The King of Attolia (22 page)

As he proved himself to his allies, his reputation for honesty and true dealing grew, and the peace among the cities grew as well. Not all of the cities, of course, but peace held well enough that the olive trees grew higher and higher and the year came nearer when they would begin bearing fruit.

The goddess’s stricture lay very lightly on Klimun. He was honest by nature and, after many years, honest by habit as well. I don’t suppose he had to remind himself very often about his promise to the goddess, and after a time, he began to forget it. I am not saying he started to choose lies over truth; on the contrary, he was honest in his dealing with princes and with paupers. He was kind and he was generous. I am just saying that as the days and years slipped by, he forgot his initial reason for hewing so close to an honest course. Ever since the gods created the world, mortals have been forgetting from where their blessings come
.

But the gods make their bargains for a reason, and they do not forget. Not in ten years, not in twenty, not in a lifetime. Every night the moon shone her light on the earth, it bathed Klimun especially bright. She watched him, waiting for him to break his word.

The king, lying on the bed, listening to Phresine, looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t speak.

Now, in the year when the olive trees were near to bearing fruit, there was a new prince in one of the nearby cities, the city of Atos. The Basileus of Atos had died, and it was his only son who had come to power. The old prince had made a few treaties with neighboring cities, but he had never brought his son to the bargaining table, and no one knew if this young man would stir up old troubles the way some young men do
.

Klimun decided that he would have a look at this young prince and see for himself if he was a danger. He decided to go to Atos and wander among its people. If they talked about war and vengeance, then Klimun would know what sort of man led them. If they talked of peace and their harvest, Klimun would know they followed the lead of their prince and that he would be a good man. If he saw the prince himself, he would know how the young man treated his citizens. That was the way to learn the most, he thought
.

The harvest festival was coming soon. It would be a good time for a stranger to wander through a city without drawing attention. So Klimun, taking only Gerosthenes with him, set out. He arrived in good time for the festival. Once he was there, he told everyone he was a farmer and that his farm was just beyond the border of the land that the city controlled. He was no citizen of the town, he explained, and he was unsure of his welcome, but the townspeople were good to strangers, and they welcomed him to the festival. He drank wine with new friends and asked them what they thought of their prince. “See him for yourself,” he was told at
the wine bar. “He will judge the wrestling contest.”

Klimun was no longer a very young man, but he was still young enough to enjoy a wrestling contest, and he decided to enter this one. He won all of his early matches. In the afternoon, he won again, until there was only one match left before he reached the laurels. The new prince judged the final match, and Klimun was able to get a good look at him. He seemed proud, but he judged fairly when he could have cheated and allowed his own citizen to win. Some people might have been angry to see a stranger win the city’s prize, but the prince didn’t seem offended when he awarded the match to Klimun, and the laurels as well. The prince went back to his pavilion, and Klimun, for his labors, received an amphora of wine and an invitation to join the prince for the evening meal.

Now, it dawned on Klimun that it would be hard to sit down with the prince for a meal, and expect the prince not to know him when they eventually met again. The prince might well be angry at being deceived. So Klimun made hasty excuses, found Gerosthenes in the crowd, and the two slipped out of the city as quickly as they could. They had hurried some ways beyond the fields of the city when they came across an old woman on the road. She told them that a horse and rider had recently passed, and in her hurry to get off the road, she’d dropped all the coins she had earned that day selling cakes at the festival. They were there somewhere in the dirt of the road, but the light was failing, and so were her eyes. She begged Klimun and Gerosthenes for their help.
Klimun judged they were well away from the city of Atos, and they stopped to help her look for her money
.

They were still looking for the coins on the road when they heard horsemen. They stood at the verge and waited for the horsemen to pass, but the riders swept up and pulled their mounts to a stop. The horses’ hooves stamped in the dust, and the horseman in the lead spoke.

