The king interrupted Costis’s distracted thoughts.

“Tell me, Costis, why do people persist in offering me food I can’t eat and then looking like wounded innocents when I point out that I can’t cut it myself? Or open a jar? Or apply soft cheese with a trowel, much less a butter knife?”

Because you’re a jumped-up barbarian goatfoot who abducted the Queen of Attolia and forced her to accept you as a husband and you have no right to be king, was Costis’s thought. Aloud, he said, “I don’t know, Your Majesty.”

Guessing at the thoughts, Eugenides must have found them amusing. He laughed. Costis hid his flush in another swallow of the wine. It was cool in his mouth, and it eased the sick tight ball of despair in his belly.

“Where are you from, Costis?”

“Ortia, Your Majesty. The Gede Valley above Pomea.”

“How big is the farm?”

“Not big, but we’ve held it for a long time.”

“The house of Ormentiedes, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a younger son?”

“My father is.”

“You would have been hoping for land for service?”

Costis couldn’t speak. He nodded.

“Costis.”

Costis looked up.

“If it wasn’t premeditated treason, she won’t take the farm.”

Costis waved his hand, unable to put into words his knowledge that the truth of his crime was less important than the seeming.

“I am king,” Eugenides pointed out mildly.

Costis nodded and drank again. If Eugenides was the sovereign ruler of Attolia, why were they both sitting, waiting for the queen to return? If the king guessed again at Costis’s thought, he made no sign this time. He swung his legs back and stood up to refill Costis’s glass. Costis shivered, wondering if he should allow the king to serve him. Should he stand when he had been told to sit, should he help himself to the king’s wine? Before he could decide what was best, Eugenides had replaced the jug on the table and dropped gracefully back to the stool.

“Tell me about the farm,” said the king.

Haltingly, unsure of himself in this interview that was as unreal as the rest of the day, Costis took refuge in the training of hierarchy and did as he was told. He talked about the olive groves and the corn crops, the house he shared with his father and his younger sister. In between his words, he sipped his wine and the king refilled his cup. The gesture was less startling the second time. As he thought of the farm, Costis’s words came more easily. His father had quarreled with his cousin who was the head of the family, and they had moved out of the main house when Costis was young.

“Your father lost the argument?”

Costis shrugged. “He said the only thing worse than being wrong in a family argument was being right. He said a particular dam wouldn’t hold through the spring. When it didn’t, we moved out of the house.”

“Not very fair.”

Costis shrugged again. It had suited him. The house was small, meant for one of the farm’s managers, but it was private. Costis had been happy to be away from his cousins.

The king nodded in understanding. “I didn’t get along with my cousins either. They held me face down in a rain cache once and wouldn’t let me up until I repeated several filthy insults about my family. Not that I would admit that to anyone but you.” He sipped his wine. “We’ve gotten along better recently, my cousins and I. Perhaps something similar will happen as you get older.”

Costis finished the wine in his cup and wondered what sort of creature you would have to be to forgive your cousins a history like that. He shrugged. The king sounded like an old man giving advice to a child. The official father of the people was younger, Costis thought, than he was himself, and Costis was very young to be a squad leader. Anyway, Costis’s relationships with his cousins would have little opportunity to mature if he was going to be dead by morning. No doubt that was why the king felt safe in his embarrassing revelation.

The king refilled Costis’s cup.

When he sat again, he said, “Don’t give up so soon, Costis. Tell me why you hit me.”

Costis swallowed the wine in his mouth.

“Or should we review? You and your friend came through the entryway while you were repeating all the insults you no doubt heard from my dear attendant Sejanus. I understand he was off drinking with his old friends from the Guard last night. Aristogiton must have missed the fun. Was he on duty?”

“He’s okloi. His family has no land. Sejanus wouldn’t drink with him.”

“But your family are patronoi? And you and Aris are friends?”

“Yes.”

“How unfortunate that the arched entryway amplified your words so well. I thought I was being magnanimous when I pretended not to have heard.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I was talking to Teleus then, wasn’t I? He called you over to join us. I think we were trying to gloss over the unpleasantness. Do you remember? We were discussing whether or not I would train with the Guard.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“And you . . . ,” he prompted.

“Hit you, Your Majesty.” Costis sighed.

He’d pulled the king around and swung his fist into the king’s startled face, knocking him to the dusty ground of the training yard, where he rolled, howling and cursing and dirtying the fine white cloth of his blouse.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know why you hit someone?”

Costis shook his head.

“It must have been something I said. Was that it?”

“I don’t know.” He knew. The king had commiserated with Teleus on having men so inept that they allowed their own queen to be abducted.

“You must admit, Costis, that I did whisk her right out from under your noses.”

“It was nothing you said. Y-Your Majesty was, of course, entirely correct,” Costis said, hating him.

“Then why?” the king badgered plaintively. “Tell me, Costis, why?”

Costis didn’t know why he said what he said next, except perhaps that he was going to die and he didn’t want to do it with a lie on his lips.

“Because you didn’t look like a king,” he said.

The king stared in mild astonishment.

Costis went on, growing angrier with every word. “Sejanus says you’re an idiot, and he’s right. You have no idea even how to look like a king, much less be one. You don’t walk like a king, you don’t stand like a king, you sit on the throne like . . . like a printer’s apprentice in a wineshop.”

“So?”

“So—”

“You mistook me for one of your cousins?”

Costis surged on. “So, everything Teleus said was right. You have no business wanting to practice with the Guard. You can practice with the rest of the useless aristocrats in the court, you can call up a garrison of Eddisians to train with if you want.”

“There aren’t any Eddisian soldiers in the palace,” the king interrupted to point out.

“They are half an hour away in Thegmis port. They are scattered all over the country like boils. You can send for them. We are the Queen’s Guard, and you can leave us alone. Teleus was right. You had no business—”