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The king of Attolia was whining. This was often a bad sign, but Costis felt fairly sure that the king was not concealing any life-threatening wounds under his lace and brocade tonight. Costis suspected that the king was harping on about his mild winter sniffles in order to draw attention from the queen, whose bearing was even more upright and whose expression was even stonier than usual.
The musicians struck up. The queen waved the king forward. Together they had started a craze for wild mountain square dances, and sometimes partnered early in the evening. But the queen had not danced for weeks, and the king visibly hesitated each night before leaving her side to dance with younger daughters and visiting noblewomen. The keener palace gossips expected an interesting announcement any day now.
Eugenides stepped away and bowed before young Eurydice of Sounis. Costis risked a smile at his queen, but her eyes were closed. He turned back to the dancers. When the other guards and attendants speculated on the possibility of an heir, they seemed elated and relieved by the prospect. Costis felt terrified. Even if king, queen, and country survived the dangerous fraying of the king’s nerves and the perils of childbirth, they would end up with an additional sovereign personage to worry about and protect
Costis searched the crowd for the king’s dark head. His gaze snagged on chestnut hair gleaming in the candlelight. The Lady Heiro had a new dance partner, Costis noted with surprise. She rarely danced with anyone but the king or her cousin Philologos, but tonight she was clasping hands with the Ambassador from Ferria, and spinning away from him, then beaming up at him as their feet moved faster and faster. Costis had never seen Lady Heiro smile like that. Her calm face was transformed.
He felt uneasy. What interest could a sophisticated Continental have in the bookish younger daughter of a minor, semi-disgraced Attolian noble? Lady Heiro’s frequent audiences with the king were well known. They read plays aloud together, and walked in the gardens. Palace gossip held that Eugenides gave Lady Heiro a new pair of earrings every month, which Costis thought might be true. Palace gossip also held that Lady Heiro was the king’s mistress, which Costis knew to be false. But the Ferrian Ambassador might well believe it.
Lady Heiro was laughing as the Ambassador bowed and kissed her hand. Costis quickly resolved to tell the king about it, and just as quickly retracted the resolution. What would he say? One of your friends was dancing with a diplomat. She seemed happy. The king would stare at him blankly, or mockingly. Costis needed more.
Three days later, Lady Heiro invited the Ambassador to lunch with Lady Eunice. Costis stood at attention outside her door for an hour, and overheard the Ambassador provide a summary of a new play by Lysian. Lady Heiro’s laugh trilled out, and she countered with a legend about Hespira and her mother. Costis knew that the king had told the story to her.
The following week, Lady Heiro walked in the east courtyard, where she received a cloth parcel sealed with wax. The courier told her he would call again the next morning for any return message. Costis stood aside to let the courier pass. As Lady Heiro fumbled to break the seal on the parcel, her narrow fingers stiff in the winter chill, Costis told her that the king requested she attend him in the library. He bowed and held out his hand for the parcel, which she handed over with a distracted smile. He walked three steps behind her and took the opportunity to rifle through the package: a thick sheaf of sheet music.
Costis found the courier after trying three wine shops. A bottle bought him the information that the courier was employed by poor exiled Dite, and did not look forward to his visit to the domain of Baron Erondites.
Poor exiled Dite had been banished to Ferria. Eugenides had set him up with a job as music master to the court, but it was small wonder if Dite resented his unjust treatment and had begun sending coded messages through musical notation.
The next day, the Queen of Attolia announced that she was expecting an heir.
The court rejoiced. Lady Heiro danced with the Ferrian Ambassador every night.
Ten nights later, Lady Heiro slipped away from the dancing. The Ambassador followed her. Costis followed him. The two conspirators stood close together in the stairwell below the musician’s gallery. Costis ducked into a corner with a view, and tilted his head back to remain in shadow. He could see Lady Heiro’s eyes and teeth catch the torchlight as she glanced around and smiled. She seemed to look directly at him, but she turned back to the Ambassador. Costis could hear her murmur something about the king.
“Have patience, my dear. When the queen nears her confinement, the king will remember you with all his former affection.” The Ambassador raised Lady Heiro’s fingers to his lips, and then dipped his nose into the curls behind her ear. Costis felt choked with anger. That they would speak of his queen so. That they would hatch plans to seduce his king. That the Ambassador would sniff at the Lady Heiro as though she were a nosegay composed for his pleasure.
