Megan Whalen Turner

"You must choose now. Between the two of us we can reach a treaty without a wedding. You don't have to marry him, but if you choose to marry him, you have to believe him." Attolia turned, and Eddis thought that behind her mask the queen might be afraid, and so she finished lightly. "You have to believe him, because he's going to have you entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it." Attolia smiled. "You make him sound like more trouble than he's worth." "No," said Eddis thoughtfully. "Never more than he is worth."

"Nothing mortals make lasts; nothing the gods make endures forever."

"Unable to guess the answer, she asked, "Who am I, that you should love me?" "You are My Queen," said Eugenides. She sat perfectly still, looking at him without moving as his words dropped like water into dry earth. "Do you believe me?" he asked. "Yes," she answered. "Do you love me?" "Yes." "I love you." And she believed him."

"The queen turned back to face him. "I could hang you," she said. Eugenides looked up at her. "You missed your chance for that," he said."

"Your Majesty," he asked innocently, "is it true that your cousins once held you down in a water cache?" Ornon, in the act of putting down his wine cup, paused. "Is it also true that they wouldn't let you out until you agreed to repeat insults about your own family?"

"The dandified Attolian who had spoke, a patron, but not a baron by any means, glanced at the queen to see if she approved, but she was looking the other way. The king shrugged his shoulders slightly and said, "I could send you to ask them." The man laughed. "It would be a long trip, Your Majesty. I would so much rather hear the answer from you." "Oh, the trip would be much quicker than you think," said the king pleasantly. "Most of my male cousins are dead." The silence that had begun at the head table had spread to the edges of the hall. The Attolian's smile grew uncertain. The king didn't smile back. Those who understood shifted uncomfortably in their seats."

""The court is watching," she pointed out. "I thought you wanted me more exposed to the public eye?" he teased. "I reverse myself," she said coldly, "and argue for a little circumspection." She tugged at his hand, but he didn't release her. She gave up, unwilling to be seen trying to pull away. "You don't think I can do it." She didn't think he could. "I don't care what they think." She knew that. It worried her. "No," said the queen, but she wavered. He sensed it and smiled. "Am I king?" he asked, irrepressibly. It was the one argument she was in no position to deny. She wanted him to be king, and he was resisting it with all his will."

"Why were these the only dances you knew?" "Because no one would dance with me. Thieves are never popular." I know why, thought Attolia, but aloud she asked, "Why are you familiar with the square dances?" The music quickened. "My mother taught me. We danced them on the rooftops of the Megaron. According to legend, the Thief and any partner the Thief chooses will be safe." "You are king now," she pointed out. "Ah, but they say that if the king dances, the entire court can safely dance with him." "Spare me," said Attolia, "and my court, from dancing on the roof." "It probably only works in Eddis."

"As Attolia spun, she felt a tug at her hair and, turning back, felt another. Then she felt her carefully arranged hair slipping down her neck. Eugenides, minding the pattern with his feet and spinning the queen with one hand, had been pulling out her hairpins one by one when her back was turned. The rest of the pins loosened, and her hair dropped free. It swung out as she spun and the last of the pins bounced and slid across the marble floor. The queen was several inches taller than Eugenides, and he leaned back to counter her spin. To those watching, it didn't seem possible that he could succeed, but with one hand, and no visible effort, he defied the laws of the natural world. Phresine, the queen's senior attendant, watched them from behind the throne as her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth. Faster and faster they moved, never faltering, until the music shrilled at an impossible tempo and the pattern gave way to a long spin, each dancer reaching in with one hand and out with the other, holding tight lest they fall away from the other, until the music stopped abruptly and the dance ended."

"The king paused. "Your master of spies is a liar, and this time he is lying," the king said slowly, "to you." Attolia frowned, then almost imperceptibly shook her head. "Have him arrested," said the king. After another pause he added unequivocally, "Now." If he succeeds in having me killed, you could be the next Captain of the Guard. What, then, if the king destroyed Relius? Who would replace him? Costis hardly breathed. The king hadn't ordered the arrest himself, though he could have, but he had directed the queen to do so, in public. Now they would see if the queen could protect her own or not."

