The Queen of Attolia Read online

  “If all you cared about was historical significance, you could have stayed in bed until the king’s guard came for you.”

  The magus had been disposed to save his skin, but he knew there were greater things at stake. “Eugenides, if Sounis held Eddis, he could stop the Mede expansion and be prepared if an internal war ever arose in Attolia to drive them out. If he can’t unite at least Sounis and Eddis, all three of these countries will be divided and swallowed in a historical eye blink. Even you can see that.”

  “One thing I see,” Eugenides said, “is that everybody is always willing to throw someone else’s country to the dogs. I don’t have any desire to be overrun by the Medes, but I don’t look forward to being overrun by Sounis either. And you don’t need to worry about political naïveté. I would have much preferred to slit Sounis’s throat while he slept, but his heir is hardly ready to inherit the kingdom, and we can’t have a civil war in Sounis for the Mede to step in and resolve, can we? Our horses are ready.” Hooking a bag that lay on the table, he held it in the air and dropped several small loaves of bread into it, then started across the courtyard to the chariot.

  “Gen.” The magus, still sitting on the bench, called him back.

  Eugenides waited, looking at him over one shoulder.

  “You’ve become quite ruthless in your old age,” said the magus.

  “I have.”

  If the magus was surprised when they turned off the road toward the main pass and raced inland, he didn’t have the breath to ask any questions. He waited until the horses slowed and stopped on a curving stretch of empty road.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You are headed for a nice hunting lodge on the coastal side of the pass. I haven’t left my rooms for weeks, so it would be awkward if I were seen riding up the pass with you. I’ll go on foot from here and up the Oster path and then come down into the capital from the backcountry with fewer people to see me.”

  “If I am seen, there is no difficulty?”

  “We’re hoping you won’t be seen, and if seen, not recognized. I’m a little more easy to distinguish, and we won’t rely on luck to keep me from being noticed.”

  The magus looked up at the mountain and back at Eugenides.

  “I made it down,” the Thief said. “We’ll see if I can get back up.”

  “There must be an easier way,” said the magus. “Not that I personally would be unhappy to see you reduced to pulp on a rock pile at the base of a cliff,” he added.

  Eugenides smiled at the gibe, the first real smile the magus had seen from him.

  “There are many easier ways, but not if I’m going to be home in a reasonable time. Enjoy the lodge. You’ll have a guard, but they’ve been told to be pleasant to you. You are an honored guest,” Eugenides said, stepping away from the chariot and nodding to the driver.

  “For how long?” the magus asked as the driver turned the chariot in the narrow roadway.

  Eugenides held up his arms in an elaborate shrug as the chariot jolted away.

  When Attolia learned that Sounis’s ships had been sunk in their harbor, she sent first for her master of spies.

  There were rumors that the sabotage had been performed by a group of men dressed as Sounisian sailors returning to their ships to relieve the officers standing watch. They’d boarded the ships easily, and their access to the powder rooms had been simple. Still the queen wanted to know about the saboteurs. Had one been missing a hand?

  “He hasn’t left his room, Your Majesty.”

  “Are there servants who bring his food, get him dressed in the morning, take away his dirty clothes, empty his night jar? Are they in your pay? Is there anyone who can tell you that he has seen Eugenides in that room?”

  “No, Your Majesty, but—”

  “Then you can’t be certain he’s there, can you?”

  “No, Your Majesty, but—”

  “But what, Relius?”

  The secretary took a careful breath. “There’s no evidence, Your Majesty, that the Thief has left his rooms in the last few weeks. We have reliable reports that he argued with the queen and that she does not speak of him. Also, Your Majesty, this business involved several men, and in the past the Thief worked alone. We are not even certain that this was the work of Eddisians. The magus has disappeared, and his apprentice says that he conspired with us. We know that is incorrect, but that’s all. We don’t know who his masters are.”

  “Who else could they be?” the queen asked.

