Chapter Text
The weeks passed quickly. Costis worked on the farm with his father and his cousins during the day. Evenings were his own. He visited his friends in the village—Solon was very amused that Costis had plied his trade in the Mede Empire, of all places—and sometimes ventured into the city for plays and the spring festivals. Twice he went hunting in the surrounding woods, and the resulting meals were much more palatable when prepared in his sister’s cookpot instead of over a fire by the side of the road. He received a letter from Aris, and responded promptly.
After much pestering from some of his younger cousins, he finally agreed to teach them the basics of swordplay, using branches they had found on the forest floor. Naturally, they complained at how boring it was, so one morning, Costis borrowed a scarecrow and used it as a practice dummy. He released a flourish of attacks against it—not even the duelist’s moves used by the king, just a more advanced soldier’s exercise—and they all gawked at his speed and skill. Other members of the family stopped to watch, too, even men his father’s age, which was gratifying, if slightly embarrassing. Costis was one of the tallest in the family now. Farmwork required muscles, too, so he didn’t know if he could claim to be the strongest, but none of his cousins seemed inclined to challenge him to a wrestling match.
One afternoon, he was tending to the grove of pear trees with his father, who asked about his plans to return to the capital.
“I will have to leave next week,” Costis said, carefully pruning a branch that was starting to look sickly. “The king wanted me back on the last day of the month.”
“And will you be a squad leader again? Or a lieutenant?”
“I don’t know,” Costis said with a frown. He had not told his family that his tasks in the king’s service often changed based on the likelihood that he would be assassinated. “I don’t even know if he wants me to serve in the Guard again. He told me that I should either return to the palace or take a boat to Roa.”
“What is in Roa?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “He wouldn’t tell me. He never tells me anything.”
“And will you go?” His father waited patiently, and when no answer came, prompted “Aristogiton will be in the capital, I assume, along with your other friends in the Guard.”
“Yes.”
“And your friend the Mede?”
“Kamet is Setran,” Costis corrected, knowing as he did so that Kamet would find him ridiculous. As far as he knew, the former slave felt allegiance to no nation; the other guards had informed Costis that, just after his audience with the king, Kamet had been offered sanctuary with the Mede ambassador, and had declined.
“Where will he be?”
“I don’t know,” he said for a third time. “Aris’s letter mentioned that Kamet was providing various ministers with information on the Medes, but as far as I know, he has sworn no oaths to Attolia. He may be gone already.”
“Is there… anyone else who may sway your decision?” his father asked, with a pointed look that Costis didn’t understand.
“What? No, no one.”
He had always hated this chore. He stuck his pruning knife in his belt and walked away, towards the water pump on the side of the house. It wasn’t summer yet, but it was a warm day, and he was grateful for a cool sip of water and a splash on the back of his neck.
After a moment, his father followed him. He leaned against the house with his arms folded, looking down his nose. Costis resisted a childish urge to squirm and stare up at the sky.
“When you hit the king, I wrote to you,” his father said in his low, rumbling voice. “I told you that I had always been proud to have a son in service to the crown, and that I trusted your judgment. That the farm would always be here for you, but that I trusted you to make your own way in the Guard, whether or not I understood.”
Costis nodded again. There was a lump in his throat, and his father’s gaze pinned him down.
“That is still true, Costis. I don’t doubt that there are things you haven’t told us, but I will not press you for more. I will say only that, whether you stay or go, you must make the decision. You cannot live half of one life and half of another, especially when you have sworn your life in another’s service.”
“Thank you, Father,” Costis said quietly. He bowed his head, and his father kissed his brow. Thalia’s voice floated through the open window. She was singing the same tune Costis had sung at the base of the Taymets, but her voice was sweeter.
***
On his second to last night at home, Costis and his family went to Pomea for an open-air poetry recitation in front of the harvest temple, the largest temple in the city. Few of the speakers had Kamet’s skill, but it was a pleasant evening.
