Work Text:
‘What happened?’ the Minister of War asked.
Eddis tried to maintain the grave composure suitable for a patient’s bedside. ‘An unfortunate incident featuring you, an over-enthusiastic game of ball, and a horse turd of exceptional slipperiness.’ She cocked her head, her smile disappearing. ‘Galen said you thought we were at war with Attolia.’
‘Aren’t we?’
‘Not for over a year.’
The Minister of War stared at her. ‘But last night –’
‘The last night before your accident, we entertained a singer from Sounis,’ she said. ‘To honour my new husband. No War Council to be seen.’
He sank deeper into the pillow, flinching at the ache in his head. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Did we win?’
Eddis opened her mouth and closed it again. Reconsidered her words. Decided to go for the easy option while the Minister looked cross-eyed; the details would be just as incredible in the morning.
‘We did,’ she said, and stroked the hair from his face. ‘And that’s enough politics for today. Go back to sleep; perhaps in the morning, it will all come back to you.’
*
In the morning, it did not all come back to him.
Mentally still ready for the tension of war, the Minister scoffed at Galen’s insistence he stay in bed. He longed to get out and see for himself the recaptured safety of his people, his family, his boy. If it had been over a year since the last night he could remember, where he had listened with eyes closed to his youngest’s nightmares and fallen asleep still seeing the bloodied stump, time might have started to heal Gen, if not the Minister.
Before he could go out to explore, his children entered. Temenus at the front, relaxed, all his limbs intact, no sign of recent battle discernible anywhere; Stenides, wiping the oil from his fingers, clearly still able to indulge his favourite pastime; Iphianassa, whose curled up lips reassured him that she was more than aware of the horse manure involved in his current bed-ridden status; and finally, Arete with her arms impractically bare to show off her tattoos despite the winter wind blowing in through the window. All of them in perfect health, all of them except –
‘Where is Gen?’ he asked, his stomach turning in on itself.
‘Coming,’ Stenides assured him. ‘He was called for yesterday so he should arrive today.’
‘He’s not in Eddis?’
Stenides and Temenus exchanged quick glances, and Stenides said, ‘No.’
‘Eddis did say the blow played havoc with his memories.’ Arete sat on the edge of his mattress and pulled the duvet cover up until it almost reached his chin. After tucking him in, she moved to the window, taking in the view down into the valley. The Minister considered telling her to either put some clothes on or move closer to the fire, but any such admonishments would only lead her to open the window, even though he could see the goose bumps all over her arms.
‘Should we…?’ Stenides asked.
Temenus raised his eyebrows. ‘That little shit can break the news himself.’
‘Careful, dear brother,’ Iphianassa said. ‘Such words amount to treason nowadays.’
‘What?’ the Minister asked.
‘Oh Pappa, you’ll find out soon enough. How is your head?’
‘Oh…’ Now Gen was confirmed alive and none of his siblings seemed worried that that might change imminently, the Minister could wave away any concerns. ‘Absolutely fine. Don’t see why they insist on keeping me in bed.’
‘Well, you aren’t needed anywhere, which might have something to do with it,’ said Temenus. He took the seat at the Minister’s writing desk, placing his feet on the table, one leg over the other like he owned the room. ‘Urgently, anyway.’
‘That is the true joy of children,’ the Minister said. ‘They keep you humble.’
‘How overjoyed you must be then,’ said Iphianassa.
‘Ah, that must be our beloved brother.’ Arete moved away from the window, resuming her place by her father’s bedside with suspicious care. ‘Now, Pappa, don’t work yourself up. Stress is not good for your heart.’
The Minister grunted. He longed to throw the covers away and see for himself that Gen really, truly, was all right, and not the bloodied shell of a boy that had been delivered from Attolia several weeks ago, but he suspected his other children knew that, because Iphianassa sat down on the other side of him.
‘Should we get him some soup?’ Arete asked.
‘I hit my head,’ he reminded her. ‘I’m not an invalid.’
‘You hit your head because you slipped in a pile of shit,’ she said, lovingly pressing a kiss against his forehead. ‘Everyone saw. It was so embarrassing.’
‘Maybe that’s why the gods took my memories.’
‘In their infinite wisdom and kindness,’ she agreed.
Temenus muttered something the Minister didn’t hear, but made Stenides chuckle. It reassured the Minister beyond words that none of his children had that tense look about them that he remembered from the last few days, when war had seen more and more of their cousins and countrymen and indeed Temenus himself depart the city. Eddis hadn’t lied when she said the war was over; he really could rest for the time being.
