Read Online The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner - Free Book Online Page A

king walked through the doorway and turned on his heel to face his attendants.
    “Out,” he said.
    “Your Majesty?”
    “Out,” said the king. “All of you.” He waved the guards toward the door as well.
    “Your Majesty cannot mean—”
    “His Majesty does mean…and His Majesty has had enough for now, and you may go. Have a holiday. Get a cup of coffee. Chat with your sweethearts. Out.”
    “We could never leave you unattended,” Sejanus said in a voice smooth and provoking.
    “Your Majesty, it wouldn’t be right,” protested the squad leader, the only one genuinely concerned. He knew his duty, and it did not involve deliberately leaving the king unguarded. Teleus would have his head.
    “You can guard me from the hall. The door is the only one into the apartment. You can attend me,” he said to his attendants, “from the hall.”
    “Your Majesty, that is unacceptable,” Sejanus said. “We simply cannot leave you all alone.”
    The king looked as if he was going to throw the words back in Sejanus’s face. Then his vindictive eye fell on Costis.
    “Costis can stay,” he said.
    “I think not, Your Majesty.” Sejanus smiled the words, all condescension, but the king stopped him.
    “Am I king,” he said flatly, “or shall I call my wife for corroboration?”
    He would never admit to the queen that he couldn’tcontrol his own attendants, but none of them, not even Sejanus, could risk calling his bluff.
    “Bit in his teeth,” someone muttered as they filtered through the door to the hallway. Lamion was the last one out. He looked back and at the king’s glare hastily pulled the door closed behind him.
    Eugenides turned to Costis. “No one walks through that door, Costis. No one comes through any of the doors into this guardroom, is that clear?”
    “Yes, Your Majesty.”
    “Good. Come in here first.”
    He walked into the bedroom, and Costis followed to the door.
    “Move that chair, please. I want it in front of the window.” It was an armchair, awkward but not heavy. Costis hesitantly lifted it and moved it as the king desired.
    “Facing the window or away, Your Majesty?”
    “Facing.”
    The king sat. Costis stood. The king held out his hand, without looking at Costis, and said, “Take that off for me.” He meant the ring on his finger. It was a heavy seal ring, of solid gold with the seal carved into the face of a ruby.
    Costis carefully pulled on the ring, but it was a close fit. He had to hold the wrist with one hand and work the ring off the finger by pulling hard.
    “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” he said as he tugged.
    “Don’t apologize,” said the king. “I can’t imagine that removing seal rings is in your professional training. Unless they give the Guard special training in looting corpses?”
    Costis didn’t think it funny. “They do not, Your Majesty.” He pulled hard and the ring came off.
    “Leave it on the desk,” said the king, and looked away.
    Costis remembered that Teleus worried what damage this young man would do as he started to feel his power. Angry, he stalked to the desk and dropped the ring on its leather top with a thump. The king ignored him. Costis continued out of the room. The king hadn’t said to close the door, so he didn’t. Let him ask, he thought, but the king didn’t. Costis picked a spot where he could stand without a view of the king sitting in front of the window. He stood stiffly at attention, and he waited.
    So far as Costis could tell by listening for sounds of shifting weight in the chair, the king didn’t move. Minutes ticked past. There was no sound from the bedroom. The king had probably decided to take a nap.
    “Costis,” he said at last. “Come move the chair back. Then I suppose you had better let the lapdogs back in.”
    In spite of himself, Costis was amused at the image of the king’s elegant courtier attendants as a pack of poorly trained house dogs.
    Later, in his own quarters, as he was getting ready for bed, Costis