“No doubt you will tell me later about the extra attendant that has been added to my retinue,” Attolia said, watching them as they shook their heads in confusion. All of her attendants stood before her. There was none missing, and none who matched the Mede’s description of his midnight visitor.
“Your Majesty,”—one woman spoke for all—“we don’t know whom the ambassador could mean.”
“No matter,” said Attolia. “I do. For now, tell me what has become of the captain of my guard.”
As one, the ladies looked through the doorway behind her. Attolia turned to look over a shoulder and through the open doorway saw Teleus waiting in the inner chamber. Waiting with him were his lieutenants and several officers of the regular army.
The queen smiled. “Well done,” she said. She glanced quickly at each man before her, as if calculating his trustworthiness. “Teleus,” she said after a moment, “the Eddisian prisoners are being brought in, either to the atrium or into the megaron itself. The Thief of Eddis is among them, and if he has a choice, he will be dead by his own hand rather than face dying by inches. I don’t want him to have a choice. Send one of your lieutenants to keep him safe.”
Teleus nodded, and one of the lieutenants turned sideways to slip past the queen. “You are responsible for his continued well-being,” she said as he passed. “Don’t fail me.”
“No, Your Majesty,” he murmured.
The queen turned back to Teleus. “There are messages that need to be sent by the royal messengers.”
“There are none, Your Majesty.”
“None?”
“None of the messengers due have arrived. The two I sent out yesterday to Piloxides have not returned. The man I didn’t send, the last messenger, was found dead this morning. He had a fever last night after eating something that disagreed with him,” Teleus said meaningfully.
“I see. Then you will bear the messages yourselves,” said the queen, giving her orders quickly. “The Mede outside the door has been ordered to let no one in. He seems to have let the lieutenant out without a squeak, but the rest of you will have to wait here until I leave, as I will do soon. I am going to bathe.”
She turned to her attendants. “Is my bathwater hot?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“See to it then,” she ordered.
In the warm bath she thought of Nahuseresh, so cultured and so confident, in every way prepared to be an excellent king for a minor addition to the Medean Empire. He thought well of her. She knew he appreciated her ruthlessness. He’d complimented her on her choice of military advisors as her land and sea war with Sounis had progressed. She’d been careful to take Nahuseresh’s own advice, when she could, to reinforce his impression that she took advice from others. That had probably been to the cost of the barons whose bodies hung from Ephrata’s walls. No doubt Nahuseresh had thought he was eliminating any advisors who might tempt her away from the role of queen to his king.
Her attendants waited with warmed robes as she stepped out of the bath. There was no chattering gossip. They all waited, no doubt, for her to ask about the missing attendant. She sat in a chair to have her hair combed. Aglaia tugged at the queen’s ear and started to slide a wire through the lobe with a golden bee swinging from its lower loop.
“Not those,” Attolia said sharply.
In the megaron Eugenides sat on the stone floor with his knees pulled up, leaning back against a red painted pillar. His eyes were closed. Like the other Eddisians, he was wet through, and from time to time a shudder shook him, as if a ghost had walked over his grave. The high collar of his uniform tunic hid any marks on his neck. Teleus, standing with the queen at the side entrance to the megaron, pointed him out as he explained to the queen, with Nahuseresh standing nearby, that the lieutenant, in passing, had noticed that the Thief was quietly being strangled in the chains of the prisoner just behind him. The prisoners had been chained in rows and then ordered to sit on the stone floor. The lieutenant, in haste to save the Thief for Her Majesty’s pleasure, had kicked the other prisoner in the head.
“Very good.” Attolia praised Teleus and his lieutenant. “I would have been sorry to lose him.” She stepped across the painted floor of the megaron and stood in front of the Eddisians, tapping her foot impatiently. She wanted the Thief to open his eyes. He looked half dead and probably was.
Hissing in annoyance, she moved between the prisoners, carefully stepping over their chains. Bending over Eugenides, she grabbed his head by the hair above his forehead and twisted. Eugenides’s eyes opened, and his feet thrashed in panic. Looking up at her, with her face filling his field of vision, he stopped moving as if suddenly paralyzed.
“Goatfoot,” she said, “do you understand what is going to happen to you?”
His mouth hung open, and he closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to go on staring at her. “Yes,” he said at last, his voice breathy and hoarse.