“Our prince wishes to know why a man would decline an invitation to eat with him. So we have come looking for the farmer who won the amphora at the city today to ask him why he left so hastily. Are you that farmer?” He was looking pointedly at the amphora in Gerosthenes’s hand
.

This was a difficulty indeed. Standing in the deep twilight by the road, Klimun racked his brains for a story to tell. Perhaps there was a shrewish wife who wanted him home. Perhaps she didn’t know he’d left and he must make it back to his farm before she was undeceived. At all cost, he must think of a reason not to go back to the prince. He didn’t notice that since they had paused to look for the old woman’s coins, the evening had grown not darker, but brighter. The moon had come up, it had cleared the horizon behind him, but Klimun didn’t see it, and he never thought of the bargain he had made with the goddess of the moon
.

“Phresine,” said Eugenides, looking uncomfortable. “I should have stipulated a story with a happy ending. I don’t like this one. Tell me a different one.”

Phresine ignored him. The king set his jaw, but he listened.

Now, Gerosthenes, standing with the amphora in his arms, was facing the horizon where the moon had crept into the sky. He remembered Klimun’s promise, but what could he do? Klimun had gathered himself to speak. His mouth was open, and the words were on their way from heart to tongue. Gerosthenes could hardly shout, “My prince, don’t lie.” Horrified, he knew there was nothing he could say
.

“Phresine…” The king looked genuinely unhappy. Costis didn’t believe for a moment there had ever been a real Klimun, or a real Gerosthenes. He looked at Phresine for some understanding of the king’s distress, but Phresine was looking into space and seemed unaware of the king’s unhappiness.

“So,” she said, “Gerosthenes hit Klimun over the head with the amphora.”

“Ha,” the king snorted in relief. Phresine affected not to notice this any more than his earlier distress. She continued.

Well, this was a surprise to more people than Klimun. It was the Prince Atos himself who nudged his horse forward from the back of the group of horsemen and asked why Klimun’s friend had wasted an amphora of their best wine on Klimun’s head
.

Klimun was wondering that himself. He looked at Gerosthenes, who looked at the moon. Klimun followed his gaze and turned to see the moon over his shoulder.

“I see that you are enlightened,” said the young prince. “Do please enlighten us as well.”

Seeing no other choice before him, Klimun did so. “My friend has most earnestly recommended that I remember a vow I have taken never to lie by moonlight, and to tell you truthfully that I am Klimun, Basileus of Kathodicia, that I came here in secret to see the new prince of this city and judge him by his behavior among his people.”

“And what was your judgment?” the young prince asked
.

“You are proud, but fair, and I do not think you are a warmonger.”

“I’m flattered,” said the prince
.

“You may be flattered, but I am no flatterer,” said Klimun, “at least not by moonlight.”

“Then I think you are what my father said I should value above all others, a man I can trust, and we should be allies,” said the prince
.

“Then I would be both flattered and honored,” said Klimun, “but I am not sure that I am worthy of your trust.” Humbly he turned to the old woman, still standing nearby, and said, “Goddess, I have broken my promise to you. If not for the action of my friend, I would have lied. I believe your olives and my city are forfeit,” he said sadly
.

“You told no lie,” said the goddess, for goddess she was, as both Gerosthenes and Klimun had realized
.

“But I would have lied.”

“Your friend prevented you.”

“Yes.” Klimun agreed, but saw only that he had been tried and found wanting
.

“If you were not the man you promised to be, all these
years, he would not have been your friend, here in your moment of need. I do not think the moonlight has uncovered anything it should not have seen,” she said gravely, and then she was gone, leaving Klimun very relieved and a group of horsemen awaiting an explanation
.

“Thank you, Phresine,” said the king, humbly.

“Thank me by eating some more soup and sleeping for a while.”

“Will there be poppy juice in it?”

Phresine shook her head.

“Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned.”

Phresine went to fetch him more soup.

By the time the king had eaten a little, he admitted he was tired and slept again. Costis was grateful. In the late afternoon, the queen came to sit with the king and sent Costis to the guardroom. Teleus arrived with the change of the guard and told Costis he could go.

