padded with cushions. He was an aging man, grey hairs clinging slickly to his temples, with signs of over-indulgence in his florid features and an expression of discontent on his face. His eyes on Costis and the king were hooded and sharp. His box looked out straight down onto the length of the track, like a road stretching out in front of him. There were half a dozen guards lining the walls. Lord Orodes stood at the rail, impatient and fiddling with his tiger-crested swordbelt.
Costis managed to go to one knee with the king still leaning on his arm, complicated by the fact that the king insisted on attempting a sweeping courtly bow with additional arm gestures.
"Congratulations," the emperor said. There was a flicker of interest in his eyes.
"We are unworthy of such honour," the king said. He nudged Costis, who made a sort of grunting noise.
"You have truly risen from nowhere," the emperor said. "I understand this is your first win?"
"I must thank my previous master," the king said, with a bow of his head to Orodes. "He recommended me for this."
Orodes turned and lifted his eyebrows, as if trying to place the king. His eyes went to the stump, which apparently jogged his memory. "Hardly recommended," he said.
The king bowed his head in response, almost cringing, and Costis' fists clenched. He knew it was just the king acting to get them both out of there, he knew that, but it still made him sick to see the ruler of Attolia reduced to this. They were within a yard of the Mede Emperor. If only he'd had a sword, he could have crossed the distance and sunk it into the emperor's heart in the blink of an eye.
But some of the king's lectures on politics had sunk in. Even if the emperor died, Orodes would just take over, and that would remove the last remaining check on Orodes' ambitions towards Attolia. Costis glanced up at Orodes, to see if he could have dealt with him. But Orodes was a younger man with a fighter's build, and he was on his feet and alert. Even if Costis had been armed, he wouldn't have been able to get in a fatal blow before the guards fell on him.
"Of course not, my lord," the king said, apparently covered in confusion. He tried to bow, kneeling where he was, and couldn't balance with his ankle and nearly fell. Before Costis could grab him, something had slipped out of the belt of the king's ragged tunic, from where it had been concealed underneath, and clattered metallically to the ground.
Everyone in the box looked down at the tiger-emblazoned dagger. The dagger that a slave had just smuggled in to the presence of the emperor.
The king was the first to move. His face was a mask of terror as he went to scoop up his dagger. Then he seemed to think better of it – he dropped it and pushed himself away from the emperor, a tangle of limbs on the floor, his arm going up to protect his head. "It's not—" he said, as the guards started to move. "It's— He—I had no choice—"He looked up in panicked appeal.
At Lord Orodes.
The emperor's head turned from the king to Orodes like a snake. "So your rashness finally overcomes your patience in waiting for me to die."
"He's not an assassin!" Costis said, highly alarmed. A guard lunged for the king. The king scrambled backwards. Costis just got there in time, and put his arm up to block.
The king jabbed his back. "Get out!" he said, but they were already surrounded by guards.
Suddenly things were very simple. Behind the guard, the emperor and Orodes were standing facing each other, furious. Costis took a step back and shoved the king behind him. His king was behind him and his enemies were in front. Outnumbered, outflanked, there was no chance of them living through this. He brought up his fists.
It took a while for Costis to realise he was conscious, but only a moment after that to wish he wasn't.
His skin was throbbing with bruises in at least a dozen places. His head felt like someone was driving an axe into it. He could see the faint outlines of shapes in the darkness: enough to convince himself he hadn't gone blind, but not enough to work out where he was. His back was resting against cold stone.
There was an unfamiliar pressure digging into his right arm. When he pulled it, metal clanked, and it dug in further.
Well, that solved where he was, at least.
"Costis?" a voice said. A hand touched his arm and there was suddenly a cracked pottery edge at his lips. The cup held brackish water; it tasted foul, but Costis drank greedily.
"Careful," the king said. "Don't make yourself sick." The cup was withdrawn. Costis regretted it briefly, then tested his body. He seemed to be able to sit up without excruciating pain, so he was going to guess he had no broken bones.
There was still the shackle around his wrist. "We're in prison?" he said.
"No, this inn just leaves something to be desired," the king said. "Where did you expect us to be? You did attack the emperor's guard."
