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On Relius’s first night home from Pents, he ate dinner alone, over his own protests. Teleus, speaking with the full approval of Their Majesties, staunchly ignored them all.
“The physician says you must have rest and quiet to recover, and so you will rest and be quiet.”
“The prison was very quiet. What I want is company.”
He was doing his best to be beguiling, but they both knew that he was weary, and Teleus only kissed him on the forehead before he left, telling the guards at the door to let no one in on pain of death. He was forced to soften his refusal a few short hours later, when Pheris slipped away from the rest of the attendants and stood outside Relius’s door and would not go, looking at the guards with the blank face he used when trying to seem idiotic rather than stubborn as a mule. He dropped the pretense when Teleus arrived. Teleus sighed.
“Five minutes,” he allowed, and he went into the room afterwards to make sure Relius had not used the visit as an excuse to keep from drinking his horrid, tincture-laced broth.
On the second night, he had dinner with the king and queen privately in the queen’s apartments, with the occasional brief appearances from the attendants and the young prince and princess, who solemnly babbled nonsense the entire time to the delight of all. On the third night, he dined with Teleus. Relius arranged the meal—fish and shrimp in a light herb sauce, with wine—and he looked at Teleus with a wicked smile that dared him to call him a sentimental fool so Relius could throw it back in his face. Teleus declined.
On the fourth night, he dined with Teleus again, with the addition of Costis and Kamet. It was the first time he had seen them aside from his public arrival; in spite of all his insistences, Relius had been fatigued by his journey, and he had spent most of his days resting in his own rooms. Pheris had come to see him, and the king, but Kamet had been scrupulous in giving him time to recover. Upon arrival, he embraced Relius with ferocity and exquisite care, and did not let go for a long minute.
“It feels strange of me to welcome you back,” he admitted wryly. “When after all this has been your home for much longer than it has been mine—but welcome back.”
Relius thanked him graciously and greeted Costis, who was diffident and doing a decent job of hiding it. His mission in the Mede Empire had done much for the young soldier’s self-assurance, Teleus thought, but he still had not adjusted to thinking of himself as a confidante of the king and queen, as Relius undoubtedly was. There was a hint of deference in his attitude that prevented him from being totally at ease. Even so, they sat down and helped themselves to food and Relius poured the wine, and they made themselves a comfortable party.
“I have to admit, I am a little surprised to find you calling Attolia home, Kamet,” Relius said. “I thought you might both be back to Roa soon—there must be a garrison of troops on the new Attolian border that would have been pleased to be under command of one intimately familiar with the area.”
“Yes,” Teleus said pointedly. “There is.”
Costis threw up his hands, denying responsibility.
“I serve at the pleasure of my king,” he said piously. “I go where he needs me most.”
“Except when you don’t.”
“My fault this time,” Kamet said.
“Your fault last time, too,” Teleus pointed out, and Kamet looked down and away to hide his smile.
Teleus had not spoken to Kamet aside from passing greetings on his first visit to Attolia. Their paths had crossed more often on this second stay—out of shared affection and grief for Relius, and pity on Kamet’s part mostly, although happily it had not remained so. Even with his limited knowledge, though, Teleus could tell that the young man had changed greatly from one stay to the next. He smiled and laughed more, with more genuine emotion, and spoke without being addressed, and a haughty expression crossed his face only when it was truly earned. He did not drop his gaze or wring his hands—except, sometimes, when someone alluded to the fact that he held Costis Ormentiedes’s entire heart in the palm of his hand.
Costis himself had no shame over this fact, and no desire to hide it, if in fact he could. It was no secret that the guard very rarely spent the night in his barracks, and while there had been some speculation if they would stay in the palace or go, everyone had known it would be a both-or-neither situation. Once or twice, Teleus had glanced at Kamet at the right moment and seen a look of such rapt attention that he had no doubt that it was a shared devotion. But the former slave, defensive over his hard-won privacy, balked at acknowledging his feelings too openly. Teleus could hardly fault him for that.
