Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was no more than he’d been expecting, Costis told himself. Kings were kings, at best inscrutable and at worst terrifying. He himself had fallen from the king’s favor and survived before. But this new pretense, this — endealment— where Costis was neither dismissed from his old post at the king’s side, nor granted the king’s confidence as he’d used to have, did not sit well with him. The last time he’d been in purgatory, he’d at least had a change in station to go with it. This time, everything had changed except his station.

One would have thought a successful espionage mission to the Mede Empire merited some reward, Costis tried not to think to himself. One would have expected an official welcome home, perhaps a promotion or an extra month’s pay. One certainly would not — and this he said out loud, at some volume, to Aris — one would certainly not expect to be shoved back into one’s old routine without so much as a by-your-leave or an iota of information about how the palace had changed in one’s absence.

“One would be an idiot,” Aris said with a pointed look at his friend. “If you — pardon me, one — were successful on that mission, and weren’t known as a spy, do you think the Queen would want to have that information bandied about?”

Costis grudgingly agreed. “But even so, not to be so much as acknowledged doesn’t feel right. I’ll bet Hippias has even cooked up a fake transfer to explain my absence.”

“And isn’t doing your part to save the kingdom enough? Honor before glory, and whatever patron notions you have in your head?”

“Having done my part would help if anyone knew that I’d done it,” Costis said.

The problem, he reflected later, was that it was impossible to explain a transfer without justification, and even harder to explain a transfer from said transfer, except with a wave of the hand and a muttered, “King’s business.” Everyone in the Guard assumed Costis had been off doing more or less what he’d been doing, and Costis accordingly had to fend off dozens of pointed questions about how the weather was in whatever backwater the king claimed he’d been sent to. Costis was out of practice with actual guard work; his form was rusty, as the king noted during morning practices, and he’d almost gotten lost on three separate occasions.

Then there was the matter of the king himself. He’d been perfectly pleasant to Costis upon his official return to duty, but never much more than that. He hadn’t once mentioned the mission Costis had undertaken solely because Attolis had asked him to, let alone thanked him for it. Rather, everything was back to the same limbo Costis had found himself in before the mission; he wasn’t dismissed, but everyone was aware that things were, somehow, different.

Today’s audience with petitioners, for instance. If not perfectly behaved, the king was at least making an effort to be attentive; he didn’t shoot Costis a single sidelong  glance, or share a private crack at a particularly outlandish dispute between quarreling neighbors. Costis might not have been in the hall at all, for all the king cared, and he was surprised to find that he didn’t like the feeling.

Even the new king of Sounis seemed to notice a difference, for he cornered Costis one day on the way back from practice. “You’re Attolis’ favorite guard, aren’t you?” he asked, and Costis had no choice but to answer in the affirmative. “Is he always like this?”

“I wouldn’t know, Your Majesty,” Costis replied, a little stymied at the sudden address, and remembering a similar query long ago from his queen. “I’ve only been back at the palace for a few weeks.”

“Whatever’s been bothering him, it’s lasted longer than that,” Sounis mused.

“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you, Majesty.”

“It seems no one can,” Sounis said with a sigh. “I’ve gone around asking everyone I know who cares about him. Ion’s as at a loss as I am, Lady Heiro only played dumb, my wife thinks he’s just in one of his moods. There’s nothing to do but wait him out, she says, and Gen in a mood isn’t pleasant to wait out.”

Costis took a moment to process anyone calling the king of Attolia Gen . “Well,” he managed, “I wish you luck in your endeavors, but I’m as lost as you are.”

It was only once he’d found an excuse and went on his way that Costis realized Sounis had said nothing about speaking to the Queen.

He mulled over what Sounis might be planning over the next few days, along with what could possibly be bothering Attolis so much, to no effect. He wondered, idly, if Sounis was still running around the palace interviewing random people. Phresine, maybe, or the magus who seemed to follow him everywhere.

