Work Text:
The Queen, stately on her throne, waved her courtiers out of the audience chamber. Costis checked for anyone lingering outside the great double doors and deployed his squad around the entrances to the room before returning to stand behind his sovereigns.
Relius, master of the archives and of spies, nodded to his nondescript clerk who began giving a confidential report: ostensibly on taxes and revenues, but also on the productivity of Attolia's various provinces, which barons might be susceptible to bribes in bad times or grown complacent in success, where goods from the East suggested that someone was breaking the embargo on trade with the Mede, that information might be flowing eastwards in exchange.
The Queen leant forward intently, her attention entirely on the report. The King lounged back on his throne, casually tossing a coin, seemingly focused only on its rise and fall. But with the possible exception of the clerk, no one in the room was deceived into thinking him indifferent; nor that it might be possible to drive a wedge between him and the Queen. In the wider court... it was still a different matter.
"I don't understand," said Aris, later that afternoon, as the squad leaders gathered in the guardhouse. "All of the court saw him take on half the guard. He was their King then; how can their memories be that short?"
"It's not about memory," said Costis slowly. "It's about what they want to see -- and maybe what they think is important. The guard wanted to follow a King and be loyal to our Queen. Once we saw what he was and that loyalty to him was loyalty to her, then he had us. The barons are certainly wary of the fate of Erondites, but that doesn't mean they care whether the King is the power on the throne or the Queen's stooge."
Aris had an odd look on his face. "You're growing into a politician in your old age," he said. "The squad leader you were a year ago wouldn't have thought that way."
Costis flushed. "I'm just a squad leader again," he said, "and glad to be one." The slow, painful process of reducing the guard had begun. No one had actually been demeaned in the process: Lieutenant Vlassis was now a fine army captain in Mena province; Lieutenant Yianni had retired honourably to a farm near Thegmis; three squad leaders and a dozen guards had been given transfers to army units at equivalent rank and Exis' squad had been entirely broken up. Still it was a small beginning when the goal was to halve a guard of several hundred men. The Guard might understand the King's reasoning and submit themselves to his rule, but it was a hard thing for men who prided themselves on being the elite heart of Attolia's forces. There would be no room for fake lieutenants in the reduced Guard.
******
The squad leaders came to attention as Teleus came into the guard room. "Change of plans," he announced. "The King has requested Leonidas' squad as his bodyguard today. Costis, you will join Aristogiton on patrol towards Modrea."
A month ago, this would have prompted complaints about a spoiled goatfoot who didn't understand discipline thinking he could alter military arrangements. Today the only comments were some good-natured ribbing of Leonidas. Personally guarding the King was, of course, an honour and three-day patrols were tiring, with long hours riding and nights spent sleeping on the stony ground. But at the furthest point from the capital the guard would customarily camp in the homestead of Leonidas' cousin, Hesperius, who had single-handedly reversed his family's fortunes when they lost their land and descended from patronoi to okloi status, by becoming one of the premier wine merchants in the country. While such trade was beneath the touch of the highest barons, there were few of the court prepared to turn down his lavish hospitality and by staying in the palace, Leonidas' squad were missing some of the best food and wine that humble guards ever saw.
******
Two long days of riding later, the squads clattered into Hesperius' courtyard, tired from patrol and looking forward to good wine.
The merchant himself was present to welcome them, clapping Costis and Aris on their backs and asking after his cousin before directing a handful of serving girls to bring out wine and olives, "the best in all Attolia".
Costis relaxed and drank, but sparingly, keeping an eye on his men and leaning against a cluttered desk in the corner of the house's main hall. The men were off duty now and the small taste of luxury might make this patrol one of their most coveted duties, but they still needed to be in fine form tomorrow to complete the long sweep back to the capital. He would have no guards hungover on his watch.
As he turned towards where Lepkus and Meron were becoming boisterous, he glanced across the desk and the corner of a paper caught his eye, just three or four lines, but written in Mede. Old lessons with the King flashed through his mind; detailed notes in the King's careful hand, the throwaway comment, "your pronunciation was terrible" and a language forced into a mind that had always been better at tactics than book learning. He had thought the process pure humiliation, but now it gave him the tools to be his King's eyes where Eugenides himself could not go.
The text was innocent enough: descriptions of wine, descriptions of spices. What could be more innocuous in the house of a merchant? And yet there was an embargo on trade with the Mede, Hesperius had boasted in court of patriotically changing his suppliers, Relius' spies thought information was being exchanged for illicit goods…
Costis considered his evidence, added it to Hesperius' over-smug smile and gave brief thanks to the old gods that his patrol had been swapped for Leonidas' at the last moment. He inclined his head towards Aris, signalled caution with his eyes and moved to make his arrest.
******
Costis began the ride back to the capital with a heavy weight in his stomach. What if I'm wrong? What if I'm wrong? But it turned out in their brief breaks to water the horses that Hesperius couldn't wait confess. He hadn't meant to; he just needed supplies, he had a reputation to maintain and a family to support. The embargo created a real gap in the market and he had personal relationships with his Mede suppliers. He only ever made small talk, nothing political. Costis had to understand he wasn't a traitor.