  The secretary went on hesitantly, unsure of his ground. His queen had lately showered favors on her Mede ambassador, and he was reluctant to anger her. “There are the Medes to be considered, Your Majesty. A strong alliance between Sounis and Attolia is not to their advantage.”

  “True,” said Attolia, sitting back in her throne. “We shall see where the magus turns up.”

  Within days of the destruction of Sounis’s navy, pirates raided and burned two of the most important port cities on his islands. Piracy had grown increasingly common since the pass through Eddis had been closed to trade. Merchants carrying their goods by ship had been tempting targets, and any captain could reflag his ship to become a pirate at a moment’s notice, only to change flags again and return home an honest merchant mariner.

  These new pirates had worked alone and preyed on isolated sailing ships. No one expected them to join forces. Many of the islands hadn’t yet learned of the destruction of the king’s navy and hadn’t taken even the most rudimentary precautions against sea raiders. Their harbors were open, and their towns guarded only by night watchmen patrolling the streets for drunks or thieves. The pirates had landed without warning, had looted the warehouses along the docks and burned them while many citizens were still sleeping in their beds. The citizens woke glad not to have been murdered in those beds. They sent outraged calls for assistance to their king only to hear that there was no navy to defend them and that the raiders had probably been not pirates, but Attolian warships under false flags.

  With his remaining ships, Sounis attacked one of Attolia’s smaller islands in revenge. More towns burned. Any hope of an alliance collapsed. Attolia regrouped her navy to defend herself from sea attack by Sounis but left the bulk of her army in the pass.

  Reversing his earlier threats of war, Sounis turned to Eddis, asking for lumber for his shipyards. The ambassador from Eddis closeted himself with the king and revealed that Eddis had hired a master gunsmith in the fall and had retooled her foundries over the winter to produce cannon instead of the iron ingots she had been shipping to the Peninsula in the past. She was able to provide Sounis with the guns he needed to arm his new warships but expressed a reasonable reluctance to sell cannon that might be used against her. She demanded a show of good faith that Sounis would not ally again with Attolia.

  Within a month of the disaster at the Navy Festival, the first lumbering grain wagons were on their way to Eddis to resupply the war-strained country, and Sounis’s reduced navy had seized two of Attolia’s most vulnerable islands. Chios and Sera were two prizes, small but wealthy in marble and artisans. They were bones of contention and had changed hands between the countries of Sounis and Attolia for hundreds of years. Once again the possessor of them, Sounis would not reform his alliance with Attolia if it meant surrendering them.

  Attolia, with her navy intact, carried out her own attacks. She was willing to let Chios and Sera go. There were other islands of more strategic importance, and she turned her attention toward those. She took Capris and failed to take Anti-Capris, its near neighbor, by only a narrow margin. Sounis lost two more of his warships.

  At the suggestion of her Mede ambassador, she attacked Cymorene and secured its eastern end against Sounis. Cymorene was one of the largest of the islands, and she couldn’t hope to control its mountainous interior without bringing in her army, but most of her land forces were still climbing the pass to Eddis. Eddis had hoped that the temptation of a weakened Sounis would draw them away, but Attolia continued to
advance. Eddis harassed the army but was unwilling to waste her soldiers, her most precious resource. Even Attolia, with her population still unrecovered from the plague a generation before, had more men than Eddis. Her army moved steadily upward.

  Sounis offered to send an army to reinforce Eddis, but she declined. Steadily losing ground in the islands, Sounis pressed Eddis for the cannon she had promised. He wanted to mount them on his island defenses until warships could be built. Two more of his supply shipments had arrived in Eddis, and she had little excuse to refuse.

  The moon was down, and the hallways of the palace were lit by the glimmer of small lanterns at the intersections of corridors. The stone walls were dark and did little to reflect the light. The stone floors were covered in thin carpets. The queen of Eddis walked slowly to avoid tripping on unseen wrinkles. She walked slowly to avoid making any noise, and she walked slowly, with her head carefully held upright, to avoid the appearance of sneaking through her own palace, which was what she was doing. She wanted to talk privately to Eugenides and his father. Eugenides in his own mysterious way could arrive in her rooms at night in response to a message left with his food in the library. His father either had to be admitted by the queen’s attendants or the queen had to leave the attendants and meet him elsewhere. They had agreed to meet in the library.

