“I shouldn’t?” The king was amused.

“No.” Philologos was not.

“You tell me,” said the king. “What should I do?”

Philologos didn’t smile back. “We should be dismissed, if not banished outright.”

His fellow attendants looked at him as if he was out of his mind.

“That’s a little fierce, isn’t it?” said the king. “To deprive your father of his heir and his only son because of schoolboy tricks?”

Maybe Philologos hadn’t thought this through, but he didn’t waver. Exiled, he might still inherit his father’s land and property, but would hardly be able to administer them from outside the country. His father, in the interests of his property and dependents, would likely be forced to disinherit the young man and choose another heir, a cousin, probably, if the man had only one son, or a daughter if she could be safely married to a man who would hold and defend the family’s land.

“For schoolboy tricks?” the king repeated.

Philologos licked his lips. “The snake was not just—”

“Philologos,” Hilarion interrupted. “Before you betray a man’s misdeeds, you might check to see if he has the same sense of nobility as yourself. However, as you have done so”—he turned to the king—“perhaps you can exile those of us responsible for the most grievous offenses against you, Your Majesty, and send Philologos back to his father.”

The king appeared taken aback. “I am surprised, Hilarion, to see your nobility can rise to the occasion, but I hadn’t intended to exile any of you. Not even for the snake. I think it is all in the past now. We can leave it there.”

“Your Majesty, at the very least we should all be dismissed from your service,” Philologos insisted. “Whatever he implies, I—”

“Put the snake in my bed,” the king finished for him. “Yes, I know. He was trying to save you from yourself, but he didn’t need to. I knew who delivered the snake, and who put the sand in my food. Who sent poor naive Aristogiton with the note to release the dogs, and which of you poured ink all over my favorite coat.” As he looked in turn at each attendant as he spoke, it was undeniable that he did, in fact, know. If they had looked chagrined before, they looked at him now with something very like horror. Except Sejanus, who still managed to look both smug and amused. The king turned to him last. “And I know who put the quinalums in the lethium, Sejanus.”

Sejanus only smiled down his nose. “You can have no proof, Your Majesty.”

“I don’t need proof, Sejanus.”

“You do if you don’t want every baron to rise in revolt. Your absolute power really only extends as far as the barons will allow before they rise against you. Not to mention that any member of the barons’ council can question the king’s treatment of one of his men. A majority of the barons can vote to overturn your judgment, and if you have no proof, they will.”

“Of course, if the subject in question is already executed, it is merely a matter of paying compensation.”

Sejanus stared him down. “I don’t think you would go so far, Your Majesty. It is no easy thing for the barons to accept an outsider as king. If outraged much further, they will revolt, Eddisian garrisons or no Eddisian garrisons.”

“Oh, I might safely go as far as I like without outraging anyone. You can’t tell me you really think your father would lift a finger to help Dite.”

“Dite?” Sejanus seemed surprised.

“Who else are we discussing? I admitted him to my room yesterday. I admitted him to my confidence, and he attempted to poison me. Who else could it have been? The Lady Themis? Or perhaps her sister? Heiro’s a little young to engage in political murder, don’t you think?

“I don’t need any more proof than I already have, Sejanus. I can have him arrested today, and I will. I can have him dismembered piecemeal this evening. We will see how many clever songs he sings and plays with no hands and without his tongue.”

Sejanus was still shaking his head slowly back and forth.

“Your father won’t care. He will thank me for relieving him of an embarrassment of an heir and for making the way clear for you to inherit.” He smiled. “You won’t mind either, will you? We know how much you hate your brother. While you, Sejanus, are my very dear friend, whom I will keep by my side even if I were to turn out every other attendant.”

Sejanus paled. His disdainful smile faded. “I poisoned the lethium,” he said suddenly, forcefully.

“What?” The king raised an eyebrow, as if he’d heard incorrectly.

“I put the quinalums in the lethium. I have a friend who is a priest. He got the powder, and I added it to the lethium yesterday.”

The king asked, “Now, why would you do that?”

“I hate you,” Sejanus answered, as if he were reciting the lines in a play. “You have no right to the throne of Attolia.”

The king blinked in astonishment.

“I am very sorry it didn’t kill you,” said Sejanus venomously. “I thought I put in enough to kill a horse.”

“In that case, I suppose I will have you arrested.”

“Very well, Your Majesty.” Sejanus was all disdain again.

“And your brother.”

“No!”

“You have confessed. I feel sure you are willing, under persuasion, to reveal his complicity.”

“My brother had nothing to do with it. I acted alone. I acted entirely alone.”

The king, looking down at the bedcover, ran his hand across the embroidered cloth and said nothing. The silence went on.

Sejanus swallowed. When he swallowed again, it was his pride. As the other attendants looked on, more puzzled than anything else, he said, “Your Majesty, I will confess to any crime you name, but my brother is innocent.”

“You’ve already confessed to attempted regicide,” said the king. “What else could you confess?” He looked up from where he had been carefully smoothing the embroidered cover, and seeing his face, Costis felt the shock like a physical blow. If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating. “Do you think I intend to leave your father an heir?”

Gods in their heaven, Costis thought, did Erondites have only the two children?

He had seen a temple fall once, in an earthquake. Small gaps had appeared between the stones, and these had grown until each separate stone tottered in opposition to the ones below. First the columns supporting the porches and then the walls had tumbled down. So, piece by piece, did the king hammer out the enormity of the disaster Sejanus had precipitated on his house.

“Your father disinherited your sister and all children of hers when she married against his wishes. He did it formally. That’s why he couldn’t disinherit Dite. A wise man doesn’t leave himself with only one heir. He had to keep Dite, because there are so many things to kill a man off between one day and the next—disease, war . . . poison, for instance. Also, there was a chance that Dite might succeed with the queen and marry her. What a coup that would have been for the house of Erondites. But Dite didn’t succeed; I married the queen. Poor useless Dite.