‘Well, it’s old news to you, but I am glad you all made it through the war,’ he said. ‘Eddis said we won. How long did it take in the end? What happened?’
‘Eugenides will explain,’ Temenus said, pronouncing each syllable in his brother’s name with the care of a royal elocution tutor.
‘Oh shut up,’ Iphianassa said with a laugh. ‘He’ll have you hanged.’
‘What? It’s his name. That’s not treasonous!’
‘Why is it…?’ the Minister asked.
His children, who might have been concerned earlier, now had the excited air about them that had permeated the air when they were young and up to no good. They got that from their mother’s side.
‘Gen will explain all,’ Stenides said. ‘And I, for one, am curious to hear how he goes about it.’
*
‘That must be him,’ Temenus said, taking his boots off the table at the sound of voices. Stenides glanced out of the door and nodded, then stepped outside, arms wide.
‘No crown?’ Stenides said.
‘They’re not worth the headache,’ Gen said. Even without seeing him, the Minister felt a crushing wave of relief at the laughter suppressed in that voice. That was his boy.
Stenides laughed. ‘There’s a metaphor there.’
‘Only if you’re foolish enough to look for it. How is father?’ Gen asked.
‘Not anywhere near as close to death as Arete implied in her letter,’ Stenides said, as he led Gen into the bedroom.
‘He might still die of embarrassment,’ Arete pointed out, but her words were lost on the Minister. The young man entering was not his boy – not the Gen who’d gone out to Attolia to spy on the queen, not the fever-maddened patient they had sent back, but a young man with Gen’s features polished into adulthood.
‘Gen,’ the Minister said, his voice breaking. ‘You look so good.’
‘Thank you,’ Gen said, delighted. He brushed past his siblings, and the Minister could have cried for joy when he saw the ridiculous embroidery on Gen’s sleeves, even if one of them now revealed a hook at the end.
‘How are you?’ Gen asked, looking at the bandage that covered half of the Minister’s head.
‘Absolutely fine,’ the Minister assured him. He pulled his arm free from where Arete tried to pin him under the duvet and stroked Gen’s cheek, the hollow he remembered filled again with life. Only now he saw Gen healthy again did he realise how afraid he had been that Attolia’s attack might have broken him completely. ‘You look so good. You’ve grown.’
‘It’s the shoes,’ Gen said, still smiling, but looking at Arete.
‘Our dearest Pappa struggles from a bit of memory loss,’ she said. ‘He woke up thinking we were still at war with your – Attolia. With Attolia.’
‘I see.’ Eugenides raised himself up, looking at each of his siblings in turn. ‘I take it someone has already filled him in on the developments that have taken place since?’
Iphianassa slapped him on the shoulder. ‘When he can get a first-hand account from you? Give us some credit.’
‘This includes how the war ended, by the way,’ Temenus said. ‘We’re giving you a blank canvas, Your Majesty.’
‘How generous of you.’ Eugenides shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the Minister felt that familiar resignation come over him. Did he know what Eugenides had done? No. Did he know it was infinitely more complicated and hazardous than it needed to have been? Yes.
‘Out with it,’ he said, feeling a headache coming on already.
‘I think it’s important to begin with the – the good side of things,’ Eugenides said.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Well, I’m healthy. And happy.’
The Minister inclined his head. Those were good things. He did not see how they linked to the end of the war.
‘And in gainful employment. Happily married,’ Eugenides continued. ‘To an extraordinary woman.’
‘Can say that again,’ Temenus muttered.
‘She will have you hanged,’ Arete said.
Eugenides held up a finger. ‘Whom I love and respect very much, so some people in this room should think twice – or even once – before they open their mouths.’
‘I take it you did not marry Agape,’ the Minister said.
Eugenides shook his head.
‘And you did not become a scholar in Ferria.’
‘It’s slightly different from what you imagined for me,’ Eugenides said. ‘But not necessarily worse.’
The Minister of War waited. The cat-like smiles on the faces of his other children should have been sufficient warning; if not their smug anticipation, then Eugenides’ nervous energy ought to have been a sign that things were far, far worse than he could ever have imagined. And yet nothing had prepared him for the next words out of his son’s mouth.
‘So this links to the war, in that it could be that maybe, by accident and a slight lack of forethought on my part, I kind of became King of Attolia.’
‘King of Attolia?’ the Minister repeated, choking with laughter on the last word.