  Eugenides was waiting for her. His father had not yet arrived.

  Eddis closed the door behind her and turned. “We are discovered,” she said with a rueful smile. “You were right, and I should have let you relay messages instead of trying to have a secret meeting.”

  “You don’t look alarmed,” Eugenides said. “Who saw you?”

  “It was Therespides,” said Eddis. “He ran into me creeping around a corner. I don’t know which one of us was more surprised. Or embarrassed, for that matter.”

  “He guessed where you were going?”

  “There’s no one else in this part of the palace to be visiting. I think he was coming in from a visit down in the town.”

  “Why aren’t you more worried?”

  The queen looked down at him and smiled fondly. He had grown quite ruthless lately, but he still showed signs of naïveté from time to time. “You’ve heard that a liar thinks everyone else lies?”

  “Yes.”

  “A thief thinks everyone else is stealing from him?”

  “Go on—without derogatory comments about people of my profession, please.”

  “A philanderer thinks everyone else is philandering.”

  Eugenides looked blank for a moment. “Oh,” he said.

  “Practically incestuous,” said the queen, and she bent down to kiss him on the forehead. “Not to mention a little matter of robbing the cradle. It will keep the court babbling for weeks, and I hope Sounis hears about it.”

  “I hardly fit into a cradle anymore, and anyone who’d believe we were amorously involved has to be crazy, but Sounis probably will hear it and believe it. Poor besotted fool.”

  “He’s not besotted with me, just my throne.”

  “Besotted may not be the right word. Obsessed. And not just because he wants the throne. He wants you, though I’m not sure why.”

  “I’m glad you’ve remained a thief, Gen. As a courtly flatterer you lack something.”

  “It’s the king’s heir we should feel sorry for,” Eugenides said. “Poor Sophos’s heart will be breaking if he hears you love another.”

  Eddis laughed. “I doubt his feelings are deeply engaged.”

  “Rarely have I seen a more love-struck individual than the king’s nephew,” said Eugenides, with his hand on his heart to emphasize his sincerity.

  Eddis settled herself into a chair. “It’s Attolia who needs to keep thinking we don’t speak, and I’m afraid Therespides has a direct line to the secretary of her archives.”

  “All these things I’m learning about Therespides tonight. Why don’t you just drag him out in the snow and shoot him?”

  Eddis shook her head, looking grave. “He’s a reasonably good man and valuable in his own way. If he makes his gold selling gossip to Attolia, I don’t mind. It’s helpful to use him occasionally to carry erroneous information to Attolia. Still, I can hardly summon him to my throne at the morning session and say, ‘Do please keep it a secret that I am meeting Eugenides in the dark of night.’ Nor do I want to do it privately.”

  “You don’t want him to be tempted?”

  “Let’s say that I would not like to rely on him and then be disappointed. At this point Therespides doesn’t worry me.”

  “There are other spies you are more concerned about?”

  “More than ever,” said the queen. “Her army has retreated.”

  “She’s retreating?” Eugenides sat forward in his chair.

  “Not ‘is retreating,’ ‘has retreated.’ Like a cat jumping out of a bath.” Eddis shook her head in admiration.

  “She heard about the cannon?”

  “She must have. I think she knew even before we told Sounis. In another two or three days we would have had the entire battery in place and would have been able to fire down on her. She must have known all along and been hoping to take the pass before the cannon were up on the mountain above her. It was a well-planned retreat, and her army is safely out of range now.”

  “Any chance that she’ll drop the whole business? We’ve handed her naval superiority. Would taking back her islands as well as Mesos and Ianathicos satisfy her?”