The last speaker recited a passage from Enoclitus, and as the crowd applauded, Costis heard a nearby acolyte turn to his friend and say “Have you heard about the scrolls of Enoclitus they discovered just recently?”
“Yes,” his friend replied. “At the main temple in Roa, wasn’t it?”
“So. The priest here tells me that scholars from Ferria are pouring in to work on copying and translating them. If only my archaic was a little better…”
Costis felt as though Hephestia had flung a lightning bolt at him.
“Gods damn him,” he sighed, trusting on the God of Thieves’s blatant favoritism to prevent such a thing from occurring. He fixed his eyes on the marble pediment of the temple as he turned over his newfound revelation. He tried to force his mind to weight the possible outcomes logically, but it was a hopeless endeavor. Costis knew what he was going to do.
His family was huddled around, comparing their favorite recitations and eating from a bag of candied nuts. Costis cleared his throat to get their attention.
“I think I am going to take the king’s suggestion. I sail for Roa in five days.”
***
He spent his last night in Ortia the same way he had spent his first, and then set out for the capital. At the end of his first day on the road, he stopped at a small inn. The landlady asked if he needed anything, and Costis was about to say no—Thalia had sent him off with enough stuffed pies to feed him for a week—but then he changed his mind and asked if it would be possible to find some paper and a pen. She was surprised at the request, but she sent her son off to fetch them and bring them to his room.
Costis flipped the boy a coin and sat down to write a letter to his sister. There would almost certainly be a messenger on the road to Pomea the next morning, and he could ask at the inn before he set off.
Dear Thalia,
You were right, as usual, but I could not bear to tell you in person. There is something else bothering me, and it has to do with my trip to Mede.
I told you there was a moment when our journey was disrupted because we were being pursued by the emperor’s guard. I didn’t tell you what happened when I tried to get Kamet to fight them with me. He panicked. He told me that slaves were not allowed to even touch a weapon, and I think that the fact he had held a sword was more shocking to him than the fact that he had just been attacked. He was injured and bleeding, and I held him until he calmed down. I felt—I can’t explain what I felt. I think part of me knew then that I loved him, although I had known him less than a month.
And I do mean love—not love as I feel for you, our father, Achaeus, Aris, or the king and queen, but just as strong. Thalia, sometimes I feel that my heart might burst. I don’t know how I can possibly love so many so strongly. What can I do if one pulls me away from the others? How can I give my complete devotion to one and have anything left for the rest? And (gods forbid) what would happen if I lost any of you? I know that I would need to survive, to serve the rest as best I can, but the prospect terrifies me.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because I don’t know if he loves me in return. Or even likes me very much. I learned later that he had never had any intention of living in Attolia. There were one or two times where, perhaps, some kind of loyalty for me prevented him from going off on his own, but that was before he realized he had fled the court because of a lie. The last time we spoke, he was angry at me. I have been quiet these last few weeks because every day I have thought of him and wondered if he was still angry. I thought about what it would be like if had come with me, to see the farm and the house and to meet you all. I think if he did, he would enjoy it. I have clung to that hope.
I am sorry for all of this. I’m sure you’re surprised to a letter so soon, and I know it’s the coward’s way out. Maybe this makes you uncomfortable. I don’t know. But I may be gone for a long time, and I owe you and Father an explanation. Thank you for your patience and your kindness these last few weeks (these last twenty years).
Costis
I may have misrepresented Kamet in this letter. Despite the story I told above, he is very brave and saved my life several times on the journey. He is also funny and very smart, and he tells wonderful stories and translates poetry. I think you would like him, too.
***
The journey back to the capital was not as relaxed as the journey away had been; Costis was worried about missing his boat. But he arrived at the city with hours to spare, and decided to take the hose back to the palace stables himself instead of entrusting her to the city guard. He returned her to a different bored stable boy and then hesitated, glancing up at the sky and trying to calculate the time it would take to check the duty roster and then track down Aris. He hadn’t navigated the palace in a long time, and he would probably get lost.
