Attolia Quotes & Sayings

Eddis looked at her minister, curious. "Your head?" she asked.
Attolia explained. "He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son."
"So have we all from time to time," Eddis said seriously. — Megan Whalen Turner

Just asleep, Eddis reassured her.
At the sound of her voice Eugenides's head turned slightly, but he didn't wake. Attolia, seeing the movement, breathed again and pressed her hand to her chest where it hurt. — Megan Whalen Turner

That is ridiculous," she said.
The king agreed. "Like falling in love with a landslide. Only you could fail to notice. — Megan Whalen Turner

From shadow queen to puppet queen in one rule," he whispered. "That's very impressive. When he rules your country and he tells you he loves you, I hope you believe him."
He anticipated her blow and leaned back. Her hand only brushed his cheek in an entirely unsatisfying manner. "At least that's one lie I didn't tell you. — Megan Whalen Turner

Why didn't you tell me to take Attolia's advice from the beginning?"
"I thought you should figure it out. What you learn for yourself, you will know forever," said Eugenides.
"Pol used to say that," said Sounis, surprised.
"I learned it from him. I just wish to my god that I had his patience for the process. — Megan Whalen Turner

I didn't think about being king," he said, his voice hoarse.
Eddis stared. "Your capacity to land yourself in a mess because you didn't think first, Eugenides, will never cease to amaze me. What do you mean you didn't think about being king? Is Attolia going to marry you and move into my library? — Megan Whalen Turner

Eddis looked around as if recalling a question that had nagged at her for several hours. "Where's Eugenides?" she asked.
For a moment the Attolian queen was immobile, her smile gone as if it had never been. The horse under her threw up its head as if the bit had twitched against its delicate mouth.
"Locked in a room," Attolia said flatly. "In Ephrata."
The smile faded from Eddis' face.
"I ordered the other prisoners released," Attolia explained. "I forgot that I had him locked up separately. I doubt my sensechal will have released him without my specific instruction to do so."
"You forgot?" Eddis asked.
"I forgot," Attolia said firmly, daring Eddis to contradict her.
"You will marry him?" Eddis asked, hesitant again.
"I said I would," snapped Attolia, and turned her horse away. Eddis followed. When they joined their officers, Attolia gave brisk orders and then rode on, heading back toward Ephrata without waiting for Eddis. — Megan Whalen Turner

You will make the boy Thief king?" he [Nahuseresh] said. "When you could have had me?"
Attolia allowed a slight smile.
"A fine revenge for the loss of a hand," said the Mede, close to snarling.
"I will have my sovereignty," said Attolia thinly.
"Oh, yes, a fine one-handed figurehead he will make," spat Nahuseresh. Then he remembered Attolia's flattery earlier that morning. "Or do I insult your lover?" he asked.
"Not a lover," said Attolia. "Merely my choice for king. — Megan Whalen Turner

A little danger adds spice to life. — Megan Whalen Turner

I was listening," the king said, aggrieved. "I closed my eyes to listen better."
"What did you hear?"
"I'm not sure," he said." That's why I was listening so closely. I may have to ask the baron to repeat some parts of his report on his grain tax."
"I am sure you can arrange an appointment."
"I am sure I can too. — Megan Whalen Turner

That one,"-he nodded toward the closed door-" will rule more than just Attolia before he is done. He is an Annux, a king of kings. — Megan Whalen Turner

How do you know that, Philo, dear?"
But Philologos had had enough of being condescended to. "Because, Lamion, I am not as dumb as you think I am, even if you are."
By the time Lamion had parsed this to make sure that there was in fact an insult at the end of it, Hilarion had laid a restraining hand on his arm. — Megan Whalen Turner

Relius looked away. "He said that you ... cried," he said softly.
"But not that he cried as well," said the queen, amused at the memory. "We were very lachrymose ... would you like to hear more romance of the evening? He told me the Guard should be reduced by half, and I threw an ink jar at his head."
"Is that when he cried?"
"He ducked," said Attolia dryly.
"I had not pictured you for a fishwife."
"Lo, the transforming power of love. — Megan Whalen Turner

The queen had passed him, so close he'd felt the stir of air, and he guessed that if she had turned her head, only a little, and met his eyes, he might have died right there. — Megan Whalen Turner

Her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth ... — Megan Whalen Turner

