[Julie Steiner]

I've been reading Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series to my nieces via Zoom. We're near the end of the third book, my favorite, The King of Attolia. They loved this bit:

The meeting on wheat production seemed to be a recitation of the yield of every wheat field in the country in the last year. Costis tried unsuccessfully to pay attention. They were a half hour into the list when the king asked, "What's the difference in the wheat?"

"Excuse me, Your Majesty?"

"The different kinds of wheat you keep mentioning. What's the difference?"

The two men looked at each other. The king waited, leaning back in his chair with one booted ankle crossed over his knee.

"Pilades would be most helpful. If Your Majesty would excuse us?"

The king waved one hand, and the two men hurried away and returned with Pilades, a bent older man with wisping white hair and an expression of delight on his wrinkled face.

"If Your Majesty would like to see, I have samples here." He reached into a variety of small bags that he was carrying and dumped handful after handful of grain onto the table. Dust rose in a cloud, and the king winced, waving his hand in front of his face. Pilades didn't notice. He called the king's attention to the formation of the seeds, to the number of the seeds, to their shape. He dumped more piles onto the table and explained the advantages of each, which one yielded the largest crop, which survived the most inclement weather, which could be planted summer or fall. Many facts Costis knew, having been raised on a farm. Some were new, and the lecture, once begun, was clearly unstoppable.

The king, who normally wandered away to a window during meetings like this, sat immobilized. He had little choice. If he so much as shifted in his seat, Pilades moved in closer, hovering over him with zeal. No doubt he rarely got a chance to expound to this extent and was reluctant to lose the king's attention. The king made a few abortive attempts to escape but was ultimately forced to sit and listen.

Over the king's head, the counselors and the attendants exchanged glances of awed delight. When Pilades finally wound down, the king, his face blank, thanked him. He thanked the two men he'd begun the meeting with and suggested that perhaps they could finish their business at another meeting, or better—they could just give him a written summary and he would look it over sometime himself. They nodded; the king rose and escaped into the hall. Once there, with the door closed, he put his face in his hand.

"Thank gods I didn't ask about fertilizer," he said.