Costis had to cough to clear his throat. "You tried to assassinate him. I think you just started a civil war." But something was bothering him about that. He'd seen the king fight. The entire court had. If Eugenides wanted someone dead, they would have to be very good and very alert to withstand the first assault. "Or," Costis said slowly, "you wanted him to think that."
There was a slight break in the line of weak lamplight coming from under the door as the king shrugged. "Well," he said carelessly, "as we're both going to be executed, it hardly matters now."
"Horribly?" Costis said, matching his tone.
"Probably," the king said. After a moment, he added, "You don't sound worried."
"You have a plan, don't you?" Costis said.
The king gave another barely-visible shrug.
"Then I trust you," Costis said.
"I got you into this," the king said waspishly. "You'd trust a blind man to lead you off a cliff."
Costis felt a surge of anger, but didn't dignify this with a response.
After a moment, the king said, "Sorry. That wasn't fair."
Costis was about to say, it's fine, my King, but for some reason instead he said, "No, it wasn't. And," he added, "are we really going to fight about who's the biggest idiot here? Because I have lots of ammunition."
In the darkness, he felt rather than saw the king's grin by the movement of the air.
Costis carefully put out his arms and explored around him. The cell walls were the same stone blocks as the floor. There were no windows. The chain around his wrist seemed to give him about a yard's slack from the iron ring embedded in the wall. It didn't look good, but Costis refused to despair.
"Are you shackled too?" he said.
The king seemed to be making himself comfortable somewhere near the door. "No," he said. "One of us didn't offer any violent resistance."
Costis rolled his eyes but didn't rise to the bait. "Do they feed us here?" he said. "If we don't escape soon, we might not have the strength to—"
"Quiet!" the king said urgently. Costis had heard the footsteps too, and fell silent. Talking about escape would probably get them separated or worse.
It must be the guards. But it was only one person, oddly fast for a guard, and oddly quiet, like someone trying not to be heard. Costis was on his feet, straightening up as far as his chain would allow. There was a scrabbling noise at the bottom of the door, then the sound of bolts sliding back, and a click. A key turning.
"What—"
The king threw out his hand for silence. The unseen person was already running down the corridor. The king and Costis stayed there, frozen, until the king seemed to judge they had had long enough to get away, and rose in a fluid movement, and opened the door.
Costis yanked vainly at the shackle. The king was going off unprotected again. Framed in the light of the doorway, the king raised one finger to his lips, infuriatingly, and slipped out.
Costis made himself wait. His patience was rewarded when the king came back with a ring of keys. "Where did you get those?"
The king's smile glinted as the fifth one he tried released the lock and freed Costis' wrist. "Come and see."
The guard outside was barely breathing. He was sprawled in the corner of the corridor, as if he'd sat down to rest and hadn't been able to get up. The king had the rest of his keys and his money pouch off him before Costis had barely blinked.
"His sword?" Costis said, trying to keep up.
The king shook his head. "It will slow us down. Come on!"
The prison was a maze, but the king took it at what seemed to Costis a reckless pace, especially with his ankle. He limped down passageways without even checking down them first for guards. Costis realised the reason for that the next time they saw a drugged, unconscious guard – and the next.
"All of them?"
"I hope so," the king said. The only times the king stopped were when he passed a closed door, when he'd push back the bolts and try his keys. They left, quickly, before whoever was inside realised what was happening.
"Confusion," the king said. "That's what we want." He stopped, so suddenly that Costis took two steps without him. The king grabbed his arm as he turned back. "In here!"
It was the guard room. The guard inside was definitely dead. There was a crossbow bolt in his throat. The king only spared him a glance, though. He dropped into a crouch and examined a spray of blood at the other side of the room, seeming troubled.
Costis tried to make his mouth work. He had to swallow and try again. "M-my King!"
The king lifted his head to follow Costis' gaze. On the table behind the guard there was a metal hook, intended to be strapped on a wrist. The king's hook. There was also a message, scrawled in a disguised hand over a set of prison accounts.
It said: STOP MAKING CHANGES.
A grin split the king's face when he saw it. "Not my fault, my queen," he said. He tipped the ink pot over to flood it.
"That was – that was her?" Costis said. "What does she mean?"
"Well, I was supposed to escape on the way here, but you were unconscious." The king caught Costis' expression and said, maliciously, "I'm going to tell her it's all your fault."