“Perhaps,” Kamet demured. “The king did ask me if I planned to return to Roa. I told him no, and he said that was good, because he wanted to make an addition to the squads guarding Their Highnesses. This way, he said, he could do what he liked while also pleasing me, Costis, Pheris, and the queen—and displeasing you.”
Apparently, their friendship had progressed to the point of teasing. Teleus humphed, and they all had a good laugh at his expense.
“Did you not enjoy Roa?” Relius asked, taking a sip of his wine. “Or is it only the prospect of greeting old neighbors under a new name and the flag of a new king too awkward?”
“Neither,” Kamet said with a shrug. “Roa was pleasant in its own way. Attolia is more pleasant than before, when I don’t have to look over my shoulder all the time. But more importantly, I have vowed never again to make a journey of any great distance with Costis. Inevitably, I end up wearing the same fleabitten clothes for days or weeks at a time, sleeping on the ground, and eating wild rodent. The food was better this time, because we had enough knowledge of local plants to avoid eating plain wild rodent for every meal of the day, but even so. I will not risk it again.”
“We also had a cook pot,” Costis pointed out sheepishly.
“Yes, gods bless the cook pot.”
Relius chuckled.
“I understand,” he said sympathetically. “It is important to break these bad habits as soon as you see the pattern emerge. Me, I have resolved to never be thrown in prison again.”
“But not to keep your nose out of other people’s business,” Teleus said, and Relius flashed him an indulgent smile.
“There is a difference, my dear, between a bad habit that can be changed and a personality that can’t.”
Costis opened his mouth and closed it. Kamet noticed.
“What?”
Costis shook his head. Teleus, almost in spite of himself, suppressed a smile.
“He was going to say ‘Teleus does not approve of either,’” he said. “And then he remembered that I am his captain.”
The guard grinned, and Kamet and Relius laughed.
The talk turned to Pheris, then, as Kamet told Relius what he had been learning since he went away. It had taken some months to sort out the settling of the late baron Erondites’s estates, a process extended by Dite’s less-than-subtle reluctance to leave the court of Ferria so soon. Pheris’s studies in history and literature had been briefly suspended, as Kamet wielded all of his knowledge from a former life to teach the young man about the business of running an estate. It was a difficult process, he admitted, partly because Pheris was not especially interested and partly because Kamet’s knowledge of Attolia—the types of grain that could be planted, crop yield, the precise legalities between baron and patronoi and okloi, the subtle politics of neighboring baronies—was sketchy. He was learning, and staying ahead of his student, but he would not begrudge Relius for reclaiming his role.
“Speaking of which, I thought he would be here tonight,” Costis added, looking around thoughtfully as if Pheris would pop out from behind a sofa—not, Teleus thought, an idea totally without merit. “Did you not invite him after all?”
Relius put a hand on Teleus’s arm. It was his left hand, the one missing the last two fingers, but Teleus no longer flinched. He had flinched, at first, and Relius had gotten angry and thrown him unceremoniously from his apartments. Teleus had apologized, but not over-much, and Relius had forgiven him in due course. None of the other people Relius took to bed would have allowed themselves to flinch. But then, he would not have raged at any of them if they did, nor forgiven them later.
“Pheris disapproves of love,” Relius said gravely. “He thinks it makes men fools.”
Costis coughed.
“I won’t argue that.”
“A wise decision. He was here earlier to show me some of the journals he kept during the war. But what I know of your part of it is actually very small. There were rodents and fleas and something about sheep. It must have been at least a fraction as interesting as the first journey?” he asked, looking at Kamet. Kamet sighed heavily.
Costis obliged and gave an account of out his return trip to Roa, at which point Kamet took over the narrative. He was, Teleus thought, the better storyteller—although more than once Costis interjected to protest that Kamet had left out his own contribution to the story, or to point out that the discomforts he complained about now had been borne with more grace at the time. They both agreed that the worst part was when they had finally reached the hideout in the hills, having fought and lied and raced their way through the city and the countryside, only to face months of isolation and silence, waiting for news of a war being fought on their doorstep and out of their reach. Relius empathized.
“It was not much better in close quarters,” Teleus said simply.
