His steps slowed of their own volition as he got close to the fountain. Numb, he stared at the body there and the spreading cloud of blood. It was what he had imagined and yet nothing he could ever have imagined. He looked at the blood on the graveled path and at the body there. There was more blood on the grass. It wasn’t the king’s blood. It wasn’t the king’s body. Costis heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Teleus, wet from falling into the reflecting pool. Teleus looked as stunned as he felt. Side by side they stared at the blood pooling at their feet, and side by side they turned to the king, who stood with his hand on his hip and his back toward them.

“Your Majesty?” Costis’s voice came out in a whisper.

The king turned his head. His usually dark skin was so pale the scar on his cheek showed against the lighter skin around it. He was almost green with pallor, as Sejanus had once described him. It wasn’t fear. It was rage.

Softly he said, “I thought that being king meant I didn’t have to kill people myself. I see now that was another misconception.”

Teleus and Costis stood like garden statuary.

“Where are my guards, Teleus?” He was still speaking softly. Three men dead and he wasn’t even breathing hard, Costis noted.

“WHERE ARE MY GUARDS?” the king shouted.

The birds twittered nervously from the bushes around them in the silence that followed.

“Here, Your Majesty.” It was Aristogiton, his men crowded behind him, at the entrance to the alley.

“And where have they been?” In almost a whisper, the king addressed only Teleus.

“They were drawn off by the noise of hounds released in the hunting court, Your Majesty. They went to help get the dogs contained before you returned to the palace.” Teleus was very calm.

“I see,” said Eugenides. He looked at the corpse at his feet. “Have them clean up this mess. That one”—he nodded toward the man farthest away—“may still be alive. You and Costis can take him where someone can ask him who sent them. I am going back to the palace . . . now that the dogs are safely out of the way . . . to make my groveling apologies to the queen.”

He stepped toward the path.

“Your Majesty shouldn’t be alone,” said Teleus.

Eugenides turned back. “Your solicitous attention to my health is appreciated, Teleus, but it’s too late for that,” he said.

“Please,” said the captain humbly. “Take Costis and the squad leader.”

Eugenides considered. “Very well,” he agreed with cold reluctance.

Aristogiton and his men hurried toward Teleus, responding to his summoning wave. Costis waited while the captain gave the squad leader his orders, then Costis and Aris caught up with the king, who had already started back to the palace. He was walking slowly, his hand still on his hip. Costis had never seen him so dignified. His stately dignity faded a little when they got close enough to hear the curses he muttered under his breath. He was less inventive than usual, and by the time they reached the reflecting pool he was repeating the same phrase again and again like a chant.

Walking so slowly, Costis had ample time to consider his commitment to the goddess Philia. Ten gold cups.

With all the money he had, added to all he could conceivably borrow from the moneylenders in the city, he could afford one gold cup. His father might have enough for another. The priests wouldn’t expect them all at once. Only if Costis waited too long, or died before delivering on his promise, would he risk the goddess’s displeasure. That displeasure would spread to his family, in which case his uncle might be willing to give the gold for two more, possibly three. If harvests were poor, or other signs of the goddess’s ill will appeared, he might empty the family treasury and buy four cups. That still left four unpaid for, and anyway, Costis hated the idea of asking his uncle for money.

He was thinking of full-size drinking cups, made by a goldsmith and decorated with figures. If he offered the goddess ceremonial cups instead, smaller models of drinking cups, very plain ones, his money would go farther. It might stretch to three small (tiny) cups, and his father’s to three more. And if he saved every coin, wore the clothes the army provided, ate the food the army provided, which was nourishing enough, if occasionally infested, and if he never spent a copper in a wineshop with his friends, he might pay for the remaining four small (very small) cups, in ten or fifteen years. He could just forget his oath, he supposed, and hope the goddess didn’t notice.

The king reached the top of the stairs that led down to the reflecting pool and stopped. He turned a little to face Costis, his hand still pinching his side.

Guilt-stricken, Costis gasped in horror, “No! No! I’ll get the ten cups, I swear it!”

The king’s coat was light gold, the color of the hills in the autumn heat, embroidered in matching satin threads. His tunic underneath was a contrasting dark mulberry color. The blood didn’t show against the fabric, but it welled between the king’s fingers, and its bright stain spread in a messy spiderweb across the back of his hand.

“Costis,” the king said in the patient voice of someone dealing with the insane, “I just need a little help on the stairs.”

Of course. The stairs. With a wound in his side, the stairs would be difficult. Costis pulled himself together and looked over to Aris, standing there as pale as the king. “Go for the physician,” he said.

“No!” the king contradicted sharply. Both Costis and Aristogiton turned to him in surprise.

“Oh, gods all damn it,” the king said softly. He lifted his hand to rub his face, saw the blood all over it, and put it back on his hip. He turned carefully to look at the walls of the palace itself. The heads and shoulders of spectators were visible on the guard walks at the top. The king looked back at the walls that circled the grounds. More people.

“So, so, so,” he said, defeated. “Get the physician. Have him meet me in my rooms.”

Aris went.

Eugenides stood with his head bent and his shoulders bowed. “How many cups, Costis?” he asked without lifting his head.

Costis flushed. “Ten.”

“Silver?”

“Gold.”

“Ten gold cups for my sake?” He looked up, surprised. “I thought you hated me.”

“I do.”

Eugenides started to laugh and gasped instead. Costis put a hand on either shoulder to steady him.

“I have a superstitious fear of falling,” Eugenides admitted. “Let me put an arm over your shoulder while we get down the stairs.”

Costis ducked his head and presented his shoulder.

The king didn’t move. “Wrong arm, dear,” he said, dryly. He had to use his left hand to cover the wound, because he had no right one.

Embarrassed, Costis stepped around behind the king to the other side. The king’s arm dropped heavily across his shoulder. When Costis straightened, the hook hung just in front of his eyes. For the first time, he could see its knife-edge. There was a smear of blood on it, and one corner of the cuff of the king’s coat was soaked.

Costis flinched and looked away from this compensation to the king’s handicap, only to find himself staring directly into the king’s face instead. Eugenides matched Costis look for look, his expression grave, his eyes like pools of darkness deeper than Costis could penetrate. For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king, as he would for his queen. So long, he worried, as they didn’t order him in opposite directions at the same time. What he would do when that happened, Costis couldn’t guess.