While Costis was still ineffectually spluttering over that, the king pulled tight the straps on his hook and limped over to look out of the other door. He swore.
"What?" Costis said. The door opened onto a parapet walk, with a view over the olive groves and sparse fields, pocked with odd sinkholes, that surrounded the small fortress. They were outside the city. Then he saw the horses and riders coming from the gates.
"Word's got out," the king said. He took a step back too quickly, landed on his bad ankle, and had to catch himself on the wall. "I think we need to leave. With haste."
"But where are we going?" Costis said.
"Oh," the king said. "Didn't I say?"
Costis did not throttle him. "You didn't. There are checkpoints on all the roads around the capital—"
"We're not taking a road," the king said. "We need to get to the sea." He looked out of the window. The horses were nearer. He flung his arm around Costis' neck, and Costis took hold of his wrist automatically. "And fast."
The sea was not hard to find. It stretched out behind the fortress, not the Black Straits but a more westerly stretch. The ground sloped down over a handful of fields before falling down to the sea below. There would be a way down. There had to be.
The king was trying to run even though he had to lean on Costis for every step. It was the only way – they had too much distance to cover – but he cursed at the pain until he ran out of breath. Costis had been hoping the reinforcements would stop to deal with other escapees, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw the outline of helmets over the crest of the hill.
"Cover!" the king said. He started to turn in the direction of the thin lines of olive trees at the side.
"No," Costis said, "this way!"
"Where are we going?" the king said. "Because there are also guards coming out of the gate over -"
"Shut up!" Costis panted, and threw them both into a hole.
The king grunted beneath him, taken completely off guard. They tumbled down into the darkness. Costis managed to twist in the air, keeping the king on top so at least one of them wouldn't break their neck. It was deeper than Costis thought, and he had a sickening moment of thinking he'd made a terrible mistake before he smacked into the stream bed. He lay on his back, trying to remember how to breathe. And his king was on top of him. He was not light.
"Ouch," the king said. He rolled off Costis – Costis was grateful – and propped himself weakly on the earthen wall, looking up and down the tunnel. It wasn't tall enough for him to stand up straight, but neither of them were in much of a condition to. "How…?"
Breathing took a moment. But he had to move, because his king would be captured if he didn't.
He planted a hand on the bone-dry stone and levered himself up. His whole back hurt. "Snow-melt drains for spring," he said. "I thought it had to be. Those hills to the south are high enough for snow and otherwise the melt would take the topsoil off."
"Ah," the king said. He turned his head in the direction of the sea, his expression lightening in the dimness of the tunnel. "The advantages of growing up on a farm."
"I hadn't listed 'getting killed in a Mede field' as one of them, my King." Costis slung the king's arm around his neck – harder in the narrow space.
"Not getting killed in a Mede field," the king said. He glanced up behind them as they set off, though there was nothing visible up the maintenance shaft but a sliver of sky. "Dogs," he said abruptly.
Costis heard the distant baying a moment later. Not close enough, not yet, but they would have their scent the instant the guards brought them around here. He stepped up their pace and they hurried at an awkward half-crouch through the tunnel, as fast as the king's foot would allow.
Then, finally, there was daylight ahead as well as above. There was a gap punched through the last of the rock, big enough to wriggle through, where the water would crest over a lip and fall. Costis stuck his head over the edge, and sucked in a breath.
They were a long way above the sea. Below, the foam on the waves made tiny, delicate patterns of lace. There was no ship or path in sight. But the king must have a plan.
"We can't get down," he said, pulling back.
"'Can't' is a very strong word, Costis," the king said. "Let me look." He leaned over awkwardly, his hand gripping Costis' shoulder. "Down is never a problem, anyway," his voice came floating back, whipped away by the wind. "The problem is stopping."
And then he was over the edge. Costis made a strangled noise and lunged after his disappearing feet, but he was too late. He grabbed onto the lip and leaned out desperately.
The king was swinging wildly from his hook embedded in a patch of dirt and cliff-grass. His other hand was straining around the base of the hook, trying to keep the weight off the leather straps around his wrist. There were ledges down there that hadn't been visible from Costis' brief glance, and as Costis watched, the king somehow turned the flailing of his feet into something that put his good leg on a foothold.
