It was an attempt Costis could not guard against, because he didn't know what to look for.

He stood by the door. He'd eaten lunch only thirty minutes ago, and then rushed to attend the king again, only to find that the queen had joined him for lunch. Somewhat chagrined, with a stomach that had not yet had a chance to settle, he watched them eat their stewed meat and olives.

Then came the fruit.

"I haven't seen this cultivar," the king said. "Do you think someone is trying to poison us?"

The queen inspected the fruit. It looked a bit like an apricot, but larger and redder. "Do you think they still hate you that much?"

"There are still those who hate you," the king said. "If they've included me in that, I can only be flattered."

The queen's expression didn't change. Still staring at the fruit, she said, "Costis."

His still-gurgling stomach sank straight to his boots. "Yes, my queen?"

"Taste this fruit, if you will."

"We have a taster," the king said. "Don't make poor Costis do it. He'll give himself a stomachache worrying about poison. If that's their aim they could send in an assassin to finish the job, and him doubled over the whole time."

The queen sent him a sharp look then. Costis, for reasons of not wanting to stand between - or beside - an argument, walked forward. "I'm happy to taste it," he said. "I come from farm country. I'm sure it's fine." He took the small piece the queen proffered, carved off the edge of the fruit with her sharp knife. He popped it into his mouth as she wiped the fruit's bright red juices off with a table linen.

He waited, and then waited again. The king watched him with a lot more concern than an intact fruit really warranted. He wondered a bit if the king truly worried it was some sort of poison. He probably wouldn't risk Costis. Probably, Costis thought, looking away from the somewhat dizzying glint in the king's eye.

"I don't feel anything," he said finally.

"There," the queen said. "You see? Perfectly safe."

The queen cut the fruit, both hands moving deftly. "For your trouble," the queen said, and gave Costis a full third of it. She took the slice that had been cut into already.

He held the plate and blinked at them both. The queen raised her eyebrows just a little and said, "To your post, please, Costis."

The door was unlocked and it was his job to stand beside it. He walked back quickly, trying and failing to push down a flush.

It just felt intimate with them like this. A little too intimate. He felt overly aware of everything: his uniform, slightly too heavy, and his palms, oddly tingling. He watched as the king and queen slurped down their fruit, their no doubt very special and expensive fruit, and he -

Well, he wanted them. He could admit that to himself, he thought defiantly. He'd wanted them for awhile now, after all.

"Can we trust Costis?" the king said.

Costis snapped to attention again, pulling his gaze away from the king's hands, looking away from the way the tendons in those hands tightened and relaxed. The queen didn't seem surprised by the question, though. She said only, "I think so."

"Very well." The king reached forward and touched the queen's hand. He, too, was flushed. The room had gotten warmer then, Costis thought. It wasn't just him. "You are beautiful in this light, my dear."

"Like the glint off a blade?" the queen said.

No, that wasn't right. She didn't say it. She murmured it, and turned her hand so that her fingers tangled with the king's. She looked at him like she wanted him, like Costis had imagined they'd look in bed.

Wait - he shook his head. He didn't imagine them in bed, of course. That way lay madness, and anyway, his loyalty was to his king and queen, and what monarchs did in bed was none of Costis' business. Of course it wasn't.

But if he'd thought about it, it would've been like this. The queen stroked the back of the king's hand, and he shivered and ducked his head just a little, licking his lips.

"My dear," he said, "it's not like you to behave inappropriately."

"No," the queen said. "Look at Costis."

They turned to look at him as one. Humiliatingly, he whimpered.

"Ah," the king said. "The fruit?"

"A prank, perhaps," the queen said.

"Not poison?" the king said.

"It could be." She sounded perfectly serene. "I find myself distracted."

Her eyes moved up and down Costis. It was a terrifying attention, and wonderful attention. He felt himself stiffen, and he shivered.

"Poor Costis," the king said. "I did tell you not to use him as a taster. Now he'll have to go off and -"

"No," Costis blurted out, extremely foolishly and without a scrap of thought beforehand.

Both the king and the queen went very still. Costis didn't go still, because he was afraid. Instead he said, "I won't...if you send me away I'll find somewhere private. I don't want to pick up a barmaid like this."

"It's easier with two," the king said, overlapping the queen's, "If we send you away, Costis?"

Oh, this was embarrassing. Of all the awful, humiliating things that had happened to him of late, this was undoubtedly the worst. "I only mean," he said, swallowing hard, "that I am at your disposal. And that I don't wish to - not be."

