Eugenides let out a long sigh. “Well enough, Kamet. It was worth a cast of the dice.”

But my sleep-sodden brain was finally tallying its account. “Hemsha,” I said aloud, and the king straightened up again.

Hemsha. It had been such a humble request for my proud master to make of the emperor, to be governor of an undeveloped coastal province. I remembered my relief that he hadn’t been overreaching as he often did and my mistaken certainty that he would be successful—overconfidence that had certainly cost me dearly. If Nahuseresh was not dead, if he hadn’t sunk so low in the emperor’s graces as to be poisoned by his own brother, why then hadn’t he been made governor of Hemsha?

More certain by the moment, I said to the king, “Hemsha has only a tiny port at Hemet, but there is a protected strait along the coast to the northeast where you could put a hundred ships, two hundred ships. There’s no water there to make it a usable port, but there are good roads to bring supplies and soldiers to Hemet, and they could then be ferried from there to the fleet. Hemet is far south, but they could sail for Cymorene. The emperor has agents there ready to betray the fort.”

“Really?” asked the king, surprised.

“I burned the correspondence from them before we left that fortress at Ephrata. I’m sure they are still there.” After resupplying on Cymorene, the fleet could sail north to anywhere on the Little Peninsula.

The king nodded. “Province of Hemsha,” he said gravely. “Thank you, Kamet.”

He continued to sit cross-legged at the foot of the bed a little longer, assuring me that I would be safe in the palace, even from the Mede ambassador. I remember that he rubbed his ear as he spoke. As he had no right hand, he rubbed it with his left while his hook stayed in his lap. It made him look very young, like a boy imitating a monkey, absolutely unlike the man I had seen on the throne early that morning.

“Melheret is more bark than bite, but we will keep guards at your door just in case,” the king said. “You can trust them. It’s gold that makes treason, and the emperor hasn’t given Melheret any. He can’t afford an assassin to knife you in your sleep, and you needn’t worry about something being slipped into your dinner. I had a little talk with the kitchen staff last night, so happily, neither will I.” He rubbed his ear again. “The ambassador will have to assume that you have brought me the information I needed, but any message he sends back to the emperor will be slowed by the labyrinth of imperial correspondence—it’s very likely Melheret’s warning will be dismissed even if it reaches the inner court. This morning a hundred people heard me say that I stole you away for spite, and the Mede will want to believe it. All that Melheret or I can do is wait to see how this plays out, while you, Kamet, can begin a new life. Contemplate a new name, if you like, to start with.”

He gave me an encouraging nod as he rose and left with the ambassador of the Braels—the Braeling never saying a single word. I didn’t hear the outer door close behind them, and I believe that the guards, if asked, would have insisted that no one had passed by.

I hadn’t gotten to my feet in the entire time Eugenides had been in the room. I lay back down, thinking how I might describe the encounter to one of the other secretaries in the emperor’s palace, and began to appreciate Costis’s difficulty in accurately representing the king of the Attolians. I looked around—except for the lamps, lit by the Braeling, there was no evidence that the king had been there.

A month or so later, an allied fleet sailed into the narrow bay north of Hemsha, ostensibly looking for a stream to refill their water barrels, and found instead the ships of the Emperor’s navy neatly lined up at their moorings. Alarmed at the approach of the foreign ships, an unknown gunner on board one of the emperor’s brigs fired his cannon without instruction. The allied ship Hammer of Yeltsever responded. Once the firing began, there was no stopping it. The emperor’s ships, unable to maneuver, were destroyed by a fleet one-third the size of their own. Eighty or more of the emperor’s ships sunk. Thousands of men lost.

The admiral of the allied fleet wrote a very regretful report to his king, calling the loss of the Mede fleet a most untoward accident. Rumor had it that Eugenides stole the report from the diplomatic correspondence of the Pentish ambassador and read it out loud to his queen.

The Attolians liked to point out with a snicker that there was no sign anywhere of the king’s hand at work.

I took the king seriously and spent much time that night considering my new life. I struggled to name myself. I could be Jeffa, or Nish. Or Ashnadnechnamharr, if I chose, though the ghost of King Ashnadnechnamharr might haunt me if I were so bold. I began to understand why Godekker might have continued as Godekker—it was difficult to imagine answering to a new name. Kamet was the name my mother had given me, or so I have always believed, and I decided to keep it. Kamet the Setran? Kamet the Scribe? Nothing seemed to fit. I would be stuck with Kamet Freedman if I waited too long, but I resolved to wait anyway, in hopes of finding a name that felt right.

In the morning a boy brought me my breakfast on a tray and was scandalized when I took it from his hands and sent him on his way—I couldn’t be comfortable being served. There were guards outside my door as promised, and one warned that I should expect visitors after breakfast.

Indeed, my first visitor was Attolia’s former secretary of the archives, Relius. The guard announced his arrival, and I bowed and stepped back to admit him. We’d met before. He’d been one of only a few people who had understood my value to my former master. I was surprised that he was no longer secretary of the archives, the official title of Attolia’s master of spies, but of course, I couldn’t ask about the change. I invited him to sit on the elegant cushioned furniture and perched a little gingerly on a chair opposite him. As he pulled his robe around him before sitting, I saw his hands were misshapen, badly broken and healed, with two of the fingers missing. I looked from them to his face and quickly away. They had been undamaged when I had seen him last.

“There are some questions you might answer for us, Kamet. I am here to ask if you would be willing to do so.”

I’d expected this. I knew more about the empire than just the location of its ships, and I’d thought through the night about what things I might tell the Attolians that would profit them.

Relius said, “The king wants you to know that you are under no obligation. You are his guest, free to come and go as you please, and welcome to stay—in the palace, or anywhere in Attolia—for as long as you like.”

Or until Attolia fell. I still believed the Mede would roll the Little Peninsula as a lion rolls a gazelle, and I intended to be long gone when they arrived.

“You are thinking of driving a stiff bargain,” said Relius, and he was right. I’d thought long and hard about what my information might be worth. “Don’t,” he advised me. “You will do better to trust the king—he will see you amply rewarded.” I remembered Eugenides the night before, sitting at the foot of my bed, and earlier, sitting on his throne. I remembered how much I had liked him when I’d thought he was an errand boy—when he had ruthlessly tricked me into believing that was all he was. The only thing I knew was that I didn’t know anything, really, about the king of the Attolians, and I didn’t trust him.