Attolia had looked down at him and said sharply, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn’t save him. He almost swallowed the olive in his mouth unchewed.

As he stared, Attolia had brushed Eugenides’s cheek almost shyly before sending him with a wave back to his own couch.

“One cannot toss ambassadors back like bad fish,” said Eugenides. “You treat them with care, or you’ll find you’ve committed an act of war.”

“If we have one of their ambassadors, the Medes, in turn, have one of ours,” said Attolia.

Sounis knew from the magus that Attolia’s spy network had been devastatingly compromised. He understood why they were willing to accept the risk of having a Mede ambassador sowing dissent in their palace if it meant they had some representative of their own in the Mede Empire.

“We would like to know where the Mede emperor is gathering his army, his navy,” Attolia said. “The Great Powers of the Continent, and those on the Peninsula, don’t believe he is raising one. They insist that it is saber rattling. Which,” she conceded, “it might be. The emperor is dying, and dying men rarely start wars with their last breaths. But I believe that his heir has already seized power, and a conquest is a reliable means to cement his authority.”

“Only if he can trust his generals not to turn on him once they come home as heroes,” said Sounis.

“In this case, his general is his brother Nahuseresh,” said Eugenides. “Civil unrest from that quarter is more than we could hope for.”

Eddis said, “The Continent wants proof of an attack before they take any risks to counter it. They don’t want to offend the Mede Empire and so precipitate the war we all are trying to avoid. Though they would of course be willing to stage troops here,” she added drily.

Sounis winced. Small countries like Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia were as vulnerable to the “aid” of the Continent as to the conquest of the Medes. In his lifetime Sounis had seen small city-states on the Peninsula absorbed by their larger neighbors in the guise of “safekeeping.”

Sounis sensed that it would be impolite to ask outright if Eddis had any spies across the Middle Sea. Her spies more probably were deployed closer to home, in Attolia. Or in Sounis, he supposed. He resolved to ask the magus for more information about his own sources of information.

“The ambassadors of several states have conveyed their sovereigns’ offers to improve megarons on our coast and to move their soldiers, under their own command, into the fortified positions,” said Eugenides. “As opposed to loaning us the money to fortify our own borders.”

“What we have received most,” said Attolia, “is lectures warning us not to be provoking, that we risk losing the support of the sovereigns on the Peninsula and the Continent.”

“If the Medes are going to attack, what point is there in not being provoking?” asked Sounis.

Attolia replied. “So long as the emperor publicly denies any animosity and continues to send an ambassador to my court and yours, the Continent can continue to do nothing.”

“But why?” asked Sounis. “Why the wishful thinking?”

Eugenides shrugged his lack of an answer. “They may be too busy with instability closer to home.”

“So we walk on eggshells?” said Sounis. “Hoping that if the Mede does attack, the Continent and the greater Peninsula will come to our aid in time rather than allow the emperor a foothold on this side of the Middle Sea?”

“Indeed,” said Attolia. “And we pray that no one on this little peninsula of ours will offer them the foothold for free, which your rebels may be doing as we speak. You and your magus in your overcautious treaty writing are wasting time you don’t have. You need to find your most significant adversary, and you need to destroy him, annihilate him root and branch. If you can capture him alive and have him publicly ganched, so much the better.”

Sounis looked away.

Eugenides looked into his wine cup. Eddis met Attolia’s gaze, but offered her no support.

Her chin up, Attolia said, “You think I am overly harsh. You inherited your throne free and clear. And you”—she turned on her husband—“took one readymade. Sounis has little in common with either of you.”

“He is an appointed heir,” said Gen, speaking into his folded arms, as he reclined back on his couch with the toes of his boots tapping.

Attolia shook her head. “They will deny that in a heartbeat, making sparks from his father’s illegitimacy if they choose.”

Gen said blandly, “It isn’t Sophos who is illegitimate.”

“He has the magus,” said Eddis, turning the conversation back to the point.

“The magus is not much beloved in Sounis these days,” Attolia responded.

“There is my father,” said Sounis.

Attolia looked at him. “And are you certain he will support you when he learns that you have sworn loyalty to Attolis?”

Sounis said nothing, staring down at his wine.

Later they rose together and made their way toward one of the larger throne rooms where there would be music and dancing. The kings of Attolia and Sounis fell a little way back.

“Is she right?” Sounis asked bluntly.

Attolis shrugged. “She is right that I took the throne she secured. Eddis has her barons in the palm of her hand, and they would follow her cheerfully through the gates of the underworld, but Attolia is not wrong that my cousin inherited her throne on the strength of my father’s right arm. He swore that she, and no one else, would be crowned. Only Attolia has faced a revolt in her own house.”

“Then you think I should take her advice?”

“I know that if you don’t look for an alternative, Sophos, you certainly won’t find one.”

The next day, as Sounis crossed a spacious flower-filled courtyard, Ion asked him if he would like to take a seat on a bench in the cool colonnade that overlooked the garden.

“Perhaps Your Majesty would like to rest a moment?” Ion suggested. Sounis was on his way to another appointment with his tailors, and not looking forward to it. He’d thought they were finished with their work, but Eugenides had ordered an armored breastplate—out of sheer perversity, Sounis was certain. The tailors wanted to be sure the fabric of the embroidered coat he would wear under the armor wouldn’t bunch or chafe. Sounis had little patience left for the tailors, and he said yes, he would like to delay just a moment to look at the flowers.

He was grateful for all that had taken place in Attolia. He could have been in a dungeon, or still at work in Hanaktos’s fields, or dead, for that matter. He wasn’t. He was sitting with an appearance of ease in the shade, but he was growing desperate to return to Sounis. He had been weeks in Attolia without news of his mother or sisters. His father had reached the border with Melenze; he knew that much but could only guess at the activity of his rebel barons. The queen’s warning about the passage of time had been unnecessary. Sounis’s every worry pricked him like the tailors’ pins. He sat for a moment to pick through them and to consider the queen of Attolia’s troubling advice.