Ion had wandered down the colonnade to give the king of Sounis his privacy. Or so Sounis had assumed. When he caught a glimpse of bright fabric moving between the garden beds opposite, he leaned forward and tracked its progress. The woman was moving toward the corner where Ion was waiting. When Ion stepped from the colonnade down into the garden, he disappeared from sight, but Sounis’s ears were good, and he heard the murmur of greeting.

Sounis sat back with a smile. He was jealous. Were it not for the inconvenient meeting he was presently avoiding, he would have been walking with Eddis in the far more spacious and private gardens behind the palace. His smile faded the instant he saw the ambassador for the Mede Empire approaching from the opposite direction.

“Please, Your Majesty,” said the Mede politely, “do not rise. I have no desire to interrupt your contemplations.”

“Won’t you join me?” said Sounis diplomatically, his heart sinking.

“If you can spare a moment of your time?” Wrapping his robes around his knees, Melheret settled beside him on the stone bench.

“Certainly,” said Sounis. Impossible to say no when he was already sparing the time on his own self-indulgence.

“The king of Attolia keeps you close,” said the Mede, by way of an explanation for his unusual approach.

“He is a good friend,” said Sounis.

“Or perhaps just a jealous one,” said Melheret gently. “His invitations take precedence and leave little room for you to confer with others . . . others who may have information of great use to you.”

Sounis wondered if he was supposed to be surprised. Of course the constant meetings with the Attolians prevented even more awkward meetings with the ambassadors of the Peninsula and the Continent. Sounis had sent the magus to deal with those ambassadors, with careful instructions to make no commitments. The Mede he had meticulously avoided since their first exchange over the remchik.

It was as Attolia had said, one didn’t want to make a misstep and start a war. Sounis wanted nothing to do with the Medes, but no sensible ruler offended another’s ambassador on purpose. He just hoped his uncharitable opinion of Melheret didn’t show.

“You don’t like me, Your Majesty. I see my cause is lost.”

Oh, gods, save me from having to protest my undying affection for the Mede, thought Sounis. “No, Ambassador, not at all,” he said aloud. He might as well put his worries to good use. “I am unsure of my course, I will tell you. I—” He stopped short of saying he was still tracing designs in the plasterwork at night instead of sleeping. “Truly, I do not know what is for the best. Attolia counsels violence and I—I want to believe that I can bring my barons together peacefully, that I can convince them to honor me as their king without defeating them first. The cost to my countrymen in gold, in lives, will mean that even as I win, I will count it. It will be years before Sounis can recover what it has lost.” To say it aloud was to be overwhelmed by it; waging a war to make peace seemed a sick sort of joke played by the gods.

“You are no butchering monster, Your Majesty,” said the Mede. “Anyone can see that. If you will forgive me, let me say how I honor you. No, do not blush; you must accept your compliments.”

Sounis’s head was bowed but not to hide a blush. “I pray the gods will guide me on my path,” he said, wishing that a convenient hole would open in the stone pavers under his feet and that he could drop through it, or better yet, drop Melheret.

“You are a man of good faith, and I know you will not offend the gods,” said Melheret. It was an obvious preamble to a larger point, but fast-approaching footsteps announced Ion, who swept up to where they were seated.

“Ambassador,” he said, with diplomatic calm, “I must have forgotten your appointment with His Majesty; please forgive me, and let me ask you to arrange another. His Majesty is due to be on his way to his tailors now.” He looked at the Mede with steely determination, and the Mede, unruffled, rose to his feet.

“Please forgive my forwardness in greeting you here, Your Majesty. I have had news from Sounis that I wished to impart, but now is not the time.”

Ion watched him go with what looked like loathing. Then he bowed to Sounis. “Your appointment, Your Majesty?”

“Please.”

Sounis followed his borrowed attendant back to his rooms, thinking over what Melheret had said in parting, that he had news from Sounis. It was bait, and Sounis would have to decide if he would take it. If he did, it would mean another meeting, arranged in a more official way, with the Mede. If he met with the Mede, he might then be expected to meet with all the ambassadors, the prospect of which gave him a headache. He was beginning to think he would never leave Attolia.

“Ion.”

“Your Majesty?” said the attendant. He had delivered Sounis to his own anteroom and had asked permission to withdraw. “Is there something else you require?”

“A word,” said Sounis. He walked through his reception room, where his tailors waited, to his bedchamber without looking back to see if Ion followed.

“Close the door,” he said.

When he heard it shut, he turned around.

“Your Majesty, I apologize,” Ion said.

“Did you arrange the meeting with Melheret?”

“No.”

Sounis waited.

“I did arrange the meeting with Zenia that the ambassador used to his advantage, and I will have to inform the king.”

“And what will he do?”

“Send me away,” said Ion. “This is one too many mistakes to forgive.”

“You would prefer to stay?”

Ion shrugged at the irony of his situation. “I would.”

“You could apologize,” Sounis suggested. “He has a soft spot for idiots. He’s always been very kind to me.”

Ion shook his head. “I do not think he has any such soft spot for me, Your Majesty.”

“Ion,” Sounis said, coming to a decision even he found surprising, “tell him that if he releases you, I would like you to accompany me.”

“Accompany you?”

“To Sounis, as my attendant,” he said.

Ion’s eyebrows rose. “You do me an honor I don’t deserve, Your Majesty.”

Sounis’s insecurities nibbled at him. It was an honor Ion probably didn’t want, either, but Ion unexpectedly smiled. “I would be gratified to serve Your Majesty,” he said sincerely.

“You would rather serve Eugenides,” said Sounis. “Only tell him so, and I will have to find someone else to keep an eye on all my new finery.”

The dinner the next night was formal, all the court at tables, with Sounis and Eddis and the Attolias at the head table with the magus and Eddis’s ambassador. All the other ambassadors were carefully placed beyond the range of polite conversation, to Sounis’s relief. He had declined to meet again with the Mede. At last the talking was done, and the court dined in celebration of a treaty concluded between Sounis and Attolia.

Conversationally, Eugenides said, “What are you doing rescuing my attendants from their own folly?”

“Did you let him go?”

“I’m still thinking about it, shocked as I am to find you raiding my overelegant lapdogs for your own companions.”