Motis and Drusis were brothers, the younger sons of a cousin of my grandfather who was Susa. They were therefore relatives of mine, though they didn’t care to recognize the connection.

“Ugh,” said Drusis when he first saw me. He raised a hand.

“None of that,” Ion snapped at him.

“Excuse me?” asked Drusis, as if he’d misheard, as if to ask what right Ion had to tell Drusis whom he could or could not hit.

“Lay a hand on him and I’ll cut it off,” said Ion grimly, a threat with great weight in the Attolian court.

Drusis shrugged and backed away with a single poisonous look for us both.

I didn’t understand. Ion despised me as much as the other attendants did, and he did not defend me because of the king’s favor, because that was long gone. Ion tried to live by principles that no one had ever taught me. Do not lie, do not take what is not yours, do not hurt the weak. Like Philologos, he was ashamed of letting himself be cajoled by my uncle Sejanus into tormenting the king and because of that behaved better toward me than I deserved.

Chapter Seven

Ion was attending the king, and therefore I was with the king as well as he practiced his horsemanship on a course laid out near the Fields of War. We had arrived at the open ground along the river, too boggy for building and so left open for fairs and other gatherings, in a collection of carriages and riders. The royal stable master had brought the king’s warhorse on a lead.

The way the king grumbled, any observer might have assumed the queen had shamed him into the exercise. But it was the king who was determined to improve his skill, while the queen was enjoying a rare chance to sit with nothing but needlework to occupy her under an awning that had been raised to block the sun.

Though he still refused to submit to the argument that his life was too important to risk in battle, he had grudgingly accepted that royalty did not fight on foot. Despite stories to the contrary, he was not a bad rider, but he had yet to become practiced at riding with one hand. Both he and the horse had to adjust if he was going to hold a sword and fight from horseback, and the stable master, trying to train both at the same time, had no easy task.

The beautiful warhorse Sounis had chosen for the king was as indolent as he was handsome. Yorn Fordad had suggested naming him Fryst, after the Brael god of winter, and Fryst appeared determined not to live up to the fierceness of his name. Built like a marble temple on legs, he was as placid as the king was excitable and preferred going around obstacles instead of over them—or, better yet, not going at all. Given any opportunity to stand still, he did.

“Faster, Your Majesty,” called the stable master. “Faster!”

Too late.

Fryst balked at the fence the king wanted him to jump. When he stopped dead, the king sailed over the fence into the dirt on the other side of it.

The queen looked up briefly before returning to her embroidery.

Lying on the ground, the king shouted, “I think I’ve broken something—”

“Nothing important, I’m sure,” she called back.

“My pride!”

She laughed. He got very nimbly back to his feet to glare over the fence.

When he leapt back onto Fryst, the king drove him in a circle to try the jump again. This time, when the horse balked, the king flew even higher into the air. Fryst’s head went down and the king went up, rotating in midair to land upright, flourishing his arms like an acrobat jumping a bull. The queen clapped, the king bowed, and Fryst flicked his ears, looking interested for the first time that day.

A messenger coming from the palace approached Motis to whisper in his ear. Motis, rather than passing the information to the queen’s senior attendant, took the man directly to the queen. The king leaned his elbows on the fence Fryst had refused to jump, waiting to hear what news was too important to wait until his riding lesson was over.

The queen called to him. “Costis’s ship has been sighted off the coast.”

“What flag?” asked the king.

“Round!”

This was evidently the best possible answer, and there was a great sense of relief in the air. The queen stood up. Then she sat again very quickly, and the king’s smile vanished.

Phresine was at the queen’s side. The king leapt the fence.

After a conference in low voices, in which Attolia insisted she was fine, the queen was lifted into her carriage. The king climbed in beside her and they rushed away, leaving the attendants to pile into the other carriages or follow on their horses. As they traveled back to the palace, people who might have smiled and waved as they passed hesitated, their smiles evaporating just as the king’s had, like summer rain on hot stones. Petrus was waiting for them when they arrived. A guard had raced ahead of the royal party. The queen was tenderly conveyed to her rooms.

No one cared, or even noticed, that I had been left behind.

I had taken a few steps as everyone rushed for the carriages, but it was already too late. No one even looked back to see me watching as they pulled away.

I had no idea how to navigate my way back to the palace. I knew it was uphill. I also knew that none of the streets ran straight. There were so many turns to take, and it was so far to go on foot. I was a small, unnatural person in fancy clothes; both of those things would draw a great deal of attention, none of it benevolent. As the carriages rolled away, I stood despairing.

“Left you behind, didn’t they?” said the stable master, and I swung around with relief. If I had been forgotten, I had also forgotten him.

“Probably never gave you a thought. All fine looking and smelling of perfume. They were born beautiful and mistake being beautiful for being good.”

I swallowed, well aware that I was neither beautiful nor good, and certainly not as kind as the stable master, who nodded at Fryst and said, “Well?”

I didn’t understand until he squatted and linked his hands together at knee height, an invitation to mount. Hesitantly I lifted my good foot, nowhere near enough, and the master straightened, reconsidering. My hopes fell. Of course, it was ridiculous to think I could ride the king’s warhorse.

Instead of giving up, the stable master took me by the shoulders and positioned me better. “Don’t grab my head for balance,” he told me, putting his hands around my waist. “I’ll put you on your stomach and you see if you can swing your leg over as you sit up. I’ll be right here holding you.”

When I nodded, he lifted his hands and I flew into the air. I had just enough time to remember to grab at the front edge of the saddle with my good hand. The master held my good leg while I slid the bad one across the polished leather of the saddle, and then I was sitting up, looking between the ears of the king’s warhorse, which went on obliviously working at the bit in his mouth.

“That’s fine, isn’t it?” said the master.

It was glorious.

“Fryst is learning all kinds of new things today,” he said.

Back in the palace, I made my way to the king’s apartments, my heart full of conflicting feelings—a nebulous worry for the queen and the leftover bubbling delight of my ride on the king’s horse. Seeing me sway in the saddle, the stable master had stepped into Fryst’s stirrup and mounted behind me. With his horse trailing on a rein, we had traveled at a walking pace through town. A very sedate first ride, and I had loved every moment of it. I smiled my thanks at the stable master who had been so unexpectedly generous.