“Good,” said Attolia, and dropped him to walk away through the prisoners without a backward glance. “I want to send a message to the queen of Eddis,” she said to Nahuseresh, walking across the room to seat herself on her throne. There was no seat for Nahuseresh. Attolia’s servants never provided one except at Her Majesty’s explicit command, but Nahuseresh didn’t choose to impede the process of the queen’s revenge by sending for one.
“Your messengers have been sent to the capital to order the palace secured against traitors,” he explained.
“Nor would they know where to reach Eddis quickly,” said Attolia. “We are only assuming that she is with her army. She may be elsewhere. It is better to use someone else. Teleus, you say your lieutenant kicked one of the prisoners in the head?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Is he conscious?”
“I believe so, Your Majesty.”
“Well, let’s have that one, then.”
The guards brought the Eddisian she’d chosen to stand before her. As she’d guessed, it was the gray-haired man who’d fought beside Eugenides on the mountain.
He moved a little stiffly and screwed up his eyes like a man with a headache. He was a little taller than average, but not noticeably so, a little heavier, but not stocky. His closely trimmed beard was gray, as was most of the hair on his head. Attolia gathered, when Nahuseresh made no comment, that he saw nothing exceptionable about her choice.
“You are a soldier?” There was no sign of rank on his tunic.
“I am, Your Majesty.” His words were a little slurred. The kick had been a solid one.
“You don’t seem to have risen far for your years.”
“Maybe I’m not ambitious.” The man shrugged.
“Maybe you should drink less,” the queen suggested. The man narrowed his eyes at the insult but didn’t contest the implication that he was a drunk.
“Will you carry a message for me?” the queen asked.
“I can hardly decline, Your Majesty,” answered the prisoner.
Attolia wondered what Eugenides had said to him in the few minutes they’d had before the man had been dragged from the rest of the Eddisians to stand before the queen.
“Tell your queen that I will not return her Thief a second time.” The prisoner just looked up at her dully. She couldn’t know how much he understood. How hard had the lieutenant kicked him?
“What remains of his life, he spends with me, do you understand, messenger?”
“I believe so, Your Majesty.”
“Eddis sent her Thief to steal me from my throne and bring me back as her puppet. I think Eddis does not understand my attachment to my allies the Medes.” She carefully did not look at Nahuseresh. Her voice was hard. She leaned forward in her seat, the fabric of her long skirts bunched in her hands as if she were holding the prisoner’s attention with them. “When he thought I was safely distant from any rescue, her Thief proposed life or death to me and let me choose my fate. I am in my own megaron and have an answer to the Thief’s proposal. Do you know what my answer is?”
/>
“Yes,” the prisoner said.
“Yes,” the queen repeated after him, enunciating the word clearly. “You may tell the queen of Eddis.”
She nodded to the guards, who took the man by the arms, pulling him backward toward the door of the megaron. She waited until they’d almost reached the door. “Tell Eddis,” she said, and the soldiers stopped. “Tell Eddis that if she asks nicely, she might save her Thief some suffering. Tell her she can send a message back to me so long as she sends it with you. And tell her it must arrive by the seventh hour of tomorrow morning. No later…on pain of death.” She smiled. She turned to her guard captain. “Teleus, see him escorted to the forward edge of our army at the pass.”
Attolia flicked Nahuseresh a glance below her narrowed eyelids. “Now we wait,” she said, not bothering to hide her smile of delighted anticipation as her guards conveyed the messenger out the door.
“Wait for what?” the Mede asked.
“Hmm?” Attolia focused herself on the present. “Good heavens, I don’t know,” she said. “Eddis produces such lovely threats when her Thief is concerned. I can hardly guess what she might come up with now.”
“And the rest of your prisoners?” the Mede inquired.
“Your prisoners, Nahuseresh. What would you like to do with them?”
“Hand them all over to you.”
“Then we will send them off to be locked up until we hear from their queen. Except the Thief,” she added. “I don’t believe I trust him enough to leave him with his fellows, and I would like him to be nearer to hand.” She directed her guards to lock him in one of the upper rooms of the megaron, several of which had been altered for the purpose of securing the prisoners of a former baron of Ephrata.