The air was heavy as Costis crossed the large open courtyard behind the public rooms of the palace. Costis stifled a yawn, surprised at how tired he could feel after doing nothing all day. From the courtyard, he cut through the breezeway that connected the front part of the palace to the complicated collection of buildings that made up the residential portion of the palace for the court. There was a passage at the
east end that bypassed the public rooms and led to a terrace. From the terrace, one could go by steep staircases down to the barracks and the training grounds of the Royal Guard.

Sleepy and hot, he stepped around the broken pieces of several roof tiles that must have fallen from somewhere high above the terrace. There was a crash like a crockery jar exploding behind him, and he jumped forward out of the way of the next batch of tiles that slid down. He looked back at the mess on the terrace, thought longingly of an afternoon nap, and went instead to report the fall to the palace secretary in charge of roofs.

Thoroughly awake after that, and hungry, he headed for the mess hall. The guard who had sat at his left earlier in the day was sitting at a table alone, and he waved for Costis to join him. Costis, after pouring himself a glass of wine, did so.

Domisidon, sitting nearby, looked up, saw Costis, and said, “The king’s lapdog arrives.”

The guard beside Costis laughed, then stopped. “I’m sorry, Costis, it isn’t your fault. What happens to you now, do you know?”

Costis thought. “I have no idea. I was pretty much done being a fake lieutenant. I thought they might farm me out to a border fort—maybe when Prokep came down from the north. I guess that might still happen.”

“But you’ve saved the king’s life?”

“Not really,” said Costis. “He mostly did that himself.”

“Of course. I forgot.”

They thumped him on the shoulder and elbowed him good-naturedly. But there was something behind the good nature, not condescension, commiseration perhaps. He didn’t want to ask outright what they meant by their pity. He was afraid he knew the answer, and he didn’t like it. Costis excused himself and went to look for Aristogiton.

In the night, Relius woke, gripped by sudden terror. The infirmary around him was dark, the high ceilings lost beyond the glimmer of the night candle by his bed, the heavy air around him silent. Under the light pressure of the sheet and thin blanket, he was rigid with fear, and he had to close his eyes to fight the impulse to thrash his way free of the covers, of the bed, and of the infirmary. There was no escape, no hope of escape. It was an emotion beyond rational thought, and not until the king spoke did Relius realize he was not alone.

“It’s the dog watch of the night,” the king said softly.

Relius gasped and opened his eyes to see the king sitting in the low chair near the foot of the bed. As he watched, the king stood, and hooked the chair with his foot to slide it closer to Relius’s head and sat again.

His statement seemed at first irrelevant, but it wasn’t.
The dog watch of the night was a bad time for those haunted by nightmares. The king had to know that for himself.

Relius lifted his head briefly. The king turned to follow his gaze to the silent group of attendants near the door. He turned back to look down at Relius with a bitter smile that was gone almost as soon as it appeared and was replaced by an expression of surprising calm. He sat quietly by the bed as Relius, through sheer willpower, steadied his breathing and relaxed his body. The darkness around them became slowly less threatening.

“Why save me, Your Majesty?” Relius asked softly.

“You think it was a mistake?”

Relius opened his mouth and shut it again.

“You want to say yes and no at the same time,” the king guessed.

“I am having trouble separating my own self-interest from that of my queen,” Relius admitted, sounding a little pedantic and apologetic about it.

“You sound like Sounis’s magus. He had a similar problem once.”

“The risk that you take is too great,” Relius said, “and you gain nothing by pardoning me.”

“The greatest risk was to the queen, and the risk lay in your death, not your pardon.”

Relius puzzled over this, and the king gave in to exasperation.

“You don’t know what I mean. She is so strong, and
you assume that strength has no end, no breaking point. You and Teleus are among the few she still trusts enough to love, and you say yes, she should have you tortured and killed. What were you thinking?”