“Hmph,” said the Eddisian, and walked away.

Sounis slunk out of the room, avoiding a sympathetic glance from the magus. Passing the food in the dining hall, he snagged a roll and hurried on to catch up with Eugenides, wondering, even as he did so, why he bothered.

Sounis drew closer once they both were outside, but slowed when he saw his sparring partner was closing in on Eugenides as well. The man said something to the king that made him turn in Sounis’s direction. Sounis knew he would only look silly if he backed away and forced himself to continue his approach, arriving in time to hear the small Eddisian say, “That one should go back to the basics,” before he stalked away like a particularly officious little rooster.

Flushed, and knowing it, Sounis fell into step with the king of Attolia and glared at the ground. “You might have mentioned this charade you had planned beforehand,” he said stiffly, his irritation overcoming his reserve.

“Couldn’t,” Gen said coolly. “I needed you on the edge, looking slightly sick.”

Sounis knew that his mind sometimes worked like a pig stuck in mud, but at other times conclusions seemed to strike like lightning, one bolt after another. He realized that Eugenides was growing more remote, not less, and almost in the same instant that he would never see any sign of his old friend if all he did was wait patiently for it. If the king of Attolia was more than just his ally, there was one sure way to find out. He stuffed the bread into his mouth and dropped his practice sword. He slid one foot around Eugenides’s ankle, and using both hands, as well as his greater mass, he sent him flying.

It was immensely satisfying. Eugenides crashed into his attendants, who went stumbling in turn, a mass of windmilling arms and falling bodies as they tried to catch the king, who was making no effort to save himself. He’d dropped his own practice sword and had his arms tucked in where his hook would do no accidental damage. He slipped through their clutching hands like a fish.

Sounis stood very still, his hands well away from his body, surrounded, as he’d anticipated, by weapons that were very real and all pointed toward him. Eugenides levered himself up on his elbows, appearing stunned. After a moment he lay back down again and began to laugh. He was uncooperative as his crouching attendants tried to lift him. They managed to pull him to a seated position, but he waved them away. With a nod, he dismissed the swords back to their sheaths. “Just what makes you think you can get away with that?” he asked the young man standing over him with a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression incongruous on his scarred face.

“I am Sounis,” his friend answered, and offered a hand to help him up.

Arms around each other, the kings of Sounis and Attolia walked back toward the palace. The magus, following some distance behind, watched with pleasure and the happy anticipation of carrying the news to Eddis.

“That was a compliment, you know,” said Eugenides.

“What was?”

“What Procivitus said. He wouldn’t have suggested you go back to basics if he didn’t think you were worth training.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“I know you didn’t, you idiot. There’s no time for the basics, really, but if you’d like, he’d be happy to train with you while you’re here.”

Sounis hesitated. “I think it might kill me.”

Attolis laughed. “I’ll tell him that you will wait for him in the morning.”

When they’d gone a little farther, Attolis slipped out from under Sounis’s arm. “It might be beneficial to sow a little ambiguity. Really, there is very little hope that I will be able to play this trick on Melheret twice, but will you go on from here alone?”

They parted ways, and the magus and Sounis, led by Attolis’s attendant Hilarion, made their way back to their rooms.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“SOPHOS, you sleep with a knife under your pillow? I’m hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sounis, blinking, afraid that he had made contact with his wild swing.

“I was joking. Wake up the rest of the way, would you?”

“Gen, it’s the middle of the night.”

“I know,” said the king of Attolia.

Sounis tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He was sitting up in his bed. The sky was still entirely dark, and he couldn’t have been asleep for long. He suspected that he had just dropped off. The bare knife was still in his hand, he realized, and he rooted under his pillow for the sheath.

“Don’t you trust my palace security?”

“Yes, of course,” Sounis said, trying to think of some other reason besides mistrust to sleep with a knife. He heard Eugenides laugh.

“My queen and I sleep with a matched set under our pillows, as well as handguns in pockets on the bedposts. Don’t be embarrassed.”

“Gen, what are you doing in my bedroom in the middle of the night?” Sounis asked.

“Going out of my mind,” said Eugenides promptly. “At least I am on the verge of going out of my mind.” Sounis could just make him out in the darkness as he dropped into the chair across the room. “If I don’t get away from the pernicious attentions of my attendants, the rivalry between my palace physician and Eddis’s, and the need to refrain from pushing certain members of my court down stairs, I am going to be a very bad king indeed. Come out with me, Sophos.”

“The magus,” said Sounis, thinking that his minister probably wouldn’t approve.

“He won’t even know you’re gone, I promise.”

Sounis followed Gen through Attolia’s palace as he had once followed him through the much grimmer stronghold of her fortress on the Seperchia River. This time they were not escaping prisoners, but Sounis had to remind himself of that because there was more than a hint of escaping in the proceedings.

Gen avoided every posted guard. He arrived at intersections of hallways just as they moved away, slipping behind them with no more than a few feet to spare. He led the way down servants’ passages and narrow staircases that were hidden behind knobless doors that matched the paneling so flawlessly that even knowing they were there, Sounis wasn’t sure if he could find them again. He was hopelessly lost.

They reached a small courtyard just inside the outer wall of the palace, with a gate and an inevitable guard, and Sounis balked at last. The guard stood in the very center of the archway, facing out. There was a low doorway opening to his right that would lead to a guardroom holding at least one more man, but Eugenides blithely set out across the open ground. Sounis set his heels and stopped. Eugenides could not possibly make his way past the guard unseen. It was ludicrous even to think of it. Sounis held his breath, knowing that at any moment the guard would catch a glimpse from the corner of his eye, or that god-sent nudge would come that causes a man to turn when someone is sneaking up behind him.

The guard would turn, Sounis thought. At any moment. And he did.

“Your Majesty.”

“Aris,” said the king of Attolia, and flipped a coin into the air. It dropped into the guard’s open palm and disappeared into his purse. The guard resumed his position, and the king passed by.

After digging through his own purse, Sounis put a coin more clumsily into the same hand and followed Attolis out of the palace.