Eddis bowed to the rebuke with a smile.

“I’ve seen golden calves guarded less fiercely,” Eugenides remarked.

“I did notice the number of armed guards in the palace. Is it because we are here?” Eddis asked, her arms still held out to either side.

“No,” said Eugenides. “They are always around her.” It was an informed opinion, Eddis supposed.

“There will be music from the Continent and dancing tonight,” she warned her Thief. “Protocol says that as a suitor you are supposed to ask Attolia to lead the first set with you.”

“I’ve been practicing,” he responded, and after supper, when the tables had been removed and the music was beginning, he obediently stepped to the dais at the head of the room and offered his hand for the first dance. Attolia accepted without looking at him and moved through the dance without speaking. He returned her to the dais at the end of the dance feeling as if he were replacing a manikin on its pedestal. He bowed and returned to Eddis’s side.

“Attolia’s court does not seem to favor the match,” said Eddis as he settled himself in the space between the queen and her master of protocol.

“I haven’t seen so many foul looks directed at me since I stole those cabochon emeralds,” Eugenides said.

“I can’t think they dislike you that much,” responded Eddis.

“You have seen her guards?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And the minister of ceremonies, and the help right down to the last wine bearer? The queen’s attendants, as you can plainly see, are all ten heavily opposed.”

“And the queen?” asked the minister of protocol, seated on Eugenides’s other side.

“The queen abstains,” said Eugenides shortly.

“Nine against, one undecided,” said Eddis. When Eugenides gave her a puzzled look, she explained. “Attolia’s attendants. I think you have one undecided, still.”

“Really, which one?” Eugenides asked with his eyebrow raised.

“Figure it out for yourself and in the process go be civil to them.”

“And risk being torn limb from limb?”

“I think you are safe from physical attack,” said Eddis wryly.

“That’s what you think,” Eugenides answered. “There was sand in my dinner.”

Eddis looked at him. “I thought you just weren’t hungry.”

“Sand,” said Eugenides. “In the soup, on the bread, sprinkled on the meat.”

“She wouldn’t—” Eddis began before Eugenides interrupted, waving his hand in the air as if brushing away spiderwebs.

“No, of course she wouldn’t. I’d say the kitchen feels the same as the queen’s attendants.”

Sighing, Eddis looked around at the beautiful hall, the exquisite tiles on the floor, the mosaics on the walls, the hundreds of candles, and the golden candelabra. The uncomfortable thought came to mind that she would rather sell Eugenides into slavery than marry him into the court of Attolia.

The negotiations began the next day, as Attolia had supposed, with a military treaty. The queens were not present. Their ministers and counselors met on their behalf. When the queens met face to face, they discussed the weather or the evening’s entertainment. Eugenides, for his part, gravely asked the queen to dance and was as gravely granted the privilege, but Attolia spoke to him only in the most formulaic phrases, and Eddis knew that he responded with the acerbic comments sotto voce for which he was famous. If Attolia returned from the dancing flushed from more than the exercise, no one took it as a positive sign. Her attendants watched the Thief with narrowed eyes, and, as Eugenides said, if they’d had tails, they would have lashed them. Attolia’s guards watched him like hawks waiting for a signal to attack a lure, and even the servants seemed to look down their noses as they addressed him. Attolia’s lords didn’t present a unified front. They were all rigidly courteous, but their courtesy concealed various motivations. Some bitterly opposed any king from outside Attolia; some were amused to see their own queen brought so low. None, so far as Eddis could see, cared if he would be a competent ruler.

The peace talks did not progress. Attolia, surrounded by her fractious barons, continued to be formal and remote. Eddis, with the well-being of her country at stake, was cautious. Her minister of war, unwilling to forget that the queen of Attolia had maimed his son, was reserved to the point of outright hostility.

Meanwhile Eddis complimented Attolia on her palace and her gardens. Attolia responded with invitations to musicals and dancing and excursions into the countryside.

“What snakes and weasels fill your court, Your Majesty,” Eugenides said one evening, in a voice only she could hear, as they turned on the dance floor. Eugenides led with his left side, and his right arm held the queen around the waist. She could feel the wood of the false hand he wore pressing against her back. “Where do you find them all? Do you grow them in the dark somewhere in your hinterlands and then bring them to the capital?”

Attolia knew every limitation of her feudal supporters. She stared without answering over his shoulder. She was still taller than he.

“Baron Erondites, for example.” Eugenides continued conversationally. “He slithers up and hisses at me from time to time. And Susa…Do you ever let him off his chain, or is he too dangerous? He told me how pleased he was to see you marrying at last. Droll was the word he used, I think.” He felt Attolia stiffen and chose his next target carefully. “Erondites’s son…” He trailed off as Attolia slowly turned her face toward him.

“You say another word and I will have you flayed,” Attolia said.

Eugenides smiled. Erondites the younger supported the queen and had supported her for years against his own father. She wouldn’t stand by and see him insulted, but Eugenides knew he had planted a seed of doubt. She would wonder whether Erondites the younger had also called her likely marriage to the Thief of Eddis droll.

He was too kind to leave the seed to grow. “I was only going to commend his loyalty,” the Thief said, “or his lack of originality. He stares right through me when we talk, just the way you do.”

For a moment Eugenides hoped Attolia might say something. Then she turned her head to look over his shoulder, and the Thief’s hopes dwindled. They finished the dance, and he returned her to her throne and her attendants. He smiled at their glares and turned to go back to his queen.

“Eugenides.” Attolia spoke, and he turned back to her. She lifted her hand and laid it on the side of his face. It was all she needed to do. Though his expression didn’t change, she could feel the tremor that went through him at her touch. He was afraid of her. Some part of him would always be afraid of her. That fear was her weapon, and she would encourage it if she wanted to maintain her authority as queen.

“Good night,” Attolia said politely.

“Good night, Your Majesty,” Eugenides answered, and stepped back to bow before turning away.

Safely back in his seat, he wiped the sweat off his forehead. He thought that the gray-haired attendant had smiled. Was she encouraged because she thought that her queen was showing him favor? Or did she know that Attolia was only putting him, very thoroughly, in his place?