So Sophos thinks you're going to marry me."
"While I think you'll marry Sophos."
"I might. We'll see what he's like when he grows up. — Megan Whalen Turner

On the bed, Eugenides stirred restlessly. "Upset at the sight of blood?" he said. "Not my wife, Ornon."
"Your blood," the ambassador pointed out.
Eugenides glanced at the hook on his arm and conceded the point. "Yes," he said. He seemed lost in memory. The room was quiet. — Megan Whalen Turner

No 'Glory shall be your reward' for me. Oh, no, for me, it is, 'Stop whining' and 'Go to bed'. — Megan Whalen Turner

It isn't an easy thing to give your loyalty to someone you don't know, especially when that person chooses to reveal nothing of himself. — Megan Whalen Turner

She reached out and touched the king's face, cupping his cheek in her hand.
"Just a nightmare," he said, his voice still rough.
The queen's voice was cool. "How embarrassing," she said, looking at his maimed arm.
The king looked up then, and followed her gaze. If it was embarrassing to wake like a child screaming from a nightmare, how much more embarrassing to be the reason your husband woke screaming. A quick smile visited the king's face. "Ouch," he said, referring to more than the pain in his side. "Ouch," he said again as the queen gathered him into her arms. — Megan Whalen Turner

Sophos, you sleep with a knife under your pillow? I'm hurt."
"I'm sorry," said Sounis, afraid that he had made contact with his wild swing.
"I was joking. Wake up the rest of the way, would you?"
"Gen, it's the middle of the night."
"I know," said the king of Attolia.
Sounis tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He was sitting up in his bed. The sky was still entirely dark, and he couldn't have been asleep for long. He suspected that he had just dropped off. The bare knife was still in his hand, he realized, and he rooted under his pillow for the sheath.
"Don't you trust my palace security?"
"Yes, of course," Sounis said, trying to think of some other reason besides mistrust to sleep with a knife. He heard Eugenides laugh.
"My queen and I sleep with a matched set under our pillows, as well as handguns in pockets on the bedposts. Don't be embarrassed. — Megan Whalen Turner

There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said.
"So?"
"If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time. — Megan Whalen Turner

Are you badly hurt?"
"Hideously," said the king, without sounding injured at all. "I am disemboweled. My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you. — Megan Whalen Turner

Why did you come if not to murder my king?"
"I came to steal his magus."
"You can't," said the magus in question.
"I can steal anything," Eugenides corrected him, "even with one hand. — Megan Whalen Turner

Please," he whispered. His voice was low but clear. "Don't hurt me anymore."
Attolia recoiled. Once, as a child, she'd thrown her slipper in a rage and had knocked an amphora of oil from its pedestal. The amphora had been a favorite of hers. It had smashed, and the scent of the hair oil inside had lingered for days. She remembered the scent still, though she didn't know what in the stinking cell had brought it to mind. — Megan Whalen Turner

She pulled the bedclothes up as far as they would go and suppressed a perverse wish to have her old nurse come to chase away the darkness, perverse because she didn't know if she wanted the shadows to be empty or not. — Megan Whalen Turner

This is the stupidest plan I have ever in my career participated in," Xenophon said.
"I love stupid plans," said Eugenides. — Megan Whalen Turner

The pain was as unexpected as a thunderclap in a clear sky. Eddis's chest tightened, as something closed around her heart. A deep breath might have calmed her, but she couldn't draw one. She wondered if she was ill, and she even thought briefly that she might have been poisoned. She felt Attolia reach out and take her hand. To the court it was unexceptional, hardly noticed, but to Eddis it was an anchor, and she held on to it as if to a lifeline. Sounis was looking at her with concern. Her responding smile was artificial. — Megan Whalen Turner

Because you do not believe?"
"Oh, no," said Attolia bitterly. "Because I believe and do not choose to worship. — Megan Whalen Turner

Then come out," said the king, helping him, "knowing you'll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you. — Megan Whalen Turner

The window opened in the same direction as the king's, and there, summer-bright and framed by the darkness of the stairwell, was the same view. Costis passed it, and then went back up the stairs to look again. There were only the roofs of the lower part of the palace and the town and the city walls. Beyond those were the hills on the far side of the Tustis Valley and the faded blue sky above them. It wasn't what the king saw that was important, it was what he couldn't see when he sat at the window with his face turned toward Eddis. — Megan Whalen Turner

