There’d been no chance to ask questions when the horses were changed, and talking was out of the question in the jolting chariot.

“We’ll eat and then go,” Eugenides said, indicating a table under a tree by the inn. The magus moved agreeably, but very slowly, toward the shade.

“Tired?” Eugenides asked.

“Old,” the magus answered. “Too old to be dragged out of my home by the machinations of someone I thought was a friend.”

Eugenides stopped to look over his shoulder. “Who told Sounis that now was the time to take Eddis? Who told him to ally first with Attolia to conquer us? He’d be stomping around in Attolia’s grain fields right now if it weren’t for you, and you know it.”

“True,” the magus admitted mournfully.

“It would serve you right if I dragged you off to Eddis and locked you into a cell for the next fifty years.”

The magus settled onto a bench and rested his head in his hands. “Whether I spend the rest of my life in comfort in Eddis or in jail won’t be historically significant.”

“If all you cared about was historical significance, you could have stayed in bed until the king’s guard came for you.”

The magus had been disposed to save his skin, but he knew there were greater things at stake. “Eugenides, if Sounis held Eddis, he could stop the Mede expansion and be prepared if an internal war ever arose in Attolia to drive them out. If he can’t unite at least Sounis and Eddis, all three of these countries will be divided and swallowed in a historical eye blink. Even you can see that.”

“One thing I see,” Eugenides said, “is that everybody is always willing to throw someone else’s country to the dogs. I don’t have any desire to be overrun by the Medes, but I don’t look forward to being overrun by Sounis either. And you don’t need to worry about political naïveté. I would have much preferred to slit Sounis’s throat while he slept, but his heir is hardly ready to inherit the kingdom, and we can’t have a civil war in Sounis for the Mede to step in and resolve, can we? Our horses are ready.” Hooking a bag that lay on the table, he held it in the air and dropped several small loaves of bread into it, then started across the courtyard to the chariot.

“Gen.” The magus, still sitting on the bench, called him back.

Eugenides waited, looking at him over one shoulder.

“You’ve become quite ruthless in your old age,” said the magus.

“I have.”

If the magus was surprised when they turned off the road toward the main pass and raced inland, he didn’t have the breath to ask any questions. He waited until the horses slowed and stopped on a curving stretch of empty road.

“Where are we going?”

“You are headed for a nice hunting lodge on the coastal side of the pass. I haven’t left my rooms for weeks, so it would be awkward if I were seen riding up the pass with you. I’ll go on foot from here and up the Oster path and then come down into the capital from the backcountry with fewer people to see me.”

“If I am seen, there is no difficulty?”

“We’re hoping you won’t be seen, and if seen, not recognized. I’m a little more easy to distinguish, and we won’t rely on luck to keep me from being noticed.”

The magus looked up at the mountain and back at Eugenides.

“I made it down,” the Thief said. “We’ll see if I can get back up.”

“There must be an easier way,” said the magus. “Not that I personally would be unhappy to see you reduced to pulp on a rock pile at the base of a cliff,” he added.

Eugenides smiled at the gibe, the first real smile the magus had seen from him.

“There are many easier ways, but not if I’m going to be home in a reasonable time. Enjoy the lodge. You’ll have a guard, but they’ve been told to be pleasant to you. You are an honored guest,” Eugenides said, stepping away from the chariot and nodding to the driver.

“For how long?” the magus asked as the driver turned the chariot in the narrow roadway.

Eugenides held up his arms in an elaborate shrug as the chariot jolted away.

When Attolia learned that Sounis’s ships had been sunk in their harbor, she sent first for her master of spies.

There were rumors that the sabotage had been performed by a group of men dressed as Sounisian sailors returning to their ships to relieve the officers standing watch. They’d boarded the ships easily, and their access to the powder rooms had been simple. Still the queen wanted to know about the saboteurs. Had one been missing a hand?

“He hasn’t left his room, Your Majesty.”

“Are there servants who bring his food, get him dressed in the morning, take away his dirty clothes, empty his night jar? Are they in your pay? Is there anyone who can tell you that he has seen Eugenides in that room?”

“No, Your Majesty, but—”

“Then you can’t be certain he’s there, can you?”

“No, Your Majesty, but—”

“But what, Relius?”

The secretary took a careful breath. “There’s no evidence, Your Majesty, that the Thief has left his rooms in the last few weeks. We have reliable reports that he argued with the queen and that she does not speak of him. Also, Your Majesty, this business involved several men, and in the past the Thief worked alone. We are not even certain that this was the work of Eddisians. The magus has disappeared, and his apprentice says that he conspired with us. We know that is incorrect, but that’s all. We don’t know who his masters are.”

“Who else could they be?” the queen asked.

The secretary went on hesitantly, unsure of his ground. His queen had lately showered favors on her Mede ambassador, and he was reluctant to anger her. “There are the Medes to be considered, Your Majesty. A strong alliance between Sounis and Attolia is not to their advantage.”

“True,” said Attolia, sitting back in her throne. “We shall see where the magus turns up.”

Within days of the destruction of Sounis’s navy, pirates raided and burned two of the most important port cities on his islands. Piracy had grown increasingly common since the pass through Eddis had been closed to trade. Merchants carrying their goods by ship had been tempting targets, and any captain could reflag his ship to become a pirate at a moment’s notice, only to change flags again and return home an honest merchant mariner.

These new pirates had worked alone and preyed on isolated sailing ships. No one expected them to join forces. Many of the islands hadn’t yet learned of the destruction of the king’s navy and hadn’t taken even the most rudimentary precautions against sea raiders. Their harbors were open, and their towns guarded only by night watchmen patrolling the streets for drunks or thieves. The pirates had landed without warning, had looted the warehouses along the docks and burned them while many citizens were still sleeping in their beds. The citizens woke glad not to have been murdered in those beds. They sent outraged calls for assistance to their king only to hear that there was no navy to defend them and that the raiders had probably been not pirates, but Attolian warships under false flags.

With his remaining ships, Sounis attacked one of Attolia’s smaller islands in revenge. More towns burned. Any hope of an alliance collapsed. Attolia regrouped her navy to defend herself from sea attack by Sounis but left the bulk of her army in the pass.