A Conspiracy of Kings (22 page)

“You are a man of your word, Your
Majesty?”

“Enough that I am offended you ask,
Ambassador,” I said angrily.

He unfolded the parchment. “I have read this several
times.” He smoothed it out on the table between us and looked
up at me, watching my face. “It appears in every way to be a
personal missive between you and…someone who cares for
you.”

“She is the queen of Eddis,” I said stiffly,
annoyed at his dismissive tone.

“I mean no offense,” he told me. “On the
contrary. It goes against my grain to withhold something personal.
I would no more deny you this than I would deny you any of your
property. You have seen, I hope, that we make no attempt to remove
from you your possessions. Even your weapons. I am sure that in
time our mistakes will be behind us. We will start fresh. This is
your property, and I would like to return it to you, if only I
could.” He smiled disarmingly, and I gritted my teeth and
wondered what he was going to demand of me in exchange for this
piece of writing and wished he would get on with it.
“…if I could have your word that there is no secret
message here.”

My surprise showed on my face. What possible message did
he think could be secreted in a half-page love letter?

“Ah,” he said, and was evidently satisfied
because he slid the parchment across the table to me. I folded it
and slid it inside my shirt.

He inclined his head graciously.

I tried to do the same.

So I began my second captivity. This time with good food,
and a soft bed, and regular bathwater, and companions infinitely
more despised. Brimedius soon disappeared back to his army, which
was penning in whatever was left of my uncle’s men near the
pass into Melenze. Brimedius’s wife had greeted me formally
when I first arrived, but I never saw her again. I saw only the
Mede and various servants and a few members of Brimedius’s
guard.

My attendant had a name. Of all ridiculous things, it was
Ion.

“Is that a problem, Your Majesty?” he
asked.

“No, not at all,” I said. “What’s
your family name?”

“I am Ion Nomenus, Your Majesty.”

“I will call you by the patronym, then, if you do
not mind,” I said.

“Anything that pleases you, Your Majesty.” He
was the model of good manners, then and for the rest of our time
together. He brought me my food and would have helped me dress and
undress if I had let him.

“I’ve grown more comfortable doing it
myself,” I told him, and so he contented himself with
unpacking and refolding my fancy clothes.

“I had a number of books,” I said, and he
apologized that they would not be available to me. I observed that
the written word in all its forms was forbidden, but he said no, he
could bring me books from the megaron’s collection, if I
would like. I said that I would, and asked him to look for a copy
of Mepiles’s
Lamentations
. I thought it
might give me some perspective.

A
KRETENESH dined with me every day, chatted about
this and that, presented himself to me as a reasonable man, a
potential ally, a resource. Every day I asked about my mother and
sisters. After the first few days he didn’t even offer
excuses, just smiled sadly and turned away. If I lost my temper and
swore at him, I got nothing. If I was polite, he gave me a tidbit
about their health or their activities of the day before: They had
gone into the garden, or they had walked by the riverside, Ina had
said this or that. Unspoken was the understanding that my behavior
affected their freedom as well as my own. On the contrary, I was
assured over and over again that I was no prisoner but an honored
guest.

The first time I was told this I stood up and said briskly I was
leaving, and my family with me. Akretenesh just looked
disappointed. “You would never, I am sure, very sure, Your
Majesty, be so rude to your host,” he said. He used that
phrase often,
I am sure, very sure
, always
followed by something I desired but would not be allowed. I grew to
hate it as much as I hated him.

After some weeks of this, I was well practiced in controlling my
frustration. I never thought I would have any reason to be grateful
to my Ferrian tutor, Malatesta, but as it turned out, he had been
good practice for dealing with the Mede. I did not swear or shout.
I nodded politely when spoken to and let the most outrageous
comments pass by. Of course we were as children to the more mature
race of the Mede. Of course they knew better than we did how to
regulate ourselves.