"For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king, as he would for his queen. So long, he worried, as they didn't order him in opposite directions at the same time. What he would do when that happened, Costis couldn't guess."

"The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day."

""Yet you prefer his mercy to my justice." She meant from the king. She knew where the message had come from."

"As the queen raged at him, he responded, first calmly, then with his own heat. "Is there no one that you will see punished?" the queen shouted. "Are you fond of Teleus now that you preserve his life at all costs?" "I only asked you to reconsider." "There is nothing to reconsider!" "You know why I need him." "Not anymore," the queen declared with finality. The king ignored the finality. "Now more than ever," he insisted. "He has failed-" "That was not entirely his fault!" "Then you will unmake my decisions?" Attolia dared him to try. "You said that I could," Eugenides flatly replied. Pushed too far, the queen lashed out. The king made no effort to avoid the blow. His head snapped around and his forehead struck the doorjamb. He staggered and caught himself. By the time he opened his eyes, she was at the door and then she was gone."

""Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again?" He looked around the room at the other attendants as if in warning, but spoke to Philologos. "Remember, the love of kings and queens is beyond the compass of us lesser mortals." If anyone noticed, no one commented that he had called the Thief of Eddis a king."

"He looked up from the where he had been carefully smoothing the embroidered cover, and seeing his face, Costis felt the shock like a physical blow. If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating."

"He had seen a temple fall once, in an earthquake. Small gaps had appeared between the stones, and these had grown until each separate stone tottered in opposition to the ones below. First the columns supporting the porches and then the walls had tumbled down. So, piece by piece, did the king hammer out the enormity of the disaster Sejanus had precipitated on his house."

"I wouldn't destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house."

"The king, the master of the fates of men, before their eyes was reduced to a man, very young himself, and in love."

"A story?" Phresine was surprised. "What makes you think I can tell stories?" "Insight," said the king. "Go on."

"He didn't marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you."

"Grown more confident of the queen's humor, Relius said, "I had not pictured you for a fishwife." "Lo, the transforming power of love.""

"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."

"I think he was delighted to see you safe," said the magus, "and grieved that the next time you meet, it must be as king and king and not as friends."

"He was confident, I think, of the success over both Eddis and Attolia right up until the world heard that the Thief of Eddis had stolen the queen of Attolia and meant to marry her."

"I'd suggested eating it before we left the market. I'd also suggested eating it on the road. I was not so comfortable with my new authority that I could say, "We eat the chicken now!" but the magus had seen that I was considering it."

"Everything, it seemed, depended on gold. The magus and I had fallen easily back into our old habits. He lectured constantly, and I asked questions to my heart's delight. Where he had once been my master and I his apprentice, I had become king and he my sole advisor. Where we had once focused on natural history and philosophy, we now concentrated on administration, taxation, and the prosecution of war. He had begun his lessons by quoting the duke of Melfi: "To make war you need three things: one, money; two, money; and three, money." He went on to tell me the things I should have known already, that I would have known if I had been a more promising heir to the throne and not exclusively interested in poetry."

"You eat more than Gen did after prison", he said. "I have more sympathy with him all the time. Are you going to finish that drumstick?" I asked. "I am. Stop staring at it."

"The magus and I had talked for many long hours about this marriage of Eugenides and the queen of Attolia. The magus insisted it was Eugenides's choice and his desire as well, but it was impossible to know whose influence would prevail and if Gen would grow more like his wife, or his wife like her king."

"Then, as you well know, Eugenides looked me in the eye as if I were a complete stranger and said, "The simplest way to end a war is to admit you have lost it." The silence after that was not polite."

"Would I be wrong," Sounis asked one evening as he walked with Eddis, "to think that I talk to you, you talk to Gen, and Gen talks to Attolia, who talks to the magus, who talks to me?" Eddis laughed. "Not always. Sometimes, as in this case, someone approaches my Eddisian ambassador Ornon, here in Attolia, and he talks to me, I talk to you, you talk to Attolia, Attolia talks to Gen, and he talks to me." "I see you appear in that progression twice." "Oh, more than that, because after Gen talks to me, the process reverses. He goes back to Attolia, who talks to you, who go to the magus, who repeats the information to me, who gives it to Ornon, who takes it back to whoever started this particular political ball rolling in the first place."

