An explanation of why one of my yuletide requests makes sense
Nothing to see here. Whistles innocently.
This is basically a supporting post to try and explain why I don't think one of my yuletide requests is foolish or unreasonable. Hilarion and Philogos are two minor characters in Megan Whalen Turner's King of Attolia, and in an attempt to explain why I see huge potential for character development and a burgeoning relationship between them, this post contains every mention of them in that book and the sequel.
Please don't read if you haven't read the series -- I've been quite ruthless about cutting parts of scenes to only show the Hilarion and Philologos dialogue -- if you don't already know the books, you won't be able to follow this post, but you will still gather enough to be spoiled for a wonderful story.
King of Attolia
Hilarion, the heavyset attendant, was the second son of a coastal baron. He brought the king the wrong trousers and was sent back to the wardrobe....
....Most of the attendants had the kindness to look uncomfortable, knowing that Costis was paying for their transgressions. Hilarion glared at the king, safely out of his line of sight. Sejanus only looked amused. He raised his eyebrows and smiled as if he expected Costis to share the joke. In this way, Costis fully realized his new function. He had been elevated from obscurity so that there would be some victim in the pecking order lower than the king.
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Sejanus was clearly the leader even though the attendant Hilarion was oldest and Philologos, the youngest attendant, an heir to a baron, was the highest in rank.
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As the king made every effort to conceal his handicap, the attendants made every effort to emphasize it. If the king wanted his bread sliced, he had to ask. If he stubbornly declined to ask, then Sejanus, or Hilarion, would make a show of distress that they had forgotten to slice it for him. Twice more the king locked himself in his rooms. Both times he allowed Costis and only Costis to stay with him.
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“You do have to admire him. Sejanus, I mean. Not the king, of course. He tells Hilarion, who supports the queen, that any attack on the king, even so much as a mismatched stocking, is a blow for the queen. The next day, he might tell Dionis, whose family has never supported the queen, that to ridicule the king will shame the queen as well, and somehow he is perfectly convincing.”
“They don’t notice that he has no loyalty to either side?”
“They don’t care.” Costis stopped to think. “Or they are afraid of the wrong side of his tongue. He can make anyone who crosses him sorry. Philologos doesn’t like all these pranks. He’s his father’s heir, not some wild younger son, but Sejanus pulls everyone’s strings like a puppet master.”
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Costis looked down at the woman in his arms. She had a name. She was Irene. He’d never thought of her having any name except Attolia, but of course she was a person as well as a queen. Lying in his arms, she felt surprisingly human, and female. Costis, suddenly uncomfortable with his burden, was relieved when Hilarion lifted her out of his arms and carried her away to the guardroom. Her attendants followed after, clucking like hens.
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“Yesterday, I thought he loved her,” Philologos said plaintively.
“I think he did,” said one of the others.
“And she-”
“And I think,” said Hilarion, cutting short further discussion, “that we are not all needed here, and as all of us have been up through the night, some of us, at least, should go to bed.” He put a hand on Philologos’s shoulder and pushed him toward the door that led through the king’s wardrobes to the cell-like, semiprivate rooms where the attendants slept. “Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again?” He looked around the room at the other attendants as if in warning, but spoke to Philologos. “Remember, the love of kings and queens is beyond the compass of us lesser mortals.”
If anyone noticed, no one commented that he had called the Thief of Eddis a king.
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Philologos got up from his bed to find that the world had not reinverted itself and was in fact exactly as he’d left it, much to his distress and the distress of many others. The queen did not leave her apartments. The king, when they eventually knocked on his door, got himself out of bed to open it, and told them to go away.
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Only Philologos was unwilling to be let off so easily. “Your Majesty,” he said sternly. “We have behaved shamefully. You should not overlook it.”
“I shouldn’t?” The king was amused.
“No.” Philologos was not.
“You tell me,” said the king. “What should I do?”
Philologos didn’t smile back. “We should be dismissed, if not banished outright.”
His fellow attendants looked at him as if he was out of his mind.
“That’s a little fierce, isn’t it?” said the king. “To deprive your father of his heir and his only son because of schoolboy tricks?”
Maybe Philologos hadn’t thought this through, but he didn’t waver. Exiled, he might still inherit his father’s land and property, but would hardly be able to administer them from outside the country. His father, in the interests of his property and dependents, would likely be forced to disinherit the young man and choose another heir, a cousin, probably, if the man had only one son, or a daughter if she could be safely married to a man who would hold and defend the family’s land.
“For schoolboy tricks?” the king repeated.
Philologos licked his lips. “The snake was not just-”
“Philologos,” Hilarion interrupted. “Before you betray a man’s misdeeds, you might check to see if he has the same sense of nobility as yourself. However, as you have done so”-he turned to the king-“perhaps you can exile those of us responsible for the most grievous offenses against you, Your Majesty, and send Philologos back to his father.”
The king appeared taken aback. “I am surprised, Hilarion, to see your nobility can rise to the occasion, but I hadn’t intended to exile any of you. Not even for the snake. I think it is all in the past now. We can leave it there.”