Just as he was regretfully turning back, though, a voice called out “Costis! Hey, Aris, it’s Costis!”
He craned his head and saw Aris scrambling down the steps of the outer wall. He was in full uniform, and he beamed at Costis.
“You’re back!” he exclaimed, pulling Costis into a brief hug and thumping him on the back. “And you’re leaving!”
“Yes—I was heading down to—”
“Roa?” Aris grinned.
“The docks,” Costis finished, puzzled by his enthusiasm. Then his eyes widened and his heart swelled with hope. Aris grinned wider.
“Popular destination this morning. You’ve got to be on your way, then. First—your family, they were all well when you left?”
“Very, thank you. And here?”
“That idiot Legarus broke his ankle, but other than that, yes. The Mede ambassador has left Attolia, and at his farewell party the king called him by the wrong name twice. Also, he gave me a message for you. The king, not the ambassador.”
He handed over a folded note, written in the king’s hand.
Arrow to Ferris. Duke’s Road and then Thuk’s Way north to Rince. Hire a riverboat down the Naden into Magyar.
Be careful with the purse this time, and use it for emergencies only. Keep an eye on the sea.
Costis looked back at Aris, who promptly handed over a spyglass, which Costis slipped into his pack, and a bag that clinked with small coins. There was something else in it, too, something heavier, but Costis elected not to investigate when they were out in the open. He tied the purse to his belt.
“Thanks, Aris. I’d better be going.”
“Safe travels,” Aris said, thumping him on the back again, and Costis headed out of the courtyard and into the city.
Halfway to the docks, he reached down to fondle the purse. It was made of good leather, but thin enough that he could feel the outline of the heavy cylinder, with an engraved face and a thin hoop at the other end. He grinned to himself, and was still grinning when he strolled down the docks and spotted the Arrow, bobbing gently in the tide, with a dark figure leaning on the rail by the stern.
He could tell when Kamet saw him—the figure straightened, and then reluctantly slumped again—and resisted the urge to laugh when he turned his face away. His eyes really were terrible.
Costis walked onto the gangplank and Kamet angled his body to keep him in sight. They were six feet apart when Kamet turned completely, one hand dropping off the rail, and two when Costis stopped. Kamet looked like he was trying to suppress a smile, but his eyes had stars in them.
“Come to see me off?”
Gods, it was good to hear his voice. Costis couldn’t have dampened his own smile if he had tried.
“Come to point out that you are far from plying your trade on a dusty street corner.”
“So,” Kamet laughed. “You were right and I was wrong.”
They stared at each other foolishly for another minute, and Kamet glanced away, looking at the dark water of the bay. Costis’s heart was hammering. There was much he wanted to say, but he couldn’t get the words past his lips.
“Are you—worried by the journey?” he asked.
“I am sure I will manage, though I am not used to traveling alone.”
“Would you like company?”
Kamet did a double take, mouth opening slightly, and Costis had a moment of panic. It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but he had not considered what he would do if the answer was actually no. Gods all, his whole family and half the palace must know he had intended to go to Roa.
“What of your king? Your position here?” Kamet spluttered, and that eased his fears a little.
“It was his suggestion. He sent me to visit with my family for a few weeks and to say goodbye. I took my sister a wedding present,” he added inanely. Kamet still looked wary. “I am going to look like a fool if you say you don’t want me along with you, Kamet,” he said in a gentle voice.
Kamet smiled and looked down at his feet.
“Gods forbid you should look like a fool, Costis.”
“Is that a so, then?”
“So it is.”
A sailor pushed past them brusquely, so they stepped to the side and leaned against the rail, out of the way. Costis remembered suddenly that this was how their first journey together had begun, more or less—boarding a boat. He hoped this trip would be rather less adventurous, but the memory softened the edges of his smile.
