“She is a fool if she thinks she can defeat my army and yours combined,” Attolia said, brushing invisible lint from her sleeve.

“I had thought her advisors were more sensible, but she is a woman and has no doubt overridden them in her desire to rescue her lover.”

Attolia’s smile was crooked with mischief. “Her beloved, certainly. Not her lover, I think.”

Nahuseresh cocked his head. “I thought the information from Eddis said they were lovers.”

“An exaggeration, I’m sure,” said Attolia dispassionately. “He is too young. Much too young, I think, to interest a woman who is queen. A queen needs a man who is older, more experienced, more competent to rule. A man with a character that is mature and powerful enough to attract her.”

She looked up at Nahuseresh, delighted to see him swallowing the implied flattery without a quiver. “As you say,” he said, agreeing with her assessment. “I thought you might like to see the battle.”

She hesitated, and he added, “My men can provide a safe place from which to observe. You needn’t be afraid.”

“Thank you, Nahuseresh,” she said calmly. “I am not afraid.”

In the courtyard Teleus was there to boost her onto her horse. There was no other member of her guard present. Excepting Teleus, she was surrounded by Nahuseresh’s men. While Nahuseresh mounted his horse, her own captain looked up at his queen and quickly down again. “Where shall we watch from, Teleus?” she asked.

“The best spot is just the other side of the ridge, Your Majesty. Shall I show it to you?”

“Do, please,” said Attolia, and Teleus mounted a horse to show them the way.

“You trust him near you?” Nahuseresh murmured to the queen when he’d pulled his horse next to hers.

“So long as you are near me as well, I want him close,” said the queen.

Nahuseresh nodded. He could see the wisdom in that.

Teleus led them across the narrow stretch of fields to the woods, past the wooden cannon barrels the Eddisians had abandoned. As she saw them lying among the trees, Attolia’s hands tightened. The narrow trail Teleus found led up the hills to a ridge above the Seperchia River. The ridge was steep, and the horses had to scramble at the last. From the ridge they could see across the Seperchia to the plain on the far side where the armies ordered for battle. Attolia could see the movement between the trees.

“Your Majesty.”

It was Teleus. He’d dismounted and was standing by her boot. “There’s a better place to observe if you will ride down the hill and take the trail on the right. There’s a flat spot to picket the horses.”

“Thank you, Teleus. Why don’t you continue to lead?”

“My pleasure, Your Majesty.” He took the queen’s horse by the bridle and walked it down the narrow trail to a clearing. The clearing was long and narrow. At the back of it a granite cliff eight or ten feet high rose directly out of the turf, the highest point of the ridge of solid stone that turned the Seperchia River just before it reached the sea and forced it through the softer limestone in the Hephestial Mountains. On the opposite side of the clearing the land sloped steeply down to the river, so steeply that Attolia, sitting on her horse, was able to look over the tops of the trees growing on the slope below and have an uninterrupted view across the river to her army.

The night before, Nahuseresh had talked about “supporting” her soldiers. Attolia had surmised that he meant to keep his own men behind hers so that the Attolians might take the heaviest losses, exhausting the Eddisians’ resources and leaving Attolia ever more dependent on the Mede for her defense. Before her, she could see the armies drawn up as she had expected, the Attolians spread thinly in an indefensible battle line, the Medes forming their phalanxes behind them.

Looking down at the field, Attolia thought again that she disliked excessively being out of touch with her generals.

“I’ll go see about the pavilion for Your Majesty,” said Teleus, backing up as the Mede’s personal guard distributed themselves around the clearing.

“I wonder he isn’t down on the plain,” said Nahuseresh after he was gone.

“He’s the captain of my personal guard. He’s supposed to guard my person,” Attolia said.

“Then I wonder he’s gone off to fetch a pavilion like a steward.”

“He knows how much I trust you,” said the queen. “I wonder you yourself are not down on the plain.”

“I am not needed there yet. I can send messages with one of my men, but otherwise I will wait out the morning with you, Your Majesty.”

And later, when most of her army had been cut down, he would join his own army to direct the attack on the Eddisians.

Armies move more slowly than men. As Nahuseresh and Attolia sat patiently and watched, the army of Eddis maneuvered out from the defending walls of the pass. Horses dragged cannon, and men marched into place. Finally there was a shuddering along the ranks of Attolian and Mede, and Attolia thought it time to distract Nahuseresh’s attention.

“The messenger I sent to Eddis, you didn’t recognize him,” Attolia said.

“Should I have?” the Mede asked, his eyes on the field below.

“He was Eddis’s minister of war,” Attolia said. “Eugenides’s father.”

The words took a moment to penetrate Nahuseresh’s concentration. He turned slowly, like a defective clockwork, to look at the queen.

“You suborned my barons,” she said calmly.

“What?” he said, shaking his head.

“You suborned my barons. They were to let the Eddisians through their battle lines to flank my army and destroy it. You, having landed your army at Rhea without my permission, would have been ready to rescue me gloriously. Eddis’s Thief spoiled those plans, but you came about well, and here you are, once again ready to see my army decimated and your Medes heroes.”

“You have heard some malcontent perpetrating slander…. Have I not been—”

“Undermining my throne for months? You have, Nahuseresh. You corrupted Stadicos before the First Battle of Thegmis. He changed my orders, and I lost the island to Sounis. I did not like that, Nahuseresh. It was not easy to get it back. You have bribed my barons and blackmailed them and riddled my country with your spies. Eddis distracted me for a day, and you hanged the three barons you couldn’t suborn. One wanted more gold from you; two were actually loyal to me. I don’t have so many loyal barons, Nahuseresh, that I can sit by while you execute them.”

“Your Majesty—” The Mede began again, but the queen overrode him.

“To be honest, Nahuseresh, you are almost more trouble than Sounis. Your saving grace is that you have brought me a great deal of gold when I needed it badly.”

“Gold that must be repaid, Your Majesty,” said Nahuseresh, glad to have a straw to grasp at last.

“The gold was a gift; you said so yourself.”

“You are a woman,” Nahuseresh said very gently. “You do not understand the world of kings and emperors, you do not understand the nature of their gifts.”

“Nahuseresh, if there is one thing a woman understands, it is the nature of gifts. They are bribes when threats will not avail. Your emperor cannot attack this coast unprovoked; the treaties with the greater nations of this Continent prevent him. All he can do is stir up an ugly three-way war and hope to be invited in as an ally, and I did not invite him.” The queen shook her head. “The problem with bribes, Nahuseresh, is that after your money is gone, threats still do not avail.”