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The girl was lovely, if one considered the standards set by boys. Round-faced and soft-fleshed, she smiled like she didn't know her charms, and when the music picked up she moved with an abandon entrancing to young men and fools alike.
Being neither, the old Thief noted her as part of the festival scenery and no more. There was important work to be done in the city of Sounis. His last set of ears in the king's inner circle had died of an unfortunate fever, and in the place of such a useful informant he had to gather a sense of the barons' moods himself.
The steward of Hanaktos was somewhere in this crowd, ready to be tempted to say too much with a free drink and a sympathetic ear.
“Boy,” the old man snapped. Being both young and a fool, his grandson was looking at the dancing girl. “Act like you don't mean to shame me.”
The boy blinked at him, but instead of accepting the rebuke, he protested. “Grandfather—”
The old man shook him by the shoulder, all he could do to demonstrate his displeasure in this crowd. “Eyes on your surroundings, boy!” he could not teach an unobservant Thief. “The steward. Do you see him?”
“Yes,” the boy said absently, his eyes already sliding back to the girl.
The old man was about to shake him again when the boy pointed and, in a tone of open admiration, added, “She just stole three coins out of his purse.”
“Gen!” Stenides called, looking up at all the trees. The twilight gloom hid much, but he was sure his brother was in the branches somewhere. “Where are my tools?”
No answer.
Stenides put his hands on his hips. It was all well and good for Gen to pull little pranks, but he could not finish his own work without those tools, let alone the work Polydoros left.
“Gen!”
Finally, a tree rustled, and a small form shimmied his way down the trunk.
Stenides put his hand out. “My tools, if you please.”
Gen scowled, but he handed the soft leather roll over. “I was only helping,” he said mulishly.
Stenides shook his head, but he couldn't help smiling a little. By Gen's standards, that was a truly pathetic lie. “What, you tried to cheer me up by keeping me from finishing before dark?”
Suddenly, Gen grinned, a bright flash of teeth in the gloom. “No,” he said. “You just needed to be out of the workshop when Xoros went to check on the strange noises.”
Stenides paused, open-mouthed. It was more devious than he'd expected. “But he will see Polydoros left his work undone!” Polydoros hadn't the knack for mechanical things Stenides had, but he was Xoros's real apprentice. Sten was too high in station to be be a watchmaker's apprentice, but he could attend Polydoros's lessons to learn his hobby. It had been an excellent arrangement before Polydoros realized what leverage he had over Sten and started shirking. Now Sten had to finish it for him if he wished the next lesson to teach him something new, instead of merely covering the same material again.
“That is the point,” said Gen. “You are much better at it anyway. When Xoros realizes, he will stop making you wait for Polydoros to understand and let you do the newer styles.”
“You don't understand,” Sten said, despairingly. Now they were going to have to go backwards until Xoros found where Polydoros last understood.
But there was no impressing this upon Gen. Stenides sighed and went away.
But in the morning when he went to the workshop, it was Gen who was right and Sten who was wrong. Xoros was irate with Polydoros, but not with Stenides, and when Sten arrived he offered a slate with a diagram of the newer watch style drawn upon it. “Study this,” he said. “Once you understand, tell me, and I will let you try to fix one which is broken.”
Sophos tried not to think too much about how much he preferred being a hostage in Eddis to being in Sounis. It really was beautiful here, and there was no father to be disappointed in him.
Well, there was Gen's—Eugenides's—father, but as he was not responsible for Sophos, he evidently did not feel the need to be disappointed.
Even when Sophos came in while the man was sitting beside Gen's bed while Gen slept off his fever.
“Oh!” Sophos said, remembering at the last moment to keep his voice soft. “I am sorry.” he went to back out of the room.
But Eddis's minister of war only waved a hand at the window seat.
Feeling it would be more offensive to leave after such a clear instruction, Sophos sat.
He wondered. If his uncle had succeeded in his plot to marry Eddis, would this man have come to be Sounis's minister of war? He certainly seemed up to the task, though he spoke much less than Sounis's current minister.
“Did you miss him, while he was gone?” While he was in uncle's prison, Sophos meant.
The minister of war did not say anything, but he did bow his head.
Sophos supposed that was answer enough. It was good, he thought, that Gen's father cared for him. When he thought Gen a common thief, it seemed a shame that he had no family.
A few moments later the minister of war stood. He nodded to Sophos, and then left the room, footsteps soft for such a large man.
Gen immediately cracked an eye. “Oh good,” he whispered, “you two talked.”
Sophos blinked. “Where you only pretending to sleep?”
“Maybe,” Eugenides said.
Sophos was perplexed. “Why would I need to talk to your father?”
“Have you seen my cousin the queen today?” Gen asked.
Sophos had. He had been seated near her at dinner, as his uncle's heir.
Gen nodded, a smile spreading over his face like there was no other answer needed.
Sophos supposed a minister of war might be worried about his queen being so near the heir of a man who had tried to force her into marriage, but even as he had the thought, he was sure it wasn't what Eugenides meant.
