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The king would be angry if he discovered I’d prioritized something else before seeing him, but as I hadn’t stopped to change anything other than my muddy boots, I could hide it well enough. I didn’t mind appeasing him in small ways like this, especially after he’d granted me so much freedom to make decisions in his name.

High in the labyrinth the halls were still, nothing but my boots against stone disturbing the silence. I removed my earplugs to enjoy it. Calliope wouldn’t be in her permanent room yet, not until the king trusted her. Certainly not until he got over losing Vi. And that could only work in my favor.

He was where I expected to find him—sitting shirtless on one of his couches, drinking tea before he would make his reluctant appearance at court. One of his wives sat on his bed, half-dressed and quickly trying to remedy that. He was back to himself, it seemed.

The king looked up, with no real signs that he was pleased to see me. This was all just routine. “Oh good, you’re alive. You arrived much later than your knight, I thought something might have happened.”

“I only went to town, sire,” I said, forced to speak louder than I preferred as he was at the center of the large room. “Not the battlefield.”

“Even so, stay inside for the time being.”

I sighed. The king relegating me to the palace meant that we wouldn’t be heading into The Dark for another few days, if not longer. Long breaks meant there was more ground to make up for once we encountered The Dark again, our progress lost. But at least it would give me time to get Calliope acclimated before she was expected to do battle.

And time to get some sleep, if I was lucky.

“Olive,” I greeted the woman, though I paused at the purple bruises on her arms.

“Did you enjoy your retreat from the palace, Lord Beric?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t call dealing with dozens of entitled knights a retreat.”

She tipped her cheek to me, and I kissed it gently, hovering close to add, “We have a new knight, now. I imagine she’ll heal you, if you like.”

“And eliminate my baseline?” She pulled her robe up to cover her bruises, ending the conversation. I’d never even been given the chance to consider it on my own—Vi couldn’t have me slacking on the job, so had healed me every time. But I had to agree, it seemed better to have a little dull pain going into the next encounter than to start each one fresh. “He’s actually been quite gentle today. Mourning the illustrious Lady Vi, I think.”

I didn’t believe her, but now wasn’t the time to intervene.

“Lord Beric,” said the king, a bit impatiently, “put our wife outside. You may escort her when we’re finished here.”

Olive took a heavy breath, wisely keeping her current thought to herself. She tightened her robe and gathered up the remainder of her clothes quickly, carrying them into the hall and shutting the door behind her.

“Your chest healed well,” I said, getting on with it.

The king nodded. “Yes, we applaud your efficiency in replacing our knight.”

“Thank you, sire. Do you like her?”

“She’s a bit … rustic,” he said, and I knew he had no intention of volunteering anything more. After two hundred years on this earth, conversation, it seemed, had become dull to him. He only ever said what he wanted to say.

He’d earned that luxury, I supposed.

“But you approve?” I clarified.

He scowled the slightest bit. “I’m rather annoyed we have to train up an entirely new knight to do things the way I like them.”

Sometimes the king didn’t say exactly what he meant, and in that way, he was both difficult and incredibly easy for me to read. Generally, I could better narrow down his meaning by what he didn’t say—in this case, he hadn’t said he liked Calliope. That, and describing her as rustic seemed to be key indicators that he wasn’t attracted to her. As I’d understood from Vi, his attraction had been the main problem that made her job difficult. The king may have understood the roles of his various wives, but he didn’t seem to understand the consequences of diverting from those roles.

Or he just didn’t care.

For everyone’s peace of mind, it was more effective for the rest of us to steer him in the right direction rather than rely on his judgment.

That’s why he had a wife for each aspect of ruling a kingdom—for executive decisions and international relations, public appearances and charity work, etc. Me to oversee it all—although I had no idea how a squire of twenty ended up with that amount of responsibility.

“She is talented,” he added, as if ashamed to admit it. “You two will work well together.”

I nodded. “I believe so, sire.”

“We won’t even complain about how young she is—we know you’ve been lacking a companion your age for a long while.”