The physician, nervously clutching a bloody swab, said, “It’s a mixture of aqua vitae and v-vital herbs.”

“It hurts, you bloodsucking leech. I didn’t leave that torturing bastard Galen in the mountains so that you could take his place.”

“I’m so sorry, but it w-will prevent infection, Your Majesty.”

“It had better if it hurts that much, and you had better warn me before you put any more on.”

“I will, Your Majesty,” the doctor said, carefully wiping the wound with another clean cloth.

“When you’ve finished admiring it, you can put a bandage on it,” the king said impatiently.

The palace doctor, who was a thin, nervous man, stared, concentrating. “I’d like to put stitches in where the cut is deepest. And stitch the muscle first.” He looked up at the queen for approval.

“It doesn’t need stitches,” the king said warily.

“Because it’s not very deep,” someone in the crowd muttered. The king looked around with a black look, but didn’t see the speaker.

“Petrus has been my personal physician for a number of years,” said the queen. “With the crown’s money, he operates a charitable hospital in the city where he has studied a number of new medical techniques. If he believes stitches are suitable, I suggest you let him put them in.”

“Just here,” said the doctor, “at the side where the wound is deeper. Had it been this deep for the entire length, your assassin would certainly have ruptured the peritoneum.”

“The what?”

“The gut.”

“Ahh,” said the king, and then “Aagh!” a moment later. “What is that, an awl?”

“Oh, no, Your Majesty, no, as you can see, it is a very fine needle.”

“It doesn’t feel like a needle—it feels like you’ve spent too much time working on people who don’t pay you and you should—ow! Ow! Ow!”

Costis closed his eyes, appalled. The king couldn’t lie on a deathbed with a sense of dignity. The attendants were all on the verge of breaking into laughter, and the king, far from minding, was enjoying every minute of it.

The queen’s lips thinned.

“I am very sorry,” the physician said helplessly.

“Stop apologizing and hurry.”

“Your Majesty, I . . .” Petrus looked as if he was about to cry.

Ornon spoke firmly from behind the doctor. “Your Majesty is upsetting his physician.” The ambassador stepped closer to the bed. He and the king locked gazes.

Eugenides looked away. “Oh, very well,” he said, sulkily. “Tell him to get on with it.” He took a breath and let it go in a brief huff of audible petulance.

Ornon encouraged the doctor with a pat on his shoulder and stepped back. The doctor bent over the wound again. The king made a face, but was silent. The doctor looked up momentarily in astonishment but returned to his work, eager to finish before this reprieve passed.

The king lay still and made no sound. As Petrus pulled his first stitches tight, the king took a deeper breath and didn’t let it go. After a long count of ten, he softly released the breath and took another.

There were three people between Costis and the queen. Costis knocked all three of them aside like pegs in a counting game and dropped to his knees in time to catch the queen as she collapsed into his outspread arms.

He’d seen her, white as wax, from the corner of his eye and, seeing her waver, had known she was fainting, but too late to do anything but catch her.

“The queen!” someone shouted in alarm, and the king erupted like a wild animal caught in a snare.

He tried to sit up, and the men around him held him down. He struggled. Someone sensible used both hands to pin the hook, with its knife-edge, to the bed. Someone less sensible tried to consolidate his grip on the king’s other arm and staggered back, holding his face.

“My stitches, my stitches!” the physician yelled.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty!”

“Damn your stitches!” he snarled. “Let me up.”

With one hand free the king was forcing himself to a sitting position, but more people were pushing him back down, all of them shouting. Someone fell back from the end of the bed, kicked solidly. The doctor cried out again, all his work going to waste.

Costis saw no good to be had by involving himself in the melee. He watched as Ornon stepped forward, seized a man efficiently by the hair, and pulled him sharply backward. The man sat down hard, and Ornon stepped into the space he had left by the king’s bed. He splayed his hand across the king’s face and slammed his head back hard against the pillow. Keeping his hand planted on the king’s face, he leaned over and roared into his ear, “The queen is fine!”

Eugenides was still. The men around the bed froze as well.

“Irene?” the king called.

“She fainted. That’s all,” Ornon said more quietly. “There is a great deal of blood. She is a woman and she was upset. It is not a surprising reaction.”

Costis looked down at the woman in his arms. She had a name. She was Irene. He’d never thought of her having any name except Attolia, but of course she was a person as well as a queen. Lying in his arms, she felt surprisingly human, and female. Costis, suddenly uncomfortable with his burden, was relieved when Hilarion lifted her out of his arms and carried her away to the guardroom. Her attendants followed after, clucking like hens.

Costis got to his feet.

On the bed, Eugenides stirred restlessly. “Upset at the sight of blood?” he said. “Not my wife, Ornon.”

“Your blood,” the ambassador pointed out.

Eugenides glanced at the hook on his arm and conceded the point. “Yes,” he said. He seemed lost in a memory. The room was quiet. As Costis struggled toward a new understanding of the king and the queen, he knew everyone else in the room was doing the same. Except perhaps the physician, who was holding needle and thread in his raised hand, waiting anxiously for instruction.

“Get on with it,” said the king. He hardly seemed to notice when the stitching began. He looked toward the doorway, toward the queen, but spoke to the Eddisian Ambassador. “I think, in future, Ornon, I will stick to upsetting my physician.”

CHAPTER NINE

“YOUR Majesty,” Costis whispered.

Eugenides opened his eyes and turned his head on the pillow. Costis was on his knees by the bed. The room was dark. The only light came in the open door of the bedchamber past the guards standing there at attention. They’d let Costis go through unchallenged, as though they hadn’t seen him. They knew why he was here.

The king blinked.

“Your Majesty, I am sorry to wake you, but I think only you can help.”

“What time is it?” the king asked, hoarsely.

“It’s the dog watch, an hour until dawn.”

“Early, then,” the king murmured, “not late.”

“Your Majesty, she’s going to have them all executed.”

“All who?” His eyes were bright with fever.

“The captain, my friend Aris, and his entire squad. She had them arrested yesterday afternoon after she left here and said they will be executed in the morning.”