Then there was a shout from above, and the clatter of armour as a form came crashing down the maintenance shaft they had come down.
"They're here! Go!" Costis shouted down at the king. "Whatever your plan is, do it! I'll hold them off!"
"Lieutenant Costis! Get down here right now!"
"Run!" Costis bawled, then turned. He took as much of a combat stance as he could in the cramped tunnel. There were three Mede guards, more arguing at the shaft. They would have to deal with him before they even realised the king was escaping, and they would have to come at him one at a time. He could buy the king time.
The king must have a plan for himself. He always had a plan.
Costis brought his sword tip up. "All right," he said. "Come—"
Then a grip around his ankle jerked him backwards, and he yelled, and fell, and suddenly the whole sky was wheeling above him. He pivoted around the iron grip on his ankle and smashed into the earth and grass below.
There was a ledge there, enough to stop his slide once he'd worked out which way was up.
"What are you doing!" he shouted at his mad, mad king, who had just swung him down by the leg like a sack of meal, and whose face was a white rictus of pain and adrenaline. "They're still coming! Leave me here and—"
"Never," Eugenides said. It was nearly a snarl. He dropped down to the ledge – there wasn't room on it for both his feet, only his good one – and grabbed Costis' arm, and slung it around his own neck. "Hold on," he said. "Hold on for your life."
And then he jumped.
Costis just managed to tighten his arms around the king's shoulders in time. His stomach dropped. They were in freefall for a horrible, endless moment, but then the king reached out with his hook, grasped it with his good hand, and stabbed it into the cliff face.
The loose earth crumbled and splintered. They didn't stop, just slowed, while the hook carved a groove into the earth and the king cursed and scrabbled with his feet for leverage and Costis hung from his back. The hook wrenched free and they slipped further down, the king's fingers ridged and knotted around the metal. Costis grabbed at a patch of grass, his other arm tight around his king, and slowed them down just enough for the king to gulp a breath and swing the hook back for another stab.
The fall went on for longer than Costis ever wanted to remember – the drop, the shower of earth and pebbles around them, the king swearing and stabbing the hook at the face wherever it might slow their pace. The last of it was rock. There wasn't even time for Eugenides to finish his indignant shout at the gods before Costis kicked them away from the cliff, jarring his leg up to his ribs, and they plunged into seawater.
Water in his eyes. Water in his nostrils. Costis surfaced, treading water wildly, and grabbed at the flailing shape next to him underwater. Afterwards, he could never have said how he got them both to the seaweed-smothered rocks, and up the slimy slope, while the king's leg trailed uselessly and he choked up vast quantities of salt water.
Costis wiped his face, trying to see, and thumped his king's chest. The king retched, rolled onto his side, and threw up.
"Can you breathe?" Costis said anxiously. "Just—"
"Where is she?" the king croaked. He pushed himself up.
"Who?"
"The queen!"
Costis swallowed a mouthful that tasted of salt and bile. He turned his head, as if there would be an answer in the inky depths of the deeper sea.
And stopped. And stared at the ship rounding the rocky promontory.
The Attolian flagship.
"Oh, thank the gods," Eugenides said, and collapsed on Costis.
After that it was all a blur for quite some time. Costis remembered the king being winched up the side by ropes. He remembered the laughing, incredulous expression on Aris' face, and the painful scrum as ten of the Guard tried to embrace him or thump him on the back at once. Then he must have taken his bruised, soaked hide and his headache to one of the piles of blankets and slept, because he didn't remember anything else for a solid day.
"Are you sure?" said Aris that evening, when Costis said he was going to see the king. "He's in a foul mood. He threw a bowl at Philokrates when he tried to feed him soup."
"Easier to be fond of the bastard when he's not there," said another of the Guard, but he was grinning. Costis had gathered that the embassy had left secretly, by night, while Orodes' supporters and the emperors' clashed in the streets. The capital was in turmoil. Orodes was a hunted man. Nobody was certain what had happened, but everyone seemed sure that the queen's negotiations and the king's absence had something to do with it.
"He'll let me in," Costis said, with a confidence he didn't feel.