Irene-"
"Don't call me that."
"You were the princess Irene the first time we met."
"It means 'peace'," Attolia said. "What name could be more inappropriate?"
"That I be named Helen?" Eddis suggested.
The hard lines in Attolia's face eased, and she smiled. Eddis was a far cry from the woman whose beauty had started a war. — Megan Whalen Turner

If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating. — Megan Whalen Turner

Did you send Attolia to me at the farewell?" Eddis asked.
"Not I," said Gen quietly. "The magus. I thought you knew that you loved him - the two of you have been like magnets drawing ever nearer to each other since you met - but the magus was concerned. He thought the grief of leave-taking might surprise you."
"I feel very stupid." She leaned back into his embrace. "'I look forward to hearing of your adventures.'" She shook her head in disgust and sniffed. "I should have had something better to say, something ... more appropriate."
He couldn't disagree. Sounis had clearly hoped for some message of her affection to carry with him. "You could write him a letter," he said. "A fast horse will catch him before he reaches the pass. — Megan Whalen Turner

I want you to steal something."
I smiled. "Do you want the king's seal? I can get it for you."
"If I were you," said the magus, "I'd stop bragging about that." His voice grated.
My smile grew. The gold ring with the engraved ruby had been in his safekeeping when I had stolen it away. — Megan Whalen Turner

The prison keeper choose an inopportune time to look around the doorway into the cell. He and the king locked gazes, and the king's eyes narrowed while the prison keeper's widened. — Megan Whalen Turner

I know," Attolia soothed him. "I did not say that I am afraid. He is, though, I think. Afraid of his own desire for power. He is not unused to wielding power, but it has always been in secret. I could, of course, command him to be king. He will give me anything I ask."
"That would only confirm your sovereignty, not his," Relius objected.
"So," agreed the queen.
Relius considered he, sitting beside him. She didn't seem unduly concerned. "I am confident, My Queen, that if you have met your match, so has he. — Megan Whalen Turner

-You know
Eddis hesitated, not sure how far to push the Attolian Queen.
-Go on. Attolia inclined her head.
-I was going to say that you look like a polecat when you smile like that.
-Do I? Attolia still smiled. -You look a little vulpine yourself.
The two queens sat for a moment in happy agreement. — Megan Whalen Turner

No," he said. "Relius was right and I was wrong. You are My Queen. Even though you cut my head from my shoulders, with my last breath as a noose tightens, to the last beat of my heart if I hang from the walls of the palace, you are My Queen. That I have failed you does not change my love for you or my loyalty. — Megan Whalen Turner

The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead in the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day. — Megan Whalen Turner

We would have died without the additional men," he admitted matter-of-factly. "But we would have taken the entire Mede army with us. Poets would have written about us, and songs would have been sung about us-"
"For all the good that would have done your dead bodies," Eugenides cynically interrupted.
"Well, I wasn't looking forward to it," said Sounis caustically. "But over our dead bodies the Medes would never have been accepted by the people of Sounis. Much more likely that they would have allied with Attolia." He looked at Eugenides, who was still eyeing him in surprise. "I didn't expect to die," he said. "I knew you would send help."
"Why?"
It was Sounis's turn to be surprised. He said, "You told me you needed me to be Sounis. I am. I needed my king to send me help. You did. There had to be reinforcements at Oneia, so they were there." To him it was obvious.
Eugenides swallowed. "I see. — Megan Whalen Turner

The gossip will carry to Attolian spies, who will report to Relius, Attolia's master of spies, and he will carry the news to her."
"Her secretary of the archives," murmured the magus.
"Hmm?" asked the queen.
"Secretary of the archives, Relius. Master of spies is so-"
"Accurate?"
"Overtly direct," said the magus.
Eddis laughed. — Megan Whalen Turner

You have to believe him, because he's going to have your entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it."
Attolia smiled. "You make him sound like more trouble than he is worth.
"No," said Eddis thoughtfully. "Never more than he is worth. — Megan Whalen Turner

You'll have to pardon me," the magus said. "But with your country at war I can't see how any of it really matters."
Standing up, Eugenides pulled the papers from the magus's hands. "It matters, because I can't do anything, anymore, for this country, and it matters," he yelled as he threw the papers back to his desk, "because I only have one hand and it isn't even the right one!" Turning, he picked an inkpot off the desk and threw it to shatter on the door of his wardrobe, spraying black ink across the pale wood and onto the wall. Black drops like rain stained the sheets of his bed.
...
Eddis sighed. "Will you sit down and stop shouting?" she asked.
"I'll stop shouting. I won't sit down. I might need to throw more inkpots. — Megan Whalen Turner