That was the first time Kamet had smiled at him, too. He had been upset in the hallway, at the docks, at the theater, boarding the boat (and didn’t that make sense, in retrospect), but he had smiled on the Anet’s Dream, when Costis had remarked on something in his story.
Asked Ennikar of Immakuk what have you learned?
Learned about welcome and unwelcome said Immakuk
Wise Immakuk asked Proud Ennikar what he had learned
Learned I like to wander said Ennikar
Costis had never thought of himself as a wanderer, but he was beginning to develop a taste for traveling.
“Immakuk and Ennikar,” he said.
“Where?” Kamet exclaimed, whipping his head around to look at the dock, and Costis chuckled again. Kamet hadn’t believed him when he saw Ennikar in Zaboar—now, hale and healthy, Costis wasn’t sure if he believed himself, either—but evidently he had had a change of heart. Costis bumped him with his elbow.
“Idiot. Us.”
“Oh. Of course.”
He continued to scan the dock for a minute. The morning was fading, and a sailor shouted at the crowd that the boat would be pulling away momentarily. No one rushed onto the gangplank, and evidently Kamet didn’t spot any tall southern gentlemen or one-eyed merchants. They leaned against the side of the ship together, waiting for the departure.
Now? a voice whispered in Costis’s head, and he was worried that he might be blushing. He should have devoted more time to preparing what he would say, but he had been deliberately not thinking about the possibility that Kamet would be waiting on the Arrow . He hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up.
He cleared his throat.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the king?” Kamet reproached suddenly.
“I had no idea he was your kitchen boy,” Costis protested, relieved for the interruption.
“Not that. I mean…” He waved a hand expressively. “I mean how he was. You told me they put sand in his food—”
“They did.”
“—and tried to kill his favorites—”
“They did.”
“—and that he was rude and petty and ridiculous—”
“He is!”
“But you didn’t tell me he was…”
He trailed off again and shrugged. Costis was laughing, but after a minute his chuckles subsided and he looked out onto the water. The bay looked calm and slow, a deep slate grey color in the bright morning light. The sails were being unfurled, and there was a loud snap as they caught the wind.
“My king,” he said slowly, “sits on his throne the way a printer’s apprentice sits on a stool in a wine shop. And yet I once saw him sitting in bed, wearing the queen’s night shirt, wielding the gods’ own authority until he made each of his attendants tremble and fear for their lives. I’ve seen him duel with and defeat half a dozen of the best guards in the palace, including a would-be assassin, and then complain that he was hungry and hungover.”
He held his palms up in question. Kamet considered him for a moment, lips toying with a frown and a stubborn line forming between his eyebrows. Finally he sighed.
“I wouldn’t have believed you,” he admitted.
“No one would have believed me. No one did,” Costis huffed. “I knew what he was weeks before anyone else, and they all thought me a liar.” He shrugged. “It suits the king. He likes it when people underestimate him. He likes proving them wrong. Oh, that reminds me.” He reached into the purse and pulled out the king’s seal. “The king gave me this again, just in case we need it. I can’t imagine we will, but if there’s any trouble it’s good to have.”
He fixed it in his ear again and felt the stone dangle against his jaw. It was good to have it back. Kamet’s face went oddly blank.
“Oh. Is it… do many people have a copy of the king’s seal in Attolia? Or—when they travel outside the country?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you are special.” Kamet’s lips twitched in a smirk, and Costis laughed.
“I told you—the king is kind.”
“You love him.”
“Yes,” Costis said. He hadn’t been expecting the half-question, but the answer came easily enough. “As I love the queen.”
“No.” Kamet shook his head. Costis considered it.
“No,” he agreed. “It’s different. We—all of us—almost all of us love the queen because most Attolians hate the barons. When I was young, the barons ruled Attolia. Most of them were cruel, and those who weren’t by nature needed to pretend, just to survive the others. And then the queen came.”
He paused, thinking some more, and pointed at the temple on the acropolis.
