The queen stopped. After years of intrigue and outright war with her barons, she knew when she was beaten. Without assistance she could not free herself from the Thief. His armed companions waited at the top of the cliff to escort her to her wedding, and there was no help at hand. She schooled herself to patience, always her best resource, and turned back to the climb.

When she reached the top of the stairs, the coastal hills hid the higher mountains beyond them. They were silhouetted against the lightening sky, but it was still dark, and the men before her were difficult to make out. She looked them over coolly. Most of them were in the uniform tunics of Eddis’s soldiers, but she could see older men dressed in sober civilian clothes. The fat one, she thought to herself, was one of Eddis’s ministers. She supposed the other old men were ministers as well. Eddis honored her with their company.

There was no sign of a camp. The horses and pack animals were staked in rows, their saddles on, their packs loaded.

The officers and ministers approached, variously grave or embarrassed. As they got closer, Attolia recognized more of them. Eddis’s minister of trade, her minister of the exchequer. A little ahead of the other men was a man who was neither grave nor discomfited. He was absolutely poker-faced. With narrowed eyes, the queen recognized him as well, Eddis’s own chamberlain, brought along to perform the obligatory introductions, which he did without a whisker’s deviation from his usual palace style. Only once did he falter, looking over his shoulder.

“He said he wouldn’t be here,” one of the ministers said in a carrying whisper, and the chamberlain went on with the formal greetings of the queen of Eddis in absentia.

“And now?” the queen asked the open air.

“We’ll move as quickly as we can across the hills to the Pricas Spring. There we will be able to cut down to the main pass,” said Eugenides behind her. “There will be some hasty negotiations, and we’ll be engaged, with your barons as witnesses.”

“A dull ceremony,” said the queen.

“We can have pomp and glitter at the wedding—and the coronation.”

Attolia turned to give him a cold look. He smiled an equally cold smile and turned to the men who’d come to join them.

“No unexpected difficulties?” the minister of trade asked.

“No unexpected ones,” Eugenides reported.

The chamberlain spoke to the Attolian queen. “Your Majesty, I regret that we cannot offer you any rest after what must have been an extremely tiring journey, but I am afraid we must reach the main pass with all possible speed. We have a horse for you, if you can ride?”

“I can,” said Attolia, meaning that she would rather cooperate than be tied to a saddle.

The chamberlain cleared his throat. “If I may offer it, Your Majesty, I have a dry cloak for you.”

“You may offer it,” the queen said.

He glanced down at her feet. “We have dry shoes as well. If you will excuse me.” He bowed politely and went away to fetch the cloak and soft leather boots as well. When he returned he knelt to remove her slippers and slipped the warm boots on in their place. They were a good fit, and the queen silently curled her cold toes in relief.

They helped her onto a horse that had been brought near as Eugenides stood farther away and watched. Attolia didn’t look in his direction. She mounted the horse and was led away without once glancing back.

They climbed higher into the coastal hills and then turned to ride along a narrow trail. They spent the day in the saddle under hanging clouds. The coastal hills were less uniform than the sheer rise of the Hephestials inland of the Seperchia River. The path rose and dipped along the lifting shoulders of land. At nightfall they rode out onto the side of a hill overlooking Attolia and found a camp made on a terrace there. The camp was deserted except for a messenger left to report that Xenophon had encountered no difficulty in the retreat from Ephrata.

Attolia was shaking from exhaustion and accepted the help of one of the soldiers to dismount. He was an older man in uniform but had no tabs on his collar to indicate that he was an officer. He didn’t seem much awed by being so close to a queen. Perhaps he served in his own queen’s household. He looked oddly familiar, and she wondered if she had met him on some state occasion in Eddis or at her own palace in Attolia. His hands gripped her around the waist as she slid off the horse. They tightened, and for a moment she was irrationally frightened, caught by him, her feet dangling above the ground. His eyes were hard. She stared at him, and he dropped his gaze, then lowered her gently the last few inches to the ground.

She turned away from him and asked the minister who was near what would happen when they reached the queen of Eddis. “There will be negotiations, Your Majesty. I assume.”

“On the subject of dowry?” the queen asked, lifting her eyebrow.

“I assume so, Your Majesty. Her Majesty’s chamberlain will escort you to your tent.” The minister excused himself. The older soldier had disappeared.

The largest tent was hers. The chamberlain led her to the doorway and stopped beside it to bow. He was punctilious in his politeness to the captured queen, and she thought perhaps the politeness was more hateful to her than scorn would have been. She hadn’t seen Eugenides all day.

Inside the tent, for her comfort, there were rugs and cushions on a low sleeping couch. She was left alone. The guard waited outside. The queen stared at the empty tent for a moment. Had she been expecting company, she wondered, dinner guests, maybe, to eat the cold supper that waited on a tiny table by the bed? She crouched on the sleeping bench and ate. When she was done, she was almost too tired to stand but dragged herself up to go to the opening of the tent and pull aside the flap that covered it. The guard turned to eye her nervously. A young man not used to the presence of royalty, Attolia guessed.

“I want to see Eugenides,” she said in her best regal manner.

The sentry offered to send a message to the Thief.

“Take me to him instead,” Attolia commanded. “It’s faster, and I am tired and want to rest after speaking to him.”

The soldier hesitated, and glanced at a lighted tent beyond the queen’s. Attolia started toward it. Let the sentry try to stop her by force if he dared. Making the best of an impossible situation, he hurried to get ahead of her. The doorway of the tent was open, and as Attolia approached, she looked past the sentry’s shoulder into the warm light of the lamp hanging on the central tent post.

Eugenides sat on a low stool. The heavyset man kneeling in front of him was wearing the green trimmed tunic of a physician and was just easing the cuff off his arm. Eugenides’s eyes were closed. As the cuff came free, he shuddered and dropped his head to rest on the other man’s shoulder.

Attolia stood still, remembering that the night before she had thought that Eugenides was too young to have bones that ached.

“Eugenides.” The sentry used his name, which was also his title.

“What?” the young man snapped as his head came up and he opened his eyes. He saw the queen standing beyond the doorway and froze for a moment, looking sick, before he turned stiffly to sweep up a towel from beside him and wrap it around the bare stump of his arm. He stood then and stepped toward the door cradling the arm, all expression wiped away from his face and his voice. “Can I help you, Your Majesty?” he asked politely.