I kept myself busier than I had been out on the island of
Letnos. I woke in the morning and occupied myself with martial
arts. I had a practice sword and any number of helpful partners
waiting on me in the training yard. I rode regularly and tried to
improve my sword work on horseback. Akretenesh seemed to look with
approval on these activities. I practiced firing Attolia’s
gun, and he didn’t object. On the contrary, Brimedius’s
armory was most helpful about providing lead and powder. The lead
was pulled back out of targets to be reused, but my consumption of
powder was not inconsequential. If I could have cost Brimedius ten
times as much to maintain, I would have.

In the afternoon I read whatever Nomenus brought me from
Brimedius’s library. Mepiles’s
Lamentations
did help me put my own discomforts
in context, and I read a little from it every day. I paced in my
room, talking to myself, and rehearsing for future speeches. I
worried daily about the fate of the magus and the men in my army.
Akretenesh of course gave me no news. I didn’t know even if
the magus had lived or died, though I thought the Mede would
probably have told me if my friend and advisor was dead. I worried
about him, and wondered if he had safely reached my father.

I was free to move about as I pleased in the gardens and could
ride out on one of Brimedius’s horses so long as I had
someone from his guard with me. In the megaron I could roam through
the public rooms and in the corridors on the way to my apartments.
I walked those corridors, usually with Nomenus at my side,
listening for any hint of my mother and sisters. Eurydice could be
heard, if she chose to exert herself, across several fields and a
small river. I never heard a sound and never caught even a hint of
their whereabouts.

I spent my afternoons walking in gardens surrounding the megaron
in search of some sign they might have left, a footprint in the
flower beds, a plant stripped of its blossoms, twigs in a pattern,
an arrangement of stones. I found nothing. I had faith that Ina was
a cunning prisoner, but there was no sign that she had even once
outwitted Akretenesh’s desire that she and Eurydice and my
mother be kept from me.

I attempted to think charitable thoughts about Nomenus, who had
taken on the role of my personal attendant, and the other people in
the megaron, the servants and Brimedius’s guardsmen. I
couldn’t blame them for my captivity. It was my own doing,
after all, that had brought me to Brimedius. I tried to thank them
honestly for their services. They were wary at first, but if they
held me in contempt, they concealed it well. If the captain of the
guard was a little stiff with me when we sparred in the mornings,
he was never anything but polite.

I know that it may be wishful thinking or arrogance on my part
to think so, but over time they seemed genuinely well disposed to
me. Nomenus even scoured up a few more books of poetry for me to
read from Lady Brimedius’s private collection, which was
considerate of him. He never spoke to me of anything but my
personal needs, making it clear that the business of kings was not
his business. It was a fine line between sympathy and pity that he
walked, and I was gradually won over by his kindnesses.

Remembering Gen’s suggestion that it is better if you
believe what you want other people to believe, I tried to think
charitable thoughts about Akretenesh as well. Except for the very
essence of the matter—my captivity and his refusal to let me
see my sisters and my mother—he was very accommodating. I
still didn’t like him. His narrow, inflexible mind, his
unshakable faith that the Mede way was the best way, and his
unwitting condescension in offering it to me made my hackles rise,
even without the added offense of his blatant intention to
appropriate my country. Also, I hated the scent of his hair oil,
which is a stupid thing to care about, and I am not surprised that
it makes you laugh.

Fortunately, I did not have to pretend that I liked him. He was
content once he could see that I was willing to submit to him
because I had no other choice.

One day after weeks of uninterrupted quiet and sick frustration,
there was a visitor to Brimedius’s megaron. Nomenus was
arranging my meal on a tray when I asked him outright who had
arrived.

“It’s Baron Hanaktos,” he said pleasantly, as
if it were nothing that a man who’d tried to kill me was
nearby. “The Mede ambassador has asked for an appointment
this evening before dinner if that will suit Your
Majesty.”

This is how they maintained the polite fiction that I was not a
prisoner. It was “Your Majesty, this,” and “Your
Majesty, that,” and “if it would suit Your
Majesty.” Listening to Akretenesh say the words made me want
to bite something, but Nomenus spoke them with a gentle amusement
that made it bearable, as if it were an irony shared between
us.