  Eddis shook her head. “Your father thinks not, and I agree with him. The islands have moved from empire to empire too many times to be considered a dependable possession by anyone. If we remain allied with Sounis, he is going to want those cannon. If we give him the cannon, she’ll march her army back up the pass.” She sighed. “I’d hoped to wipe out a large enough portion of her army that she’d have no chance of taking the pass with what was left—even if we did give this year’s cannon production to Sounis. Sounis is pressing hard. I want to talk to your father about it without having the entire council looking on.”

  She leaned forward and dragged her chair closer to the fire. “We may as well fetch the magus out of hiding,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

  “On a horse?”

  “You can ride in a carriage if you like. I’ll have to go on horseback so people can see me.”

  He could hardly be so rude as to ride in a closed coach if his queen was riding outside it. He’d have to go on a horse and let everyone have a good look at him, too.

  “If you like.” He sighed inwardly.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE HUNTING RETREAT WAS A summer home for the rulers of Eddis. It was shaped like a stone megaron, with a broad, high porch across the front, supported on four pillars, but the pillars, like the rest of the building, were wood. There was a separate structure for the cooking, lest a runaway fire burn down the entire residence. The food was carried on a dirt path from the kitchen to the dining room. The second story held small dark bedrooms with unglazed windows that looked out across the overgrown meadow to the surrounding forests. In the winter the windows were covered with shutters and the building was uninhabited.

  It was not the palace of the wealthier lowlanders, but it held happy memories for Eddis. She dropped off her horse and strode up the steps and across the porch to the door. Inside was an atrium with stairs to the second floor. Her Thief followed more slowly, stiff from the ride.

  Eddis stood in the atrium, talking to a man on the balcony above her. When the Thief came in behind her, Eddis turned.

  “Elon says the magus isn’t here. He’s out digging up weeds.”

  “Oh? Any particular weeds?” Eugenides asked the valet, cocking his head back to address the man.

  “I’m sure I couldn’t say that he has a preference. We’ve had them all, with roots and dirt, so he can draw pictures of them.” The valet’s tone was replete with grievance.

  “I didn’t know he was a botanist,” Eddis said quietly to Eugenides.

&n
bsp; “Neither did I,” answered her Thief. “He’s probably trying to develop a new poison to use on us both. When will he be back?” he called to Elon.

  The valet shrugged eloquently.

  “Not what I had foreseen,” Eddis said wryly, “though I shouldn’t have expected him to be here repining. I should have started a day later and sent a messenger ahead. Surely he is not followed around by a cohort of guards?” she asked the guard commander who had appeared at the door.

  The commander explained that one guard had been assigned to follow the magus to be sure he didn’t wander so far that he escaped back to Sounis. That guard was changed every day as the task of hiking after the magus was not an enviable one. The rest of the guards passed their days gambling with dice or hunting to fill the cook’s pot.

  “Well, I hope the pot is full,” Eddis said. “Have a cook pack a picnic and provisions for the men, and we will ride out again once the magus has returned.” The trumpeter was sent out to blow recall. The queen looked back to the valet. “You had better pack his things.”

  The valet nodded. “And the weeds?” he asked.

  “I think we’ll leave the weeds. We’ll show him some nicer ones when we stop to eat.”

  When the magus appeared, trailed by a footsore guard, the queen asked if they should delay to give the magus time to rest. “We mustn’t overtax a gentleman of your years,” she said, teasing gently.

  “I believe I am stout enough to be at your disposal, Your Majesty,” the magus replied gravely, “though otherwise old and very feeble.”

  With a reputation as a soldier only just overweighed by his reputation as a scholar, he was surrounded by armed men who judged him neither old nor feeble and watched him very carefully. He was in the presence of their queen, and the relaxed camaraderie they’d shared with the magus during his stay at the summer residence was gone.

  Led by the queen, the party started back through the coastal hills. They left their path to ride up a sloping meadow to the lip of a small valley, no more than a shallow cup between two rises. “A picnic for us, I think,” said the queen. “The magus and Eugenides and I will eat in the clearing.”