Costis thought of the Queen's delicate diplomacy all through last summer, of the Mede army that was still poised to overrun Attolia, a vast and powerful empire to whom they would be a conquered stepping stone on the way to the continent; of three maimed spies and the buildup effect of small pieces of information that could give that army the toehold they needed. He set his face into a mask and let Hesperius talk, but could find no pity in him when they reached the palace and the merchant was taken away to face the Queen's justice.
******
"So," Relius said to his Queen, "there is no evidence of any conspiracy, just loose lips, a susceptibility to flattery and a failure to see why he should obey your embargo when there was a profit to be had."
She nodded, content.
"And what of Leonidas?" asked Teleus.
"What of him?" asked the King. "Costis - your analysis?"
Costis' eyes flew immediately to his captain, but the King's question had not been addressed to Teleus. "Leonidas is loyal," he began hesitantly. "He's never been involved in his cousin's business affairs and there's no evidence he would have condoned them if he knew. On the other hand, his family may feel they have a grievance against the throne." With Hesperius - who had single-handedly reversed their fortunes - stripped of land, wealth and status, this was an understatement. "You can't risk putting the King or Queen's safety into his hands." He looked accusingly at the King. There was no evidence that Eugenides had known about Hesperius when he had commandeered Leonidas' squad as his personal guard, but Costis didn't need evidence to consider the King wilfully careless of his own security.
"Continue," said the King.
"There is no need to dishonour him further," Costis continued, even more tentatively. Was this a test? Was he too lenient or unduly influenced by his knowledge of Leonidas? Teleus and Relius were both in the room. The King could not possibly be planning to make this decision on the judgement of a squad leader. "Move him to the Army stationed on Baron Stamatis' land, but let him keep his rank. He will still feel the shame of his cousin's treachery, of course, and he will know why he was chosen to be moved, but you are reducing the guard; he won't be the only squad leader left without a place. There is no reason he cannot continue to serve your Majesties."
It appeared to be the right answer. "See it done," the Queen said to Teleus.
"Permission to speak?" Teleus asked his King.
"Granted."
"Do you plan to ask every squad leader for advice on the deployment of his compatriots?" Costis would dearly like to know the answer to that too.
The King grinned up at Teleus. "The gods are frugal," he said. "They achieve several things with one word. It may not be for mortals to emulate them, but I can take inspiration from them sometimes." And on that remarkably cryptic utterance, he left the room.
Teleus nodded to Costis and followed the King out, but Relius paused and drew him into the antechamber. Costis fought the urge to fidget under that shrewd, all-knowing gaze and thought longingly of the time when he had been anonymous within the guard.
However the opportunity to ask the questions plaguing him was not lightly dismissed. "Did the King deliberately send my squad out because he was suspicious of Hesperius?" he asked. "It would have been a terrible risk. I only spotted the inventory by sheer luck and I wasn't sure I was right until he confessed."
Relius hesitated. "You could say that luck favours the shrewd; or perhaps the prepared mind."
"I don't feel particularly shrewd or prepared," Costis admitted. "I became the King's pet Guardsman by accident."
"As a tool to break Teleus? Yes," said Relius, "Teleus told me. But a tool can have more than one purpose. There were a dozen squad leaders in the palace that day. Why do you think you were the man the King provoked into hitting him? The man who would spend several months in his presence, being moulded as he chose?"
Costis paused to absorb that. He had thought of himself as the King's joke too long. It was a shock to discover he might yet be a player in the game. "But I'm just..." he began. "I'm not any good at political things. I'm a decent guard; I think I lead my squad well. I certainly wanted to make lieutenant one day --" he broke off and flushed as he remembered daydreams of being Captain of the Guard. They felt very far off and childish now.
"Teleus would have been furious at any Guard who hit the King, and furious at the King for creating any lieutenant as an apparent laughing-stock," said Relius. "But he was particularly angry to see your potential wasted. Even if none of it had happened, he would have had a particular eye on your training; you were one possibility for his successor one day."
Costis gaped at him.
"Now, of course," the Secretary continued, "everything has changed. You have been drawn into the affairs of Kings whether you want it or not. So far, I would say you are surviving well."
Costis remembered Relius in the palace dungeons, broken yet defiant. Do you think I didn't know from the very beginning that this is where I must end? and I would crawl to her feet to serve her still.
Costis had been passionately loyal to his Queen from the day when Teleus plucked him from obscurity to train for the Guard. He had pledged his service wholeheartedly to his King. What that might involve had suddenly expanded and seemed more demanding than anything he had ever imagined. He stayed in the antechamber long after Relius left.
"Gods," he breathed to the deserted room. "What have I got myself into?"
The empty air gave him no answer, but from a long distance or whispered into his ear he could swear he heard the words "you'll do."