That evening Akretenesh brought me another letter.

“Your friend has sent greetings,” he said.
“Were you expecting them?”

I had no idea whom he meant. My first thought was of Hyacinth,
and I had no interest in any news from him. Seeing my confusion, he
held up the letter, and I recognized the seals.

“Her Majesty the queen of Eddis?” I said rigidly,
and Akretenesh promptly reconsidered his wording.

“Her Majesty, yes,” he said more respectfully.

I understood better how the queen of Attolia could have led her
own ambassador by the nose. The Medes seem to be very conventional
thinkers, so certain of themselves that they never even entertain
anyone else’s opinions. I do believe that Akretenesh saw no
differences between a woman who was a queen and one who was a
seamstress, though he would recognize all the differences in the
world between a prince and a farmer.

I said that yes, the letter was unexpected, and no, I had made
no plans for communications in case I was separated from the magus
and the troops. No, I didn’t think it likely that there was a
secret message, but of course I couldn’t say for certain.
Akretenesh again laid the parchment out on the table between us and
smoothed it with his hand while he considered. Finally, with a
little sigh, he folded it again.

“I am sorry,” he said. “It’s too
risky.”

I looked away while I fantasized about throwing myself across
the top of the spindly table and seizing Akretenesh by the throat
to choke the life out of him, surrounded by the sound of crashing
crockery.

After a deep breath, I said, “I understand.”

“I am relieved Your Majesty comprehends the difficulties
of my position,” said Akretenesh.

“You have my sympathy, Ambassador. What are your thoughts
of Her Majesty?” I asked.

“I regret I have never had the pleasure of meeting the
queen of Eddis.”

“But your brother ambassador in Attolia has, and I know
you have communicated.” He’d certainly made it clear
that Melheret had conveyed the news that I was heading for
Brimedius. Akretenesh pretended to have heard only the most
flattering things about my intelligence and maturity from the same
source.

“Indeed,” said Akretenesh, “I have heard much
of Her Majesty. She is by all accounts most admirable,
demonstrating that character in a woman is far more important than
the superficial beauty or excessive pretensions to intelligence of
her counterpart in Attolia.”

I stared at him for a moment, thinking that the historian Talis
once said that to be underestimated by an enemy is the greatest
advantage a man can have. Presumably it is true for women as well.
One part of me couldn’t let the comment pass, while another
part of me knew that I must, and I stood paralyzed as they warred
their way to a mutually agreed-upon truth.

“The queen of Eddis is as beautiful as the day and as
brilliant as the sun in the sky,” I said.

He was a fool if he didn’t believe me, but I
wouldn’t tell him so. He chuckled and quoted Praximeles about
beauty being in the heart and not in the eye.

“You could retell some of what she said in her
letter,” I said.

Akretenesh considered, now that he’d had his chance to
condescend. “I could. She writes about the fulfillment of a
dream: to marry you in the Great Temple of Sounis and to wake in a
marriage bed…which she describes in some
detail”—he flipped the page over and read it
closely—“‘It will have the finest Eddisian linen
and a carving of the silhouette of the Sacred Mountain on the
footboard.’” He looked up from the page to see my face
as I flushed deeper and deeper red. His voice grew more cloying
still. “She sends her love from beneath the ripening apricots
of the tree where she sits and says the dream is complete but for
your presence. Is this a lover’s missive,” he asked,
“or might some information be encoded there?” He
watched me closely, his eyes narrow.

I said through my gritted teeth, “Perhaps it is just what
women do.”

Sighing, he refolded the parchment. “That may be it. My
wife would write just such a description.” He became brisk.
“I am sorry I cannot allow you to return the message, but
your queen is too much under the influence of her ambitious former
Thief. He has stolen Attolia’s throne and has tried to steal
yours. She is very foolish if she does not realize how vulnerable
she is, but fortunate that she may have you to protect her from her
folly, eh?”