She heard the king of Attolia arrive. She didn’t turn, and sensed rather than saw him draw near. From behind, his arms closed around her, and she was wrapped inside the long cloak he wore. When she grasped its edges, he used his hand to reach up and adjust the cloth of the capacious hood, creating a space no larger than the two of them.

“Did you send Attolia to me at the farewell?” Eddis asked.

“Not I,” said Gen quietly. “The magus. I thought you knew that you loved him—the two of you have been like magnets drawing ever nearer to each other since you met—but the magus was concerned. He thought the grief of leave-taking might surprise you.”

“I feel very stupid.” She leaned back into his embrace. “‘I will look forward to hearing of your future adventures.’” She shook her head in disgust and sniffed. “I should have had something better to say, something . . . more appropriate.”

He couldn’t disagree. Sounis had clearly hoped for some message of her affection to carry with him. “You could write him a letter,” he said. “A fast horse will catch him before he reaches the pass.”

“It’s not a letter I want to send after him,” she said. “It’s fifteen hundred crossbowmen and a thousand pikes.”

“You helped pick the numbers.”

She sighed. “I was still sensible then. I am less so now.”

“He wouldn’t thank you for a company of nannies.”

She looked out over the parapet. “Will he forgive us?”

“You aren’t stealing his country.”

“Neither am I helping him keep it.”

“Helen,” Gen said, “you sent me to Attolia.”

She stiffened.

He held her tight. “We do what we must, but we are not defined by our circumstances. Sounis will not change.”

“Did you warn him not to offend the gods?”

“There was no need,” said Attolis, smiling. “He couldn’t offend the gods with a pointed stick.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WE left Attolia with horses underneath us and all the provisions we had missed on our previous journey. We had an escort fit for a king, and we moved no faster than the magus and I had traveled on foot. Your letter reached me before we got to the pass, and I read it over and over until I had it by heart.

Once in Sounis, we moved across country, avoiding the roads and towns. I had a tent that appeared like magic every night, with a bed in it, as well as a table and folding stools for our meetings.

It even had a writing desk so that I could have sent letters, but everything I wrote seemed silly under the circumstances. Eugenides had warned me in the tavern that letters would go astray and that once we left Attolia messengers could no longer be relied upon to be loyal or safe—just as I must assume that anything I said aloud in his palace would be conveyed directly to the Mede. The magus had said the same thing. Both of them had urged me to keep my plans to myself until we were inside Sounis. It reinforced a sense I had of being on my own every minute, in spite of being surrounded day and night by soldiers and advisors.

The food was never-ending. When I pointed out the attentions to my appetite, the magus had to remind me that I was Sounis. Across my little state there are merchants who dream of putting PURVEYOR TO THE KING over their shops. There are men whose lives will change if they can provide me with soap. I am a patron of the arts now. I can found my own university instead of just dreaming of sometime attending the one in Ferria. It gave me something to think about besides war.

As you know, we didn’t get as far as Brimedius. We crossed through the main pass to Sounis and forded the Seperchia to avoid the fortified megaron there, then moved across the foothills heading inland. We had reached Atusi, where I meant to pick up the road to Brimedius, when we met the rebels. I had just brought my small army out of the hills and onto the road when my scouts came in to tell me that the rebels were both ahead of us and behind us.

I had prepared my Attolians and my Eddisians carefully. Every time I talked with the Attolian commander, I remembered what Eugenides had said: “He does not actually run on all fours and bay at the moon, but you will have to explain what you want from him very carefully.” I know he did it to make me laugh, and it helped. I would have otherwise been too much intimidated by a man who reminded me so much of my father.

We were already assembled on the road. On our right, two ridges reached out from the foothills, and a shallow valley lay between them. To our left, olive trees came almost to the road. The road curved around the foothills, keeping the rebels ahead of us and behind us out of sight. It was an excellent place for a trap, and we had sprung it. My scouts warned me that the men behind us on the road were farther back but mounted and coming up fast.

Around the curve of the hill ahead of us, we had our first view of the men approaching from that direction. I sent my Eddisians forward and turned back with the Attolians and my mounted force, leaving our pack train with supplies in the middle.

It was my first battle. It was exhilarating and terrifying and sickening. The Eddisians and Attolians did just as they’d been instructed. The road sloped down slightly toward the Sounisians in front of us, and the Eddisians rushed down it to attack.

The force behind us was twice the size of ours, or more. When it hit the Attolian formations, the Attolians broke. They made an attempt to re-form but broke again and began to scatter. Their captain, at my signal, called the retreat. Some of the Attolians turned back toward the Eddisians to re-form with them, but fully half ran into the olive trees to seek cover there. The Eddisians had no one to cover their flanks; to save themselves from being surrounded, they were retreating into the shallow bay between the two hillsides. I was with my mounted men, trying to provide some cover to give the Attolians time to re-form. We weren’t very effective, and I wasn’t any use at all. Although Procivitus’s instruction had helped my sword work, it was of little use to me on horseback. All I could do was wave my sword around to defend myself and try not to cut the ears off my own horse. I had to hope that my countrymen didn’t really want to kill their own king. The magus and my personal guard never left my side until we turned to run ourselves, ahead of the Sounisians, toward the protection of our Eddisian pikemen.

The Attolians who had run to re-form with the Eddisians appeared disorganized. Though my horsemen had slowed the approach of the army behind us, the bulk of it was rounding the curve of the hill and would soon be charging across the small valley onto the Eddisians and the Attolians who had not yet reached cover inside the Eddisian formation.

Without needing a signal, the Eddisian captain whistled a retreat. The Eddisians went in better order than the Attolians had, but they went fast, heading toward the trees behind them, where the charge of rebel horses would do less damage. They would fight in smaller groups, withdrawing back uphill until they could regroup safely.

My mounted men were racing toward the trees at about the same time. The horses would have to be abandoned. I had been toward the front of my men when we were fighting. When we turned to retreat, I fell behind. My guard was still with me, but only barely, when I loosened my grip on my reins. In the blink of an eye, I fell off.

I landed badly, just exactly like a sack of rocks, and tumbled across the grass until I landed flat on my back with all the wind knocked out of me and without the breath to curse my breastplate, which I was certain had done me more damage than it had saved me from. When I could get my feet under me and straighten up, my cavalry was already far away. They had slowed and looked back in confusion, but I waved to them to ride on. I was not too far from the hillside that had hidden the rebel army on the road behind us, and once I got my feet moving, I scrambled up it. With my chest aching for air, my hands and feet felt as if they belonged to someone else. I kept falling on my face, but I eventually made it to the top, covered in grass stains and still not able to get a breath, to find the consequences of battle laid out before me.