“Not yet,” said Erondites. “I don’t want them dismissed yet. He must take the mistress first, so that she can tell him whom to choose as new attendants.”

“You are less successful than I,” said Sejanus.

The baron glowered. “She’s beautiful, newly widowed, and the stupid ass persists in dancing with her sister.”

“Why not use the sister, then, if she has caught the king’s eye?”

“She reads plays. She embroiders. She is artless, unwed, and useless. Her sister is twice widowed and quite adequately prepared for the task of leading the king by his nose. It has to be her. I told their father to beat them both, and the younger one especially. She won’t dance with the king again. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I don’t want you dismissed as well. You’re the one attendant who must stay.”

“Depend on it,” said Sejanus. “He won’t let me go.”

“I have heard otherwise.”

“He relies on me. The other attendants don’t realize it, but the king and I are becoming allies and better friends every day. He won’t dismiss me when he throws out the rest.”

“Be sure of it,” the baron warned.

“Oh, I am,” said Sejanus.

After they left, Eugenides shifted a little on the rafters above the carefully carved and pierced wooden ceiling, more screen than a ceiling, in fact. He sat cross-legged in the dark and considered the room below, conveniently out of the way, but not far from the royal apartments. With no furniture in it, too small to be useful for any legitimate purpose, it was guaranteed to be empty. The architect who designed it, and directed the carving of the wooden screen for the false ceiling, had been Eugenides’s many-times-great-grandfather. He’d called it “the conspiracy room.”

Silent as an owl, Eugenides made his way back to his room and his bed. Lying there in the dark, he whispered to himself, “So Sejanus is my dear friend. How strange that I did not know. And poor Heiro is suffering for dancing with me. Sejanus, dear, dear Sejanus, what are you playing at, I wonder?”

The next night, he danced again with the Lady Themis’s little sister, Heiro. “That was beautifully done,” he told her.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty?”

“I mean the way you tried to avoid dancing with me, in a way calculated to make me insist on doing just that. Just this.” He gestured to the dance as they separated.

When they met again, he said, “Do you know, I heard someone describe you as artless?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Your Majesty.”

“Neither did he,” said the king.

“Your Majesty—”

“Was the beating very bad, my dear?”

She stumbled slightly. He took her arm.

“You’re tired. Let me take you to a seat.” The dancers around them parted, and he led her through.

“I can finish the dance with your sister.”

Her grip on his arm tightened.

“Just a single dance, dear,” said the king. “Then I promise I’ll move on. I can’t allow you to be beaten for casting yourself between me and the rather rapacious clutches of your sister. I do wonder why you think I am worth saving.”

“Maybe because I have eyes in my head, Your Majesty,” said Heiro.

Eugenides was briefly taken aback. “Well, I will have to watch my step then, won’t I? And you will have to point out to your father the advantages of having one of his daughters admired by the king, even if it is the wrong one. If it saves you from a beating, you may always call on me.” He bowed over her hand.

He could feel her shaking, and looked over his shoulder to see her father approaching. “He will wonder what you see to admire,” said Heiro.

“That’s easy,” said the King of Attolia. “Tell him I like your earrings.”

“Your Majesty might like to dance with my friend, Lady Eunice. She’s a pretty girl,” Heiro said quickly.

“I like pretty girls. Who else?”

She mentioned a few more names, but fell silent as her father arrived looking thunderous.

“She claims she’s unwell,” said the king with petulance. “She suggests I finish the dance with her sister.”

Her father’s brow cleared. He led her away. Lady Themis and the king returned to the dance.

Two weeks later, Costis was sitting on the steps outside the mess hall, enjoying the sun that slid between the tall, closely packed buildings. It wouldn’t last. The sun moved with infinite patience across the sky, and the shade crept inch by inch across the stairs. It would reach him soon, and he must move with the sun or be content with the chill of the shade. With luck, Aristogiton would arrive before he had to make a decision. Aris would be coming off duty very soon. He and Costis were scheduled for a three-day leave and intended to spend it hunting in the hills a day’s ride from the city.

Costis had his gear packed and had been waiting most of the day. Aris was very busy with his new duties while Costis’s life was suddenly filled with leisure.

Teleus had explained that his position was indeterminate while his future was under consideration. Probably he would be transferred to a border fort in the north, perhaps even at his old rank of squad leader. That bright hope made Costis’s days drag, filled with anxious anticipation. In the meantime, he continued as lieutenant-at-large with light duties filling in watches and supervising the parade marches of boys in the training barracks.

The shade was creeping closer. Costis looked up at the sound of running footsteps, a barracks boy with an urgent message, he supposed, but it was no barracks boy who hurried around a corner and into the narrow court. It was someone from the dog runs, a kennel apprentice by his uniform. He stopped, gasping, in front of Costis.

“My master sent me to ask for help. The hunting dogs have been released into the court. There are bitches in heat, and the dogs are fighting. We can’t get them back to their runs without help. Can you bring guards to help, sir? My master is afraid the king will have the dogs slaughtered and him, too.”

Costis sent him on to the officer of the day in his office, then he fetched the layabouts out of the nearest dining hall and led them off toward the kennels.

“Why hurry?” grumbled the men. “Why spoil a good joke?”

“Because it’s no joke for the Master of Hounds,” Costis said.

“No joke for us, either,” said someone else when they reached the court. They had come through the palace and were on the porch outside the palace doors that led out to the hunting court. From there, steps led down to a barking, snarling chaos of dog. The noise assaulted the ears and overwhelmed the shouts of the men working below. The kennel keepers with sticks and ropes were trying to drive one dog at a time out of the pack and lead it back through the open gate to the dog runs. Already there were palace guards assisting where they could. Some stood on the steps below the portico, catching at the stray dog pushed up the stairs by the melee. A hunting dog stood lower than a man’s waist but higher than his knee, and weighed half what a grown man did. It was no laughing matter to seize one and keep hold of it without being bitten.

A dog raced up the stairs toward Costis, heading for the open palace doors behind him. Costis and his men shouted and waved the dog back. It shied down the steps again.