Costis didn’t know what to do. He flung his wine goblet as far as he could down the kitchen corridor. They sprang apart, and froze for a moment, before the Ambassador strolled calmly back to the banquet hall. Lady Heiro followed after a generous pause. Costis could have sworn that she glared into the shadows of his corner, but she didn’t speak.
This had gone on for far too long. He had been negligent, perhaps criminally so. What dangerous information had Lady Heiro already smuggled to the court of Ferria? How had she damaged the reputation of Attolia? Costis could not blame the king for missing the signs of her betrayal, preoccupied as he must be with the queen’s health. In these trying circumstances, those loyal to the king and queen must be ever more diligent, Costis realized. How could he secure Lady Heiro without alarming her family and the palace at large? He needed bait, something that would attract a spy for a foreign court.
“Lady Heiro?” Costis kept his eyes lowered deferentially. She stopped in the corridor, and waved Lady Themis on. Lady Themis giggled at Costis, glared at her sister, and swept around the corner.
“Yes, Costis?”
“I don’t want to alarm your sister, but we, we guards that is, have discovered a secret passage in the walls. It leads into your rooms, and into a number of other chambers. We will block it up, of course, but I thought you might be interested in seeing it, and perhaps blocking it from your side. For your own protection.”
Lady Heiro’s eyes lit up, even as her mouth twisted in doubt. Costis silently congratulated himself. No spy could resist a secret passage.
“One entrance is right in here.” Costis ushered her through several disused antechambers, and gestured to the wardrobe standing next to the cold fireplace. “Through there. It has a false back.”
Lady Heiro opened the wardrobe door, glanced up at Costis with a soft smile, and stepped inside.
Costis slammed the door behind her and locked it with the key he had pocketed that morning. He left the room running, relieved that her shouts and pounding were inaudible from the main corridor. He went to find the king.
The king of Attolia was no longer shouting or pounding. After dispatching Ion to release Lady Heiro from the wardrobe, he had shouted and pounded for quite some time. Now that the ranting phase was over, he had moved onto cool courtesy. Costis thought that was worse.
“Meanwhile,” the king continued, “the Lady Themis has warned her father that my lowly bodyguard has been swanning about above his station, making eyes at her sister, hoping to take advantage of my favor and their precarious position at court to marry into the family.”
Costis considered what Aris might say to this news. Then he considered what his sister, Teleus, and the Lady Heiro herself might say, one after another. His ears burned. “That is embarrassing.”
“Costis, have you spent all of your spare time this past month trailing after one of your king’s agents?”
“Yes,” Costis whispered.
“Have you interfered with her ability to gather intelligence from the court of Ferria?”
“I have.”
“Did you lock her up in a wardrobe?”
“I did.”
“Did you bother to mention your clandestine operation to your king, to your queen, or even to the new Secretary of the Archives?”
“I did not.”
“But the intimation that you have developed a crush brings a blush to your face? Costis, I think you will find that the Lady Themis, in her wisdom, has hit upon the least embarrassing explanation possible for your behavior.”
Costis did not know how to respond. He remembered their trip to the festival at Elisa in Sounis. One of the new plays paid homage to the visiting King of Attolia by dramatizing a story from the life of Eugenides, God of Thieves. The actor playing Eugenides leapt headfirst from the set battlements and seemed to fall straight through the stage floor, a drop of fifteen feet or more, only to reappear safe and sound through the ground-level doorway, entering onto the playing space in front of the audience.
Costis wished someone would install such a trapdoor in his king’s bedroom, perhaps leading to a chute that might whisk him out of the palaceentirely and deposit him into the sea. In fact, knowing his king, it was probable that his bedroom had come equipped with trapdoor and sea-bound chute. But would he let his own personal bodyguard know about any actual secret passageways through the palace? Not likely.
Lacking an intelligent response, and hoping that in silence lay the last shreds of his dignity, Costis simply bowed his head.
“Well. Let that be a lesson—let that be any number of lessons to you, actually, Costis. You’re dismissed for the night. You may show Ion in—unless of course you have discovered his secret plan to assassinate me?”
This was not the time to remind the king that the idea of one of his attendants hatching an assassination plot was not at all far-fetched, nor without precedent. Costis showed Ion in. Ion smirked. Eugenides rolled his eyes. Costis went to his quarters to sulk.
Costis only lasted a few hours alone in his quarters, sick with shame. Sitting there, angry and humiliated and worried about what his king and his queen thought of him, was a pale but poignant reminder of that most terrible day when he thought he had traded his honor, family, and life for the satisfaction of one well-aimed punch. This time, at least, no one could accuse him of disloyalty.
