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 coolly, “You were fed.”

Eugenides looked up at her, and Attolia felt transparent, as if her mask were gone, as if he could see her heart and know that a moment before it had been stopped by grief.

“That’s true, a girl brought me dinner,” Eugenides said thoughtfully. “She was very pretty.” After a pause he added, “And very kind.”

Eddis had heard of the conversation between the Thief and Attolia on the relative merits of beauty and kindness. She winced at the intended rebuke, but Attolia only pressed her lips together in a thin smile and said, “It’s not too late for you to end up chained to a wall.”

“Oh, someone would rescue me,” Eugenides said, rolling his eyes innocently. “And while I was there, that lovely girl could bring my dinner. I think,” he said, with his head propped by his arm, looking into the middle distance, “I think when I’m king”—he repeated himself slowly—“when I am king, she can be my first mistress.”

Attolia snapped, “You have any mistresses and I’ll cut your other hand off.”

Beside her, Eddis stiffened. Attolia raised her chin to meet the look that her seneschal had said would melt lead. Eddis opened her mouth, but before she could put her thoughts into words, Eugenides laughed. Laughing, he dropped his head onto the bed; then he looked up to grin at Attolia.

She looked back at him, and her cheeks flushed. She said, with sincerity, “You are a poisonous little snake.”

“Yes,” said Eugenides. Stiff, he climbed up to sit on the bed, running his fingers through his hair and yawning. “Yes. And I want out of this room.”

Attolia leaned over him to catch his chin under her hand. She felt the barest flinch before he lifted his eyes to meet hers. He had looked so young when he was asleep, and hardly older once he was awake. He needed a nursery, not a bride, Attolia thought bitterly, though she herself had been engaged and married even younger. “You need a bath,” she said, “and someone to see to your arm. You can wait here a little longer until I send an attendant.”

But she didn’t let go of his chin. She held him, looking into his face. He reached up to touch very lightly the earring in her ear, a square-cut ruby on a gold backing that matched the design of the ruby-studded band across her forehead. She’d been wearing the earrings when she bent over him in his chains in the megaron.

“Do you like them?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Attolia. She straightened and went to the door.

“Will you send that nice girl who brought my dinner?” Eugenides called.

Attolia lifted her eyebrow. “No,” she said, and was gone.

Eddis turned back to Eugenides, who was rubbing his cheek where Attolia’s hand had rested and looked suddenly bleak.

“I think,” he said slowly. “I think I didn’t think all this out.”

“Marrying her, you mean?” Eddis sat down next to him, concerned.

“Nooo,” he said, and he looked over at her. In his eyes Eddis saw a hint of something she couldn’t remember having seen there before. Panic.

“I didn’t think about being king,” he said, his voice hoarse, either from worry or from the bruises around his neck.

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?”

“No,” said Eugenides, looking sullenly at his feet. “I knew that I had to be king. I just didn’t think about it.”

“All those clothes,” Eddis remarked thoughtfully. “Ceremonies. Duties. Obligations.”

“People staring at me,” Eugenides said, “all the time.”

Eddis eyed him quietly for a minute or two while he contemplated, perhaps for the first time, the responsibilities of a king. “Attolia had no treaties with the Mede,” she said abruptly. “Nor did she want one. Eugenides . . .” She waited until he lifted his head. “We could make a treaty without a marriage.”

“No,” he said.

“You are sure?”

“Yes,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE SENESCHAL OF EPHRATA, THE captain of the guard, several barons both Eddisian and Attolian, and various members of both households waited where the corridor came to the main atrium. Attolia looked them over. The Eddisians were certainly a barbarous lot—no wonder the Mede underestimated them—but they looked quite comfortable waiting at the edge of the atrium. Her own seneschal and guard captain as well as her barons looked distinctly unsettled, as if the ceiling might fall at any moment.

They were twisting between two worries. Her seneschal and guard had done something they knew she wouldn’t like, while the barons worried that she’d sold out to the Eddisians as they thought she had sold out to the Mede. Attolia looked thoughtfully at Teleus and then sighed.

“You let Nahuseresh escape,” she said.

Teleus, used to her insight, just nodded.

“You weren’t watching that slave of his, the secretary.”

“We weren’t,” Teleus admitted. “The slave released him, and in the confusion they managed to reach the outer stairs to the harbor. They swam to a Mede ship moored in the harbor and escaped. I’m very sorry.”

“Well, you should be,” said the queen, but to Teleus’s great relief she wasn’t angry. “I wanted a ransom for him but will have to be satisfied without one. If they had to swim to their ship, they must have left many interesting papers behind. I’ll want to see those.”

Teleus coughed.

“You said, ‘In the confusion they reached the stairs to the harbor,’” the queen prompted.

“They set fire to their rooms.”

“Of course,” said the queen, and Teleus dropped his eyes in embarrassment.

“Well,” Attolia said, “I hope the damage wasn’t too severe. Baron Ephrata won’t be happy to have had us as guests.” The baron Ephrata lived in another of his several megarons and barely noticed that Ephrata existed.

Attolia turned to the seneschal. “Find someone to escort Her Majesty of Eddis and her Thief to better quarters and see that they are attended. No doubt you will regret the suite of rooms my captain has just allowed to be burned to ash, but I’m sure you will manage for the night. Tomorrow Eddis and her personal attendants will accompany us to the capital.”

“No, Your Majesty.”

The voice was a firm but quiet one and it took a moment for Attolia to locate the speaker: Eugenides’s father, of course. Eddis’s minister of war. She stared at him. Rarely did anyone say no to her and never with such confidence.

“The queen of Eddis does not ride unescorted to your capital.”

“She isn’t bringing her army with her,” retorted Attolia.