The king’s mood didn’t change when Sounis returned to his home country, nor when word arrived from Eddis that wedding plans were proceeding apace. He just smiled, and said nothing, and held Costis at a distance that was beginning to feel insurmountable.

One day, Costis finally decided he’d had enough. He wasn’t a very verbal person; he didn’t know how to ask the king for what he wanted, or even what it was that he wanted, so he fell back on physicality. He could hardly punch Attolis in the face again, but from what he’d heard of his time with Sounis, the way to the king’s heart was still to rough him up a little.

His plan was simple enough. The next day, as he sparred with the king, Costis began to make mistakes. Small ones at first, that could be excused easily enough, and then more and more egregious. The king only smiled and corrected him each time, and Costis began to escalate. He fell for blatant feints. He let his arm go loose on a block. He called to mind the third position in basic exercises, and lowered his point.

Finally the king stopped in disgust. “Gods above, Costis, what’s gotten into you today?” he snapped.

An actual reaction. Costis tried not to grin. “Your heart wasn’t in it, Your Majesty.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“You don’t smile when you beat me anymore, or scowl when I’m at fault. You fight me like you’d fight any random guard picked out of the ranks, and you treat me the same way off the practice field.”

“Have I been that rude to you of late?” Attolis asked, trying to salvage the situation, which only served to irritate Costis further.

“No, Your Majesty”— not ‘my king,’ not now — “you’ve been the spirit of politeness. And that’s the problem, since you aren’t polite. Not remotely. It’s a bad act, and even I can tell it’s an act. So whomever you’re trying to fool in employing it won’t be fooled either.”

Costis could see the king’s eyes flickering toward the other guards, who hadn’t stopped sparring but who were beginning to take notice of yet another odd conversation between Costis and his sovereign. Finally the king said, “Either you go back to practicing or I find somebody else to spar with, but either way we are not having this conversation here.”

“Very well, Your Majesty,” Costis said, and attacked him in earnest.

After enough time had passed and Costis had been sufficiently beaten for the day, the king stumbled and almost dropped his sword. Costis rushed over to help him up; he nearly froze when the king started to whisper in his ear.

“After your shift ends tonight— don’t react, you idiot, what’s the point of whispering — go to that pointless little room with the ornate ceiling and wait for me there,” the king said, all in the moment between being grabbed by Costis and straightening up. “Now let go of me,” he added in a voice pitched to carry, “unless you’re looking for a rematch, eh?”

Costis tried as hard as he could to look merely chagrined, rather than perplexed. He supposed they were both default expressions for anyone who spent much time around the king.

He passed an uneventful watch that evening on the walls of the palace. With no half-drunk, wholly ridiculous king capering over them, the battlements were a quiet place, and as peaceful as anywhere in the palace was likely to be. He spent the time wondering what exactly the king’s explanation, or more likely excuse, would be for his recent behavior. Perhaps it was as Aris had thought, and the king didn’t want anyone to think Costis was fresh off a successful spy mission. Maybe someone had finally gotten Attolis’ ear and persuaded him that hanging around with a fool guard was doing no wonders for his public image. Or maybe Costis had finally done something to fall out of the king’s favor, even though he had no idea what that could be.

Finally Costis’ shift ended. He headed to the odd little room Attolis had requested and waited. There was no furniture to sit down on and nothing to look at, so Costis whiled away the time by following the patterns of the carved ceiling.

If he hadn’t been looking at it to begin with, he never would have noticed when something in the ceiling moved. This part of the palace was free from both rats and the omnipresent cats that pursued them, which left only one option. “Attolis?” Costis asked.

There was the sound of a boot scraping on wood from above, as if in confirmation.

“Are you going to talk to me,” Costis asked, “or am I meant to talk to myself while you tap once for yes and twice for no?”

Two taps, because the king was truly an ass, and then: “Forgive me, Costis, it’s been a long month. I grow weary of this artifice.”

