That evening Attolia dismissed Chloe from her attendants, ordering the girl sent home to her father for no more than a clumsy accident. She had dropped a perfume spoon onto a tiny amphora, and the amphora had shattered. Attolia had risen to her feet, her rage making her seem as tall as the immortal goddess she had taken as a model. Chloe had stuttered an apology, but the queen had dismissed her and then left the room, stalking to her bedchamber without a backward look.

When she was gone, Chloe had dissolved into tears.

“Why should she marry him?” Chloe cried. “Why should she marry him if he makes her so angry?”

“She would be as angry at any man,” one of the other attendants said.

“If only he were a man,” said another. “If only they didn’t humiliate her by forcing her to marry a boy.”

“Nahuseresh—” said Chloe.

“Nahuseresh was a fool,” someone interrupted her.

“And what is Eugenides?” Chloe asked bitterly.

Only Phresine had no comment to make as she tacked the sleeve into a dress. Chloe returned to her father’s house the next day. The remaining women glared ever more balefully at Eugenides, drawing their ranks around their besieged queen. Only Phresine dared to say to the silent Attolia as she slid flowers into her braided hair before an evening of music, “Least said, soonest mended, Your Majesty, isn’t the advice for every occasion.”

Attolia turned her head, dislodging a flower, to stare at Phresine, and Phresine carefully replaced the blossom.

It had been three weeks, and the two countries were no closer to a treaty. Eddis was beginning to worry that having come so far, Attolia might restart hostilities. Her face was so expressionless, her conversation so polite and difficult to read it was impossible to guess what she was thinking.

“She won’t give up Ephrata,” she told Eugenides as they walked in the afternoon on one of the palace terraces overlooking the garden. Within the palace she had dismissed her honor guard, and they were alone.

It was one of Eddis’s demands that the small coastal village of Ephrata become part of her country to provide an access to the sea for her trade, which she had never had before. Ephrata was a poor port but better than none, and she was adamant about having it.

Attolia was as adamant about refusing to give it up. There were other points of contention, and little progress was being made except between the ministers of trade. Those two were in complete accord and happy to spend their days discussing the exchange of pig iron and wool for olives and wine.

“Your father isn’t helping. I gather he sits at the table eyeing the Attolians—you know the way he does.” Eddis pulled her face into a stony glare.

“You must have relayed Attolia’s threat to cut my other hand off. I’m not sure he saw the humor in the situation.”

“I am not sure I did,” admitted Eddis. “I don’t mean to sound like Hespira’s mother, but I wish you would come home, Gen.”

“No.”

Eddis went on hesitantly. “Her barons are part of the problem. They are not pleased at the idea of an Eddisian king. If they had a king, and were getting an Eddisian queen, it would be the cement of a treaty and unobjectionable. As it is, they don’t like being ruled to begin with, and they like less the idea of a foreigner.”

“Are you saying it would be easier to reach an accord with Attolia if we didn’t hold her to marriage?”

“It might be,” said Eddis.

“And how would you secure the treaty?”

“I don’t know,” said Eddis. “I’m beginning to see that I don’t know anything about Attolia, really. I hoped you would.”

“She won’t speak to me,” said Eugenides. “Just formalities.”

“You talk when you’re dancing,” said Eddis.

“More platitudes,” Eugenides said.

“Last night?” Eddis asked. When the queen and Eugenides had returned from the dancing, the queen had been rigid with anger.

Eugenides stopped walking and leaned against the low wall dividing the terrace from the garden. He crossed his arms and looked at his feet. “She was telling me about the history of the palace. Quite a lecture, in fact. I told her my distant grandfather had been one of the architects.”

“Really?” murmured Eddis.

“Oh, yes, that’s why we know so much about the building. There were drawings in your library until the magus came and I moved them out. I told Attolia he’d designed parts of Sounis’s megaron as well. The good parts, I said. She looked at me as if I’d turned into a snake.”

“I thought I asked you to thank her for her kind efforts to entertain us.”

“I did that next. She said there would be a hunting party leaving this morning; perhaps I’d like to join it.”

“And?” Eddis asked, looking at his arm. He hadn’t ridden well enough to hunt on horseback even before losing his hand.

“I told her I’d already been hunted in Attolia, thank you very much.”

“Oh, Gen,” sighed Eddis.

Attolia had returned to her rooms after the dancing and dismissed her attendants immediately. As they left, she had said acidly to Phresine that she thought “Least said, soonest mended” might have been exactly the advice for the situation. Once the women had gone, she had pulled the flowers from her braids herself and thrown them to the floor, muttering, “Damn him, damn him, damn him,” as each blossom dropped.

But it wasn’t the Thief she was angry at, or Phresine. What a fool she was to offer hunting to a man with one hand. What a fool to fall in love with someone after she had cut his hand off. Well, she might be fool enough to love him; she wasn’t fool enough to believe he loved her. She’d seen the look in his father’s eyes, and if she didn’t see it in Eugenides’s eyes, then he was better at hiding it, that was all.

Standing on the terrace, looking out at the garden, Eugenides admitted, “I thought this was going to end like a fireside story. The goddess of love waves her scepter, and we live happily ever after.” He shook his head. “The only worthwhile members of this court despise me. The most despicable can’t stop chuckling under their breaths, and if it were up to the queen’s attendants, I would have been hanging upside down for weeks now.”

“Every day I have more sympathy for Hespira’s mother. I’d rather see you go live in a hole in the ground of the Sacred Mountain.”

“It isn’t rational, is it? Do you think the gods have afflicted me?”

Eddis raised her eyebrows.

“No,” said Eugenides, shaking his head. “If it is an affliction, it is as you said: The gods know me so well they can predict my behavior. They don’t control it. They could know I would love her, but they don’t make me. I’ve watched her for years, you know. All those times when you didn’t know where I went, mostly it was to Attolia.”

“Did your grandfather know?”

“He knew I was fascinated by her. She’s like a prisoner inside stone walls, and every day the walls get a little thicker, the doorway narrower.”

“And?” Eddis prompted.

“Well,” said Eugenides, “it’s a challenge.”