“Do you see that temple there—no, of course you don’t. Well, it’s the temple of Hephestia, the queen of the old gods. Imagine if this boat was full of our greatest enemies, and suddenly Hephestia climbed out of that temple and stormed down on us, striking all of our enemies with lightning bolts. We would love her for killing our enemies and for not killing us, but we would also be afraid. And if she did kill us, we would hardly think to question her, because who can question the Great Goddess? I know the queen is not a goddess,” he added, remembering her weight in his arms and the king’s worries Irene…? floating through the air. “But I want to believe she is, and she wants me to believe she is. There are only a few, I think, who are allowed to think of her otherwise.”
Kamet nodded slowly. His eyes were intent and his brows drawn in a straight line as he absorbed the information.
“And the king?”
Costis thought for longer this time. He had been answering the same question, more or less, for a month. But he had to be careful with his family—his extended family because they would mock him, and his immediate family because they would worry if they knew how involved Costis had become in the snarl of the court. He wanted to give Kamet a full answer. After a minute, he realized that they were standing at the back of the ship, facing northeast. Facing Eddis.
“Sometimes,” he said slowly, so quiet that Kamet had to lean closer to hear, “the king would dismiss his attendants and have me move a chair so he could sit in his chamber and stare out the window, in the direction of Eddis. He just… sits. Cries sometimes. Never says a word. That was why…” He trailed off, and shook his head. “He does impossible things, but he is mortal. He gets homesick. He hates being king, but he loves doing what a king can do.”
“By which you mean…” Kamet prompted, although he looked like he understood already.
“Pardoning people he likes. Protecting the queen and her interests. Defending the peninsula from the Medes. Helping his friend who is Sounis and his cousin who is Eddis. He’ll do anything for people he claims as his.”
“I see,” Kamet said. “I have been struggling to reconcile the kitchen boy I knew and the king I saw in the throne room. Thank you for sharing your—feelings.”
There was an odd note in his voice, and when Costis looked at him, Kamet was staring at the water below and frowning. His bit on his lower lip and his shoulder sagged, and Costis was confused. What could have prompted such a response? He had assumed that Kamet had come to respect the king, or else why would he going to Roa? It could hardly disappoint him that Costis respected him, too.
It hit him suddenly that Kamet had not said “You respect him.”
His heart began to pound again, and Costis bit his lip, too, to prevent a giddy laugh that would not be taken well. He cleared his throat and watched the water eddying around the hull of the boat. They were pulling away from the shore with more speed, now, navigating around the other boats in the bay, and the water was beginning to froth white.
“Kamet,” he said, marvelling at how calm his voice sounded. “I am here because of my love for one man—and it is not the king.”
He glanced up. His words took a moment to sink in, and then Kamet’s eyes widened and flickered up to meet his.
“Ah.”
Kamet looked like he wanted to say more, but all he did was smile. He looked away from Costis again, shoulders hunched. His right hand slid across the rail of the boat and Costis covered it with his own. His fingers were cold, and Costis wondered if he had been waiting on the deck long. It was a warm day, but the ocean breeze was chilly.
“I thought, perhaps…” Kamet paused. He swallowed. “I thought you might hate me,” he admitted.
“Hate you?”
“I went straight to my room and cried.”
“Kamet…”
“And then your stupid king sent you away for weeks to make me feel bad. Why are you laughing?”
“I’m sorry,” Costis choked. He squeezed Kamet’s hand tighter when the other man tried to yank it away indignantly. “I’m sorry. But I spent the whole time away moping because I thought you might hate me. I sat down to write you a letter four times, and lost my courage. I was whining to Aris up to the very moment I left. I think we might both be idiots, Kamet.”
“Perhaps.”
He considered this for a moment, and then deliberately reached over with his other hand and plucked Costis’s away. He took a step closer and directed Costis to wrap an arm around his shoulders. Costis obeyed, holding him so close that he was sure the other man could feel the hopeful flutter of his heart.
Kamet settled against his chest, and wordlessly they watched as Attolia shrank into the distance.