Philologos must have noticed the direction of my gaze. When the king finished his inspection and turned away, Philologos leaned close to say in a whisper, “The queen cut it off.”
I think he meant merely to inform me and would have added more explanation, but Xikos added also in a whisper, a spite-filled one, “Don’t annoy the queen.”
Philologos glared at him and then shook his head at me, as if I should pay Xikos no attention. But all the while, Xikos, eyebrows high, was nodding his head up and down.
Philologos hissed, “Stop it.”
“Don’t annoy the king, either,” said Sotis, leaning in.
“Don’t annoy any of us,” said Hilarion, flipping my ear painfully and pointing to the empty doorway. I hastened through it.
We proceeded to the megaron, the only space in Attolia’s palace large enough to hold the combined courts of Sounis, Attolia, and Eddis. Attolia joined us on the way, her guards and her attendants mirroring the king’s own. Furtively, I watched her, catching glimpses of her face as she turned to speak to the king. Sotis, I judged an unreliable informant, but Philologos had seemed quite sincere. I could see that the queen, for all her beauty, commanded respect. Everyone watched her just as they watched the king, ready to respond in an instant to their least direction.
The first time I saw Attolia’s megaron, I could not imagine even a temple could be bigger or more astonishing. The rows of marble columns held the ceiling impossibly high. The gold leaf on the beams glittered in the light of candles in chandeliers that were great wheels of iron illuminating the room below. The famous blue-and-gold mosaic floors were almost invisible under the tables and benches needed to seat so many people.
At the high table, Eddis and Sounis waited to greet the king and queen of Attolia with an exchange of kisses. When they sat, everyone else moved in concert to their own places. Philologos pointed and I went where I was told, scrambling awkwardly over the bench seat as the servants began bringing in trays of food; boys with ewers and amphorae moving from person to person, filling cups and brightly colored glasses.
At the Villa Suterpe, Melisande and I had eaten on the couches that were our beds at night, from bowls made of plain fired clay. While I was staring at the wealth of sparkling, shining ceramic and glass—running a finger across the raised pattern on my plate—others were casting their glances at me and then at the king. Elbows were dug into rib cages and jokes were made. The king was pointedly speaking with the queen of Eddis to his left, ignoring it all.
“Gods damn it,” said Hilarion beside me, too late.
Sometime after that, the king said over his shoulder, “Sotis, where is my little Erondites?”
Sotis leaned in to speak quietly. “Under the table, Your Majesty. It appears he is not used to sitting for his dinner.”
I glared at his shoes. I was not allowed to sit at the table with my family. All my familiarity with tables such as these came from slipping under the cloths before the servants came to set them and creeping away when I was sure the diners had gone.
“Hilarion thought it best not to make a scene,” explained Sotis.
The king agreed. “People love a dancing bear,” he murmured. “No one wants to be one.”
Under the head table, with people seated on only one side and a cloth that dropped almost to the floor on the other, I felt safe for the moment. I was hungry, but used to that. While everyone above me dined, I took my time admiring the embroidery on the queen’s dress. As the queen was very still, I could look my fill. Her skirts were covered in a pattern of interlacing branches, each leaf and blossom perfect in every detail. There was even a tiny nest at the hem, with two even smaller golden eggs nestled inside. I wondered who else but me would ever see them.
Unlike the queen, the king twitched his feet in boredom or irritation and I moved past him warily, in spite of what Sotis had said about avoiding a scene. I’d been dragged out from under tables before. I did notice that the cuffs of the king’s trousers matched the embroidery on the queen’s dress. A pair of thrushes perched side by side on an embroidered branch, just visible above his boots.
Beyond the king was the queen of Eddis. Her dress was less interesting, plain fabric and no embroidery. Beside her, also in plain clothes, was another man, not the king of Sounis, as he was sitting on the far side of Attolia. Hearing the man speak and Eddis answering, I recognized the rolling sounds in their words.
“Cleon has called for a trial,” said the rumbling voice.
“He’s not the king of Eddis,” said the queen, her voice sharp, though still quiet enough that no one but me, crouched by her feet, was likely to hear.
I stayed to listen, but nothing more interesting was said.
The dinner went on for what seemed like hours. The music was dull. There were speeches and no dancing afterward and worse, no storyteller. I grew more and more uncomfortable on the cold stone floor, until at last there was a scraping of benches and chairs as those seated at the high table stood to leave. By that time my hip and leg had grown so stiff, I had to press the flesh of my thigh, willing the knee to straighten. Painfully, I flattened myself to see from under the cloth. As the kings and queens moved to the door, drawing eyes away from the table, I crawled out and got to my feet with the help of a chair. Seeing platters still filled with food, I snatched half a game bird. Keeping it close to my leg, hoping no grease would drip on my fine new clothes, I limped awkwardly toward the other attendants, waving my arm for balance.
Hilarion drew back Xikander, who must have just been on his way to fetch me. I reached the door in time to follow the last of the attendants through it, gritting my teeth until the stiffness in my leg eased.
Back in my closet, I sat on my pallet, gnawing the meat off the game bird and turning over in my mind what I’d seen of the king and his potentially even more terrifying wife. When I’d licked the bones clean, I threw them out the ventilation window into the airshaft.
Chapter Three
In the morning, before the sun was in the sky, Xikander woke me and told me to dress. Reaching for my clothes, I saw by the light of the lamp outside my door the damage from the previous night’s meal. The juices of the game bird had indeed dribbled down the leg of my trousers. There was no help for it, as I had no way to clean them off, not even a washbasin and water, so I scrambled into them as quickly as I could.
In the king’s waiting room, all the attendants were gathered, as well as people I would come to recognize as important members of the Attolian court. This was an historic occasion. Everyone present had a role, held clothing or jewel boxes or a tiny amphora. Even I was given an earring to keep in my good hand. Philologos pushed me into place in line beside him, and Ion checked that all was in order. When he saw the stains on my trousers, he briefly closed his eyes. Recognizing that there was nothing to be done, he nodded at Hilarion, who rapped on the door of the bedchamber. When there was no response, he opened the door and stepped through.
Filing in after Hilarion, we found the king lying on his back in his bed surrounded by the cloth of gold drapery, as perfect as any honeybee in a hive, with his arm over his face. He refused to get up.
“Your Majesty.” Hilarion was close to begging. “Everyone is waiting.”
“Tell them I died.”
“Your Majesty?”