Hilarion stepped faster, passing the king. Once ahead of him, and between the king and the door, he stopped and turned around to ask bluntly, “Where are we going, Your Majesty?”
The king tilted his head and looked up at him through narrowed eyes. Hilarion swallowed, but the king chose to give him an answer. “So far today I have pardoned people I would have preferred to exile, exiled the only member of this court that I like, and imprisoned for life a man I would have preferred to execute. I am going to the palace prison to indulge myself. I think I deserve it. You may stay here.”
“No!” A little too loud. “I mean, please, no, Your Majesty. We should be with you.” Or the queen would have their heads, thought Costis.
“I will have my guards with me. They are sufficient.”
“Your Majesty.” It was Philologos. “We are your attendants, aren’t we?” His expression was equal amounts pleading and resignation.
The king rolled his eyes, but gave in. “Three of you may come.”
He left it to them to choose. Hilarion and Sotis, now that Sejanus was gone, were the two obvious choices. Costis was a little surprised when Philologos also stepped forward and even more surprised when the other attendants backed down. The three followed the king out the door.
Costis hesitated, then followed them. He’d been told by the queen to stay with the king until dismissed and he hadn’t been dismissed.
They reached the grand staircase that led down four levels to the ground. The king glared at the steps in front of him.
“If we may assist you, Your Majesty?” Hilarion offered.
“You may not.”
Putting his hand on the marble railing, he went down. He moved slowly, without any obvious sign of difficulty, but Costis noted that the king was sweating by the time he reached the ground floor.
They crossed the palace and circumnavigated the kitchens to reach a stairwell that led down to the palace prison. The prison was entirely underground and lay beneath the courts between the palace and the stables and hound pens. The hound pens probably smelled better, Costis thought. He hated it down here.
At the bottom of the stairwell the guard sat on a three-legged stool. He didn’t rise until he saw the king, and then did so with barely concealed reluctance. With insulting leisure, he led the way into the prison. The chief of the prison guards, in their guardroom, bowed to the king, looked at the hook at the end of the king’s arm, and hid his smile. It seems he knew which prisoner the king was seeking.
“This way, Your…Majesty.”
By stepping forward as the prison keeper opened the cell door, Costis blocked the king until two of his own guards had gone in, and he had stepped in himself, but the prisoner was no danger. He was chained to the stone bench on which he lay, and the chains, like the guards, were a superfluous security. The cell stank of cess and vomit, and the prisoner hadn’t moved when the door opened, not even to turn his head. The growth of his beard covered his chin, and the bruises obscured the rest of his face. His arms lay across his chest, one hand swollen and black. The fingers were like grotesque sausages, and Costis looked away. There was a cloak bundled behind him. Perhaps it had been used as a blanket at one time, but the prisoner lay now without it. Recognizing the fabric, Costis was stunned.
He looked more carefully at the man lying on the bench. Even knowing who he was, Costis saw no sign of the assured Secretary of the Archives in the battered and bruised face, but bunched behind him was undeniably what remained of Relius’s elegant cloak.
Costis stepped aside to let the king enter and took his place by the doorway.
“A chair,” said the king. He considered the prisoner and then turned to Philologos. “And some water. Get it from the kitchen.”
Philologos hurried out the door.
The chair was brought, and the prison guard set it beside the king with a flourish.
“If there is anything else you desire, Your—”
“I desire”—the king interrupted in a level voice—“never again to see your living face.”
The smug condescension of the prison keeper wavered as he backed out the door. The attendants exchanged knowing glances. Eugenides sat in the chair that had been brought and leaned back carefully. “So, Relius,” he said finally, “are you ready to discuss the resources of your queen?”
It was a curious question, like an echo without a source. As if Relius had once asked the king the same question and the king was casting it back to him. Costis felt a chill travel down his spine.
A sound came from the figure lying so still in his chains. “I thought you would come somewhat sooner for your revenge,” Relius whispered.
“I’ve been indisposed.”
“I heard. One does hear things, even down here.”
“I remember.” The king looked around the cell as if reacquainting himself. “It was a room very much like this. I don’t remember a bunk, but maybe I just didn’t see it. Does she know that you came back to question me after she left?”
Costis swallowed, feeling more uneasy with each passing moment. Relius had questioned the king. When he had been a prisoner of Attolia, Relius had pressed him for information about the Queen of Eddis.
I am going to the palace prison to indulge myself. I think I deserve it.
Costis exchanged a glance with the rest of the guards in the cell. They were veterans. They’d seen this sort of thing before. They didn’t want to be here either.
Relius shook his head almost imperceptibly. “She didn’t want to know then.”
“And you weren’t foolish enough to tell her later?”
“No. Though she will have guessed.”
“Did I tell you anything?” the king asked conversationally.
Costis shuddered from head to toe.
“No,” Relius said. “You begged in demotic. You babbled in archaic. I would have pressed you harder, but I was afraid you would die. She didn’t want you dead.” The Secretary of the Archives finally turned his head to look at the king. “I wish I’d killed you.”
“Brave words, Relius.”
“No one here is brave. Just stupid. Did you come to hear me beg? I will. I have. You know the words.” The tears rose in his eyes, and his voice weakened. “Please don’t hurt me anymore. Please. Please, no more.”
The king turned his face away.
“I don’t know,” Relius whispered, “if I was ever brave. But if I’d known that you would come back, I would have killed you then.”
“If you had only known that I would end up here and you there? What a surprise it must be after all your years of service to the queen.”
“No surprise that I am here. Only that you are here as well. Do you think I didn’t know, from the very beginning, that this was where I must end?”
“Would you have served her if you did?” the king asked.
“Gladly,” snarled the secretary, and had to pant for breath, having disturbed the equilibrium of his body’s pain and his tolerance of it.
The king leaned forward then, and Relius cried out, but the king only slid his hand under Relius’s head to lift it while he used the hook to pull the cloak forward. He laid Relius’s head back down on the makeshift pillow.
Philologos came back with a skin jug in his hand.