Once on the stairs, Costis was shielded from the view of the room, and he reached back to pluck the sleeve of Aristogiton, who was standing nearby, a fringe member of Sejanus’s group of seasoned, but not yet veteran, soldiers. Aris twitched his arm free, but Costis grabbed him at the elbow and conveyed with a sharp tug his intention to pull Aris up the steps backward if necessary, and Aris gave in.

Even so, Costis nearly dragged his friend through the dark to the top of the narrow stairs. He stopped just below the landing. There was a lamp there that cast its light on Aris’s upturned face. Costis, on a higher step, bent over his friend.

“Tell me,” he said in a fierce whisper, “that you don’t know anything about the pranks Sejanus has been playing on the king.”

“Why would I?”

“Don’t lie to me, Aris. I saw your face!”

“I—”

“What have you done?”

Aris rubbed his head. “I think I delivered the message that said that the king wanted to review the hounds in the lion court.”

“What do you mean, you think?”

“It was written on a folded sheet. How was I supposed to know what it said?”

“But you knew something was wrong? Why would you be sent with a message from the king? Who gave it to you to deliver?”

“Costis . . .”

“Who? And why did you deliver it, you fool?”

“What was I supposed to do? Say no?”

“The thought might have crossed your mind!”

“Well, of course, it would have crossed yours, Costis, because you’re not an okloi. You want to know who asked me to deliver the message? The second son of the man my father pays his taxes to. What was I supposed to do? What would you have done?” Aris threw up his hands. “I know what you would have done. You would have said no, and damn the consequences, because you have a sense of honor as wide as a river. I am sorry, Costis, I guess I don’t.”

“Well, maybe I don’t either,” Costis snapped. “Or I wouldn’t have taken a sacred oath to protect a man and then knocked him flat on his back.”

Aris snorted.

Costis paused to collect his temper. He had never felt so irrationally hot-blooded. He didn’t like the feeling, though he knew other soldiers often did. “What are you going to do?” Costis asked, and Aris could only shrug.

“Relius will know who delivered the message, if he doesn’t already. Tell the captain before Relius does.”

“What happens to my family, then?” asked Aris.

“What happens to you if you don’t tell the captain?”

Aris thought it over. “Maybe I should.”

It was Costis’s turn to shrug. He didn’t want to sound like a hypocrite. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

“So, so, so,” said Aris, “at least my honor will be intact.”

“And that’s very important,” said Eugenides.

Aris and Costis both jumped at the sound of the king’s voice. He stood on the landing above them like an apparition. His dark hair melted into the darkness behind him, while the light of the lantern fell on the white linen of his shirt and the gold threads embroidered in his coat seemed to glow. After a brief moment of horrified paralysis, Aris leapt to attention. Costis had known the voice as soon as he heard it. He didn’t look at the king, but rather behind him, searching for the attendants that he thought must be there. He was a second later pulling himself to attention.

It was impossible that Sejanus would be downstairs talking about the king’s sleeping arrangements if he knew his lord was standing on the landing upstairs, but just as impossible that the king could be there without his attendants and without Sejanus’s knowing it.

Eugenides leaned forward and whispered into Aristogiton’s ear. “Speak to Teleus in the morning,” he said just loud enough for Costis to hear as well. Then he stepped behind the wall of the stairwell into the corridor that ran alongside it. There was no sound of footsteps. When Costis bent to look around the wall, the king was gone.

Costis woke the next morning before the dawn trumpets and dressed with a sense of dread, oddly familiar. It was the same feeling he’d had whenever he’d gone off to meet his tutor, having spent his day playing in the woods instead of preparing his lessons. Whatever happened this morning, the bruises, like the marks left by his tutor’s willow switch, would fade, and Costis was certainly no stranger to bruises. He tried to encourage himself with the thought that he could have been facing a hanging, not a beating. But it had never been the fear of bruises that sickened him when he faced his tutor, and he felt distinctly uncheerful as he walked toward the training ground.

He arrived early. No one spoke to him. The Guard ostracized those in disgrace. The captain did come to stand beside him, but did no more than nod a greeting. When the king came, he was accompanied by four of his attendants as well as his guards. He left them all at the entrance of the training ground and walked across the open space alone. He arrived at Costis and Teleus and nodded a greeting at them both. He had his practice sword with him and tucked it under his right arm in order to wave a hand in invitation. Costis winced. The captain would have thoroughly humiliated any of his own Guard who treated a practice sword so thoughtlessly.

“Shall we begin with the first exercise?”

Costis obediently assumed the stance for the simple practice of thrust and parry in prime. He knew that the king was not a soldier, but he was surprised that Eugenides had not at least mastered the basics with a sword. Perhaps he had lost his skill along with his right hand, but Costis thought the king should have adapted to fighting with his left. There had been time to learn since the queen had caught him traipsing through her palace and cut off his hand. Back when he was the Thief of Eddis, before he’d stolen the throne of Attolia as well as its queen.

Teleus dropped back and pretended not to watch. The rest of the Guard did the same. The flesh crawled between Costis’s shoulder blades.

“Your guard is low,” Eugenides said calmly, and Costis took his attention off the guards around him and looked at the king. Eugenides put one eyebrow up. Costis had to pull his chin down to stop his head from shaking in disgust. He wasn’t a very talented swordsman, and he didn’t have the experience of the veterans around him, but he was a damned long way further down the road than first exercises in prime.

Eugenides read his mind and smiled wickedly. Costis clenched his teeth, adjusted his sword, and fixed his gaze on the embroidered front of the king’s tunic.

The king didn’t move. Costis stood with his sword extended while the king stood with his own sword still tucked into his armpit. Costis’s arm and shoulder began to burn. The wooden practice sword was weighted to feel as much like a real sword as possible, and it was no joke to hold it extended as the moment stretched on, especially as his muscles were still stiff from hours of immobility the day before.

Finally the king stepped into position. He knocked Costis’s sword aside and completed the thrust, stopping just a bit before Costis’s breastbone.

“Again?” he said.

Costis returned to position. And so it went. The king may not have had the skill to engage in a pretend battle and give Costis the beating everyone in the Guard assumed he had coming, but the king could and did commence exercise after exercise only to leave Costis immobile in the middle of it, straining his muscles to keep his body motionless and to conceal the effort immobility demanded. He was determined not to let the effort show. He concentrated on the point of the sword held out in front of him and willed it to be still, as the least waver at its point would reveal his strain.