The servant was young enough to still seem boyish to Sevasti, though that was half in how he held himself; his eyes seemed glued to the floor even before she had told him off. A softer-hearted woman may have felt sympathy, but Sevasti was too protective of her husband's work to be soft-hearted. “You know as well as I that your master seeks to take advantage of us,” she said sternly. “Sending you to tell us to spare no extravagance! He will wait until the work is done, and then he will say he did not agree to the cost.” They would be forced to take a lesser sum, as no-one else would buy such intricate items. “I will not have it. If you master wishes to commission such pieces, he will tell us exactly what he desires.” Were the patron any less rich, she would demand half the payment in advance. But though this boy had not given a name, only a baron could even contemplate such a purchase.
Her husband was the best goldsmith in the city, but he was not well known and had no power in the guild. They could not offend so recklessly.
The boy shifted from foot to foot. “He will be unhappy with me if I must go all the way to him and back again,” he whined.
“That is not my concern.”
He protested vociferously some more, but Sevasti was immovable. Eventually, he went.
He did not come back that day, and Sevasti wondered of his master had taken offense. It was a shame to lose such a customer, but Sevasti considered and ultimately stood by the decision; better to lose out than be cheated.
But three days later the servant did return, not only with a written description of the commission (the hand was very poor—had the boy taken it down himself? Any scribe would be ashamed.) but also with half the sum of payment.
“He says he trust you understand he wishes for no more delays,” he said hesitantly, when he gave her the purse.
“Good work cannot be rushed,” she warned. Still, she rearranged the upcoming work in her head. This was a client worth pleasing.
The servant did not tell her where to send for him, only informed her someone would come to pick up the items in three weeks.
When that someone came, he was as different from the flinching servant as possible. He was a large man, surely a soldier or a guard.
A better prospect for the transportation of such valuables, certainly, but if the baron was worried about robbery he ought have sent more than one.
The man looked sheepish when he presented the purse with the rest of the payment, along with the note in the same poor hand. When she displayed the items, he looked as if he had not imagined anything so fine.
She could not help her satisfaction; they were her husband's very best work, product of long days and sleepless nights.
When he had seen the description and the size of the commission, he had thrown himself into it, and she had encouraged him, for once his artisan's mind and her sense for the business of it all in perfect agreement.
The guardsman lifted one and turned it over. “No maker's mark?” he asked.
Wordlessly she turned it again and showed him where the maker's mark was visible on the front, as the original note had so eccentrically requested.
Some men took pleasure in being taste-makers who discovered some new artisan, and she had long hoped to catch the eye of such a one. With so wealthy a client asking to display who had made the pieces, it seemed to have finally happened.
The guardsman nodded, and when she had carefully re-packed everything he took the box gingerly.
Two days later, her husband came home from Philia's temple wild-eyed. “Sevasti! Sevasti!”
She caught him by the upper arms and held him steady, as she always did when he was worked up. “What is the matter?”
“I have seen—I have seen—” He gasped. “They are on the altar!”
“What is?” she asked, confused.
“The cups!” he said. “Ten of them sit there, for anyone to see!”
Her eyes widened and she inhaled. She had not considered that the cups may be a devotional gift. What on earth sort of blessing might a man have asked from Philia that was worth that?
“Were the maker's marks visible?” she asked urgently. Oh, this was nearly as good as if the baron had served a fine banquet with them. The temple of Philia was not the most frequented by the wealthiest of patrons, but everyone needed mercy sometimes.
Her husband nodded. “But that is not all!” He clutched at her arms as if he thought he would float away.
“What could possibly be more than that?”
“There were two of the queen's guardsmen there, and when they saw me staring they asked— they asked if I was admiring the king's cups! Last night at the banquet, the king and queen drank their wine from the final two!”
Timo would never presume to understand the king's political plays, but surely there was nothing to be accomplished by placing a guard where there were no choke-points to bar or sight-lines to observe?
“You would like me to…stand directly in front of this window, my king?” From the angle described, he could see nothing but a large ornamental shrub.
“Yes,” Attolis said, exasperated. “Everyone claims you guards are the best of Attolia's army, but I must say your intelligence leaves something to be desired.”
A few months ago, Timo would he bristled at the insult to the guard. That was before Attolis had proved what he could really do with a sword.
He still did not understand, but he would not question again. “Yes, my king.”
Once in front of the window, Timo slowly began to wonder if perhaps he was supposed to be spying. But the ladies in the room behind him did not talk of anything but perfumes the whole time he was there.
When at last his shift ended, he left no less confused, and he did not notice the figure concealed on the balcony above him, nor did he hear the ladies in the room saying, “finally he is gone. Penelope, be quick about your report, we haven't much time.”
“The children sleep?” The king of Attolia asked his wife.
“At last,” she confirmed, tenderly even in her exhaustion.
“Come with me, then.”
The queen gave her king a skeptical look. “What are you planning, my king?”
“Only something we both need, my queen.”
She smiled the smile which only he ever saw. “Very well, then.”
Eugenides led her from the room by the secret ways, as if they were thieves in their own palace. She did not know where he led, but then she did not need to.
And when the most tucked-away servant's door opened onto the smell of tamarisk and citrus, she understood him entirely.