The king smiled a little. The queen's cheeks went pink, as Costis had only seen when she'd learned of Dite's love. That was that, then She hadn't known or suspected, and she didn't want. And if she didn't, neither did the king. Or neither would he take, anyway.

"My apologies," he said, and turned to leave.

He had his hand on the doorknob when she said, "Costis. Turn around, please."

He turned. He could hardly do anything else.

More than her cheeks were flushed now. The parts of her neck and - upper body - that he could see were also pink, and so were her hands. And those hands shook a little.

Costis blinked. "Please don't kill me for having seen this," he said, feeling somewhat faint.

"I didn't have that in mind," she said. "Come here, please."

He walked back over to the table.

They both still sat, but that hardly mattered. He felt as though they towered over him still.

"Do you want to kiss Eugenides?" the queen said, as though inquiring about his schedule.

"I - what?"

She didn't repeat herself, only waited.

And of course he did, because of that god-damned fruit, but of course he did also because he loved his king. He loved him with the sort of devotion that he knew, in the back of his mind, was not quite normal, and certainly not expected, even from the Guard.

So he said, "Yes."

"I see. And is it just the fruit?"

He wondered if this was jealousy. He wondered if he'd fly to pieces soon. "No."

She nodded and fell silent.

For a moment he thought this was some sort of coordination on their part, a planned interrogation. But then the king cleared his throat, and Costis looked at him, and saw that his eyes were bright and that he looked a bit angrily panicked. If he'd been ready to fly apart when his god had plucked him out of the air, then right now he was considering reaching those vaunted depths of panic again.

"You left the hard part for me," he said finally, not quite looking at Costis. Perhaps the moulding across the room and above his left shoulder was particularly interesting.

"You only think that because you're incorrigible," the queen said.

"No, I think that because I know exactly how he feels." The king met Costis' eyes then, and Costis saw the sentiment's truth. "Do you want to kiss the queen, Costis?"

He didn't want to be subject to the same ritual again, and then perhaps only to receive a kiss - or two. He said, "I'd go down on my knees for you both, and I would have before the fruit, and I expect I'll want to tomorrow as well. You may take me up on that offer or not, as it pleases you, because you are my king and she is my queen."

The king opened his mouth to speak, but before he managed it, Costis felt a vicelike pressure on his hand. He looked down to see the queen gripping it, so tightly his bones almost ground together.

It hadn't occurred to him that she might be afraid, too.

Then she pulled him down, to his knees, and leaned down to kiss him, and he felt it. He felt want, and he felt desperation, and he tasted the sticky juices of that fruit. No one had promised him any sort of longevity of affection, so he let himself drown in the kiss, with her hands on his neck and face, his awareness of anything else in the world receding.

The king touching his shoulder didn't burst the bubble. It only expanded it. At first he went on the floor with Costis, but one arm wrapped around Costis' waist and a short pair of shoulders pressed against his back were apparently not enough for the king. He huffed and tapped Costis on the shoulder. "Stop hogging him."

The queen pulled back. Costis saw the pattern of flush on her cheeks and the way she controlled her breathing in a few blinks of the eye and realized he'd nearly caught them before. It was odd to think about.

Wait. Him?

The king's kiss, too, absorbed him entirely. They must be like a season-defining storm together, Costis thought, but then that thought was swept away by the king and queen's hands tangling together on his skin, skimming as one down to his hip, finding and pressing against delicate skin and spots that made Costis shiver. And it was ridiculous, kneeling here on the floor, but Costis was almost ready to say hang the technicalities when the queen said, "We have more comfortable arrangements for these things."

The king locked the door. He also undressed himself, using his hook with a kind of delicacy that Costis found himself fascinated by, before he took that off, too. It didn't occur to Costis until the king climbed into bed with Costis and the queen, both still fully clothed, that soon they'd all be like that.

"Oh," he said faintly.

The queen looked amused again, and perhaps a bit condescending. But with the memory of her uncertainty came surety that she didn't mean to condescend to him. Perhaps she'd only learned a certain number of expressions.

"You should tell us if you're upset," the king said. "Yell, or start talking to me about taxes." He reached out and tweaked Costis' armor. "Get this off, unless you mean to tear our sheets."

He had to clamber out of the king's bed after that, which was awkward, even with two pairs of heated eyes on him. When he got back into bed, the queen leaned over him and kissed the king, and the king reached behind her with his hand and unlaced her dress.

She was beautiful. They were beautiful.

He could have watched them forever, truthfully, but when the queen was out of her dress, they both turned to Costis. The queen looked - happy, Costis supposed, though it seemed a bland description for a woman kneeling in his bed, with hard nipples and heavy eyes, who was also his queen.