There was a pause, and the conversation turned to other things. The young prince and princess, the still-younger prince of Sounis, the strange customs of Eddis that had begun to creep into court life, the now-legendary pursuit of the king through the palace, the restructuring of the Guard. Teleus and Costis discussed the latter at length until Kamet and Relius pointedly turned away and began talking of theatre at an increasing volume.
Eventually the meal began to wind down. They were not the most ravenous group that ever dined in the palace; Relius’s appetite had not returned completely, though he was trying not to show it, and the others avoided demonstrating too much gusto for fear of being rude. Costis, having worked a full shift of guard duty, struggled the most. The third time he looked with longing at his plate and then dragged his gaze back up, Teleus kicked his ankle under the table. After that, he ate without pause. Dessert was poached pears with cinnamon and honey, though, a favorite of Relius’s, and there were no leftovers of that.
Conversation turned to the gardens, which were still in full bloom. Relius had not been in them since his return. Casually, he suggested that Kamet might take a walk with him. Kamet proposed they all go. Relius suggested that Costis, who had spent several hours that afternoon in armor in the hot sun while the royal family visited the stables, might prefer not to stroll through the still-humid summer air. Costis admitted it, and Teleus said he would stay, too.
This careful dance complete, Teleus now went-off script and hinted strongly that Relius should remove his velvet cloak first, so as to not overheat in the early summer evening. Relius agreed and went into the bedroom to change, but not without rolling his eyes in that way Teleus had hated so much when they first met, because it was galling enough to be sneered at by patronoi officers, let alone a scrawny steward’s bastard whose contributions to the queen came from listening at keyholes and blackmailing courtiers.
A sudden pain seized Teleus’s chest, and he took deep, even breaths to keep its effect from showing. He had continued to be aggrieved by that look after the first time they tumbled into bed—after the first dozen times, probably, until their combined efforts had helped the queen crush a revolt being funded out of her own treasury. At close quarters, Teleus could appreciate the value of a spymaster a little more, and Relius had conceded that Teleus might not be as stupid as he looked. They had drifted apart and together many times in the years since, bickered over issues small and large, and sometimes a particularly derisive glare in the midst of an argument had Teleus questioning whether all this trouble was really worth it.
He had come to an answer standing in the king’s tent by the Leonyla Pass, listening with half an ear as his even-more infuriating sovereign gently, pityingly explained that they had been betrayed by the Continental Powers. Yes. Yes, it was worth it, and Teleus would give every piece of silver he had ever accumulated and all he could expect in years to come, if he and Relius could only be at odds with one another again.
And now they were, and it had not cost him anything except heartache. Grief, he thought, was a funny thing. It ought to go away, when it no longer served a purpose—but it didn’t.
“Kamet,” he said, face still turned away until he could be sure of himself. “He’ll want to turn back before he’ll want to admit it.”
“Was it—” Kamet cut himself off in consternation. “Of course it was very bad. He was in prison.”
“It was better than when he was in our prisons,” Teleus said bluntly. Costis’s face was grim but not surprised. “They wanted to keep his location secret, so he was not in a cell in the crowded dungeons. He was in a room somewhere, out of the way, but even that can weaken a man, and he is not as strong as he was.”
“Don’t talk about me behind my back,” Relius said, breezing back into the room, sans cape.
“Don’t listen at keyholes.”
“Prisons are not good for anyone’s health.” He attempted levity and nearly got there. “The king and I were commiserating the other day. He says I am catching up to his record—two to four—but if we count his time as a prisoner in the Mede camp, he still has a sizable lead. I told him he is welcome to it. Her Majesty admonished us both.”
“Good.”
Teleus stood and kissed him. Relius patted his cheek and turned to Kamet, who stood and managed to proffer his arm in a way that seemed more like friendship and less like a young man supporting a frail elder. A fond look and a quick smile was the only farewell exchanged between him and Costis before the two departed. As they passed through the antechambers, Relius teased Kamet about the end of the honeymoon period, but their voices were faint and Teleus and Costis successfully pretended not to have heard. There was a companionable silence for a few moments. Teleus refilled the wine.
