#stenides

2.

“If you’re going to lurk from the ceiling, Eugenides, you might as well come down and help me,” Eddis said.

In front of her was a string of numbers that should have represented the entirety of her country’s taxes, but none of it made sense to her. She knew all the basics, of course, but they didn’t expect her to be queen, and by the time she was her father’s heir, she was too busy trying to learn everything else that the thought of learning the intricate system of taxes did not even cross her mind.

She was regretting that now.

“Well, it seemed rude to interrupt your brooding session, Your Majesty,” Eugenides said, landing next to her without so much as a whisper of a sound.

She glared at him in the empty room she was in, having already sent everybody out. Her advisors meant well, but they kept talking over each other in their eagerness to explain this to her, and instead of helping her understand it, that just made the numbers seem even more confounding.

“I was not brooding,” she said.

“If you say so, My Queen,” Eugenides grinned. “Now, do you want me to explain this to you, or was this covered in one of the few classes you did not skip?”

She glared again, but she pointed at one entry, embarrassingly high on the list, and said, “Start there.”

8.

“Remind me, Costis,” the King said, “your father is a farmer, is he not?”

Costis blocked the King’s attack— he still insisted on sparring with Costis every morning, even though he now had an abundance of sparring partners to choose from— and replied, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The King hummed, and Costis pushed forward, trying to get at least one hit on Eugenides when he was still distracted. Instead of reaching his target, however, his training sword flew out of his hands and he found himself with a wooden sword placed gently upon his chest.

“My win, I believe, Costis,” the King said with a smile. “I think that’s enough for the day.”

“Your Majesty?” Costis asked, disbelieving.

“Yes, Costis,” Eugenides replied. “Come, sit in the shade next to me, and tell me about your father’s farm. The sun is much too hot today.”

Costis frowned, but he knew already that the best way to deal with his King when he was like this was to indulge his whims. So he took the King’s sword, retrieved his own, placed them where the rest of the practice swords were located, and sat down next to Eugenides, answering all of his questions about the way his father determines how much seeds he should buy and how many people he should hire.

*

Teleus picked up a piece of paper that was not there the last time he left his office, locked with the only key on his own belt.

The paper was filled with numbers and equations from one end to the other, and after skimming it quickly, Teleus can see that it contained the beginnings of a plan on how to sufficiently reduce the Guard with minimal compromises on its function.

Sighing, he picked up the paper and a flagon of wine, and made his way to Relius’s quarters. It would not help the headache that’s already starting to form, but at the very least he would have someone to talk to. And to share wine with.

3.

 Sophos,

 I think I caught where that extra one half is coming from. Tell the Magus that it is his fault that this equation does not balance. That extra one half is supposed to be there. You can find the proof attached in this letter.

 That said, are you getting better at this quicker than I expected, o Useless the Younger? I should write the Magus to tell him to provide you with harder problems to solve. You have not asked for my help even once in the last few weeks.

 Your friend, Eugenides

10.

“What do you think of that new proof from the continent? That you can find distance by finding an area?”

A few short years ago, Kamet would have jumped in shock. Nowadays, however, he was far too used to Eugenides’s antics to be truly shocked.

“I think, Your Majesty,” he said, “that my topic of choice is poetry and history, and that any discussion about mathematics is better done with your youngest attendant. The gods know he could focus on little else.”

Eugenides waved his hand in such a manner as to fully frustrate Kamet. Truly, only Attolis could manage to cause such contempt in such a little movement.

“I will ask him later, when I want my argument ripped to shreds. But I want to know your thoughts, Kamet.”

“My interest in mathematics is in bookkeeping only, Your Majesty.”

“Ah, don’t play coy with me,” Eugenides replied. “I know you better than that.”

Kamet narrowed his eyes, but the arguments are already starting to form in his head. He briefly lamented the fact that he would not be able to finish his translation work today, because from previous experience, once this discussion started, it will not stop until the bell rings for dinner time, and he has promised Costis that he would not work in candlelight only for the health of his eyes.

Eugenides grinned, like he knew that he had already won this battle. He probably did, that little bastard of a king.

“Fine,” Kamet sighed. “I think that it’s plausible. If the speed is constant, then it’s just a rectangle, is it not? We can then infer that-”

They talked long after that, discussing the merits and demerits of the idea. Eugenides disappeared just before the bell rang to call the court for dinner, however, as if he knew Kamet’s thoughts from earlier and decided to spite him even more.

Kamet couldn’t even be mad about it.

7.

“Do you not believe my story, Relius?” the king asked.

