Nahuseresh stared, seeing a queen he hadn’t guessed existed.

Attolia looked back at him. “I inherited this country when I was almost a child, Nahuseresh. I have held it. I have fought down rebellious barons. I’ve fought Sounis to keep the land on this side of the mountains. I have killed men and watched them hang. I’ve seen them tortured to keep this country safe and mine. How did you think I did this if I was a fool with cow eyes for any handsome man with gold in his purse?”

Nahuseresh’s eyes narrowed. “You cannot escape the bargain now, Your Majesty.”

“I made no bargain with you, Mede,” said Attolia flatly.

“One way or another the gold must be repaid.”

“So I am to overlook your treachery?”

“Diplomacy—in my emperor’s name. And yes, you will overlook it if you hope to remain queen when I am king.”

“I have said before that the next king of Attolia will be my choice, no one else’s.”

“Then you have only to choose me, and we will both be made happy, will we not? And your barons as well. While you were ‘distracted,’ they seemed very agreeable to my rule.”

“They are mice, Nahuseresh, hiding in their mouse-holes, hoping that their own familiar cat will come home to drive you away. At least when I hang people from castle walls, it is because they are traitors, not because they drive hard bargains. You seem willing to hang anyone that displeases you. How kind of you to show my barons that if I am a hard ruler to cross, you are a worse one to serve. I must thank you for that as well as for your emperor’s gold. They will be most mousy and well behaved for months.”

“And Eddis? Does Eddis do you any favors?” Nahuseresh smiled like a shark as he reminded the queen of the armies below them.

“Look and see, Nahuseresh,” answered Attolia.

The Mede turned back to the battlefield, where the Attolians were moving, the battle lines slowly splitting and separating.

Nahuseresh swore. “What are they doing?” he shouted. He lifted a hand to call a messenger to his side, but Attolia forestalled him.

“My generals are merely dividing their forces and regrouping to allow Eddis to attack your army unhindered. If necessary, they can then flank what’s left of your forces to prevent a retreat.”

Nahuseresh watched the men moving a moment more. The horse under him tensed as his rider drew the reins tight, but before horse or rider could move, Attolia raised her hand and directed his attention with a languid finger to where Teleus lay on his stomach in the long grass on the ridge behind them, the crossbow in his hands cranked and aimed toward the Mede.

“Treachery,” said the Mede.

“Diplomacy,” said Attolia, “in my own name,” as the rest of her guard rose up from the grass behind their captain.

The Attolian army below completed its maneuver as the queen explained to the ambassador that a rout could yet be avoided by a more gracious retreat. Eddis and Attolia would allow the Mede soldiers to return to Rhea, reboard their ships, and leave Attolian waters unharmed. They had no cause to fight the Mede. They only invited him to leave.

Nahuseresh, faced with a battle he couldn’t win, ungraciously conceded.

“Eddis will want some surety for what treaties you make today. What do you give her that secures her trust?”

Attolia didn’t answer, only looked at him, her face expressionless.

Nahuseresh thought back to the message she had sent by way of Eddis’s minister of war, and he paled with anger. “You will make that boy Thief king?” he said. “When you could have had me?”

Attolia allowed a slight smile.

“A fine revenge for the loss of a hand,” said the Mede, close to snarling.

“I will have my sovereignty,” said Attolia thinly.

“Oh, yes, a fine one-handed figurehead he will make,” spat Nahuseresh. Then he remembered Attolia’s flattery earlier that morning. “Or do I insult your lover?” he asked.

“Not a lover,” said Attolia. “Merely my choice for king, Nahuseresh.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WHEN THE MEDE ARMY HAD regrouped itself for a retreat and the Attolians and Eddisians had moved their forces into a combined opposition, Attolia sent her Mede ambassador back to Ephrata under guard. He had quite recovered control of his temper and kissed her hand before he went. “You are clever,” he condescended to say, “to have made a fool of me. How heartbreaking, to leave just as I begin to know you. My opinion of you climbs with each passing moment.”

“It will have time to climb higher,” Attolia said. “You won’t go far until your emperor sends me a ransom to add to my treasury.”

“You overstep yourself,” Nahuseresh warned.

“You don’t know your own value, Nahuseresh. Your emperor needs you safely home.”

“You don’t understand your weakness, if you think the greater nations will protect you. We will see how much longer you rule your backwater, Your Majesty. You will soon enough discover the limits of your resources.”

“Will I? I think you underestimate me still, Nahuseresh. While we are being forthright with each other, I admit that I find it tedious.”

Attolia parted company with him and rode down to the riverbank, where a boat waited to ferry her across the Seperchia. The absence of a bridge was another cause, or perhaps a result, of the relative unimportance of Ephrata. The boat carried her across the turbulent water to where she was met by several of her own officers and the officers, ministers, and queen of Eddis.

There was a landing stage but not a true dock. The water of the river being well below the stage, the queen was lifted, as decorously as possible, from the rocking boat onto the shore. There were two bright spots of color on her cheeks as she sorted the folds of her dress and then raised her eyes to Eddis. Eddis waited politely. She was dressed in trousers and low boots, her over-tunic identical to her officers’ but embroidered in gold. She wore no crown. She was short and too broad to be called petite. Her father had been broad shouldered, Attolia remembered, and not over-tall. Eddis had a serious expression, but as she waited for Attolia to speak, her eyes narrowed with what looked to Attolia like puzzlement.

Attolia gave her a haughty look back. “We are in accord, Your Majesty?” she asked.

“Remarkably so,” said Eddis gravely. She was not so much reserving her judgment as trying to unmake it. She thought she knew the queen of Attolia and wondered what Eugenides could have seen in her. Except of course that she was beautiful, but there were beautiful women at the court in Eddis, and Gen had never seemed much moved by their loveliness.

Attolia looked at Eddis’s minister of war. “How is your head, sir?” she asked politely.

“Gray,” he answered cryptically.

“With worry? You don’t like our harum-scarum plans, sir?”

“I am filled with admiration for them, Your Majesty.” Eddis’s minister inclined his head. Attolia returned a royal half curtsy.

Eddis looked at her minister, curious. “Your head?” she asked.

Attolia explained. “He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son.”

“So have we all from time to time,” Eddis said seriously.