"Eddis nodded. "Gen leaves the reins in Attolia's hands. Which is not what either I or Attolia recommended, but wisely he ignored us both." "Wisely?" Smiling, Eddis said, "He hasn't the temperament. He gets angry. She only ever gets angry at him." Sounis, having seen the Thief of Eddis lose his temper, could see her point."

""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."

"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."

"You bastard," said Sounis wearily. "I don't know why I don't stab you here in this alley so I can be the annux over Sounis and Attolia." They were twisting through the narrowest of passages, with Eugenides still in the lead, turning on what seemed to be a whim from one walkway to the next. "Well, the stabbing would be unkind," said Eugenides, "but you can have the annux part with my goodwill." "Not Attolia's." "True," said the king. "Better not stab me."

""I know exactly when. I was hiding in a takima bush in the Queen's Garden, watching the older son of the Baron Erondites tell Attolia that he loved her. He was trying to propose a marriage and she thought he was talking about a poem he was writing. I was laughing like a very quiet fiend, trying not to make the branches around me shake, and then, between one heartbeat and the next, and to my complete surprise, it wasn't funny anymore." He rubbed his chest, as if a remembered pain. "I wanted to kill him. Once she was gone, I very nearly jumped out of the bush onto his head. Poor Dite." Poor Eugenides, thought Sounis, to fall in love with a woman he had already made into an enemy."

""When you stop fussing," Gen had said, slipping to his knees beside her couch, "I will sleep with two knives under my pillow." Attolia had looked down at him and said sharply, "Don't be ridiculous." Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn't save him."

"I seem to remember once sharing my oatmeal with you," Sounis remarked. "I seem to remember stealing your oatmeal," said the former Thief of Eddis, "but it didn't have sand in it." "Sand?" said Sounis, taken aback. "Sand, and if my queen notices, she will have someone flayed."

"Inside the case was a dueling pistol, a king's weapon, wheel-locked, chased in gold. Eddis had seen it earlier that day. When Sounis lifted it out and tipped his head over the locking mechanism, she knew he was reading the letters inscribed there: Onea realia. "The queen made me.""

"You have heard the queen's advice. My gift is below. Would you wait to see it until you have decided what you will do with hers?"

"Do you warn him not to offend the gods?" "There was no need," said Attolis, smiling, "He couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick."

"In the shocked aftermath, I said, "We'll give them a second chance." With my right hand, I reached to the other pocket. I had known as soon as I lifted the false bottom of the gun case and looked underneath what it meant. I had tried without ceasing to find some alternative to Attolia's ruthless advice, and I had failed. Gen's fit reassured me that I had not failed for lack of trying. He had seen no other solution himself. I lifted out the matching gun and read the archaic inscription. Realisa onum. Not "The queen made me," but "I make the king.""

"Staring at me over the barrel of my gun, Akretenesh said, "Did you not just days ago lecture me about the sacred truce?" With my finger still through the trigger guard of the spent pistol, I lifted my left palm upward to the sky to see if lightning struck me down. When none did, I smiled again. "We will have to assume the gods are on my side." "I am an ambassador," Akretenesh warned me, anger bringing his confidence back. "You cannot shoot." "I don't mean to," I reassured him, still smiling. I adopted his soothing tones. "Indeed, you are the only man I won't shoot. But if I aimed at anyone else, it might give others a dangerously mistaken sense of their own safety." I raised my voice a trifle, thought it wasn't really necessary. "We will have another vote, Xorcheus." They elected me Sounis. It was unanimous."

""Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and the Baron Xorcheus among them. They thought it was how a king behaved."

"Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot their ambassador?" "You gave me the gun," protested Sounis. "I didn't mean for you to shoot an ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him. "Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus. "You shut up!" said Gen, laughing."

"In my experience, the more you know of the gods, the more you know what you cannot understand."

"If a man who claims to see the future is a fool, how much more so, the man who believes he can control it? We think we steer the ship of fate, but all of us are guided by unseen stars."