Costis, frankly, couldn’t imagine the king ever becoming weary from any artifice or falsehood. On the contrary, they seemed to be his reason for existence some days. “Weary? You?” Costis said, for lack of a better idea.

“I know you’re quite good at acting like it, Costis, but even you can’t be that daft. If I can’t even fool you, I’m off my game, and I can’t afford to be right now.”

“Because?” Costis asked. It was hard to read the king on the best of days, but damn near impossible when all you had to work with was a disembodied voice.

The ruler of all Attolia let out a deep sigh. “I suppose I deserve this. My Queen’s been telling me to stop being so obtuse about this since you got back. Sounis even dropped by to tell me how confused I was making you, and couldn’t I give my poor guard a rest?”

“I don’t follow, Your Majesty,” Costis said.

“The fact of the matter is, I didn’t send you on that mission to the Mede because I needed you to. Or rather,” he added, hurriedly, as if he could sense Costis’ affront at that, “I did need you to go on that mission, but I also needed you out of the palace for a while. I suppose you remember those little incidents that started happening after you proved your loyalty to me?”

‘Little incidents’ like roof tiles nearly falling on Costis’ head, and far too many bar fights with incredibly quarrelsome strangers. “I remember them all too well.”

“Well, we — the Queen, Relius, and I — we needed time to figure out who was behind those incidents, and why. Nobody gets to attack you except me, you know, and I need you in prime condition so that beating you is remotely satisfying. But we didn’t get the chance, because you aren’t actually an idiot, and wrapped that mission up sooner than anyone expected. Which is commendable, by the way, and after this is over I’ll find some award for Teleus to give you. But the point,” the king said, rallying, “is that you got back before we were done investigating, and so your would-be assassins are still lying in wait. Every moment I look like I give a damn about you is more fuel to incite them.”

“So you decided to stop giving a damn,” Costis posited, “and what, figured that an angry guard was better than a dead one?”

“Hopefully not angry for much longer. We’ve almost found the assassins, just give it a week. You’ll be back to your scapegoat status before you know it.”

Costis found this a little hard to believe, and the king must have sensed it, because he continued: “Costis, do you trust me?”

“Your lies are famous in three countries, Your Majesty,” Costis replied. He didn’t — he couldn’t, just now. He couldn’t trust the king to be honest, just to be his inscrutable self.

“Very well. It might even be four now, what with the Mede,” the king said. “If you won’t trust me, do you trust my wife?”

“The Queen? Always.”

“She’s been working just as hard as I have, and she doesn’t have any of my qualms about things like torture. We’ll find the men responsible before you even know it, and your life can get back on track.”

“Yes, My King,” Costis said finally. “I’m looking forward to that. One more thing, though?”

“Yes?” the king asked.

“How on earth did you get in the ceiling?”

A week or two later, as Costis prepared to stand guard at another royal audience, there was a brief pause before the petitioners entered. Costis didn’t understand the silence until he glanced up at the thrones to notice the Queen looking right at him. He felt very small all of a sudden.

She looked at him for another moment and then said, “Costis, isn’t it?”

“Yes, My Queen,” Costis squeaked out.

“I understand that you are recently returned from a mission abroad for the Crown. I give you my congratulations on your success, and I am glad for your safe return home.” She put an especial emphasis on the word ‘safe.’

If that meant what Costis thought it meant… “Thank you, My Queen,” he said, bowing. “As ever, I am at Your Majesties’ service.”

The Queen smiled minutely. “We are glad to hear it.”

Then she turned back to the petitioners, who began to file in, and the audience began. The king was back to his old self, slouching and making asides. He lounged and shifted around, even poking the Queen with an elbow for a moment before she grabbed the offending arm. The audience dragged on. Soon the king would find an excuse to gleefully berate Costis’ hair or armor or general existence, and Costis would let him. Perhaps the king would drag Costis out of bed on a madcap scheme, or just around the corner to find a new secret passage. Wherever the king went, Costis would follow.