Chapter Twenty-Four #3
“Of course! All priests know about that; we do have to learn relevant political history, you know. They don’t expect us to retain much of it, but something like that sticks with you. Especially since it had all happened to Yorith and he was still advisor.”
“You weren’t… sad? To hear about what happened to him?”
“Ehhh, that old geezer.” Verusias shrugged.
“It was sad, sure, but he was old when I was consecrated. I thought he’d die during my reign, honestly.
Did you really kill him? I heard you drew the sword right out of your guard’s belt and stabbed him through.
Somehow, seeing you, that doesn’t seem plausible. ”
Ethyr rubbed the back of his neck, squeezing his eyes closed. “N-no, it was nothing like that. I can’t… I can’t talk about it.”
“Oh come on,” Verusias whined, kicking Ethyr’s leg from across the bath. “The first interesting thing to happen at the palace in sixty years and you’ll withhold it from me?”
Ethyr bit his lip, weighing his options. He really didn’t want to talk about it. But he didn’t want to keep being badgered about it either. Did it matter if Verusias knew the truth? Or was it better for him to think Ethyr a murderer than a completely incompetent buffoon?
“I…” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill Yorith. S…someone else did.”
“Who?”
“I can’t… say. Just know it was all…” He sighed, rubbing his palms over his eyes. “It was all a huge mistake. Everything. Yorith’s death, taking the blame for it, choosing Lyrian as advisor, letting him dismiss Gionan—”
Verusias sat up. “What? He dismissed Gionan?”
Ethyr blinked at him. He forgot Verusias must have known him, too.
“On what grounds?! That little sneeze is annoyingly perfect, there couldn’t be a better Head Attendant out there.”
“He didn’t need any grounds,” Ethyr reminded him. “He’s advisor.”
“But he needed to justify it to you, didn’t he?”
“Did Yorith justify his staff changes to you?”
“Of course! He always told me any major changes in palace labor. Not that there were many.”
Ethyr stared at him. He didn’t know why he was surprised; obviously Yorith thought far better of Verusias, of any priest, than he had ever thought of Ethyr.
The man laughed, sinking back into the water. “Oh, you’ve really fucked up, you’re right.”
Ethyr frowned. “That’s part of why I came here. I wanted to know if you had any ideas about what to do. You have experience as king and you know more than me about all this political stuff. Can I… do you think I can trust Malor?”
“Oh, Ethyr,” Verusias sighed fondly, clicking his tongue. “You can’t trust any of those bastards. They use everyone and anyone for their own gain. You should start doing the same.”
“Why would I want to do that?” he asked, disgusted.
“Because if you don’t weave your own web, you’re going to get stuck in someone else’s.”
“Well…” Ethyr huffed, exasperated. “How did you do it?”
Verusias smiled. “I didn’t, I simply stayed on Yorith’s web because he was the biggest spider. Sounds like you’ve burnt that up, though.”
Ethyr groaned, burying his face in his hands.
Verusias closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Don’t worry so much,” he said. “Let the council fight it out and focus on pleasing the gods. They won’t let anything happen to you.”
Ethyr sighed and sank to his chin in the water.
When their meal was ready, Verusias changed into a tight, sleeveless tunic with long slits up the sides but no pants to cover the exposure. Attendants brought Ethyr a clean outfit from his travel chest; fortunately they understood Verusias’s tastes were not universal and gave him pants.
“Go wake the king’s guard,” Verusias told an attendant when they were dressed. “Show her to the veranda. Make sure the other guard is fed as well.”
“You’ll let Poyut eat with us?” Ethyr asked in surprise, hopping to catch up as Verusias strode down the hall. Ithen, who had been waiting outside the washroom, followed.
“Would you rather she not?” Verusias asked.
“N-no, I want her there.”
The veranda was attached to the side of the main house, not so much a room as a roofed floor, all three sides open to the wide view of gardens, orchard, and vineyard.
The low dining table in the center of the stone floor was brimming with plates overlapping each other: slices of various roast meats surrounded by cups of different sauces, fried vegetables, crisp raw vegetables, soups, cheeses, fresh fruit, fruit in sugary syrups, and three different loaves of bread.
Verusias sat on one of four floor cushions and Ithen, unclipping his sword belt and resting it deliberately to his side, sat next to him.
Ethyr sat across, looking over the sea of food and determining it was not much different from the food in the palace.
But he rarely dined with others anymore. He wasn’t sure what to do.
Poyut entered behind an attendant and gave a bow to the table. “Your Divinities.”
“Sit, sit,” Verusias encouraged, gesturing. Poyut looked to Ethyr, confused, but he nodded and gestured too. So she sat beside him, her reluctance making the movement stiffer than she usually was around him.
