The Thief leaned close to the queen to speak almost in her ear. "From shadow queen to puppet queen in one rule," he whispered. "That's very impressiv… - Megan Whalen Turner

"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.

The dandified Attolian who had spoke, a patron, but not a baron by any means, glanced at the queen to see if she approved, but she was looking the other way. The king shrugged his shoulders slightly and said, "I could send you to ask them."
The man laughed. "It would be a long trip, Your Majesty. I would so much rather hear the answer from you."
"Oh, the trip would be much quicker than you think," said the king pleasantly. "Most of my male cousins are dead."
The silence that had begun at the head table had spread to the edges of the hall. The Attolian's smile grew uncertain.
The king didn't smile back. Those who understood shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and the Baron Xorcheus among them.
They thought it was how a king behaved.