The Attolian furniture was pushed into the corners, and several replacement pieces of Medean design, small enough to have been shipped with the ambassador, had been put in their place. Mede statuettes of gods or goddesses or, Sounis supposed, fertility figures were scattered around the room, clashing with the rest of the Attolian background. The combined effect made Sounis wince.

The Mede ambassador returned carrying a ceramic bottle and two beautiful wine cups. They were glass, a deep blue in color, decorated on the outsides with bas-relief dancers carved in white. Sounis, taking his cup, admired it, running a finger across the raised figures.

“They are lovely, are they not?” said the Mede. “They come from a workshop in our capital. The artist has made a glass service for the emperor himself.”

Holding the cup up to the light from a nearby lamp, Sounis could see that the glass had two layers, white on the outside and blue on the inside. The effect was achieved by carving away the white layer, leaving only the images of white dancers on the blue background. He had never seen anything like it.

“Our artisans have worked for centuries to perfect their art,” said Melheret, as if no Sounisian artisans had ever done the same. “Some believe art is the greatest product of an enduring civilization.”

Following a wave of the Mede’s hand, Sounis chose a seat and sat in it gingerly. It was low to the ground, and the slanted seat tipped him against the curving back, making him wish he had pulled one of the more traditional chairs away from the wall. It wouldn’t be easy to get up in a hurry—say, if armed men leaped from behind the wall hangings.

“You need not fear being attacked, Your Majesty.”

Sounis suppressed a flinch before realizing that the Mede was not reading his thoughts about the furniture.

“Our nation is one of peace and great prosperity. We are not so poor of resources that we steal from our neighbors. Try the remchik?” Melheret had filled his glass.

Sounis took a drink, as he had seen the Mede do, tossing the contents of the glass cup into his mouth all at once. The liquid Melheret had poured was clear, so he knew it wasn’t wine, but he was still taken aback by the powerful alcohol. It went up his nose and seared his throat all the way down to the pit of his stomach. He tried to hold his breath but only succeeded in turning a cough into a whistle. When he inhaled, his breath burned as much as the alcohol had.

“Do you like it?” asked the Mede.

“It’s…delicious,” Sounis said politely. His eyes were watering.

“Have another.”

“How, then, do you explain your affiliations with my rebel barons?” Sounis thought of mentioning the attempt on his life as he had fled Sounis, but he assumed that the Mede would only deny any responsibility. If Melheret asked if he had seen Akretenesh with a match in his hand, Sounis would have to say no.

“We have no ‘affiliations,’ as you say,” said Melheret. “Our overtures to your barons, and to your father, have been no more than an honest attempt to establish communication with a new government, and what can be expected of any wise nation. Did we not send an ambassador to your father, thinking that he spoke for your uncle who was Sounis? No one would deny your right to return to your throne. And we, my brother ambassador Akretenesh and I, would be honored to act as neutral mediators. You do not need Attolia’s help to accomplish this.”

“And Attolia? Does she need to fear attack?”

“Again, no,” said the Mede, pouring once more.

Sounis was beginning to like the burning feeling in his middle, and after the second drink, he’d sensed a flavor in his mouth like mint and like fennel at the same time, something cool that contrasted with the heat. Still, he didn’t think it wise to have another taste, and he ignored the contents of the cup.

The Mede sat again and looked into Sounis’s eyes. “I will be frank with you. We are not well disposed toward Attolia. There are conventions among nations, relationships built on mutual good faith. She abused those relationships, lying about her intentions, inviting us to land our troops to aid in her defense, and then turning on them. More than that, she has cast us as aggressors, lying to you and to others in order to destroy our nation’s peaceful relations here on this small peninsula.”

The flavor that came after the burning flavor of the remchik wasn’t mint, Sounis decided on reflection, and realized that he’d absentmindedly sipped from his cup while Melheret was talking.

“Drink,” said the Mede. “Remchik is not for sipping, we say in my home. Its flavor comes in the swallow.” The older man spoke with an almost fatherly authority.

Sounis obediently drank, but he declined another serving, holding the cup too close to allow Melheret to fill it without obvious effort.

Melheret said, “It is my task, given me by my emperor, to repair the battered ties between us and Attolia and encourage her to join a community of civilized nations.”

“Not prepare for an invasion?” asked Sounis. “I thought your emperor was gathering his armies and building the ships that would carry them to our ‘small’ peninsula. Did he not send Attolia a message to say so?”

Melheret’s head tilted, and his brow furrowed, as if Sounis’s words had been garbled or as if he’d said the carpet on the floor had come to life. “Excuse me?”

Sounis rubbed his face and pinched his numb lips, afraid that his words had been garbled. “Your emperor plans to invade with a huge army and has sent word of it to Attolia.”

Melheret shook his head. “Why, if he meant to invade, would he have warned Attolia of his plans?” Melheret put a companionable hand on Sounis’s knee and shook it. “Think, Your Majesty. She lies. That is the obvious explanation for every story she tells. Yes, my emperor sent home her spies; would any ruler not do the same? She was embarrassed at being caught in such perfidy and lies to cover her shame. Is this any ally for Sounis? See what she offers you in exchange for your humiliating surrender. A paltry few mercenaries, a handful of gold. My emperor is a far, far better ally if your barons continue to rebel, as indeed, they may not. They, too, perhaps were unaware that you yet lived and were their king. You do not need to invade your own home to secure it. It is my belief that your barons will return to you with open arms.”

“And if they don’t?” asked a skeptical Sounis.

“Then from my emperor you will receive gold and the armies to secure your throne. He will not demand oaths of loyalty.”

“Won’t he? What did he demand of Suninex?”

Again Melheret looked puzzled. “Do you mean Sheninesh? Sheninesh is our ally of many years and shares in our prosperity. They choose to accept our governance because they see it as a benefit, not as a yoke. You may have read accounts that say otherwise, but if they cannot even tell you the name of a country, how accurate can they be?”

Sounis remembered an old argument. “Eddis,” he said.

“Eddis? What about Eddis?”

“It isn’t pronounced that way.”

Melheret guided him back to the topic. “You count on the honesty and the support of your friend Eugenides, but it is she, not he, who rules Attolia. And is he in fact your friend? He does not seem so.”

“He is king,” Sounis said, holding on truculently to his friendship with Eugenides, spurred by the Mede’s skepticism to more conviction than he really felt.