“No, only of stupidity!” Costis growled as he hoisted himself up to straddle one of the crenellations on the outer wall. He might not have a brain in his head, but that was all the more reason to improve those skills he could put to the king’s service. Before he began devoting all his spare time to spying on the Lady Heiro, he had been practicing walking on narrow ridges above great heights, in preparation for the inevitable summons to retrieve the king from another deathtrap.
Costis placed one boot on either slope, crouched, and stood slowly, trying to prevent his toes from cramming down against his boot leather. He fixed his gaze out beyond the roofs and countryside of Attolia, finding a sharp, distant Eddisian peak to focus on. He slid his right foot up to the top angle of the crenellation and rested there, gingerly lifting his left foot in the air and balancing for the count of two, for the count of five, for the count of “Twelve…thirteen…fourteen…”
“Fifteen,” added a soft voice.
The mountains of Eddis swam before Costis’s eyes, and he windmilled his arms, too startled to make a sound. Someone yanked on the back of his cloak,and he tipped off the parapet and fell hard onto the stone roof.
“Ouch,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.
“I’m very sorry,” said Lady Heiro as she knelt beside him. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Costis blushed and sat up quickly. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“Falling to your death? Why, no, I don’t suppose that you do,” Lady Heiro said, puzzled. Her opal earrings danced in the moonlight.
Costis looked away.
“You weren’t in your room. The king said you had something to say to me.”
“What? Oh. Yes, of course. I humbly beg your forgiveness, my lady.”
“I don’t think that was it. The ‘something to say.’ There’s nothing to apologize for.” Lady Heiro raised her handkerchief to the back of Costis’s head. He flinched, and she caught her right hand in her left, and lowered both to her lap, looking chastened.
“The king thinks I’m artful. I don’t know that I am. I want to help, just like you do. I’m a beginner, and you’re not stupid. You must have noticed something suspicious about what I was doing, or you wouldn’t have started watching me so closely.”
Costis started shaking his head. Lady Heiro continued:
“You drew the wrong conclusions, but someone else might have noticed, too—someone from Ferria, or Melenze—and might have drawn the right conclusions. Either way, I made a misstep somewhere, and I’d like to improve.” She glanced at the crenellations. “It’s a balancing act.”
“No,” said Costis.
“I think you will find that it is,” said Lady Heiro, with some asperity.
“No, I mean, you didn’t misstep. I didn’t notice anything suspicious in particular. Just that, you were dancing, and smiling.”
Lady Heiro looked puzzled again.
“I watch you closely all the time!” Costis snapped, and groaned, and covered his eyes with his hand.
When she didn’t respond, but also didn’t storm off with a rustle of silks, Costis peered through his fingers. She was gazing at him calmly. The handkerchief twisted between her hands was the only indication of tension in her body.
“The king mentioned that you were embarrassed over what my sister said. I think it amused him—that you should be embarrassed over the wrong thing entirely, after doing so many other embarrassing things.”
If this were Aristogiton speaking, he would mutter “oh, thanks.” As it is, Costis remained silent. His mouth was dry.
“Like locking me up in a cabinet for the good of Attolia.” Lady Heiro smiled. “For my part, I don’t see why you would be embarrassed that Themis thinks you love me. Themis thinks everybody loves everybody, all the time. It’s really all she thinks about. So that’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Costis nodded fervently.
“Unless it’s true,” said Lady Heiro.
Costis bolted to his feet. His head throbbed. He stood at the parapet, several feet away from Lady Heiro, and said formally, “My lady, I deeply regret my behavior. I am glad that I was mistaken and that you are not a spy for Ferria.”
“My goodness, so am I.” Lady Heiro smiled again.
“Of course. I understand now that you are a loyal subject of Attolia.”
“I am, of course. But, Costis, if I were a spy for Ferria, I would be leaving Attolia on the next ship. I would have to go pack up my room, right now. I would have no time to do this.”
Lady Heiro approached him. Costis pressed his hands against the cold stones of the parapet, and then against his face. His skin was on fire. Lady Heiro cupped her hands around his wrists, and pulled them to her waist. She placed her cool fingers on his jaw, and her cool lips against his.
“My lady,” Costis said, his voice rough.
“Yes?”
“The king will laugh at me.”
“Of that, Costis, there can be no doubt,” said Heiro, kissing him again.