“So he sends you to ask me to forgive him?”

Eddis was silent. Eugenides did not expect to be forgiven.

Sounis sat down and lay back in his chair. He put his arm across his forehead and snapped, “Oh, of course, I will forgive him. What choice do I have?” His own words seemed to give him pause, and after a moment’s thought, he sighed heavily. “I will forgive him,” he said more calmly, “because I have heard him scream when someone pulled a sword out of him that could have just as easily gone into me. And because I believe I know him, all evidence to the contrary, and that if he is Attolis, he is also my friend Gen. But he could have trusted me to begin with, instead of acting like an idiot and treating me like one.”

“No one would argue,” said Eddis, revealing some of her own exasperation with the king of Attolia.

“I’m not a fool,” said Sounis.

“No.”

“I cannot win a war with Attolia and at the same time put down a rebellion.”

“I do not see how.”

“Sounis could not yield to Attolia, but I believe I can yield to Eugenides as the king of Attolia and still be Sounis and still hold my country. We can unite against a far greater danger.”

“Yes.”

“I do not actually need you to tell me that.”

Biting back her smile, Eddis shook her head. “No.”

Sounis smiled, too, though it was a sorrowful smile. He stood. “I suppose I should tell the magus.”

Eddis stood as well. As he passed on his way to the door, she stopped him with one hand on his sleeve.

“How less?” she asked him, serious again.

It was obvious to Sounis. “A slave in the fields of Hanaktos, and now, not much better. I am a king with no country. Would you have that?”

Eddis seemed to consider. “Yes.”

Regret and pleasure were in equal measure when Sounis said reluctantly, “I am not sure that is wise. I would have to question my own feelings, because I do not think I love you so wildly that I would drag you into such a poor match.”

“It might have been preferable,” Eddis admitted drily, “if you had thrown off your chains of bondage solely for love of me. It would certainly have been more flattering.” Standing so near to him, she was looking up into his face and watching it closely. “I am willing to accept, however, that we are real people, not characters in a play. We do not, all of us, need to be throwing inkwells. If we are comfortable with one another, is that not sufficient?”

“Were I a king in more than just name, it would be all, all I dreamed of,” said Sounis, and it was Eddis who blushed.

“You wish to wait, then, until you are confirmed as Sounis?”

“If…”

“When,” said Eddis firmly.

“Yes,” said Sounis, “then.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

AS Eddis left, she gathered in her wake most of the crowd that Sounis found squeezed into the anteroom outside his door when he opened it. People flowed out of the room like a tide, leaving only two of the Attolian guard, and the magus, standing alone, as unaware of the empty room as he had been of the full one.

He looked old, Sounis thought, and it seemed a shame that such a man couldn’t have a better king to serve. “I’m sorry,” Sounis said. “You tried to warn me that he is the king of Attolia now, and I should have listened.”

To his surprise, the magus walked forward and dropped to his knees.

“Don’t,” said Sounis, but the magus took each of the king’s hands and kissed them before holding them to his eyes. Embarrassed, Sounis pulled the magus to his feet, but the magus was unperturbed. He smiled as he stood, and looking Sounis in the face, he said simply, “My King, I am at your disposal.”

The conversation between Sounis and his future overlord was carefully arranged and far from private. Sounis was conveyed through the palace by an amorphous crowd that expanded and shrank as he progressed; guards, escorts, majordomos, and hangers-on surrounded him as he went up stairs and along corridors until he arrived at the private apartment of the king of Attolia and was announced. His first thought, upon entering, was that his own guest apartment in the palace was the more luxurious. His walls were covered in patterned cloth and trimmed with molded plasterwork. The king’s walls were plain plaster above and plain paneling below, with benches on three sides to provide seating. Though the cushions were worked with embroidered figures, the chamber’s appearance was reminiscent of nothing so much as a patronoi’s waiting room for okloi petitioners.

The door to the next room was open, and Sounis was surprised to see that it was the bedchamber. He had thought that any room of measurable importance necessarily had an antechamber, and often more than one. In the megaron of Sounis, his uncle had lived in a room behind a room behind a room, each one lined with silk wall coverings or fine murals and far removed from the people he governed. Sounis thought Gen, cheek by jowl with his guardroom, must be rather more closely entwined in the lives of those around him. On reflection, he suspected Gen was more closely entwined than any of the polished young men standing around the guardroom suspected.

The men in uniform were obviously the king’s guards. The others were like Hilarion, Sounis assumed, more of the king’s companions. They were attractive in the way only the very well heeled can be. Trained in all the arts of riding, shooting, fighting, dancing, and clever court dialogue, their kind had intimidated him for years, and Sophos, now Sounis, quailed at the idea of surrounding himself with such companions. He wondered how Gen got along with them.

Eugenides waited for him in the bedchamber, sitting on an upholstered bench. He indicated the seat beside him. Sounis stood for a moment looking down at him before taking the seat. He was looking for some sign of the friend he had traveled with through Eddis and across Attolia in pursuit of a mythical relic and saw none. The king of Attolia’s expression showed no sense of irony or humor, just a blank courtesy. Sounis sat beside him and looked straight ahead.

Everyone else in the room, including the magus, remained standing. Neither the queen of Eddis nor the queen of Attolia attended.

The king of Attolia nodded agreeably but made no personal comment. He asked if Sounis would give his oath of loyalty.

“If Attolis can make it worth the sacrifice,” Sounis answered.

“And if not?” Attolis inquired politely.

Sounis crossed his legs, as if at ease, and offered his intention to go to Melenze and use their resources to fight Attolia and to delay the encroaching Medes. “Better to be king of some part of Sounis than of none of it.”

“The oath of loyalty would pertain to all of Sounis, not part,” Attolis said.

“You would have my loyalty, but no right to interfere in the internal management of my state.”

“That is acceptable,” said Attolis.

“Then we are in agreement,” said Sounis.

After a dry and formal parting, Sounis was led back to his own rooms, the magus beside him. Sounis was thinking over his decision. A hallway, filled with various members of the court, was no place to discuss such private thoughts. “The king’s rooms are very plain,” he observed instead.

Attolis’s attendant, walking just ahead, turned to speak over his shoulder. “They are not the royal apartments. His Majesty chose these rooms in preference and has arranged for the queen to remain in the royal apartments, as it suits them both.” He managed to convey that they had rooms every bit as nice as any in Sounis and also that it wasn’t anyone’s business but theirs where their king slept.