A mere month ago, Relius would not have deigned to answer. A mere month ago, Eugenides would not have told the story. But now, in the time when only men plagued with nightmares are awake, Relius said, “I somehow doubt you managed to calculate the volume of that bath in such a short time, Your Majesty.”

Eugenides clicked his tongue, and said, “It’s just a cylinder. Or close enough to one that it doesn’t matter.” He leaned back on his chair and asked, “Surely you know how to do that quickly enough?”

“I confess I have not practiced that in a long time, Your Majesty.”

“More important matters in your mind?”

Court intrigues and spy networks. Letters written in codes that only he can break and knowledge that he has long since imparted to his queen. None of that matters anymore, now.

Instead of answering the question, Relius said, “Maybe I’ll learn how to do that. After.”

“Maybe,” the king replied. He pulls on the blanket covering Relius’s body, adjusting it so that all of Relius’s limbs are properly underneath it. All four of them.

They didn’t talk again for the rest of the night.

9.

“Two of your trousers are currently being mended, Your Majesty, and three more are in the wash, so the choice tonight is between the blue pair or the deep brown pair. I’ve chosen the blue, and paired it with that coat you just commissioned,” Philologos explained.

“That’s good, Philologos, thank you,” the king said, absentmindedly pulling his undershirt off. He unclasped the cuff of his hook, handed them to Hilarion, who was standing next to him, and entered the bath.

Seeing that everything is well under control, Philologos shared a nod with Hilarion, and then turned to go retrieve the aforementioned trousers and coat.

Before he could do that, however, the king called out, “Philologos?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?” he answered.

“Two added with three added with two does not make eight,” Attolis said.

Philologos blinked, baffled with the apparent absurdity of the statement. He was just about to chalk it up to Eugenides being Eugenides and simply agree with the king, before he realized what was going on.

He blanched.

“I…” he stammered, unsure as to what to say, when Hilarion also realized what was going on and laughed.

“I thought your education was better than that, Philo,” Hilarion teased. “What would your father say, if he knew that his only heir forgot how to do basic addition?”

“I…” Philologos stammered again, trying to find words to defend his honor, but the king interjected before he could do that.

“I am honored, Philologos, that you have chosen to emulate me in this.” Eugenides grinned, before continuing, “Though I wish that you would have chosen something better than my trousers to steal.”

Behind him, Philologos could hear the rest of the attendants snickering, and that was enough fuel to make him shout, “Four! Four of your trousers are in the wash, Your Majesty!” without even considering what that outburst would cost him. He could feel his cheeks turning red, and he gritted out, “Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and retrieve your clothes for dinner.”

He turned around, fully intending to block any and all comments, when the king called out, “Don’t steal this pair too, Philologos!” adding fuel to the laughter from the attendants.

But when he handed the trousers to the king after he had finished his bath, Eugenides pulled him close, and whispered, “If you’re going to steal any of my trousers, take the red one.” A burst of hot air hit Philologos’s ear, the tell-tale sign that the king is laughing. “The embroidery is in gold.”

4.

“Eight ships,” the Eddisian Minister of War said to his son. “Eight ships, and you asked for?”

“Twenty men,” Eugenides replied.

“That’s,” he paused for a moment to recheck his calculations, “two men a ship.” He looked at Eugenides, frowned, and said, “That’s not possible.”

“I didn’t propose to burn all eight of them. Four,” Eugenides said, lifting up his fingers. “Maybe even five if we’re lucky,” he lifted up the one finger he had left.

His father very deliberately did not look at Eugenides’s other arm, which has no more fingers to lift up. “That is still five men a ship, Eugenides,” he said, “without any scouts or people standing guard.”

Eugenides simply shrugged, and replied, “I can do it.”

A year ago, he could. The Minister of War frowned even deeper, and said, “Thirty. Twenty for your plan, five for scouts, four to stand guard, and one just in case.”

Eugenides’s mouth curled in a discontented line, but he sighed and said, “Alright. Thirty it is.”

6.

“It was the type of wheat,” Eugenides mumbled next to Irene’s ear.

They were tangled together on top of her sheets, their legs twined together and their heads pillowed on the same bed. Wheat was the furthest thing from Irene’s mind, but still, she hummed a note to tell him to go on.

“Artadorus,” her husband continued, his eyes still half closed. “He reported a different kind of wheat than what he planted. You charge a different rate for the different kinds.”

Irene hummed again. She would have found out, eventually. She has many people in her tax offices employed to do just that. One of them would have found out the deceit and brought it to her or Relius, and the fraud would have been exposed, just the same. It would not have been as effective, but it would still have reached her.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that it was not just her who charges a different rate for the taxes, but one glance at his face caused her to remain silent. They could be kings and queens again in the morning, but tonight, they are simply husband and wife.

