“The trade route to the north is behind us now,” said the Attolian, thinking aloud. “And it will be crowded with Namreen. If we continue to go west on this track, there may be some smaller passages over the hills that we can find. It’s a risk, as we might be seen, but we will move faster through the hills if we find a beaten path going north. I don’t think we should go overland unless we have to. What do you think, Kamet?” Flattered that he thought my opinion worthwhile, I agreed. The hills ahead of us looked to be rocky and filled with canyons and chasms, just the sort of place to get lost in. I hoped we would find an easier route, and I still had no idea how we were going to get over the Taymets, which would make these hills look like ripples in a blanket by comparison.

We hurried, the Attolian keeping an eye out and sending us to cover any time he saw or heard other travelers. The wagon track was for local traffic, and there was very little of that. In the evening he found a hollow and said we could have a small fire, but it must be out before full dark. I asked if we’d continue after we ate, but he said there was no point—we’d likely pass any trail over the hills without seeing it.

As the grain and dried vegetables were bubbling in our cookpot, the Attolian said, as if it were no more than an idle observation, “My king thinks that the emperor must attack the Little Peninsula or die.”

“He is dying either way.” That was an open secret. The emperor had hidden the signs of his disease, but the Tethys lesions only worsen over time.

“His heir, I meant,” said the Attolian. “Once he becomes emperor, my king says he will not live out the year if he cannot conquer the Little Peninsula.”

I eyed him in some consternation while I considered his words.

“My king says the empire has absorbed all the little countries like your Setra to the east and is at a standstill in the Unshak Mountains. It cannot expand south beyond the Isthmus—not across the desert—and my king says that if the emperor fails to enlarge his borders, there will be an internal war to replace him. If the expansion can be stopped, even for a very short time, the empire will break apart under its own weight.”

My king says . . . What a parrot, I thought, feeling worldly-wise. I knew better than the Attolian the reach of the empire.

“My king,” said the Attolian again—and then he stopped, waiting for me to realize that he knew just what I was thinking. He was amused, not offended, and I wasn’t afraid, but I was a little embarrassed that he read my mind so easily.

“I am sure your king is a wise man,” I said apologetically, willing to consider that my prejudices had blinded me to his finer points.

“My king,” said the Attolian, with a very serious expression, “likes to pretend that he doesn’t recognize the Mede ambassador. Whenever they meet, the ambassador has to introduce himself—with all of his diplomatic titles and his qualifications.”

“No.”

“Yes.” And when I stared, aghast at this juvenile and frankly rude behavior in a head of state, he added, “Sometimes twice a day.”

“You lie,” I said, certain he was mocking me.

He held up a hand. “My sacred oath.” He didn’t seem the least bit mortified.

I had been giving the Attolian king’s idea serious attention, but now rejected it. There was always unrest, of course. Fear of the poor and of slave revolts, the occasional corn riot. Demagogues rose and fell, and the empire was always cutting down one or another. It would be possible, I supposed, for an outsider to see disruption and think the empire might collapse, but it was too all encompassing, too well sewn together to come apart. As each smaller nation was absorbed, it was integrated into the whole, enjoying all the benefits of being in the empire. It would be the same with Attolia, I was sure.

“The Little Peninsula cannot hold off the empire even for a short time,” I said.

“We have the Greater Powers on our side.”

He was naive.

“That only means that one of the Greater Powers of the Continent will control the Peninsula instead.” I shrugged to indicate the unstoppable nature of this process. After time spent with the caravan guards and with the Attolian, I was more aware of the work and of the cost, but I still did not doubt the superiority of the Medes and the inevitability of their success.

“There are advantages to the empire,” I reassured him. “Stability and peace, an increase in trade, the exchange of art, advances in medicine.” A decent sewer system, I almost added, but bit my tongue in time.

“Is that how you felt when the king of Setra gave over his country to the empire?” asked the Attolian.

I had been many years a slave by then. When the empire had put down the raiders who had taken me from my home, I had been happy to hear it. “Look at the Little Peninsula with its constant wars,” I said. “It obstructs the land route between the Continent and the empire. Every time a squabble erupts, it disrupts the trade. Every time a land war flares up, the piracy on sea routes doubles. All the civilized nations want is a reliable trade route. They want something safer in the windy season than sailing. It’s not about conquering, it’s about business and prosperity. Prosperity for everybody.”

With a sharp sweep of his hand, the Attolian dismissed prosperity and civilization and the Medes entirely. He said, “Nothing is certain in this world.”

“True,” I agreed, myself an example of the maxim, “but the emperor breeds that uncertainty and uses it to his advantage.” I thought of the times he had elevated a member of the court only to turn around and humiliate him a short time later. I thought of the death of my master. Oh, what consternation that was going to cause! The emperor was probably chortling himself into phlegmy coughing fits. I said, “The longer it is unclear if he means to invade, the longer he can prepare his armies without drawing the Greater Powers in.”

The Attolian took a swallow from the waterskin. “My king believes that your own master is a threat to his brother.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. Although maybe that was why he’d been poisoned, for all I knew.

“Perhaps he will lead a rebellion.”

Well, that wasn’t going to happen, because he was dead. I thought the rest of what the Attolian had said was equally unlikely. If there were threats to the empire, then the emperor eliminated them. The Attolian king was a fool and, as a fool, hoped his enemy might magically disappear overnight. I wasn’t that silly.

In the morning, we found a path that turned off our road and headed north into the hills. The Attolian asked me what I thought of it. “Shall we press on and see if we can find something more traveled?”

The hills were steep and rocky. Eroded by the winter rains, they were ridged with ravines and punctuated by cliff faces. I would have preferred to stay on the more easily navigable wagon track, but the Namreen might ride along at any moment—and moreover, the track wasn’t going to carry us in the direction we wanted to go. It would eventually merge with the road from Koadester to the western coast, and that road would certainly be traveled by Namreen.

We took the path and struggled upward. I imagined the Taymets as I climbed, worrying about what their slopes might be like. The trade road we had been making for, the one we had been diverted from at Koadester, was known as a hard and narrow way over the mountains. It had to be hard or there wouldn’t an independent Zaboar on the other side. If the trade road was narrow and hard, I hated to think what any other route was going to offer us.