“Your Majesty, at the very least we should all be dismissed from your service,” Philologos insisted. “Whatever he implies, I-”
“Put the snake in my bed,” the king finished for him. “Yes, I know. He was trying to save you from yourself, but he didn’t need to. I knew who delivered the snake, and who put the sand in my food...
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The king turned to Costis. “Go get a squad ready to escort me.”
Philologos protested naively, “You said you were going to rest.”
The king only flicked a glance in his direction. “I lied.” .....
.... A short time later the king himself appeared, trailing worried attendants.
Hilarion stepped faster, passing the king. Once ahead of him, and between the king and the door, he stopped and turned around to ask bluntly, “Where are we going, Your Majesty?”
The king tilted his head and looked up at him through narrowed eyes. Hilarion swallowed, but the king chose to give him an answer. “So far today I have pardoned people I would have preferred to exile, exiled the only member of this court that I like, and imprisoned for life a man I would have preferred to execute. I am going to the palace prison to indulge myself. I think I deserve it. You may stay here.”
“No!” A little too loud. “I mean, please, no, Your Majesty. We should be with you.” Or the queen would have their heads, thought Costis.
“I will have my guards with me. They are sufficient.”
“Your Majesty.” It was Philologos. “We are your attendants, aren’t we?” His expression was equal amounts pleading and resignation.
The king rolled his eyes, but gave in. “Three of you may come.”
He left it to them to choose. Hilarion and Sotis, now that Sejanus was gone, were the two obvious choices. Costis was a little surprised when Philologos also stepped forward and even more surprised when the other attendants backed down. The three followed the king out the door.....
.....They reached the grand staircase that led down four levels to the ground. The king glared at the steps in front of him.
“If we may assist you, Your Majesty?” Hilarion offered.
“You may not.”
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“A chair,” said the king. He considered the prisoner and then turned to Philologos. “And some water. Get it from the kitchen.”
Philologos hurried out the door....
....Philologos came back with a skin jug in his hand. Sotis took it from him, and, following the king’s indications, he bent to tip it into Relius’s mouth.....
....Then the angry flush in the king’s cheeks faded away. He let the queen’s message drop from his hand, his face as white as the paper it was written on. He reached for the chair, and his hook banged awkwardly over the top of it. He was swaying as he turned to catch his balance with his remaining hand. Philologos was nearest and raised his hands to help, but backed away. They waited. The king held the chair, stared into invisible space, and slowly his color came back. He started to speak twice, and stopped. He experimented with a small breath, then took a deeper one, and finally spoke without turning his head.
“I don’t care whose orders you think you are following, Captain, but you will see that Relius is moved to the palace infirmary and some physician, other than the butcher down here, treats him.
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“Your Majesty,” Hilarion wailed, sounding more like Philologos.
“I lied.” The king interrupted without lifting his head and without pausing as he continued painfully up the stairs. With no choice, the attendants followed.....
....It had been added to the palace by the current queen’s grandfather in a day of flamboyant architecture and was made of two colors of stone, speckled like a lattice and faced with decorative brickwork. The king paused as if admiring it, then went up the decorative brickwork as if it were a staircase and disappeared over the edge of the roof.
Consternated, the attendants stared at one another. After silent prodding Philologos called, “Your Majesty?” but there was no answer.
Hilarion put his hands to the brickwork and cautiously began to climb, not sure how he would continue when his path took him over the edge of the wall and out above empty space. He didn’t find out. He’d gone no more than a few careful steps when the king’s voice came over the edge of the tower roof.
“I will have you granched,” he said quietly.
Not wanting to end his life hanging impaled on stakes, Hilarion stepped hastily back down.
It was more than an hour before the king came down, and Relius had long been in his bed in the infirmary before his attendants and guard returned the king to the royal apartments.
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Philologos passed the velvet ribbons of the bed hangings through his hand. The bedpost nearby was marked as if hammered over and over with a pickax. The wood was splintered and gouged. The holes were surprisingly deep.
“They won’t know details. They won’t hear any from us.”
“They won’t need to,” said Hilarion.
Philologos poked his fingers into the holes....
....“Our little king doesn’t like people trying to assassinate him.”
“He isn’t angry because someone tried to kill him,” Philologos said sharply.
“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 be sure there was in fact an insult at the end of it, Hilarion had laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“So, tell us, Philologos, your insight.”
“He isn’t angry because Nahuseresh tried to have him killed,” Philologos told them. “He is angry because he can’t go kill Nahuseresh in return.”
“Because he is king,” agreed Hilarion.
“Not because he’s king,” Philologos said, disgusted by their dull wits. “Because he has only one hand,” he said, voicing the king’s bitterness as his own.
The attendants looked around them at the mess, at the fabric sliced again and again until it hung in threads, and the bedpost marked by gouges. They looked back at Philologos with new respect.
“That’s what he doesn’t want the queen to know about.”
No one disagreed. They turned their attention to cleaning what they could and arranging for the wall to be repaired, and discussed, very carefully, how they might suggest to the rest of the court that the king’s tantrum was caused by his dislike of Nahuseresh, and nothing else.