She rolled over to face him, and said, “Tell me again in the morning,” before kissing him.

He did not say anything about wheat again until the sunrise entered the windows of the room.

11.

"I think a triangle only has three sides, Pheris, and not four," Eugenides said, materializing somewhere behind the young Baron Erondites.

For his part, the Baron Erondites looked at the work he was completing, saw the mistake, and started signing things that he had decided were curses.

Attolis laughed.

"Surely that is not as debilitating as that?"

I would have to redo this whole section, Pheris signed with one hand. The other hand was already scratching things out on his parchment with a speed that truly belies his frustration.

"Oh, I'm sure it's not that bad," Eugenides said, sitting next to him. "You would only have to change…"

A pause, and then Annux of the Hephestian Peninsula hissed out something that would truly shock all the new ambassadors from the Continent and made his wife glare at him for saying that in front of the children. "You need to redo the whole section," Eugenides deadpanned.

Pheris just glared at him, and scratched out, 'I told you so', somewhere in the midst of the mess his parchment was becoming.

12.

"Why do we have to learn this?" the Princess of Attolia complained.

Her brother, also looking dejectedly at his own work, nodded in agreement.

"Because, my little thief," her father said, "one day, you might find yourself on a ledge too far for you to jump, and you have to calculate how many pics you can trust your own skill and how many you have to trust our god for." He turned to his son, and continued, "And you, my future king, will one day have someone telling you that seventeen horses each carrying three sacks of grain somehow amounts to having forty sacks, and you will have to disabuse them of that notion immediately."

The twins looked at each other for a moment, before Hector said, “But we knew how to do that already. That is simple geometry and arithmetics. This is not that.”

Eugenia nodded, and added, “Even Mother said that her own education did not come this far. So, Father, why do we have to learn this?”

Eugenides blinked, before chuckling softly. “I see,” he said, after a while. He sat atop the table that the twins were using to write, and continued, “It seems I have done you both a disservice.

“I ask you to learn this because no matter who you are, whether you are an okloi or a watchmaker or a king or a thief, or perhaps, even the gods themselves, the logic of mathematics will still be the same. There are no lies in mathematics, nor are there deceit.”

He paused there, staring at things that neither Eugenia nor Hector could see. Seconds passed in silence, and Eugenia opened her mouth, ready to bring their father back to the present with a remark, but before she could do that, Hector jabbed her in the stomach and shook his head.

Their patience was rewarded when Eugenides sighed and propelled himself from the table he was sitting on. “But you are right,” he said, plucking the pens from their hands, Eugenia’s first, and then Hector’s. “Both of you certainly already have the skills needed to fulfill your duties. Anything more will just be a fool’s errand.” He jumped up the table again, this time landing feet first and facing them, half-bowing with the pens he took from them just earlier offered in his hand.

“A fool’s errand,” he said, eyes twinkling, “or a quest for the wisest of men.”

Eugenia and Hector stared at their father, and then at each other, before taking the pens from their father’s hand.

5.

 In your last letter to me, you told me that a man’s worth is what he is, added to what he does. Then tell me this, Magus. What if that is not enough?

 Gen, I thought your knowledge of mathematics is better than that.

 If addition is not enough, then try multiplication.

1.

“Ah, no,” Stenides said, looking over Gen’s shoulder. “That three should not be there.”

“No?”

“No,” Stenides answered, pointing at the calculations in front of his little brother. “See how you didn’t carry over that one,” he moved his fingers to the next number, “and so this one should have been four.”

Eugenides looked at the paper in silence for a moment, and then let out a string of curses that he definitely should not have heard yet, let alone repeat. But of course, Gen being Gen, he has, and Sten couldn’t help but chuckle along.

After he finished his string of curses, Gen moaned, “I’m never going to get it.”

“I thought you’re going to be the next Thief of Eddis?” Stenides teased. “How are you going to do that when you can’t even do additions?”

His little brother looked at him with murder in his eyes, however, and Sten quickly raised his hands in surrender. Eugenides’s revenge was already legendary, no matter how young the boy still was.

Stenides was dead. He was not supposed to be dead. He was supposed to be safe, back in the mountains of Eddis, away from this war they were waging. Out of the three of them, Temenus had always thought that it would be Sten who would live the longest. Temenus was the soldier, had known that it was his duty and obligation to become a soldier since he was a child. He had looked at his older sisters, all of them with their lives in front of them, and had looked at his younger brothers; Stenides with his clever hands and a mind that find numbers instead of weak spots and Eugenides with his cleverer hands and a disposition that marked him their mother’s child more than any of them; and decided that it was him who would follow their father’s footsteps.