“Costis, your problem is that your face always shows when you’re thinking,” Teleus said bluntly, without being asked.
“I should look like I’m not thinking?”
“It makes things difficult at court. It is better to look like you know. Otherwise, you may come off like a fool, a liar, an amateur philosopher—” He looked down his nose at Costis and Costis winced but did not cringe. Trainee guards learned quickly what Teleus’s displeasure looked like, and that to physically cringe invited more of it. “—or someone meddling in affairs he doesn’t belong in.”
It was the latter. But Costis correctly deduced that they were in a setting where he could talk more or less as a peer to peer, and rather than mumbling “yes sir” and vanishing into the shadows, he straightened his shoulders.
“I am thinking of something the king said,” he said slowly. “And wondering if it is true or not.” Teleus gave him a sardonic look. “I mean, he was joking, but I wonder if the premise of the joke is correct.”
“Well?”
“He called me a younger version of you. I would never claim that myself,” he added hastily. “But at the time I thought… every decision I saw you make seemed like the right one, sir, and I could see exactly why I would do the same, if I had the experience, the sense, and the opportunity to do so.”
“And now you agree with Pheris and think me a fool.”
“No, sir,” Costis said with a smile. “But I don’t understand.”
Teleus remembered why he had liked Costis so much, before the Incident. (He still liked Costis, although he was now added to the list of people he could not think of without a touch of residual exasperation and wariness, an honor he shared with their king.) He knew how to be humble without cowering and confident without sneering, and those were rare and valuable traits in an environment such as the King’s Guard.
He did not speak, at first. He finished his cup of wine, and then poured another. He never spoke of Relius much. Within the palace, he tried not to cultivate too close a friendship with his juniors in the Guard, and so his closest personal friend was Relius himself. Among his peers in the general army, there was still the belief that spies and the business of managing them were as necessary and unpleasant as properly-dug latrine pits, and while none of them would have dared said so to his face, Teleus was still reluctant to offer Relius up to their contempt and ridicule. Grief had made the first few cracks in the amphora, he thought, compelling him to confide in Pheris and then Kamet. Grief again uncovering things long hidden in its strange and unwelcome way. He took another sip of wine and made a sweeping gesture with one arm.
Costis still hesitated. Teleus twitched his fingers at Costis’s own wine cup, and Costis emptied it and filled it again.
“You care for him very deeply, sir,” he said with serious eyes. “I knew that already. I didn’t know any more than that—did everyone else?”
“Between no one and everyone,” Teleus said evasively, with a shrug. “It was never a secret, or at least it hasn’t been for many years. There were always spies, of course. Maybe at one point there was gossip, but there is always new gossip pushing it away.”
“But there were others that everyone did know,” Costis pushed. Teleus was not drunk, but he was tipsy enough that it took him a moment to unsnarl the abstract, and Costis helpfully provided the names of two of Relius’s more well-known paramours. Teleus nodded. Costis paused, expecting a reaction, and frowned when he got none. “The king threw a knife at an ambassador for kissing the queen once.”
“I am not the king,” Teleus said, because that seemed most important. His eyes wandered over the pattern in the plaster walls for a moment as he thought, tracing the leaves of the lilies and the trees and the graceful wild cats weaving among them. “I am not adept at flattery. I don’t indulge vanity, and I’m not an especially witty conversationalist. Likewise, a master of spies receives more reports in an hour than most men in a fortnight, and I would rather be in my own room alone than in the same room being ignored in favor of them. It seems better to me, to spend some of our hours together when we will most enjoy them, and be apart for the rest, than to be together all the time until resentment grows and we enjoy nothing. You don’t agree?” he asked, catching Costis’s expression. The guard shrugged.
“I would rather listen to Kamet complain to himself about improper verb conjugations than do anything with anyone else,” he admitted. Honeymoon period, Teleus thought, but he chose not to bow to cynicism.
“Then you are blessed.”
Costis’s face softened in obvious agreement. He looked down at the table, tracing the grain of the wood with his forefinger.
“What else?” Teleus asked.
“Hm?”
“What else are you thinking about?”
