“My favorite,” said the king, “was the hunting dogs released in the courtyard as I passed through it.”

The whole palace knew about the hunting dogs. The guards had laughed and laughed when Sejanus offered his firsthand account. Sejanus had said the king had been so scared he’d turned green, standing on the stairs outside the palace doors until the dogs were collared and dragged away. He’d warned their keeper he would have all the dogs slaughtered like goats if it happened again.

“Teleus?” prompted the queen.

“I didn’t know, Your Majesty.” It wasn’t an excuse. It was an admission of failure.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Attolia demanded of the king.

The king answered, speaking slowly. “Because I had not yet been knocked down by a member of my own Guard.”

Sejanus had said the king wouldn’t tell the queen about the pranks because he didn’t want to admit that he was too weak to deal with his own attendants. He just pretended not to notice, to his attendants’ ever-increasing amusement. Being attacked by his own Guard was not something the queen could fail to overlook.

“So, a bargain,” suggested the king. “Teleus, I give you Costis’s life and you start doing your job.”

Costis knew the answer before Teleus spoke. It was no secret that the captain despised the new king. He wouldn’t have accepted a drink of water in a fiery hell from Eugenides, much less the life of Costis. Costis, according to the strict rules that ordered Teleus’s life, deserved his fate, and Costis, even in the privacy of his own skull, couldn’t disagree. He had time to think again of the gibbet that would be built on the parade ground, of what it would be like to hang, of his father’s shame.

“Take the bargain, Teleus,” commanded the queen abruptly.

“My Queen?” Teleus didn’t believe his ears either.

“Take it.”

“As you wish, My Queen,” said the captain, sounding as stunned as Costis felt.

“You wanted a sparring partner this morning?” the queen said, turning back to Eugenides.

“I did.”

“Costis will serve you well,” she said, and swept out of the room. The rings slid again across the rod. The leather curtain dropped, and the only sound was that of the many receding footsteps in the hall.

Costis was still hunched over, blinking his amazement into the darkness of his hands cupped over his eyes. When the crowd of footsteps had reached the stair at the end of the hall, he finally lowered his hands to the floor on either side of his knees. He rested them gingerly on the wood boards, as if there had been an earthquake and he wasn’t sure it was over. He sat up slowly. The earthquake wasn’t over. The king still sat on the stool, his legs still stretched in front of him, still crossed at the ankle.

The king rubbed his face with his hand, pausing to finger gently the bruise beside his mouth.

He said at last, “That was terrifying, but I suppose you are used to excitement?”

Costis stared at him blankly.

“She wouldn’t hang Teleus. She doesn’t have anyone to replace him.”

As if the king had risked Teleus’s life in an effort to save Costis, instead of failing in an attempt to eliminate one of the queen’s most powerful supporters. Costis knew what he had seen.

“I told you she wouldn’t take the farm.” Eugenides smiled, entirely without royal dignity, and left.

“Do you still wish you’d hanged me?”

She hadn’t heard him come in, but he had moved an inkpot on her desk, sliding it across the wood so that she would know he was there before he spoke. He was considerate in every detail. She didn’t turn.

“Men’s necks have been broken by a single blow,” she said.

He tossed a cushion to the floor and stepped around her to settle on it, sitting cross-legged near her feet. “I can’t keep on apologizing,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked, over his head.

“Well,” he said pensively, “I think you would be bored.”

It was vain to hope that he might cease to have things to apologize for. “What happened?” she asked coldly, and Eugenides hunched his shoulders and minded the fringe on the pillow under his ankle, laying each thread out straight.

“I was angry at Teleus. Costis came to his rescue.” He scattered the fringe back into a tangle. “I thought you were going to hang poor Costis.”

“I would have if you hadn’t chained him so neatly to Teleus.”

“Like an anchor to drag him down,” the king agreed.

“I thought that we had an agreement about Teleus.”

“We did. We do,” the king assured her.

“So you risk him to save the life of a treacherous, worthless guard?”

“You called Costis your loyal servant earlier.”

“He was a loyal servant earlier. He is no longer. You will not rehabilitate him with me.”

“Of course not,” he said humbly.

She released a sigh of frustration and asked reluctantly for the truth. “Were you lying?”

“I never lie,” he said piously. “About what?”

“The sand, the snake.”

For a young man who never lied, he seemed surprisingly unoffended by the question. “You should ask Relius. Your Secretary of the Archives has suspected something for weeks and has all but turned himself inside out trying to find out more.”

“Then why didn’t you speak?”

“I don’t want the kitchens purged, or the guards.”

“You want to save people from punishment they deserve?”

“Oh, no,” said the king, “I only want to be sure that those that deserve it the most are the ones punished.”

“Say the word, then, and they will be.”

He only shook his head and she gave up for the moment.

CHAPTER THREE

COSTIS woke earlier than usual the next morning, when one of the barracks boys knocked on the frame of his door.

“Captain’s orders,” he called. “Everyone not on duty is to be on the parade ground in full uniform at the dawn trumpets.” Costis could hear the same orders repeated down the hall by another boy.

“I’m supposed to spar with the king,” he said groggily.

“Captain said to tell you not today, that he has asked the king to begin training tomorrow.”

“All right, thank you,” Costis said, and the boy moved to the next door. Costis pushed aside his blanket and got to his feet. Aris had helped him set his room in order the night before, and everything was back in its place. The bits of broken wine cup were swept into a pile. The king’s empty wine amphora still sat on the table with the remaining wine cup. When he had time, Costis would have to carry them back to the palace kitchens or send them back with a boy.

Costis got dressed. He pulled on his undershirt and a leather tunic, a leather kilt under the chain skirt that hung from his waist. He had guards for his shins and shoulders and a breast and back plate that hung from his shoulders and buckled together under his arms. Aris had brought back his kit the night before. He’d agreed with Costis that the king would exact his revenge in their sparring session this morning, but evidently the king would have to wait.