Costis looked back at the note. It was unsigned. The package might have come from one of the king’s instructors, but it was more likely to be one of the king’s attendants. Sejanus was clearly the leader even though the attendant Hilarion was oldest and Philologos, the youngest attendant, an heir to a baron, was the highest in rank. Costis looked over the sheets again. He wished he’d gotten a written explanation of the issues involved in olive production. He thought he would need one.

“Thank you, Costis,” said the king, dismissing him.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Costis, dismissed.

The king crossed through the middle of the training ground and met his attendants on the far side. In a crowd, they passed through an arch and out of sight. As they disappeared, Costis turned for the archway behind him, the king’s exit releasing him from his polite position. The soldiers cleared a path for him, and he hurried. His clothes and gear were waiting for him at the baths. He had just enough time to duck into the cavernous building through a side door, skirt the cold-water plunge, and cut through the steam room to the dressing room beyond. The steam room was usually empty so early in the morning, and the few occupants knew who he was and why he was hurrying. They shouted encouragement instead of curses as he passed through in a draft of cold air.

Between the steam room and the dressing rooms, a valet waited with a bucket of warm water to dump over him. Costis soaped hastily and was doused again. The valet handed him a cloth, and he dried himself as he headed toward his clothes. With the valet’s help he got dressed as quickly as possible, had his greaves buckled on and his breastplate buckled over his shoulders and under his arms. He bent his head so the man could run a comb through his hair, while he fumbled for a coin, which he couldn’t afford to give away. It was a ritual gesture. The valet waved it away with a smile.

Sheepishly, Costis dropped it back into the purse hanging from his belt.

“You are making me famous,” said the man, patting him on the back as he turned him toward the door. “Valet to the King’s Own Guard.”

Passing between the barracks, Costis ran, holding his sword stable with one hand so that it didn’t bang against his leg, and using the other hand to hold the breastplate so that it would not ride up and chafe under his arms. Once he reached the end of the barracks, he had to drop to a walk, the fastest walk he could manage while maintaining the dignity of Her Majesty’s Guard.

He climbed up the steps to the upper palace and made his way through the twisting corridors and across atriums under light wells until he reached the last open court before the archway to the terrace. The guard there shook his head. The king had not yet come down to breakfast. Costis turned back to a nearby stairway and waited at the bottom, listening.

The king timed his morning training precisely. It was still the same dull repetition of basic exercises, and when it had finally dragged to its end, Costis had just enough time to get himself clean, but not enough time to rest in the steam room or even soak himself in the hot baths. The king never cut his time so short that he might be excused if he skipped the wash and came to his post less than perfectly tidy, so Costis rushed. If he was lucky, then Costis got to the king’s chambers before the king had finished his own, rather more elaborate bath and robing. If Costis was late, he could join the king on the breakfast terrace, taking his place unobtrusively by the archway. The king said nothing, though he never failed to notice Costis’s arrival, nor did the queen, who eyed him inscrutably for a moment across the breakfast table whenever he appeared. The very worst mistake Costis could make was to meet the king on the way down. It gave the king a clear, drawn-out opportunity to comment on Costis’s lateness, his dereliction of duty, his inability to meet even the basic requirements of a member of the Royal Guard, and his appearance. If the king did miss an opportunity to complain about his hair, the polish on his buckles, the state of the leather straps—all things that Costis spent hours late into night trying to perfect—Sejanus would draw the king’s attention to the fault. It seemed unlikely behavior from an ally who sent notes on the Mede language and Attolian political history, but Sejanus seemed far more interested in the entertainment of the contest between the king and the guard than in who won it. Sejanus liked his jokes. Costis was growing tired of them.

After breakfast, the king kissed the queen, a practice Costis still resented, and condescended to be swept off to his daily tutorial in which various counselors and ministers tried desperately to educate him in his responsibilities in spite of his obvious lack of interest.

The meeting on wheat production seemed to be a recitation of the yield of every wheat field in the country in the last year. Costis tried unsuccessfully to pay attention. They were a half hour into the list when the king asked, “What’s the difference in the wheat?”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty?”

“The different kinds of wheat you keep mentioning. What’s the difference?”

The two men looked at each other. The king waited, leaning back in his chair with one booted ankle crossed over his knee.

“Pilades would be most helpful. If Your Majesty would excuse us?”

The king waved one hand, and the two men hurried away and returned with Pilades, a bent older man with wisping white hair and an expression of delight on his wrinkled face.

“If Your Majesty would like to see, I have samples here.” He reached into a variety of small bags that he was carrying and dumped handful after handful of grain onto the table. Dust rose in a cloud, and the king winced, waving his hand in front of his face. Pilades didn’t notice. He called the king’s attention to the formation of the seeds, to the number of the seeds, to their shape. He dumped more piles onto the table and explained the advantages of each, which one yielded the largest crop, which survived the most inclement weather, which could be planted summer or fall. Many facts Costis knew, having been raised on a farm. Some were new, and the lecture, once begun, was clearly unstoppable.

The king, who normally wandered away to a window during meetings like this, sat immobilized. He had little choice. If he so much as shifted in his seat, Pilades moved in closer, hovering over him with zeal. No doubt he rarely got a chance to expound to this extent and was reluctant to lose the king’s attention. The king made a few abortive attempts to escape but was ultimately forced to sit and listen.

Over the king’s head, the counselors and the attendants exchanged glances of awed delight. When Pilades finally wound down, the king, his face blank, thanked him. He thanked the two men he’d begun the meeting with and suggested that perhaps they could finish their business at another meeting, or better—they could just give him a written summary and he would look over it sometime himself. They nodded; the king rose and escaped into the hall. Once there, with the door closed, he put his face in his hand.

“Thank gods I didn’t ask about fertilizer,” he said.

Costis almost laughed out loud. A glance told him that the others in the entourage were also amused, but they were smirking at the idea of the king sitting through another lecture. Only Costis shared the king’s vision of the dedicated Pilades dropping handful after handful of various animal wastes onto the tabletop and discussing their individual merits.

The king met Costis’s eye and smiled. Costis looked away. When he looked back, the king’s smile was gone as well.