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“We’ll all hang for it,” said Hilarion. “I know why you don’t want to get involved. You certainly owe us no favors, but I swear on my honor, Costis, name your price and we’ll pay it, if you can get him off that wall.”....
....Get him to sword practice in the morning.”
They wavered.
“When I said, name your price, I was thinking of silver,” Hilarion admitted.
“I wasn’t.” “All right,” he capitulated, “if that is your price, but you are obviously a lunatic, too.”
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And that is it. Every mention of either of them by name (although they do appear among the mass of attendants a few more times). But now tell me there's no story potential there. It's not just the chance to extrapolate their own relationship, but also the story of how each of them becomes respected by the other attendants at they get to know the King and change from despising him to serving him wholeheartedly
then there is only a tiny mention of Eugenides' attendant in conspiracy of kings, but some of Sophos's dialogue with Ion is also relevant
Conspiracy of Kings
When he was done, Hilarion arrived and introduced himself as one of the king's attendants.
He asked if we would be able to join the king and queen for an audience. I should have paid more attention, but I was still eating what I could from a plate of fruit and trying not to drip anything on my coat. I didn't realize until we had followed Hilarion through the narrow corridors to the main staircase that we were heading toward the megaron of the palace, the largest of the throne rooms. When we reached the doorway, we could hear the quiet rustling of the crowd beyond, and when I looked past Hilarion, I could see only a narrow aisle open in the center of the room....
....if I could have, I would have signaled Hilarion and waited until a less public moment to talk with Attolia and the new Attolis, but it was too late.
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The men in uniform were obviously the king's guards. The others were like Hilarion, Sounis assumed, more of the king's companions. They were attractive in the way only the very well heeled can be. Trained in all the arts of riding, shooting, fighting, dancing, and clever court dialogue, their kind had intimidated him for years, and Sophos, now Sounis, quailed at the idea of surrounding himself with such companions.
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"Your Majesty?" Hilarion spoke from the doorway, ushering Sounis into the room, where Eugenides waited....
....When the king of Sounis was gone, Eugenides's attendants, waiting in the guardroom, heard the wine cup smash.
Philologos stood, saying wearily, "I'll clean it up," and went to fetch a cloth.
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They parted ways, and the magus and Sounis, led by Attolis's attendant Hilarion, made their way back to their rooms.
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After she had been announced, but before Hilarion could introduce Sounis, Eddis had raised her hand to silence the attendant and wordlessly withdrawn.
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At his own door, Sounis said to the attendant, "I am sorry to keep you away from your king."
"As you have noticed," said Ion, "he will not have missed me. We are merely for ornamentation, like the king's coats, his boots, and his embroidered sashes."
Sounis said, "Gen's very fond of his boots," and then, when Ion smiled painfully, wished he hadn't.
"Not even that, then," Ion murmured as he opened the door to Sounis's suite of rooms. "Verix is waiting for you and will attend you until morning."
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"And your attendants?" Sounis asked. "Every one another Ambiades," said Gen, referring to the traitor who had betrayed them both when they followed the magus in pursuit of Hamiathes's Gift. "I'd had some hope for Philologos," Gen admitted, "but Sejanus won that hand neatly."
Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?"
Sounis couldn't argue with that. "Perhaps you can bring out better in them?"
Eugenides shook his head. "I pulled the carpet out from under them very thoroughly. They will not cross me, but they won't love me, either. I am not Eddis. People do not hand me their hearts."
Sounis wondered. He would have given Eugenides his heart on a toothpick, if asked. He remembered Ion's obvious wince at being rated somewhat less significant to Gen than his boots.
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Sounis waited.
"I did arrange the meeting with Zenia that the ambassador used to his advantage, and I will have to inform the king."
"And what will he do?"
"Send me away," said Ion. "This is one too many mistakes to forgive."
"You would prefer to stay?"
Ion shrugged at the irony of his situation. "I would."
"You could apologize," Sounis suggested. "He has a soft spot for idiots. He's always been very kind to me."
Ion shook his head. "I do not think he has any such soft spot for me, Your Majesty."....
..... Ion unexpectedly smiled. "I would be gratified to serve Your Majesty," he said sincerely.
"You would rather serve Eugenides," said Sounis. "Only tell him so, and I will have to find someone else to keep an eye on all my new finery."
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Conversationally, Eugenides said, "What are you doing rescuing my attendants from their own folly?"
"Did you let him go?"
"I'm still thinking about it, shocked as I am to find you raiding my overelegant lapdogs for your own companions."
"I astonished myself," said Sounis. "I might perhaps have been prejudiced in my earlier judgment of them."
Eugenides popped a grape into his mouth and said seriously, "I will rethink my own judgments, then."
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He had arrived at the palace late the night before and had risen early in the morning, expecting to find no one but the two honorary royal guardsmen and his own personal guard in his anteroom. Instead he found Ion, the attendant of the king of Attolia, waiting by a bench against the wall.
"You're still here, then?" asked Sounis, in surprise and pleasure.
"Yes, Your Majesty. My king thought that you might wish to dress with particular care this morning. There will be an official reception in a few hours." Ion was smiling. They both knew that Attolis hadn't been referring just to the ceremony planned for the day.