They had met at last to discuss the army that he would lead back to Sounis. In addition to the kings of Attolia and Sounis and the queens of Attolia and Eddis, there were advisors and ministers and officers of the army. Sounis wanted to say more but was afraid to embarrass himself in front of the men he would be ordering into a war. It seemed a pitifully small number of troops that the king of Attolia was offering, much smaller than Sounis had expected. He looked at the magus to see if he, too, was surprised, but the magus was looking at his hands. Sounis looked at Attolia, and she only stared back. No doubt she had overcome her own rebels with ten men and a penknife.

Eugenides said, “These are the Eddisians who have been exerting a peaceful influence throughout Attolia since I became Attolis. They are Eddis’s best mercenaries, and we will pay Eddis the gold for them. These are the best of our Attolian forces as well. We cannot send any artillery, and you couldn’t use it anyway. It would only slow you down. We are taking it on faith that the Medes will not arrive on our doorstep while you have them with you, and that Baron Erondites won’t rise up inside our dooryard before you return them. We will need them back,” he added.

Eddis watched without speaking. She could see that Sounis was alarmed, but there was little she could say that would help. The numbers were small, and the challenge he faced was enormous.

“It is just as likely that the Medes will arrive on my doorstep,” said Sounis. “What then?”

Attolia explained. “In either case, we have an invasion that the Great Powers of the Continent cannot fail to notice, and we all have to do the best we can. It is most likely that the Medes would land on our shores, rather than sailing around us to land on yours. Moreover, any attack on their part would reveal their plans to conquer Sounis, not ally with it, and strengthen your position as king—if you have convinced your barons that you are king. You cannot risk being seen as the head of an Attolian invasion. We do not have the troops to send in any case, but as a matter of strategy, overwhelming force will make you less king, not more.”

Later Eugenides did not invite Sounis to his rooms so much as summon him there. They were to have a private discussion, or at least a conversation as private as anything could be in the overpopulated palace. Feeling as sullen as a schoolboy, Sounis followed an attendant to the appointment only to find, when he reached the guardroom of the king’s apartments, that the door to the bedchamber was closed. With rising irritation, Sounis waited. The fancy guards looked elsewhere, but the attendants watched him with what he thought was concealed amusement. He set his teeth and stared back at each of them in turn. They all found something else to look at, except Ion, who smiled and bowed and asked if the king of Sounis would like some refreshment. Sounis was hungry, but he declined when he saw that the door to Eugenides’s bedchamber was opening.

Two men strode through the open door and across the guardroom. One was Galen, the personal physician of the queen of Eddis. The other, Sounis didn’t recognize but assumed from his green sash that he served the same function for Eugenides. Both walked with the stiff-legged gait of the bitterly offended, and Sounis warily refrained from greeting Galen, though he had met him several times in Eddis.

“Your Majesty?” Hilarion spoke from the doorway, ushering Sounis into the room, where Eugenides waited. The king of Attolia was again seated on the upholstered bench. He nodded to Sounis to take a seat that had been pulled up nearby. His unapproachable expression was just the same, and Sounis decided not to ask what had upset Galen. So long as Gen maintained his impersonal role, Sounis meant to do the same.

Eugenides’s attendants moved in and out of his bedchamber while he and Sounis talked, but Gen ignored them as if they didn’t exist. Taking his cue, Sounis did the same. Hoping for some reassurance that he would be able to subdue his rebel barons, Sounis was disappointed. He and Eugenides talked about the Mede and their history, and the balance of power on the Peninsula. The conversation was stilted and awkward.

Only as the interview was ending did Eugenides say directly, “You must be king. You cannot be anyone’s puppet if we are to have a chance against the Mede.”

“I’ll do what I can,” said Sounis stiffly.

He rose to leave and was halfway to the door when Eugenides asked, “Does the wardrobe suit?”

Sounis turned back. Eugenides was looking into his wine cup, and Sounis wasn’t sure how to answer. Had he failed to thank the king appropriately? Was he supposed to admire the gifts more? He knew that Eugenides paid a great deal of attention to such things, but to Sounis they were just clothes. “The pockets are sewn on the inside,” he said. He couldn’t imagine why someone would want to keep something in a pocket he couldn’t easily reach, and these were particularly useless, too deep and too narrow to get his hand into.

Eugenides shrugged one shoulder. “I sometimes find them useful,” he said into his wine cup.

“Well,” said Sounis, “perhaps I will, too. Thank you.”

“Be blessed in your endeavors,” said Eugenides, using the universal Eddisian phrase for please and thank you and you’re welcome.

“And you,” said Sounis, aping his formality.

When the king of Sounis was gone, Eugenides’s attendants, waiting in the guardroom, heard the wine cup smash.

Philologos stood, saying wearily, “I’ll clean it up,” and went to fetch a cloth.

It was a gloomy Sounis that made his way from the private apartments of the king of Attolia to his own suite. He followed his borrowed attendant, paying little attention to his surroundings, until Ion suddenly slowed and Sounis nearly ran into the back of him. In an apparent coincidence, no doubt meticulously prearranged by the Mede ambassador, Melheret and his retinue were just climbing the stairs as Sounis arrived at the head of them. It would be impolite not to draw back and leave the landing free for those ascending.

“Your Majesty,” said the ambassador, pausing to bow where he stood with one foot on a higher step and his hands bunching the fabric of his flowing trousers, lifting them as a woman lifts the hem of a dress. If it was an oddly delicate greeting, it was also blatantly self-assured. The Mede ambassador had no concerns about being taken at a disadvantage and made that much clear.

“Ambassador Melheret.” Sounis returned the address, bowing politely back.

Melheret continued up the remaining steps to the landing, brushed the wrinkles from his clothes, and bowed again. He was as tall as Sounis, but more slender, with gray in his beard and in the hair at his temples. His narrow face was weathered by time in the sun, and he had probably been a soldier before he became an ambassador. He gave the appearance of good health and radiated a confidence that Sounis envied.

“A god-sent opportunity that we meet, Your Majesty,” Melheret said. “I was just returning to my rooms, in anticipation of a bottle of remchik, which my secretary informs me has arrived. Perhaps you would care to join me?”

Sounis looked to Ion, who bowed to indicate his willingness to wait for as long as the king of Sounis desired. Sounis cursed inwardly, certain this meeting had been arranged for a moment when he was without the magus to act as a mediator. There was no polite way to refuse.

The Mede’s apartments were as luxurious as Sounis’s, but the Mede seemed to have been unimpressed by them. In the reception room, where Sounis waited for his host to reappear, cloth tapestries hung from hooks that had been hammered into the plaster walls with no care taken for the decorations already painted there, and Sounis wondered if it was an attempt to obscure spy holes. If so, he doubted it would be successful.