Attolia went first, standing proudly before her people as she promised to be ruled by the will of the gods and the high king. After her oath, she climbed the steps to sit in a no less ornate silver chair on his left. Eddis’s oath was just as the king had said it would be, and then she climbed to sit on his right. Sounis followed, placing his hand on the king’s foot and looking up to him with an easy smile before swearing his loyalty and obedience—his informality an exception to the crushing etiquette of the hours that followed.
One by one, the Attolian barons approached the king, swore their loyalty, and then offered their gifts, either directly to the king or to one of the attendants standing below the dais. When my grandfather who was Erondites stepped forward, I shrank back behind Ion and didn’t see him offer up the ornate hunting bow he’d brought, though I heard the king thank him and saw my grandfather’s smirk as he withdrew. Next, a baron carefully placed a golden pomegranate into the king’s outstretched palm. The king passed it to Ion without a second glance and the baron hesitantly cleared his throat.
“It opens, Your Majesty,” he said.
“Does it?” said the king, sounding bored. Perhaps he thought this was another gift useful only to a man with two hands.
“If I may?” the baron asked, reaching up to retrieve it. Holding the pomegranate in just one hand, he released the hidden catch, and the upper half of the gold fruit lifted. The king leaned forward, and then, as if regretting his show of interest, slowly sat back again.
Hastily, the baron explained, “It can be filled with powder, and the powder then shaken from the openings in the calyx of the fruit, Your Majesty. Or it can hold scent and serve as a pomander, as Your Majesty prefers.”
Solid gold, it was a valuable offering to the king; the baron was probably trying very hard to recover from some past offense. I often saw the pomegranate in use over the years, but I do not remember whose gift it was—there were so many trying to improve their relations with the king at that time.
I was surprised to see one baron step forward to make his vow with his daughter beside him. She gave the king a very winning smile as she delivered her family’s gift, and I looked to the queen to see her reaction. Her face remained unreadable.
“Heiro,” said the king. “These are your earrings.”
“I noticed that you admired them, Your Majesty.”
“No one has ever given me earrings,” said the king, sounding delighted. In the past, he’d stolen them, but those earrings, and whatever the Thief of Eddis stole, could only be used in the service of his god or surrendered on his altar. Heiro’s earrings, he would be able to keep. “I will treasure these,” he said, and seemed genuinely pleased, rewarding her with a smile as winning as her own. A hundred men who’d offered him far more expensive gifts ground their teeth in frustration, and Heiro’s father sighed with visible relief.
That was the king’s last smile. After that, he appeared to be almost as miserable as I was, and I was thoroughly miserable. Unable to stand for another minute, I first crouched, and then sat, ignoring Lamion, who hissed at me, and Hilarion, who surreptitiously poked me with his foot. In my head, I could hear Melisande begging me to get up, and all I could do was assure her that at least I was out of sight behind the other attendants. I’d heard Sotis the night before—no one wanted a scene. When the last baron passed by, I looked up in relief, only to see that a line still stretched around the courtyard and that the mayors of various towns as well as the heads of the larger guilds must have their turns. I dropped my gaze back to the striations in the paving stones underneath me and tried to pass the time imagining they were waves with ships sailing on cool marble seas.
Foreign heads of state had sent their own gifts to mark the investiture of the high king. Lengths of linen and dyed wool from the Braelings, a silver dish in the shape of a fish from the Pents, and a beautifully decorated sword from the Gants—another item that was unlikely to be useful, as it would not be weighted for a left-handed man. I think this was a matter overlooked by the Gants and not a deliberate offense.
The Mede ambassador, Melheret, gave the king a scroll. “I was so hoping for a statue,” the king commented ungraciously as he received it. Most of those who heard him looked uncomfortable. The ambassador smiled condescendingly and said, “This is a story of my people, Your Majesty, the Epic of Omarak, who overreached and was struck down for it. I thought you might find it instructive.”
“Ambassador, I will certainly give it the attention it deserves,” the king promised.
Finally the ceremony was over. The king rose with a display of stately dignity and descended from the dais. As he left the courtyard and moved toward the royal wing of the palace, protocol winnowed away one by one those who followed him. We had not yet left the public areas, and there were still bystanders as well as his guards and attendants when he paused in a hallway to complain to Attolia about her gift.
“You gave me a horse,” he said, his voice breathy and aggrieved. Indeed she had, a splendid white warhorse whose hooves had drummed against the paving stones as it was paraded through the ceremonial court. “Eddis gave me scrolls from her library,” said the king. “Sophos gave me a book of poems.” Presents he evidently preferred.
If offended, Attolia sounded neither angry nor sympathetic. “With a scroll and a book, you will look like a scholar,” she said. “On that horse, you will look like a king.”
“I might have to be a king. I don’t have to look like one.”
“You said you meant to be a figurehead,” Attolia reminded him. “‘A king in appearance only,’ you said.”
Stymied, the king changed ground. “I don’t need a warhorse, because I fight on foot.”
Attolia didn’t respond.
“Gen,” said the queen of Eddis, uncomfortable in the expanding silence.
“I picked out the horse,” stuck in Sounis hastily, and the king turned to him, swaying a little, as if with surprise.
“You, Sophos? I thought you were my friend.”
“I am,” the king of Sounis assured him. “He has all the fighting spirit of an apricot. His trainers had given up and sold him for farm work.”
“Honestly?”
“Like riding a slowly moving sofa.” Sounis swore, “On my honor.”
For a moment, it seemed we might proceed, but the king didn’t move and the guards aborted their steps, half taken. The king repeated himself. “I fight on foot,” he said, this time probing deliberately for a response.
Attolia didn’t give him one, only waited in perfect serenity as he reflected over the day’s events.
“My queen,” he said at last, “you crafted those oaths very carefully, didn’t you?”
Indeed, Attolia had defined the terms of her loyalty, as well as those of Eddis and Sounis, with precision.
“I swore my obedience to you and to your future children, not to your wife,” Eddis confirmed.
“And I the same,” said the king of Sounis, sounding very serious, when he’d been so boyish a moment before.
“You are the linchpin of this treaty, Gen,” said Eddis. “You cannot be risked in battle.”
The king’s face suddenly lost all its color. He was so pale the scar on his face stood out darker than the skin around it. Eddis crossed her arms and even Sounis braced himself. Attolia narrowed her eyes, as if daring the king to do his worst, but he just drew a long, shaking breath and exhaled it as slowly.