The king stared.

“You have been quiet this morning, and now you are being amenable.”

“And I am never quiet or amenable unless at death’s door?” said the king. “Thank you for that indictment of my character, Ion. No, I am not ill.”

Ion looked doubtful.

“By my god, I swear I am as healthy as a horse,” said the king, holding up his hand. He was smiling. Ion still didn’t move.

“It’s going to be a difficult day, Ion,” the king said more seriously. “That’s all.”

Ion was suspicious but had to let him pass.

The training court where the king practiced in the mornings was empty of Attolians when we arrived. There were only Eddisians waiting for the king.

“You asked earlier who would wish you out of existence . . . ,” the magus mused.

“Trust me, magus,” muttered the king. “They wouldn’t like a two-handed Eugenides any better.”

Hilarion was looking around in alarm. Teleus was not there, nor were any of the men the king usually sparred with. “Your Majesty? Where is the guard? What is going on?”

“My cousins have come for a sparring match,” said the king. “Nothing more than that.”

“On the contrary,” said Cleon, stepping forward and throwing back his shoulders. He announced, “I, Cleon of Eddis, call Eugenides to trial.” He sounded like a bad actor in a bad play.

The Eddisians looked embarrassed. The king murmured, “Oh heavens, what a surprise.”

“It has been decided!” orated Cleon. “We cannot follow an untried king into battle!”

“I am not your king.”

“Nor a high king, Gen,” said Aulus, the very large man standing beside Cleon. He didn’t sound particularly happy about it, but he was siding with Cleon.

Hilarion knew a disaster when he saw one looming right in front of him. “Your Majesty, no. I don’t understand, but no, no.” He signaled to Sotis, and Sotis started back toward the archway we’d just come through.

“Sotis, come back,” said the king, and Sotis had to return. “Hilarion,” said the king, putting his hand on Hilarion’s shoulder. “Calm down. It’s a few matches. You’ve seen it before.”

Cleon said vehemently, “It is not just a few matches! This is a sacred matter!”

Aulus said, “Cleon, shut up.”

The king said, “So, so, so. It’s a few sacred matches, Hilarion, don’t wet yourself.”

It was not just a few matches, sacred or otherwise. The king was being disingenuous. Trying the king was an Eddisian tradition that had grown up in the years when Hamiathes’s Gift had been lost. It was an intense and lengthy ritual. There hadn’t been a royal trial in Hilarion’s lifetime, as Eddis, when she became queen, had not had one, and when Eugenides gave her Hamiathes’s Gift, he’d made her queen beyond any mortal right.

Hilarion should have put two and two together. The king had been worrying all morning, and the royal guard was nowhere to be seen. Still, the king had in the past taken on, in a very public display of skill, an entire squad of the Attolian royal guard, and that had ended well—he’d won both the matches and the guards’ loyalty, even Teleus’s. Remembering that, and deliberately misled, Hilarion stepped back.

An older man came forward. The zigzagging line in blue at the corner of his left eye marked him as one of Hephestia’s warrior priests, and for him the king temporarily set aside his bitter humor. “Thalas,” he said, greeting him with a respectful bow.

“That she may show us her approval, you come before the Great Goddess and your subjects to be tried as king,” said Thalas. Unlike Cleon, he carried his authority easily.

“As annux,” the king said, and the priest nodded.

“As annux, then,” said Thalas. “Will you give all you have to be judged by Eddis and by the gods?”

“I will.”

“Swear in the name of the Great Goddess.”

“In her name and in the name of my god, I swear.”

“Do not offend the gods,” the priest said to the king. Then he turned to the rest of the Eddisians and asked of them, “Do all of you swear, in the name of the Great Goddess, that you will give all you have to this, that it be a true trial?”

“In Hephestia’s name,” they all swore together.

“Do not offend the gods,” Thalas warned again.

The first match was short and surprisingly fierce. The king won, and Hilarion relaxed a little. The second match was longer. Dionis pulled on Hilarion’s sleeve and pointed. Sotis, once the king was engaged, had left the courtyard and was being escorted back in by two Eddisians. Hilarion, realizing he’d been outmaneuvered, shrugged helplessly.

The third match was when it became apparent that the Eddisians weren’t following commonly accepted rules of sparring. They were playing their own game, one focused on demonstrating how hard they could hit someone with a weighted wooden stick, and there seemed to be no rules at all. The king lost the third match and hopped around on one leg swearing nonstop while he rubbed the spot where he’d been struck, just above the ankle.

Ion came forward to object to the violent play. “Your Majesty, this is not appropriate,” he protested.

“He’s right,” growled one of the Eddisians. “Show some gods-damned respect, Gen.”

“If I offend the gods, Crodes, you can leave them to tell me,” the king said, straightening up. He waved Ion away, and another Eddisian stepped forward.

The fifth match was against Cleon, and the king won. “Did you not think I would give as good as I got?” he asked as Cleon, blinking at the stars in his eyes, reeled back to his place in the circle of observers.

Some of the king’s opponents were almost genial. The king lost the next match to an opponent who grinned apologetically but still hit him hard enough to make him stagger. He lost the next one to another man less interested in smashing the king with a stick and more interested in testing his science. That match lasted some time. After winning it, the Eddisian bowed to the king with reluctant respect and the king, breathing hard, bowed graciously back.

One man, even larger than Aulus, with a leer of matching proportions, lunged forward after the salute so quickly that the king, even if he had deflected the sword strike, would have been flattened. Instead of sidestepping, the king dropped to all fours, tripping the giant, who stumbled over him. When the Eddisian whirled, sword raised to strike, the king sat with his knees pulled up, a mocking expression on his face. He’d clipped the giant in the knee as he passed. The match was over.

The Attolians gave a thin cheer. The giant said something in an incomprehensible accent. The king answered back with something insulting and equally incomprehensible. The giant lunged forward again, this time stopped by the priest.

“You had your chance,” said Thalas.

The giant retreated to the back of the crowd, glowering, but none of his countrymen seemed to sympathize.

“Try something new every once in a while,” I heard one of them say.

The king fought twelve matches against young men, those who had a right to test the man they would follow for the rest of their lives. Some now say he won all the matches. That’s an exaggeration for the poets, and the kind of thing that he particularly disliked. He earned the approval, however grudging, of his peers.