There was a long pause, and he knew what Costis would say, if he worked up the nerve.
“You would have left him in the dungeons.”
“You would have let Kamet go.”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” Teleus said, tasting the word. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “That was an oath we swore once. We would never put each other above the queen’s best interest. You ought to know by now how dangerous love can be. We are men of duty over love, honor over love. Our relationship wouldn’t have lasted this long—wouldn’t have lasted a week—if we were not. And then the king came, the king who believes honor is a shiny thing that only distracts us, and that love is the highest form of duty. Maybe he is right. Maybe in ten years our way will be barbaric and yours will be right. Maybe I am drunk.”
“I am sorry if I overstepped, Captain.”
Teleus waved him away and glanced at the sky. It was getting late.
“I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Yes?”
“Relius can’t go to prison again. He can’t go to a closet in the Pents palace, and he can’t go to a hunting lodge in Eddis, and yet he sees it as an inevitability just as inevitable as when he thought he would die in the dungeons that day. He is afraid, no matter how he jokes with the king, and the only way to be free of the fear is to be free of this.” He waves his hand at the rooms around them, at the palace and court more generally. “He needs to spend his days in a pleasant villa by the sea, raising goats and concerning himself with the history of kings and queens long dead. Their Majesties would let him go, with their blessing—but he will not, until he knows his role is filled by someone he trusts.”
Costis’s eyes flickered at the walls, the secretary of the archives’s walls, which were as porous as any in the palace, if not more so. His fingers traced the wood again, this time not following the grain. O-R-U-T-U-S-? Teleus shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said curtly. Orutus had made more than one mistake during the war, and he doubted the baron’s career would be a long one. He doubted, too, that the baron had the power to force Relius out even if he had spies with their ears against the wall tonight. “But I am talking beyond a few short months or years. It may take time to settle these things, which is why I want him to begin now, training someone whom he and the king and queen can trust absolutely—as close as they can trust anyone absolutely.”
“What about the young Baron Erondites?” Costis asked, with a note of wryness to acknowledge that the idea of a Baron Erondites being master of spies would have struck fear into the hearts of all mere months ago.
“He is, as you say, young. And still at an age where his own interests hold more of a draw than other duties; his true love is mathematics. Relius has inspired a love for history, it is true, and so long as he is an attendant of the king, he is as knowledgeable as anyone in matters concerning the king’s person. But true success in this regard comes from looking outward. Pheris does not have the capability, as of yet, to wield influence across Attolia, let alone across our borders. And this business of getting the Erondites estate under control will take up much of his time and attention; he will have to leave the palace soon to oversee it himself. There is someone else who has the capability already, and can pick up the necessary knowledge much faster. If he will do it.”
Costis tapped his finger on the table. His brow furrowed.
“When we were in Roa… he said he was glad to be free of our court and the Mede’s. Glad to worry over aphids on our pea plants instead of traitors in the crowd, and to busy his days with old philosophy and the mending instead of scheming and ferreting out the schemes of others. In the hills, he said it had all been a dream. I offered to take him back, when things had changed—to that life, if not to Roa specifically—and he said not to offer something unless I knew I could give it.”
“You could give it now. His Majesty still feels like he owes Kamet a debt, and his affection for you is still as obvious as it is inexplicable.”
Costis’s lips twitched in a rueful smile.
“I could offer. Or I could snatch him away from a life where he is happy and throw him into a nest of vipers. Again.”
“No, you can’t. You can ask if he would like to walk into a nest of vipers, and you could go in with him. I am not making an offer of my own,” he added sternly at Costis’s surprised look. “ I have no intention of retiring so soon, and there are structures to the Guard I will not circumvent. You were promoted last time at the whim of the king—”
“According to the carefully-crafted plan of the king,” Costis corrected.
“—but you should not expect any favors this time around.”
“But you are asking a favor of me.”
The sun had set some time ago, and now the last of its light had faded. The sky outside was black as ink, and the lamps were burning low. Teleus stood and fetched lamp oil from its place in the cupboard, and poured more into the largest, which could burn through the night if need be.