Verusias draped himself over Ithen, and the man tolerated the head on his shoulder and the fingers in his hair and the palm on his chest, all under Ethyr and Poyut’s uncomfortable gazes.
“You are a terrible host,” Ithen said.
“Don’t talk to your king that way,” Verusias chastised lightly.
“I wasn’t talking to the king, I was talking to you.”
Verusias pulled back, glaring at Ithen with a barely hidden smile. He sniffed, straightened, and turned to the table. “Is there anything missing you’d like?” he asked Ethyr.
“No,” Ethyr said. “This is more than enough, thank you.”
“Then eat, please.” He gestured grandly.
Ethyr hesitated, then took some foods from the plates surrounding his.
The only food he’d eaten in the last day was a travel meal of bread, cheese, and cured meat—and a pear—so he was starving.
But he ate with conscious caution, following all the rules Yorith had drilled into him.
Sit up straight, finish a bite before taking another, using a fork for meat and vegetables and a spoon or chunk of bread for soup.
Verusias seemed to do it all without even thinking.
It wasn’t until Verusias mentioned it that he realized Poyut hadn’t touched anything.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Verusias asked, sounding almost hurt.
Poyut cleared her throat. “I did not think it appropriate for the King’s Guard to partake in the same meal as him.”
“Did you hear that, Ithen?” Verusias turned to the man casually eating a bite of roast meat. “She thinks you’re inappropriate.”
“No—I—! I did not say that,” Poyut said hurriedly.
“Barbaric, she called you.”
Poyut looked horrified. Ithen looked disinterestedly at Verusias, not stopping his chewing.
“He’s quite upset,” Verusias told Poyut. “I think you ought to eat something to fix this offense.”
She looked at Ethyr, bewildered. He pouted at her. “Please, Poyut? You must be starving. Eat whatever you want, you know I don’t care.”
She sighed, pressing her lips together. Then she pulled a few things to her plate and started eating. Verusias grinned.
“Please don’t antagonize my guard,” Ethyr said.
“Why not? You should try it sometime, there’s nothing more fun.” He leaned into Ithen, batting his eyes up at him. Ithen continued eating.
Ethyr gestured to the garden. “Do you like plants?”
“Hm?” Verusias straightened, glancing that way. “Oh, no, that was here when I arrived, along with the people who take care of it.”
“When you arrived?” Ethyr questioned. “Is this not your estate?”
“It is now.” Verusias speared a vegetable and twirled his fork lazily. “This was King Pollus’s estate, but he died a few years ago, so I took it. This place basically runs itself, makes its own wine and mead to sell, so my money can go to important things. Like good food and collecting books.”
“You have books?” Ethyr asked. “Here?”
“Of course. What kind of home would it be if it didn’t have books?”
“Do you have any books about the gods?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Can you show me?”
Verusias beamed.
“Now, my collection isn’t as good as the palace or temple, so don’t get excited,” Verusias said as the four walked down the hall.
“I’ll try,” Ethyr said.
Poyut and Ithen both stayed by the door, backs straight, occasionally eying the other.
The room was not at all like the palace library.
Like the sun room, it had light washing down from open sky, except in place of air there was glass.
The walls were covered in either tapestries, paper drawings, or bookshelves.
Most of the shelves, however, were empty; only two bookcases were full.
Verusias sauntered up to one and brushed his fingers gently across the bindings.
“Any in particular?”
“Is there… anything about the Gods’ War?”
“Hm.” Verusias crouched and walked his fingers a few books down the row before pulling one out. “This one mentions it briefly. I don’t have many history books, though.”
“It doesn’t have to be historical, necessarily…”
“Oh! Well then.” He stood and moved to the other bookcase, tugging out a book and handing it to him. “This is Greyith of Mahyria’s full translation of Hanyl of Anderth’s transcription of the classical saga.”
Ethyr blinked at him.
“The full classical saga,” Verusias said, like it was a point of pride. Ethyr continued staring and Verusias deflated a little. “The Saga of the Sixteen? The sixteen gods?”
“There were sixteen gods?”
“Yes. Eight wild gods and eight civilized gods. How do you not know that?”
Ethyr looked down at the book, opening its leather binding carefully. “All we know in the village is the wild god of the forest, because he’s used to scare kids off from going in there. ‘Venture once, there forever.’”
“Vaire forever.”
Something about the words stabbed a lance of cold pain through Ethyr’s chest. He glanced up. “What?”
“It’s not there forever, it’s Vaire forever. That’s a line directly from this saga. ‘Vaire’ was the name of the wild god of nature.”
“They had names?”