“Now your father loses both of you together. He could get rid of your mother, remarry, and get himself another heir, but he doesn’t need a baby, he needs a full-grown heir who can fend for himself and support his father.”

“You have no evidence against Dite. I won’t give you any.”

“And my barons might not like evidence dragged out of your screaming mouth?” the king asked.

“I will retract my confession. I can deny that I ever made it.”

“You have a point. But I have one, too. I have many of them, sons and nephews of barons, all standing here on the verge of being banished for what even your most sensitive barons would agree is egregious misbehavior. How ironic that they have been forced into this compromising position . . . by you.” He waved at the attendants. “Do you think they will lie for you, Sejanus? They may not like me, but they hate you by now. And their families hate your father. He has bribed, bartered, and blackmailed his way to power, but mostly blackmailed. No single baron can risk offending him, but if there is a way to bring him down, with no risk to themselves, every baronial house will jump at it.”

“I still won’t give you any evidence against Dite. Not that you could execute him for.”

“I don’t need to execute him, Sejanus. All I have to do is banish him for being an embarrassment to the throne. I have all the evidence I need for that.”

That stupid song, thought Costis.

Sejanus thought it through, and like a puppet with its strings cut, or like the temple collapsing on itself, he landed on his knees before the king with a force that must have rattled his teeth in his head.

“He cannot support himself,” Sejanus said.

The king agreed. “He has no money. Your father hasn’t provided him any for years. He has lived on the queen’s charity and spent every coin she has given him. Within a month he will be begging on a street corner somewhere on the Peninsula, and within two months groveling in the mud for a crust of bread, and within the year, he will be dead. On the other hand, if you try to retract your confession, I will have one dragged out of him, and then I will have him drawn and quartered. You can decide which is preferable. After all, he might make a living for himself, selling his songs from a gutter on the Peninsula.”

Sejanus put a hand to his head.

“Your father won’t support him.” The king hammered on. “What would be the point of an heir who cannot manage the family from exile? Your father will instantly disinherit him and pick another heir. Only . . . if a man chooses someone, not his own offspring, as heir, he must obtain the approval of the throne. Me. My approval.”

Sejanus buried his face in his hands.

“Your cousins, your uncles, your every illegitimate sibling will be scrambling before the day is out. All of them straining to be the next Baron Erondites, all of them stabbing each other in the back. They must be chosen by your father, so they will seek his favor. They must be approved by me, and so they will seek mine. If we cannot agree, and your father dies without an heir, the entire estate reverts to the throne. I will choose an heir for him.”

The king looked from the diased bed down at Sejanus. “The house of Erondites,” he promised, “will not survive.”

They could hear Sejanus’s breathing, baffled by his carefully manicured hands.

“Your Majesty.” He dropped his hands, but didn’t look up as he spoke. He concentrated his gaze on the floor, as if he had this one last thing to say and meant to say it well. “My brother has served the queen loyally. He would serve you as well. He has never been anything but loyal. Please. Please let your revenge fall on me, who deserves it. Not on my house. Not on my brother. Let me confess to any crime you like and be punished in any way you choose.” He licked his lips. “I beg you.”

“It isn’t revenge, Sejanus,” said this new incarnation of the king. “I wouldn’t destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house. Your brother will be exiled, your house will fall, not because I happen to hate you, but because Erondites controls more land, and more men, than any four other barons stacked together and has proved to be dangerous over and over. Its very existence is a threat to the throne. It will not survive,” he said again.

He gave Sejanus time then to think it all through, to find some escape, but there was none. The baron’s son cast a brief glance at the other attendants, but he’d lost his hold over them. Even if he retracted the confession, he had made it in front of too many witnesses. They were the younger sons and nephews of the most influential barons in the state and they would repeat everything they had heard to their uncles and fathers. The council of the barons wouldn’t support someone who’d confessed to the attempted murder of the king. His father had too many enemies who would be delighted at the fall of the house. There was no hope, and only Dite’s fate lay in his hands.

“I will not retract the confession,” said Sejanus. “I will give you any evidence you need, except against Dite, if you will exile him instead of killing him.”

“Thank you,” said the king.

Sejanus looked up at last. Then, with a little effort, he shrugged, like a man who has lost a bet on a footrace or a roll of dice. Accepting a shattering defeat with some dignity intact, he was more likable than he ever had been in the past. Costis almost felt sorry for him.

Sejanus saluted the king. “Basileus,” he said, using the archaic term for the fabled princes of the ancient world.

He looked over his shoulder as if to summon the guards in the doorway who were stepping forward to lift him to his feet, and he left the room without another word.

The attendants exchanged glances in the silence after his departure, but they didn’t speak. The queen entered and sank into a chair. The king inched himself backward with a grimace and settled back against the headboard.

Two of the queen’s attendants had come in behind her: Chloe and Iolanthe. All of the king’s attendants but Sejanus remained, as well as Costis, still standing uncomfortably by the small upholstered chair. The room was full of people.

“Ninety-eight days,” said the queen, folding her hands in her lap. “You said it would take six months.”

Eugenides picked at a nub in the coverlet. “I like to give myself a margin. When I can.”

“I didn’t believe you,” the queen admitted with a delicate smile.

“Now you know better.” The king smiled back. They might as well have been alone.

The queen turned her head to listen. There was shouting in the guardroom. Costis tensed. His hand went to his belt, looking for his sword.

“That will be Dite,” said the king. “He must have been in the outer rooms. I may as well see him.”

The queen rose and stepped behind the embroidered screen in front of the fireplace. Her attendants withdrew. The king’s attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days.

Dite, when he came to the door, braced by two guards, was as white as his brother had been by the time he left. He, too, dropped to his knees by the king’s bed, but he didn’t look at the floor. He stared up at the king’s face, seeking answers.