“Ready,” he said.

They began.

“Has it occurred to you, Costis,” the king said conversationally between thrusts, “that the only reason I am alive now is that those three assassins took me for a prancing lightweight?”

It hadn’t occurred to Costis. “You will have the Guard to defend you now,” he said.

“I was supposed to have the Guard to defend me then. I am not reassured.”

“You will,” Costis insisted.

“Oh?” said the king. “You think they will see I do know how to use a sword and lo, they will come to heel? I don’t think so, Costis.”

It wasn’t as simple as that, Costis knew. There had been suitors before for the queen’s hand, suitors who were capable with a sword, and the Guard wouldn’t have followed them across the street into a wineshop. Nonetheless, Costis was certain that the Guard, if they knew him, would follow the king. He just didn’t have the words to explain why, and was too hard-pressed to stop and think of them.

The king attacked; Costis defended. The king hit him hard on the thigh. Hopping backward, Costis disengaged, but the king kept coming and hit him twice more, once on the same thigh and once on the elbow. Costis retreated faster. The king watched, his eyes narrowed.

“Frankly, Costis, if they all fight like you, I am still not reassured.”

This time, Costis’s sword rose into the air in an arc before hitting the ground with a rattle. He went to pick it up.

“Too late to stop now, Costis,” the king said, and attacked again.

Costis snatched up his sword and retreated. The men sparring around him moved to make room and then circled around, all pretense of minding their own business gone.

“So, Costis,” said the king, as Costis watched him warily, “you asked for this. Why?”

“You compromised my honor.”

“I compromised your honor? Which one of us hit the other in the face?”

“They think I lied on your instructions. That Teleus and I killed the assassins in the garden and let you take the credit.”

“Oh, that,” said the king with a shrug. “That isn’t your honor, Costis. That’s the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perceptions of fools.”

The wooden swords thwacked against each other, and Costis was driven back again. The circle of onlookers broke and re-formed again around them. Even after the weeks of practice, it was disconcerting to fight against someone left-handed. The king’s sword came from the wrong direction, and it came too fast for Costis to be sure he could parry it, so he retreated. The circle of men widened to give him room, but the men were starting to jeer.

“Come on, Costis,” someone shouted. “You’re going the wrong direction.”

That was easy for him to say, Costis thought. His arm and his thigh didn’t ache, and his face didn’t burn as if a hot iron had been laid on it.

Other watchers remembered that Costis, even in disgrace, was their man. There were a few cheers on his side, and his heart rose. Costis took a breath and tried to steady himself. When the king moved toward him, Costis held his ground. The king attacked in first, exactly as they had practiced for so many tedious hours. Costis parried, his arm moving automatically. The king attacked again, still in first. Costis parried. Costis remembered their first lesson when he had thought he would have to take his beating and make the king look good in the process. Instead, the king was making him look good. Eugenides continued to attack in first, harder and faster, and each time Costis parried. His arm knew its business better than his head did. He didn’t need to think, only to react—in mounting terror as the king’s blows came faster and faster. Should he change to another attack, Costis was not going to be able to defend himself. The king’s wooden sword was going to break his arm, or his ribs, or his head, but just as Costis thought he would surely break down, the king slowed and backed off. The guard watched in silent appreciation.

“Ready?” asked the king. Costis nodded. This was the part where he wouldn’t look good. It was a farce. Costis didn’t stand a chance of defending himself, though he tried. The king moved too fast; he attacked in ways that were entirely a surprise to Costis, who had a soldier’s command of a sword, not a duelist’s.

The guards around him shouted advice, but it was hopeless.

The king slipped through Costis’s guard; he slipped under it, catching him on the thigh or the knee, or over it, knocking him on the head, hard enough to sting, but not hard enough to finish him. And with every hit, the king shouted directions in a harsh voice Costis had never heard. “Don’t lower your guard!” Whack. “Don’t swing so wide!” Whack. “Don’t leave yourself open!” Whack. “Don’t . . . lower . . . the . . . point . . . in . . . third!” With each stroke, Costis was more rattled. His defense fell apart. The king disarmed him, and then disarmed him again. Costis stood amazed.

“H-How did you do that?”

“No!” shouted the king. “You don’t stand there like a buffoon. Get your sword!” he roared, and raced at Costis. In a panic, Costis dove for his sword and missed. The king’s sword fell on his exposed and undefended posterior. Yelping, Costis scrambled for the sword and managed to twist and block the next blow as it fell and the next as he crawled away from the king. The guards roared with laughter. Costis got to his feet and raised his sword, but he was laughing as well, and the sword shook in his hands. He backed as the king advanced. Giving up even a show of self-defense, he waggled the sword in front of him, until he bumped into a wall and realized he’d been backed into a corner of the courtyard.

The king stood in front of him, arms crossed, sword hanging from his hand. “Are we done?”

Costis looked at the men standing behind the king, smiling and relaxed.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Costis.

“Good,” said the king. “I want my breakfast. I want a bath.” In a weak voice he added, “I drank too much last night, and I have a headache.”

He tucked his wooden sword under his right arm and extended his hand to Costis, pulling him out of the corner.

Costis moved carefully, moaning. With the excitement of the sparring over, he was realizing that some of the blows hadn’t been light.

“Serves you right,” said the king. “You haven’t even apologized.”

“I’m very s-sorry, Your Majesty,” Costis said immediately.

“For what exactly?” the king prompted.

“Anything,” said Costis. “Everything. Being born.”

The king chuckled.

“Will you serve me and my god?”

“I will, Your Majesty.”

“Then come out,” said the king, helping him, “knowing that you’ll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“YOUR Majesty,” said a humorless voice, and the king turned away from Costis. The cheerful atmosphere faded. The guards shuffled their feet.

“Teleus,” said the king. His smile gone, he looked at the captain with a waiting expression.