The king looked a bit scared and had hidden his stump in a fold of sheet. The king, Costis thought, was a fool. "My king -"

"Eugenides."

He should have expected that. "Okay," he said. "Well, I think you ought to come here."

For some reason that made the king - Eugenides - glare. But he came, even if his lip was stuck out in a way Costis didn't particularly associate with attractiveness. That problem went away, anyway, when Costis kissed him, and he thought to maneuver them so that Eugenides' back rested against the queen, pressed between them.

Of course that was not enough, when his skin was heated like this, when he'd been hard for so long he wondered that he hadn't literally gone to pieces. It wasn't enough for Eugenides, either, who rutted against his leg and made impatient noises into their kiss.

Costis pulled away, just enough to get his hand between them, to squeeze and stroke a bit before moving his hand away again.

"You bastard," Eugenides said, sounding equal parts pleased and genuinely annoyed.

"Is he always like this?" Costis asked the queen.

"Is he always himself?" She arched her eyebrows.

He took the point. He shoved Eugenides a little, got up and made his way down the bed, so that by the time he took Eugenides in his mouth, his king had managed to take hold of his wife, clutching her shoulder like an anchor.

They kissed and Costis watched them, as much as he could, as he brought Eugenides pleasure. The queen, he learned, was sensitive: her breasts, her hips. She lay so that one leg pressed against Costis as he bobbed his head, Eugenides heavy on his tongue, rolling his own hips to get some of the edge off. At first he saw that Eugenides was trying to keep himself from reacting, and it offended his pride. He worked harder then, until Eugenides choked back cries, until he flung himself back against the bed, and until he spilled himself in Costis' mouth.

Costis lay at the end of the bed through it all, in need of so much that he felt dazed, utterly incapable of moving. Eugenides caught his breath quickly, of course, and then he pulled Costis up and said, "I am spent and it's your fault, so I hope you know what to do with a woman."

The queen sent him a reproving look, but his eyes were shut - deliberately, Costis supposed. She leaned down and kissed Eugenides, then turned to Costis and said, "He will wake at an inconvenient time."

"Have you done this before?" Costis blurted before he could think better of it.

She frowned. "No. I simply know my husband."

He'd offended her, he realized. Or even hurt her feelings, outlandish though that seemed. "I apologize, my queen," he said.

She smiled, and waited.

He knew what she wanted. "Irene."

As she bore him back onto the bed, he felt less desperate. The fruit was wearing off, he supposed; he was still hard as he'd ever been, but no longer worried he'd die of it. It didn't matter. The queen was rubbing against him, as soft and as deadly as he'd scarcely allowed himself to think. She kissed him, and then she looked over at Eugenides and bit her lip, looking a bit cross.

Costis realized what she wanted. "I can," he said.

"It's a bit selfish," she said.

"I can." He couldn't explain it. He might really run away if she pressed him. He just wanted to bring her pleasure, wanted to feel and taste her, to know her in a way that he could keep with him, no matter what happened after this.

She looked at him, and for a moment he felt very certain that she could see through to his soul. Then she said, "You may, then. After."

Then she climbed on him, and took him inside of her.

She was only a woman after all. He didn't die when she rode him. He felt heavenly, he felt afire, and he spilled himself in her hand, her wetness all over him. But still, she was only a woman, as the king was only a man. When he pressed her into the bed, when he put his mouth on her, when he felt Eugenides' hand on his back and on his buttocks, he knew. They might be a bit mad and they were certainly terrifyingly powerful, but they were still two people. Two people he desperately loved.

She came against his tongue. Her thighs shook and she went stiff as a board, and to his surprise, she cried out. It was a soft noise, very controlled, but it struck its way across Costis' heart as surely as a scream would have. When he pulled away and licked his lips, he felt thunderstruck.

Eugenides kissed him first, and used his distraction to take his legs out from under him, bringing him very firmly in the middle. "We are not going to nap," Eugenides said, and promptly fell asleep with his face in Costis' shoulder.

Costis craned his neck to direct an inquisitive look at Irene.

She shrugged. It was an awkward gesture on her; Costis suspected she'd been practicing it with the king, or for the king. "He is trying to keep you here. He's fallen asleep at will for more maddening reasons."

He is trying to keep you here. "Very well," Costis said. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He stiffened his jaw. "I shall stay."

"Yes," Irene said. "Of course you will." She settled against him as well. She didn't sleep; perhaps she was plotting, as her breath warmed Costis' neck in tiny puffs. He didn't intend to sleep either, really, but it stole over him all the same. He would stay as long as his king and queen would have him.