A Conspiracy of Kings (17 page)

“Have another.”

“How, then, do you explain your affiliations with my rebel
barons?” Sounis thought of mentioning the attempt on his life
as he had fled Sounis, but he assumed that the Mede would only deny
any responsibility. If Melheret asked if he had seen Akretenesh
with a match in his hand, Sounis would have to say no.

“We have no ‘affiliations,’ as you say,”
said Melheret. “Our overtures to your barons, and to your
father, have been no more than an honest attempt to establish
communication with a new government, and what can be expected of
any wise nation. Did we not send an ambassador to your father,
thinking that he spoke for your uncle who was Sounis? No one would
deny your right to return to your throne. And we, my brother
ambassador Akretenesh and I, would be honored to act as neutral
mediators. You do not need Attolia’s help to accomplish
this.”

“And Attolia? Does she need to fear attack?”

“Again, no,” said the Mede, pouring once more.

Sounis was beginning to like the burning feeling in his middle,
and after the second drink, he’d sensed a flavor in his mouth
like mint and like fennel at the same time, something cool that
contrasted with the heat. Still, he didn’t think it wise to
have another taste, and he ignored the contents of the cup.

The Mede sat again and looked into Sounis’s eyes. “I
will be frank with you. We are not well disposed toward Attolia.
There are conventions among nations, relationships built on mutual
good faith. She abused those relationships, lying about her
intentions, inviting us to land our troops to aid in her defense,
and then turning on them. More than that, she has cast us as
aggressors, lying to you and to others in order to destroy our
nation’s peaceful relations here on this small
peninsula.”

The flavor that came after the burning flavor of the remchik
wasn’t mint, Sounis decided on reflection, and realized that
he’d absentmindedly sipped from his cup while Melheret was
talking.

“Drink,” said the Mede. “Remchik is not for
sipping, we say in my home. Its flavor comes in the swallow.”
The older man spoke with an almost fatherly authority.

Sounis obediently drank, but he declined another serving,
holding the cup too close to allow Melheret to fill it without
obvious effort.

Melheret said, “It is my task, given me by my emperor, to
repair the battered ties between us and Attolia and encourage her
to join a community of civilized nations.”

“Not prepare for an invasion?” asked Sounis.
“I thought your emperor was gathering his armies and building
the ships that would carry them to our ‘small’
peninsula. Did he not send Attolia a message to say so?”

Melheret’s head tilted, and his brow furrowed, as if
Sounis’s words had been garbled or as if he’d said the
carpet on the floor had come to life. “Excuse me?”

Sounis rubbed his face and pinched his numb lips, afraid that
his words
had
been garbled. “Your emperor
plans to invade with a huge army and has sent word of it to
Attolia.”

Melheret shook his head. “Why, if he meant to invade,
would he have warned Attolia of his plans?” Melheret put a
companionable hand on Sounis’s knee and shook it.
“Think, Your Majesty. She lies. That is the obvious
explanation for every story she tells. Yes, my emperor sent home
her spies; would any ruler not do the same? She was embarrassed at
being caught in such perfidy and lies to cover her shame. Is this
any ally for Sounis? See what she offers you in exchange for your
humiliating surrender. A paltry few mercenaries, a handful of gold.
My emperor is a far, far better ally if your barons continue to
rebel, as indeed, they may not. They, too, perhaps were unaware
that you yet lived and were their king. You do not need to invade
your own home to secure it. It is my belief that your barons will
return to you with open arms.”

“And if they don’t?” asked a skeptical
Sounis.

“Then from my emperor you will receive gold and the armies
to secure your throne.
He
will not demand oaths
of loyalty.”

“Won’t he? What did he demand of Suninex?”

Again Melheret looked puzzled. “Do you mean Sheninesh?
Sheninesh is our ally of many years and shares in our prosperity.
They choose to accept our governance because they see it as a
benefit, not as a yoke. You may have read accounts that say
otherwise, but if they cannot even tell you the name of a country,
how accurate can they be?”

Sounis remembered an old argument. “Eddis,” he
said.

“Eddis? What about Eddis?”

“It isn’t pronounced that way.”

Melheret guided him back to the topic. “You count on the
honesty and the support of your friend Eugenides, but it is she,
not he, who rules Attolia. And is he in fact your friend? He does
not seem so.”

