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.

Reversing his earlier threats of war, Sounis turned to Eddis, asking for lumber for his shipyards. The ambassador from Eddis closeted himself with the king and revealed that Eddis had hired a master gunsmith in the fall and had retooled her foundries over the winter to produce cannon instead of the iron ingots she had been shipping to the Peninsula in the past. She was able to provide Sounis with the guns he needed to arm his new warships but expressed a reasonable reluctance to sell cannon that might be used against her. She demanded a show of good faith that Sounis would not ally again with Attolia.

Within a month of the disaster at the Navy Festival, the first lumbering grain wagons were on their way to Eddis to resupply the war-strained country, and Sounis’s reduced navy had seized two of Attolia’s most vulnerable islands. Chios and Sera were two prizes, small but wealthy in marble and artisans. They were bones of contention and had changed hands between the countries of Sounis and Attolia for hundreds of years. Once again the possessor of them, Sounis would not reform his alliance with Attolia if it meant surrendering them.

Attolia, with her navy intact, carried out her own attacks. She was willing to let Chios and Sera go. There were other islands of more strategic importance, and she turned her attention toward those. She took Capris and failed to take Anti-Capris, its near neighbor, by only a narrow margin. Sounis lost two more of his warships.

At the suggestion of her Mede ambassador, she attacked Cymorene and secured its eastern end against Sounis. Cymorene was one of the largest of the islands, and she couldn’t hope to control its mountainous interior without bringing in her army, but most of her land forces were still climbing the pass to Eddis. Eddis had hoped that the temptation of a weakened Sounis would draw them away, but Attolia continued to advance. Eddis harassed the army but was unwilling to waste her soldiers, her most precious resource. Even Attolia, with her population still unrecovered from the plague a generation before, had more men than Eddis. Her army moved steadily upward.

Sounis offered to send an army to reinforce Eddis, but she declined. Steadily losing ground in the islands, Sounis pressed Eddis for the cannon she had promised. He wanted to mount them on his island defenses until warships could be built. Two more of his supply shipments had arrived in Eddis, and she had little excuse to refuse.

The moon was down, and the hallways of the palace were lit by the glimmer of small lanterns at the intersections of corridors. The stone walls were dark and did little to reflect the light. The stone floors were covered in thin carpets. The queen of Eddis walked slowly to avoid tripping on unseen wrinkles. She walked slowly to avoid making any noise, and she walked slowly, with her head carefully held upright, to avoid the appearance of sneaking through her own palace, which was what she was doing. She wanted to talk privately to Eugenides and his father. Eugenides in his own mysterious way could arrive in her rooms at night in response to a message left with his food in the library. His father either had to be admitted by the queen’s attendants or the queen had to leave the attendants and meet him elsewhere. They had agreed to meet in the library.

Eugenides was waiting for her. His father had not yet arrived.

Eddis closed the door behind her and turned. “We are discovered,” she said with a rueful smile. “You were right, and I should have let you relay messages instead of trying to have a secret meeting.”

“You don’t look alarmed,” Eugenides said. “Who saw you?”

“It was Therespides,” said Eddis. “He ran into me creeping around a corner. I don’t know which one of us was more surprised. Or embarrassed, for that matter.”

“He guessed where you were going?”

“There’s no one else in this part of the palace to be visiting. I think he was coming in from a visit down in the town.”

“Why aren’t you more worried?”

The queen looked down at him and smiled fondly. He had grown quite ruthless lately, but he still showed signs of naïveté from time to time. “You’ve heard that a liar thinks everyone else lies?”

“Yes.”

“A thief thinks everyone else is stealing from him?”

“Go on—without derogatory comments about people of my profession, please.”

“A philanderer thinks everyone else is philandering.”

Eugenides looked blank for a moment. “Oh,” he said.

“Practically incestuous,” said the queen, and she bent down to kiss him on the forehead. “Not to mention a little matter of robbing the cradle. It will keep the court babbling for weeks, and I hope Sounis hears about it.”

“I hardly fit into a cradle anymore, and anyone who’d believe we were amorously involved has to be crazy, but Sounis probably will hear it and believe it. Poor besotted fool.”

“He’s not besotted with me, just my throne.”

“Besotted may not be the right word. Obsessed. And not just because he wants the throne. He wants you, though I’m not sure why.”

“I’m glad you’ve remained a thief, Gen. As a courtly flatterer you lack something.”

“It’s the king’s heir we should feel sorry for,” Eugenides said. “Poor Sophos’s heart will be breaking if he hears you love another.”

Eddis laughed. “I doubt his feelings are deeply engaged.”

“Rarely have I seen a more love-struck individual than the king’s nephew,” said Eugenides, with his hand on his heart to emphasize his sincerity.

Eddis settled herself into a chair. “It’s Attolia who needs to keep thinking we don’t speak, and I’m afraid Therespides has a direct line to the secretary of her archives.”

“All these things I’m learning about Therespides tonight. Why don’t you just drag him out in the snow and shoot him?”

Eddis shook her head, looking grave. “He’s a reasonably good man and valuable in his own way. If he makes his gold selling gossip to Attolia, I don’t mind. It’s helpful to use him occasionally to carry erroneous information to Attolia. Still, I can hardly summon him to my throne at the morning session and say, ‘Do please keep it a secret that I am meeting Eugenides in the dark of night.’ Nor do I want to do it privately.”