He was the soldier, and Gen was the Thief, and Stenides was supposed to be the one who would live until he was old and grey, with his children and grandchildren cluttered around his seat, asking for stories. 

Gods in the heavens above, what about the children? 

Xenophon’s voice dragged him out of his thoughts. “Hector,” the old general said, addressing Temenus’s father, “I believe we are done for now. There is much to think about.” He stood, and Temenus moved to stand with him, because even though his brother is dead, even though the world has just tilted on its axis, Xenophon is still his general. But Xenophon simply pushed him back to his seat, and left, taking the rest of the generals and officers of Eddis’s army with him.

And then it was just the three of them, silently looking at each other.

There were no rites to perform. There may never be any rites to perform. The body was in the depths of the mountains of Eddis, and it was very likely that the three of them would join Stenides in Hephestia’s land rather than return to Eddis. It was war, after all. Any of them could die tomorrow. 

The three of them were on the battlefield, where they could have died at any second, and it was Stenides, safe up in Eddis, who died first. 

Perplexingly, it was Gen who broke the eerie silence inside the tent. He walked to the table at the center and placed a watch, one that Temenus recognized as one of Stenides’s work, on it. It was beautiful, and was Gen’s wedding gift from Sten. The green details, lovingly crafted against the gold background, showed the genius of Stenides’s mind upon forming patterns. 

The watch, already precious before, was doubly so now, because there would never be anything quite like it ever again. 

Gen grabbed Temenus’s hand, and then, after a short pause, offered his arm to Father. They stood surrounding the watch in silence, listening to it ticking the day away. 

Temenus’s own watch felt heavy in his pocket, and he knew then, what to do. He took the watch from his pocket and laid it gently, very, very gently, next to Gen’s. After a few ticks from the watches on the table, synchronized, because Stenides was, no, had been, an expert watchmaker, Father took his own watch and laid it on the table. 

Three watches, and all they had left of Stenides. 

He didn’t know how many ticks had gone before Gen started to recite the prayer for the dead. It was not the rites that Stenides should have had, not even close, but this was what they could do, so far away from Eddis. Temenus joined in in the second repetition, and Father in the third. After even that was finished, they listened to the ticks of the watches again, beating steadily even when the man who made them had died. 

Temenus didn’t know how long they stood there, listening to the watches, but eventually, Gen let go of his hand. His brother lifted the watch from the table and put it gently inside his pocket, and, with a final look towards the two of them, left.

Temenus stayed for a moment more in the tent with his father, and then, they too, left. It was not because of a lack of grief. 

Gen was the high king now, and Father was the Minister of War for Eddis. They have duties to attend to, and Temenus, an officer in Eddis’s army, also have duties to attend to. 

He was the soldier, and there was war to be fought tomorrow. 

***

Temenus woke up with the feeling of being watched. He should be alarmed, should take his sword from his sheath and aim it at the intruder, but instead, he just scooted over to make space in his cot and lifted his blankets. 

Only Gen could go through a tent full of battle-weary Eddissian soldiers and not wake a single one of them. Well, not wake a single one of them but the one he sought to wake. 

His little brother, because it’s his little brother on the foot of his bed now, not the Annux over Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis, silently took his place on Temenus’s cot, and, after claiming his territory, curled up into a ball that somehow managed to not touch Temenus at all, even in the small cot they’re currently in. 

Temenus sighed. He knew this too. 

He laid the blanket on top of his little brother, and, slowly, coaxed Gen out of the ball he was in. It was painstakingly slow. Temenus was out of practice on coaxing little brothers, and besides, it hadn’t been him who coaxed Gen out of his tears back when they were children. 

It had been Stenides, but Stenides was no longer here. 

Finally, he got Gen’s head laying on his shoulders and Gen’s arm around his own, noticing that the deadly hook Gen always wore was not there. The sheets, where Gen’s face had been before, were wet. Temenus chose not to comment on that. 

“I miss him too,” he whispered into the dark. 

“Why couldn’t he have stayed making watches?” came the choked up response. 

“You know why, Gen.”

Temenus felt his clothes getting wetter, but he hardly cared. He brushed his hand on Gen’s back, knowing that it was not his touch that Gen wanted. 

“He should have stayed making watches,” Gen sobbed. 

Temenus had no reply to that, so that was the last words said among them for the rest of the night. He kept his hand on Gen’s back, offering solace but at the same time seeking one for himself. His brother had died. 

Stenides was dead.