“He is king,” Sounis said, holding on truculently to
his friendship with Eugenides, spurred by the Mede’s
skepticism to more conviction than he really felt.

“He is a thief, his wife, a murderess. I ask again, are
these allies for Sounis?”

Sounis nodded agreeably and watched the room spin. He thought of
a number of things that he could say, but decided that the wisest
course would be to say nothing at all. “What is the flavor in
the remchik?” he asked.

“It is made with sreet oil.”

“It’s very good. If you will excuse me.” He
stood, nodded again to Melheret, and left. Ion waited for him
outside Melheret’s rooms and silently led him away.

At his own door, Sounis said to the attendant, “I am sorry
to keep you away from your king.”

“As you have noticed,” said Ion, “he will not
have missed me. We are merely for ornamentation, like the
king’s coats, his boots, and his embroidered
sashes.”

Sounis said, “Gen’s very fond of his boots,”
and then, when Ion smiled painfully, wished he hadn’t.

“Not even that, then,” Ion murmured as he opened the
door to Sounis’s suite of rooms. “Verix is waiting for
you and will attend you until morning.”

While Sounis accepted Verix’s help in getting undressed
and crawled into bed to sleep off the remchik, the king of Attolia
was visiting the queen in the royal apartments.

“He has had his meeting with the Mede,” he said
moodily.

She answered, “You know I do not see the wisdom of pushing
him into Melheret’s arms.”

“If I am taking his country, I’ll take it. I’m
not going to charm it away.”

“You’re being a fool,” said Attolia. She was
sitting on a low-backed chair as Aglaia removed the pins from her
carefully braided hair. There was more she would have said, but she
held her tongue. Not because Aglaia was there but because she
doubted words would have had any effect.

“No one would argue with that,” said Eddis to the
magus. She had invited him to her apartments while Sounis met with
the king of Attolia. On the far side of the palace from the queen
of Attolia, the magus had unwittingly echoed her opinion of
Eugenides.

Eddis said, “If I bite my tongue anymore with the two of
them, it will come off.”

“How embarrassing,” murmured the magus, and Eddis
snorted indelicately.

“I’ve missed you since you left,” she said.
“I am very glad you survived the return to Sounis. I
don’t suppose Sophos’s uncle welcomed you with open
arms.”

“He did not,” said the magus. “But I have
always been useful to him. He assumed, as I did, that Sophos had
died in the kidnapping attempt and that my loyalties would no
longer be unfortunately divided.” He thought of the dead
king, who had sweated his life away, leaving no one to regret his
end. “I admit that my faith in his invitation was not
perfect, but I am glad I accepted it. He was an astonishingly angry
man, but he had many admirable qualities.” He glanced up at
Eddis and said, “He could be quite charming.”

“Agape might have made something of him,” said
Eddis. “I could not. Have you met Relius?”

“Oh, Relius and I know each other well.”

“I meant face to face,” said Eddis, and it was the
magus’s turn to smile. Relius had been the queen of
Attolia’s master of spies, and he and the magus had crossed
paths in the past.

“You confuse me with Sounis’s baron
Antimonus,” said the magus. “It was he who was the
official spy master. Relius and I were not adversaries.”

“Oh,” said Eddis, and followed it with
“hmm.”

“I have indeed been introduced to the former secretary of
the archives,” said the magus repressively.

“What do you think?” asked Eddis.

“Damaged,” said the magus. “Attolia will not
be able to use him again.”

“I think he is more valuable now as a friend to them both
than as spy master, but I agree that the Medes won that
round.”

“Let us hope they win no more,” said the magus,
setting down his glass and rising. “I must return to my
king.”

“One last thing,” said Eddis. “Eugenides asks
you to bring Sophos to training in the morning. Gen has invited
Melheret to spar.”

“Why didn’t Attolis ask Sounis himself?” asked
the magus, then lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Never mind,
I know why. Yes, I will bring my king in the morning.”

Sounis was fully dressed but not fully awake. The magus had
roused him at dawn and explained the king’s invitation, but
he was still rubbing his eyes, trying to rid himself of the
vestiges of sleep and the remchik when he heard noises out in the
reception room. He expected Verix and another attendant but found
the king of Attolia and his entire retinue when he opened his
chamber door.

