She and Teleus were silent, watching the men moving in the woods.

“They can’t bombard the castle without Piloxides’s hearing the guns,” the queen said abruptly. “He’ll come then.”

“True,” said the guard. This hadn’t occurred to him.

“So we need only to hold out until Piloxides reaches us.”

They watched the edge of the woods as the darkness fell and the Eddisians camping there laboriously moved their cannon into position. They could hear the cursing and make out the men straining. One cannon broke away from its handlers and rolled down into an irrigation ditch at the side of the fields. Eddisians risking crossbow fire from Ephrata’s walls hurried down to reattach ropes, and they painfully winched the cannon back uphill.

“Eleven cannon,” the captain counted. “They’ll be in position to fire by morning.”

Thunder rumbled distantly, and they both looked up at the clouds. “A summer storm,” said the queen.

“That’s unusual,” remarked Teleus.

Thunder rumbled again, and they were silent, listening.

“Those are Piloxides’s guns,” said the queen at last. “The Eddisians must be attacking from the pass. He’s not going to hear anything over that.” She looked again toward the dark trees.

“Surrender,” she said.

“Your Majesty?” Teleus was taken by surprise.

“They can have the megaron,” Attolia said bitterly, “and all my barons as well. Piloxides will retake it in the end. Tell them we will surrender in the morning.” She turned to her guard captain with a grim smile. “I am sorry to leave you, Teleus. You understand, I won’t be here when the Eddisians take over?”

“I understand, Your Majesty.” Teleus bowed.

“Make the arrangements,” the queen said, and went down from the wall.

While Teleus signaled the Eddisians, she returned to her room and dismissed her attendants. Hastily she collected a few necessities and a heavy cloak, then sat down to write out several letters. When it was finished, she called in the guard stationed outside the door and sent him to find his captain.

Once he was gone, and the corridor outside empty, she left her rooms and hurried to a small locked door, for which she had a key. Behind the door a twisting staircase spiraled down. Carefully waiting until the halls were empty, the queen moved through the small stronghold to another door and another staircase that led to deeper hallways cut into the rock of the outcropping on which the megaron stood.

She’d brought a lamp but didn’t need it. Lamps already burned in the hallway sconces, lit by the guardsman Teleus had sent ahead of her. She saw no one until she reached the door she sought. Beside it, Teleus’s guard was waiting. He’d heard her footsteps and had pulled himself to attention by the time she approached. If he thought the situation was irregular, nothing in his manner showed it. Staring at the wall opposite him, he presented the queen with a view of his ear and awaited her orders.

“The boat is ready?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The boat was always ready.

She unlocked the door herself, and the guard followed her through. On the far side the air was chilly and damp and dark. They were in a cave under the megaron that opened onto the harbor. They could hear the water washing against the dock in front of them, and through the mouth of the cave the queen could make out the white tops of the waves in the darkness. The light from the doorway behind them lit the dock, and Attolia didn’t bother with her lamp. A boat waited, its sails wrapped against its mast. It was not a large boat, just large enough to hold two, but Attolia was confident it would serve her purpose. She didn’t expect to sail far. She would go to the Medes and worry later how to extricate herself from their assistance and how to explain to Nahuseresh that there hadn’t been room for him to accompany her. She walked down the dock, careful in the dim light, and stopped when she reached the boat. The tie lines were long and allowed it to float several feet out in the water. She gestured for the guard to pull the boat in. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him drop obediently to one knee and reach over the water. The hook in place of his missing right hand thunked quietly into the wooden hull.

Teleus stood above the gate and looked down at the Eddisian standing below him. He’d expected someone on a horse and was surprised when the soldier had stepped out of the cover of the trees and walked across the fields to the megaron.

“You wish to surrender?” the man shouted.

“In the morning,” Teleus answered.

“Fair enough. Will you leave your dead until then?”

The royal messenger was lying in the road as the darkness gathered.

“We’ll bring him in tonight with your permission,” Teleus said.

“I’ll tell my general,” the soldier said, and waved one hand up at Teleus before turning back to the forest.

“Let me go, sir,” said a voice at Teleus’s elbow. He turned and recognized the lieutenant who had come in with the messenger’s bag. “He was a friend,” the soldier said. “I’ll go get him.”

“Very well,” said Teleus.

A little later the guard was standing beside one of the pillars that supported the wide porch of the megaron and saw the lieutenant on horseback waiting while the gate from the courtyard was opened. He was accompanied by four others, the rest of the messenger’s guard but one. Annoyed, he remarked to no one in particular that it didn’t take five men to collect a body. He started down the steps from the porch, but the gate opened, and the riders disappeared through it. He waited in the courtyard, meaning to speak to the lieutenant when he returned. When he heard the shouting on the wall, he rushed up the stairs to the lookout above the gate. Staring into the twilight, he saw no one on the road. The horsemen and the body of the messenger were gone.

“The messenger?” he asked.

“Jumped up the moment they got near,” the guard said. “No more dead than I am. One of the riders took him up behind, and they rode into the woods.”

Teleus stared. Five men. The messenger’s guard minus one. “Follow me,” he commanded the nearby guard, and ran back down the rampart stairs even faster than he had climbed them.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ATTOLIA TURNED TO LOOK AT him, where he kneeled watching her face. He’d grown, she realized. Boys did often grow in one last leap just as they became men, but her spies either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t thought to tell her. He was not quite her height, but with his hair cropped short under his helmet, she hadn’t looked twice at him when she had seen him with the other muddy soldiers in the courtyard earlier. He’d had a false hand then, instead of a hook. She supposed he’d covered it with riding gloves. The greatest change in him was not his height, nor the length of his hair, but the expression on his face. He looked at her as impassively as she knew she looked at him. She could feel the immobile mask of her own face. She thought that if she searched for the guardsman Teleus had sent to escort her, she would find him nearby, not unconscious, not bound and gagged, but dead.

“You’ve changed,” said Attolia.

“So I have been told. Into the boat, Your Majesty,” said Eugenides with a nod of his head. He still squatted there next to the boat, within easy striking distance. The black water was near to hand to receive her body.