The king was in the queen's state cabin. It was still small and cramped but there was a real bed, bolted to the floor. The queen's perfume lingered in the air. The king was sitting up in bed and fixed his eyes on Costis the instance he walked through the door.
"Get me something other than soup, Costis," he said peevishly.
"They used precious water to make your soup in the first place, my King," Costis said severely. "The doctor says you need as much water as possible after you threw up."
"You sound like my cousins," the king said.
"You're very lucky your cousins aren't here, my King. Drink your soup."
The king grimaced, but raised the bowl and took a sip. "I take it you're not being cosseted within an inch of your life."
"I didn't break my ankle or nearly drown," Costis said, but the king was looking at him with narrowed eyes.
"Headache?" the king said.
"A bit," Costis admitted. "Where did you get that dagger with the tiger on it?"
"I stole it from his guard when I was serving at his house." The king waved a hand at a chair. "Sit down before the doctor hounds me for aggravating your headache."
Costis hesitated.
"Costis," the king said, deceptively mild, "we have both spent the last week sleeping next to each other on the floor. Are you really going to get an attack of conscience over sitting down in my presence?"
Costis nearly said, That was different. But something deep down made him feel it wasn't. "I thought you'd want to forget it," he temporised.
"My mind is not that addled," the king said, with some asperity. "I know you have a job where you sacrifice much for the reward of me shouting at you, but that would be going too far."
"You saved my life," Costis said.
"Yes, I never once put you in unnecessary danger," the king said.
"It wasn't unnecessary!" Costis said. "It was only because you had some ridiculously complicated plan for Orodes—"
"Stop making excuses for me! A plan that could have got you killed!"
"I am a Guard!"
"That doesn't mean you should be disposable! Stand up for yourself!"
Costis was on his feet again, raising his voice over the king's shouting, "I would have done it all twice over! And I deserted you!"
"That's got nothing—"
"Then tell me if I'm forgiven or not!"
"There was never anything to forgive, you dolt!" the king howled. "We should have found you the first week after we knew you weren't dead! It took us months!"
All of Costis' breath seemed to leave his lungs.
The king was scowling at his bandaged foot poking out of the blankets. He didn't look at Costis.
"You – knew where I was?" Costis said.
"Eventually," a new voice said from the door. "And he would insist on going after you."
Costis came swiftly to attention and saluted. "My queen."
"My queen," said the king, but his voice was different, softer. He held out his hand and she came over to take it. She glanced over her shoulder and Costis pushed his hastily-vacated chair next to the bed.
"I see you are incapable of holding any conversation from your sickbed without shouting," she observed.
"Costis forgives me," the king said, making a dramatic gesture in his direction. "We've declared undying friendship and brotherhood."
Costis wilted in anticipation of the bladed remark she was going to make. But she stared at him with those piercing eyes, and all she said was, "Good."
"I thought so too," the king said.
"Drink your soup."
"I'm exhausting from saving the country," the king said pathetically. "I deserve more than soup."
The queen raised an eyebrow.
"Fine, we saved the country," the king said sulkily. "But I was the one who nearly drowned."
"Yes," the queen said sharply. "As I recall, that was not in the plan either. I left you instructions to get to a contact with a boat."
Costis had a sudden vivid memory of the king tipping ink over the pile of accounting papers to obscure the queen's message. Perhaps they should have looked past the top page. By the guilty look the king was giving him, he had just had the same thought.
"No plan goes perfectly," the king said. "It all worked out. Costis fished me out."
"By what you've told me, Costis has spent the last week doing nothing but fish you out of trouble." Both of them looked at Costis.
He felt himself colouring. "It's my job."
"Costis," the queen said. She held out her hand. Costis stared at it for a moment before he even realised he should extend his. She gripped his wrist, briefly, and brought her cheek to his. A sign of affection between equals. Costis could barely breathe.
The king watched them approvingly. "Go and get some rest," he said. "I'm inspecting the guard tomorrow." His hand had gone out to take Attolia's again, with neither of them looking, as if by some sort of telepathy. "There's a place for you at the front of it."
Costis saluted. "My king," he said. "My queen." He turned about sharply. Behind him, the king and the queen spoke in low voices. They had come for him.
The sunlight outside was glorious. The ships were bound for Attolia and home.