Treachery," said the Mede.
"Diplomacy," said Attolia, "in my own name. — Megan Whalen Turner

Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again? — Megan Whalen Turner

The queen was settling on the edge of the bed, ungainly with hesitation and at the same time exquisite in her grace, like a heron landing in a treetop. — Megan Whalen Turner

He could tell her he loved her. He ached to shout it out loud for the gods and everyone to hear. Little good it would do. Better to trust in the moon's promises than in the word of the Thief of Eddis. He was famous in three countries for his lies. — Megan Whalen Turner

Who am I, that you should love me? — Megan Whalen Turner

If I couldn't be Eddis, I would be Attolia. If they needed to see my uncle in me, then I would show him to them. And I would take Attolia's advice because if I identified my enemy and destroyed him, Sounis would be safe. — Megan Whalen Turner

It isn't deep," the Eddisian Ambassador said from the other side of the bed. He was leaning over the wound, looking critical and mildly disappointed. Eugenides didn't miss a beat.
"It is ... too ... deep!" he insisted, outraged. — Megan Whalen Turner

He waved at his attendants. "I dragged them like a ball and chain all the way across the palace and back."
"If sterner measures are called for, we can find a larger ball and chain." The queen turned and disappeared into the partment.
"Oh, dear," Eugenides muttered as he followed ... The queen's sterner measures, dispensed by the Eddisian Ambassador, arrived before dawn. — Megan Whalen Turner

He looked at her and tilted his head very slightly in wonder. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, how beautiful she was. Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia, but it was far easier to imagine the impersonal cruelty of the Great Goddess than to see cruelty in the face in the Queen of Attolia. Looking at her, Eugenides smiled.
Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her hand. His head rocked on his shoulders. He made no sound but sank to his knees ... — Megan Whalen Turner

[Eugenides] looked from Eddis to the window, where the visible sky was already dark. He looked back, his gaze a little sharper, and said, "You forgot me."
Eddis shoved her hands into the pockets of her trousers..
"Don't lie," Eugenides said, pressing her. "You charged off in a haze of glory to chase the vile Mede from our shore, and you never gave me a thought until they were gone."
He twisted to address Attolia. "You forgot me, too," he accused.
Attolia answered cooly, "You were fed. — Megan Whalen Turner

He watched Attolia out of the corner of his eye. She was still cool, like a breath of winter in the warm evening air, but in the last few days he had begun to sense a subtle humor in her chilly words. When Gen had complained earlier that evening that Petrus, the palace physician, should stop fussing over him like a worried old woman, Attolia had asked, archly,"And me as well?"
"When you stop fussing," Gen had said, slipping to his knees beside her couch, "I will sleep with two knives under my pillow."
Allolia had looked down at him and said sharply, "Don't be ridiculous."
Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn't save him. He almost swallowed the olive in his mouth unchewed. — Megan Whalen Turner

Attolia had brushed Eugenides's cheek almost shyly before sending him with a wave back to his own couch. — Megan Whalen Turner

He didn't marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you. — Megan Whalen Turner

Will there be poppy juice in it?"
Phresine shook her head.
"Good. My wife and I agreed that only my wine was to be poisoned. — Megan Whalen Turner

My beautiful queen. Your entire court is staring at you, and I can't blame them.
They were, too. The queen turned to look. Her glance swept through the crowd like a reaping sickle through grain. Mouths slammed shut on every side. There was a scuffling sound as the people in the back shifted, trying to screen themselves from view. The queen looked back at the king, who was broadly smiling. — Megan Whalen Turner

Would you have your hand back, Eugenides? And lose Attolia? And see Attolia lost to the Mede?'
Eugenides's eyes were open. In front of his face the floor was littered with tiny bits of glass that glittered in the candlelight.
'You have your answer, Little Thief. — Megan Whalen Turner

She's like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorways a little narrower."
"And?" Eddis prompted.
"Well," said Eugenides, "it's a challenge. — Megan Whalen Turner

Anyone who can steal the king's seal ring can manage the locks on his record room. — Megan Whalen Turner