“Baron Cletus is next door. Put them there.”

“Ah,” said Ornon diplomatically. “Our engineers have observed that there is a gorge which makes that posting tactically . . . compromised.” It made the posting tactically useless, as it separated Baron Cletus’s land from every major travel route. Costis had been listening while all this had been explained in detail. He had caught back a sigh, not looking forward to hearing it all again, but he was spared by the king’s whim.

Eugenides waved his hand and said airily, “Build a bridge.”

There was much surreptitious eye rolling, but the king had been asked for his decision, he’d made it, and it had to be taken seriously. The discussion turned to the logistics of bridge building. Afterward, as they traveled together toward the royal apartments, Eugenides had prided himself on his performance. “Very clever,” the queen had said dryly. Costis noticed that he never saw the assistant to the Ambassador from Eddis after that. No one addressed the king anymore, and he went back to woolgathering.

He was certainly not paying attention to a report on the organization of an upcoming trip that the royal retinue would take at harvesttime when the door behind the throne opened and Relius slipped between the guards posted there. He came in at the back of the room so that he could step up to the thrones from behind and lean down to whisper into the queen’s ear. Like the Captain of the Guard, he continued to address himself only to Attolia unless forced to speak to Eugenides.

In response to Relius’s message, Attolia dismissed most of the court. The few people scattered through the large room waited in near silence, the only sound the light footsteps of the Secretary of the Archives as he crossed the open marble floor to the door of an anteroom. The heels on his elegant leather shoes tapped. The short cape that hung from his shoulders billowed against a coat even more expansively embroidered than the king’s. The guards at the door opened it on his signal, and he stepped inside, reappearing as an escort to a slow-moving party. One man was carried in a chair, and another, with his eyes bandaged, was led by the hand. The third man walked on his own but with a shuffling gait that suggested an injury.

They came before the queen, and slowly the people left in the throne room drew around them. Costis’s drowsiness fled.

“They were arrested simultaneously, or very nearly,” said Relius.

“In the same place?”

“No, Your Majesty. One in Ismet, one in Zabrisa, one in the capital.”

Zabrisa and Ismet were the names of Mede towns. Zabrisa, Costis knew, was on the coast. There was a map of the Mede Empire in the room where the king met with his Mede tutor, but Costis couldn’t recall seeing Ismet on it.

“Then the first arrested did not betray the others?” said the queen.

“No, Your Majesty. None of them even knew of the others.”

“Then you have a larger tear in your net.”

“I believe so. Immeasurably so, Your Majesty. There are sources who should have warned me by now of these events . . . had they been able.”

“I see,” said the queen. Attolia’s spies in the Mede Empire were strangely silent. Frightened into hiding, Costis guessed, or dead.

“Who betrays us, Relius?” asked Attolia.

“My Queen, I will know by this time tomorrow, I swear it.”

Attolia turned to the men before her. “How is it that you have returned if you were arrested by the Mede Emperor?”

“We are messengers, Your Majesty, from the emperor’s heir.”

“And your message?”

“He is preparing an army against you, Your Majesty. We were read the provisions for the forces, the levies of men, weapons, and food.”

“Fetch them chairs,” ordered the queen. When the two standing men had been gently cared for, seated in chairs and supported with pillows, she said, “Go on.”

“The armies he is gathering are vast, Your Majesty. The entire empire is directed against us.”

“The Continent has armies as well. They will not let us be so easily overrun.”

But the spy shook his head. “The Heir Apparent says to tell you that the Continent will not act on hearsay, nor act in time. His forces are spread across his empire, and he will keep them so until the navy is ready. He will deny that he intends to invade until he brings his army together at the harbor. Once they have swept over the Peninsula, the Greater Powers will have no easy means to evict them. The Heir says they won’t even try. They have their own battles to fight among themselves.”

“The next Emperor of the Mede is sure of himself, indeed, if he sends you back to me with messages of his intent. In my experience, patronoi, my opponent’s self-confidence is usually my best asset.”

“My family are okloi, Your Majesty. We have no land of our own,” the man said humbly.

The queen disagreed. “You have all three served Attolia well. There will be land for you. The secretary will see to it.” Relius escorted the men away.

When they were gone, the queen made no move to resume business. She stared into space. The king spoke at last.

“The Mede are returning sooner than you expected.”

“Not necessarily,” said the queen. “The old emperor still lives. The Heir cannot move until he takes the throne. He is consolidating his power more quickly than I had hoped, however.”

“Is it Nahuseresh pushing him?”

Attolia shook her head. “I am afraid it is his own desire motivating him. Relius says that Nahuseresh remains out of favor.”

“Yes. Relius.” The king paused. “Your master of spies is a liar, and this time he is lying,” the king said slowly, “to you.”

Attolia frowned, then almost imperceptibly shook her head.

“Have him arrested,” said the king. After another pause he added unequivocally, “Now.”

If he succeeds in having me killed, you could be the next Captain of the Guard. What, then, if the king destroyed Relius? Who would replace him?

Costis hardly breathed. The king hadn’t ordered the arrest himself, though he could have, but he had directed the queen to do so, in public. Now they would see if the queen could protect her own or not.

“Fetch Teleus,” she said, and a messenger hurried from the room.

You might not think he can act like a king, but he thinks he can.

They waited like a wax tableau. Costis wondered if others’ thoughts were racing silently in circles, as his were. The queen gave no indication what she was thinking. Not even her gaze shifted until Teleus was standing in front of her. Her husband was sovereign of Attolia, and her country was riddled with Eddis’s soldiers. She ordered the arrest of her secretary.

“There will be no mistakes made, Teleus,” warned the queen. “It will be done immediately.”

Once the captain had gone, they returned to the tableau. Time slid slowly past, and no one spoke, no one moved. They waited. The doors opened, but it was the Eddisian Ambassador. He bowed to the throne and moved quietly to a space along the wall. The doors opened again, and this time it was Teleus. He had his guards and, surrounded by them, the Secretary of the Archives. Stunned, the court turned back to the king. The truth was on Teleus’s face and on Relius’s. The Secretary of the Archives was guilty.