Attolis engaged him with a wave and turned away. Sounis
followed, the magus behind him, like obedient ducklings to the
passageway outside the apartments. As he moved up beside Eugenides,
Sounis said, “Chilly this morning.”

“Is it?” asked the king, and Sounis dropped the
attempt at conversation.

The men walked in silence to the practice field, where they
found a crowd of Attolians and Eddisians idly waiting. The captain
of the Royal Guard crossed the open court to meet them. He was a
prickly man, and Sounis sensed a nonspecific disapproval, for
Eugenides, the training, the morning, the sun in the sky, Sounis
wasn’t sure what. Gen nodded at him and, by the simple
expedient of pointing at one man after another, arranged partners
for warm-ups and sparring.

The Mede made them wait. When Melheret arrived, he warmed up on
his own, and when he was willing, he wandered across the open field
to where Gen was practicing with a member of his guard. Wearing
only his trousers and thin tunic, he appeared fit and comfortable
with his sword.

When the king of Attolia and the Mede began to spar, both
proceeded cautiously. Then the Mede started to press, and Eugenides
responded, just barely keeping up. The Mede grew more confident and
pressed harder. Suddenly Gen surged in with a rapid set of strokes
that appeared momentarily overwhelming, but he was rebuffed. He
fell back, and the sparring went on. Each time Gen escalated, the
Mede was just that much better, that much faster, and Gen was again
on the defensive.

Sounis stood beside the magus on the edge of the watching crowd
and tried not to wince. Melheret was making only a minimal effort
to keep a diplomatic face on the exchange, and it was clear that
Gen was both angry and embarrassed.

This was not the easygoing, sarcastic friend he remembered, nor
the emotionally distant king. This was a Gen oddly impotent in
anger, and it was uncomfortable to watch him trying and failing to
outlast the Mede. Sounis looked away. The Eddisians around him were
watching with impassive intensity; the Attolians, with amused
glances.

Midway through the match, Eugenides began using his hook to
deflect thrusts from his opponent.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said the Mede, but held out a hand and
accepted a blunted dagger from someone in the crowd as his own
second weapon. Gen continued to be overmatched.

Finally, when it was clear that Eugenides was never going to do
the gracious thing and admit defeat, Melheret stepped back.
“Your Majesty, I must beg you to excuse me,” he said.
“I am afraid other duties call.” He bowed with mocking
deference.

Gen thanked him, standing stiffly as Melheret left the practice
field. Then he threw his practice sword on the ground so hard it
bounced. Cursing, he picked it up, and after obviously considering
hacking at the pavement with it, he pitched it across the open
court. As he seemed still unsatisfied, Sounis offered his own
practice sword, curious to see what would happen. It was a borrowed
one, and he minded not at all when it went sailing between two of
the Attolian guardsmen standing nearby.

Gen turned to the man standing on his other side, but that man,
Sounis knew, was Eddis’s minister of war and Gen’s
father. Not inclined to indulge tantrums, the minister stood
unhelpfully with his arms crossed and his practice sword held tight
in the fist tucked under the crook of his elbow.

Eugenides tipped his head back to look at the sky. He said,
“That was more difficult than I anticipated.”

Teleus, the captain of the Royal Guard, returned with both
Eugenides’s and Sounis’s swords. He presented the one
punctiliously to his king as if it were an edged weapon, holding it
out on his fingers, bowing over it. “If Your Majesty would
like to retire to the dining hall?”

Gen wiped his hand down his arm as if wiping something invisible
away, and took the practice sword from him, deliberately grabbing
it across its edgeless blade and tucking it under his handless arm.
“Yes, thank you, Teleus. Breakfast. Join me?” he said
to Sounis over his shoulder.

Sounis took his blunt sword more politely from Teleus, then
looked at the magus, who shrugged. They followed Attolis through
the courtyard archway and into the narrow alleys between guard
barracks to a dining hall. Inside the hall they passed by the long
tables but did not stop, continuing down a dark hallway beside the
kitchens to an empty storeroom that should have been equally dark
but was lit by lamps hanging from metal pegs hammered into cracks
in the stone walls.