Eugenides grinned, too, and nodded. ‘King of Attolia.’
The Minister threw his head back, his chest shaking, as he laughed at the hilarity of the joke. Eugenides joined in, slightly less enthusiastically; so did his siblings, and only when the headache pushed against his skull did the Minister of War try to contain his mirth. He wiped away a tear. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ Temenus said. ‘Gen, King of Attolia, Annux over the Little Peninsula. Eugenides Attolis.’
The Minister laughed again, but this time his children did not join in. Gen’s smile was growing forced, even as Temenus’ eyes twinkled with amusement, and something began to dawn on Eddis’s Minister of War.
‘You are joking,’ he stated, as if he could force it into being that way.
Eugenides looked at his siblings for help, but none of them stepped in. ‘I didn’t mean to become king,’ he said, as if that made anything better.
‘You became King of Attolia? You became –’
Arete pressed the Minister back against the pillows. ‘Ask him how he did it.’
‘You are enjoying this too much,’ Eugenides said.
But the Minister didn’t need any further help. He stared at Eugenides, at the health in his uncrowned face, at the hook where his hand had been, and said: ‘An extraordinary woman?’
‘Whom I love very much,’ Eugenides reminded him.
This time, the Minister didn’t need force to stay still in the pillows. Shock had done what Galen’s insistence on rest had been unable to. ‘She cut off your hand.’
‘And that was a mistake. We’ve talked about it and she’s promised never to do that again,’ Eugenides said.
‘You married Attolia.’
‘I did.’
‘She cut off your hand.’
‘You’ve said.’
‘Gen.’
‘Father.’
‘What the –’
‘See, it’s not good for his heart,’ Arete said, but not before all of the Minister’s children had added a new curse to their vocabulary.
Eugenides rolled his eyes. ‘One of you could have given him advance warning.’
‘But where would have been the fun in that?’ asked Iphianassa. ‘And now for the reveal that Eddis and Sounis have sworn fealty to you, or should we wait with that particular piece of news?’
‘THEY HAVE WHAT?’
*
The Minister of War looked at the carriage, still feeling slightly sick at the weapon of the Kingdom of Attolia painted on the doors. A similar carriage had featured in his dreams only too recently, and when Gen moved to step inside, the Minister grabbed him by his arm.
‘Gen.’
Eugenides stopped, signed to the coachman that he would be a couple of minutes. The King of Attolia and the Eddisian Minister of War walked to the edge of the square, where Eugenides leaned against the gate, taking in the sight of the mountains with naked longing.
‘I am happy,’ he said. ‘Just a bit homesick.’
‘Happy with her?’
Eugenides nodded, his face lighting up. ‘Like you cannot imagine.’
‘How?’
‘She understands me. Possibly better than I do myself.’ Eugenides shrugged, and looked at his father with the same look he had had when he tore up his papers for the military, except softer, somehow.
‘I would have burnt her kingdom to the ground for you,’ the Minister said.
‘I know.’
The Minister sighed. ‘But then I never did understand you, did I?’
‘I’ve grown to understand you better,’ said Eugenides. ‘For what that’s worth.’
‘Everything,’ the Minister assured him. ‘Now, king or not, come here and embrace your old father.’
The Minister rested his cheek against the top of Eugenides’ head, breathing in the Attolian perfumes that clung to his son’s clothes, mixed with the pine scent from the forest outside of the gates. He clenched his arms more tightly and savoured the strength of the body he held, even as he noted the lack of the other hand that would have pressed against his back only months ago.
‘If she puts one toe out of line, I will personally flay her,’ he said, kissing Eugenides’ hair.
Eugenides chuckled and pulled back from the embrace. ‘She knows. I’m coming,’ he told the driver, who had been casting silent glances at his king and the ever-lowering sun.
‘You’re not riding?’ the Minister asked, as he walked Eugenides back to the carriage.
‘One of the few benefits of kingship.’ Eugenides’ smile faded, and he laid his hand on the Minister’s shoulder. ‘Get well soon. And tell Arete she doesn’t need to hint at your impending death; I’ll come whenever you need me.’
‘Take care of yourself,’ the Minister said, adding with a pride that brought a flush of embarrassment to Eugenides’ cheeks, ‘Your Majesty.’
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Eugenides Attolis promised, as an attendant shut the door behind him.
The Minister watched until the carriage had disappeared behind one of the twists in the road. His boy was a boy no longer.