“Yes,” he said, eyeing the level of oil as it rose. “Two, really. I’m asking you to talk to Kamet, and I know you will not unless you will be in a position to better protect him. So I am asking you to be worthy of that position.”
He set the oil down and turned. Costis was watching him with a thoughtful expression on his face. His eyes shown in the lamplight, and although he did not speak or nod, Teleus knew he was in agreement. At that moment, the door to the outer room opened.
“We are back,” Relius called. “And neither of us dead of heat stroke.”
They returned, arm in arm. Kamet looked distracted, but pleased. His dark gaze flickered to Teleus for a moment and he summed up the situation in an instant. Dropping Relius’s arm, he crossed the room to touch Costis on the shoulder.
“We had better not overstay our welcome.”
“No one accused you of any such thing,” Relius protested.
“But even so, I don’t want to tire you,” he teased, adding a word in Mede that Teleus didn’t recognize.
“Uncle,” Costis offered helpfully.
“It means he thinks I’m old,” Relius said, rolling his eyes and looking like he wanted very badly to cuff Kamet on the back of his head.
“And worthy of great respect,” Kamet said, with a bow, and Relius looked mollified.
The two younger men made their farewells and departed. Their heads were bent together, conferring in whispers, before the door had fully shut behind them. Teleus and Relius puttered around the outer room in silence for a moment, stacking the plates and lowering the lamps.
“How did it go?” Teleus asked when they retired to the bedroom.
“Very well,” Relius shrugged. “Kamet thinks Costis will be amenable, although he would rather die than admit to ambition in front of you. We mostly talked around the other thing, and he asked the right questions and identified the right problems. And you, you old bear,” he said affectionately, draping his arms around Teleus’s neck and kissing him on the underside of his jaw. “You gnashed your teeth and growled at poor Costis and disavowed any confidence in his ability to captain a hunting party, let alone the King’s Guard.”
“I did no such thing,” Teleus protested, capturing his lips instead.
“Yes,” Relius sighed. “I will leave the palace with everything in Kamet’s capable hands, and languish in my villa for want of you while you spend the next decade putting Costis through his paces.”
“I will come back to find you being fed grapes and sweetmeats by a pair of pretty maids while every shepherd in ten miles is brawling over you in the fields,” Teleus countered.
Relius’s smile softened. He rested his head on Teleus’s chest with a content sigh as Teleus wrapped him in his arms. They remained like that for a long moment, until Teleus felt the gentle tug of buttons being undone near his collar, and the touch of lips to the exposed skin.
“It has been a long day,” he said regretfully.
“Yes, and with a short night to follow. It is important to use the time wisely.”
“You are still not entirely recovered,” he protested, although as Relius had begun to kiss up his neck and the side of his jaw, his hand moved of its own accord to cup the back of the other man’s head, to keep him there rather than to keep him away.
“I am not an invalid,” Relius snapped, nipping at Teleus’s earlobe with his teeth. There was another shift of his mercurial mood, and he drew back with a teasing smile. “And you will not be welcome in my bed again if you only intend to weep and scheme like last night.”
“Very well,” Teleus said with his most somber face. “Let us sleep, then.”
Relius laughed, and Teleus smiled, eyeing him surreptitiously. His color had returned, and he did not seem too exhausted from the events of the day. He had had a bad cough, the first day he arrived at the palace, but he had insisted it was much better than when he first left Pents, and Petrus’s treatment seemed to have done the rest of the work. He was still too thin, and there were hints of silver throughout his hair, not only at the temples, which no doubt caused him no end of consternation when he was alone before a mirror. But he was here, conscious and mobile, and when Teleus took one of his wrists and kissed it, he felt a pulse beneath his lips.
“Do you remember when we were young and foolish and tried to do those things all foolish young lovers do?” he murmured against warm skin. Relius’s eyes softened. (He had crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes—but those were not a recent aggravation.)
“Yes.”
“You brought the poems.”
“They were taken from me the moment I arrived,” he said in a voice heavy with regret. “Burned, probably. I never got them back.”
“No matter.” Teleus drew him closer. “I will copy more.”