Sounis obediently drank, but he declined another serving, holding the cup too close to allow Melheret to fill it without obvious effort.

Melheret said, “It is my task, given me by my emperor, to repair the battered ties between us and Attolia and encourage her to join a community of civilized nations.”

“Not prepare for an invasion?” asked Sounis. “I thought your emperor was gathering his armies and building the ships that would carry them to our ‘small’ peninsula. Did he not send Attolia a message to say so?”

Melheret’s head tilted, and his brow furrowed, as if Sounis’s words had been garbled or as if he’d said the carpet on the floor had come to life. “Excuse me?”

Sounis rubbed his face and pinched his numb lips, afraid that his words had been garbled. “Your emperor plans to invade with a huge army and has sent word of it to Attolia.”

Melheret shook his head. “Why, if he meant to invade, would he have warned Attolia of his plans?” Melheret put a companionable hand on Sounis’s knee and shook it. “Think, Your Majesty. She lies. That is the obvious explanation for every story she tells. Yes, my emperor sent home her spies; would any ruler not do the same? She was embarrassed at being caught in such perfidy and lies to cover her shame. Is this any ally for Sounis? See what she offers you in exchange for your humiliating surrender. A paltry few mercenaries, a handful of gold. My emperor is a far, far better ally if your barons continue to rebel, as indeed, they may not. They, too, perhaps were unaware that you yet lived and were their king. You do not need to invade your own home to secure it. It is my belief that your barons will return to you with open arms.”

“And if they don’t?” asked a skeptical Sounis.

“Then from my emperor you will receive gold and the armies to secure your throne. He will not demand oaths of loyalty.”

“Won’t he? What did he demand of Suninex?”

Again Melheret looked puzzled. “Do you mean Sheninesh? Sheninesh is our ally of many years and shares in our prosperity. They choose to accept our governance because they see it as a benefit, not as a yoke. You may have read accounts that say otherwise, but if they cannot even tell you the name of a country, how accurate can they be?”

Sounis remembered an old argument. “Eddis,” he said.

“Eddis? What about Eddis?”

“It isn’t pronounced that way.”

Melheret guided him back to the topic. “You count on the honesty and the support of your friend Eugenides, but it is she, not he, who rules Attolia. And is he in fact your friend? He does not seem so.”

“He is king,” Sounis said, holding on truculently to his friendship with Eugenides, spurred by the Mede’s skepticism to more conviction than he really felt.

“He is a thief, his wife, a murderess. I ask again, are these allies for Sounis?”

Sounis nodded agreeably and watched the room spin. He thought of a number of things that he could say, but decided that the wisest course would be to say nothing at all. “What is the flavor in the remchik?” he asked.

“It is made with sreet oil.”

“It’s very good. If you will excuse me.” He stood, nodded again to Melheret, and left. Ion waited for him outside Melheret’s rooms and silently led him away.

At his own door, Sounis said to the attendant, “I am sorry to keep you away from your king.”

“As you have noticed,” said Ion, “he will not have missed me. We are merely for ornamentation, like the king’s coats, his boots, and his embroidered sashes.”

Sounis said, “Gen’s very fond of his boots,” and then, when Ion smiled painfully, wished he hadn’t.

“Not even that, then,” Ion murmured as he opened the door to Sounis’s suite of rooms. “Verix is waiting for you and will attend you until morning.”

While Sounis accepted Verix’s help in getting undressed and crawled into bed to sleep off the remchik, the king of Attolia was visiting the queen in the royal apartments.

“He has had his meeting with the Mede,” he said moodily.

She answered, “You know I do not see the wisdom of pushing him into Melheret’s arms.”

“If I am taking his country, I’ll take it. I’m not going to charm it away.”

“You’re being a fool,” said Attolia. She was sitting on a low-backed chair as Aglaia removed the pins from her carefully braided hair. There was more she would have said, but she held her tongue. Not because Aglaia was there but because she doubted words would have had any effect.

“No one would argue with that,” said Eddis to the magus. She had invited him to her apartments while Sounis met with the king of Attolia. On the far side of the palace from the queen of Attolia, the magus had unwittingly echoed her opinion of Eugenides.

Eddis said, “If I bite my tongue anymore with the two of them, it will come off.”

“How embarrassing,” murmured the magus, and Eddis snorted indelicately.

“I’ve missed you since you left,” she said. “I am very glad you survived the return to Sounis. I don’t suppose Sophos’s uncle welcomed you with open arms.”

“He did not,” said the magus. “But I have always been useful to him. He assumed, as I did, that Sophos had died in the kidnapping attempt and that my loyalties would no longer be unfortunately divided.” He thought of the dead king, who had sweated his life away, leaving no one to regret his end. “I admit that my faith in his invitation was not perfect, but I am glad I accepted it. He was an astonishingly angry man, but he had many admirable qualities.” He glanced up at Eddis and said, “He could be quite charming.”

“Agape might have made something of him,” said Eddis. “I could not. Have you met Relius?”

“Oh, Relius and I know each other well.”

“I meant face to face,” said Eddis, and it was the magus’s turn to smile. Relius had been the queen of Attolia’s master of spies, and he and the magus had crossed paths in the past.

“You confuse me with Sounis’s baron Antimonus,” said the magus. “It was he who was the official spy master. Relius and I were not adversaries.”

“Oh,” said Eddis, and followed it with “hmm.”

“I have indeed been introduced to the former secretary of the archives,” said the magus repressively.

“What do you think?” asked Eddis.

“Damaged,” said the magus. “Attolia will not be able to use him again.”

“I think he is more valuable now as a friend to them both than as spy master, but I agree that the Medes won that round.”

“Let us hope they win no more,” said the magus, setting down his glass and rising. “I must return to my king.”

“One last thing,” said Eddis. “Eugenides asks you to bring Sophos to training in the morning. Gen has invited Melheret to spar.”

“Why didn’t Attolis ask Sounis himself?” asked the magus, then lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Never mind, I know why. Yes, I will bring my king in the morning.”

Sounis was fully dressed but not fully awake. The magus had roused him at dawn and explained the king’s invitation, but he was still rubbing his eyes, trying to rid himself of the vestiges of sleep and the remchik when he heard noises out in the reception room. He expected Verix and another attendant but found the king of Attolia and his entire retinue when he opened his chamber door.