For the rest of the day Attolia remained in her own chamber, pleading tiredness after her forced journey. She joined Nahuseresh for dinner. The main hall was the only one large enough to hold the queen, the Mede, and those barons still lingering in the megaron. She hadn’t tried to order them back to their commands and supposed that Nahuseresh hadn’t either. She didn’t want them interfering with the soldiers, and Nahuseresh must have wanted to keep a close eye on them for reasons of his own. Her attendants, moving freely through the megaron, had brought her news of the Mede’s messengers sent and returning, no doubt carrying orders for the Attolian army that the Mede expected to be followed in the absence of the barons.
Attolia knew that he found the presence of non-noble generals in her army ridiculous and repellent. He’d warned her that they would be loyal only to the money they made. At least they were loyal to something, Attolia thought. Her least favorite barons were those whose loyalties seemed to change directions the way a pennant blew in a shifting wind. Even a steadfast enemy was better than a waffler, and her new-model army and navy had never waffled. They would, she supposed, desert wholesale if she were dethroned or utterly bankrupt, but on the whole they waited very patiently for their pay. They earned it with their victories, and they seemed to trust her to deliver it. Their faith in their pay was often a comfort to the embattled queen. She tried not to test it unnecessarily.
She had altered the command structure frequently, promoting those who drew her favorable attention and redeploying them to keep their expectations from growing entrenched. The captain of her private guard she picked most carefully and changed from time to time before he could be corrupted by her enemies. If she was not happy to leave her fate entirely in Teleus’s hands, she was at least content. She chatted with her barons and flirted a bit with Nahuseresh. He was smug, like a cat. She smiled and listened carefully as he explained how he had deployed his army in the best possible way to aid hers in case of an attack by Eddis.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JUST INSIDE THE PASS THE queen of Eddis sat on a rock surrounded by her council. She looked to her minister of war. “What do you advise?” she asked.
“Attack,” he said.
“Why?”
“Eugenides said to,” he answered.
“While I have a great deal of faith in my Thief and in his advice, I could wish, under the circumstances, that I had more information than that on which to base my decision,” Eddis said, and waited for her minister.
Calmly he shrugged. “We drive the Medes out now, or never, Your Majesty.”
Eddis sighed. He had stated the crux of the matter. He had already told her everything he knew and had no more information to offer. The decision was hers.
She was silent while she considered. Eugenides waited in the megaron at Ephrata. To fail to attack was to leave him and the other prisoners to whatever mercy Attolia and the Mede might show. Attolia would exact a hideous revenge either for herself or to prove herself to her allies. On the other hand, Eddis couldn’t cast an entire army to destruction trying to save one prisoner or the handful of prisoners Attolia held. But if it cost the lives of every last man in her army to drive out the Mede, she as queen must not hesitate.
“Very well,” she said. “We attack at the seventh hour.”
Attolia was awake in the dark waiting for dawn. Her rooms were at the back of the megaron, looking over the sea, and she watched the constellations move slowly, finally fading just as they set. The sun had risen over the mountains and the sky was changing from gray to blue. The armies would have begun to move on the plain at the base of the pass. How many times had she sat before a battle, wondering how it would end? She wished herself at the plain. She would have liked to be there to direct the army herself, though she knew her limitations and didn’t pretend to be a soldier. She always remained at a safe distance with her personal guard to protect her. She envied Eddis, who could fight in her own battles if she chose. Not perhaps as dangerous as a soldier; still, she was trained and had been trained since she was a child.
“I have always envied Eddis,” she said to herself as she stood up to pace. It was true. Eddis and she had both been the younger sisters of crown princes, but always it seemed to Attolia that Eddis was running wild in the mountains while she was carefully kept and groomed in the king’s palace of Attolia. News had traveled with the merchants and the entertainers who came before both courts. Eddis was learning to ride a pony, Eddis was learning to use a sword with her male cousins, Eddis was hunting at the summer retreat, while Attolia was dressing in velvets that stifled even in the winter, learning to ape the costume and courtly manners of the continent, and learning to salute just so when entering the main temple. Eddis had gone on the winter hunts, and Attolia had been sitting, awkward and miserable, in the court of her future father-in-law, listening to his plans to rule her kingdom and hating the princess who would become the heir to Eddis when her older brothers died. Died of sickness, Attolia thought, not assassinated as her own brother had certainly been.
At Eddis’s coronation Attolia had poured her advice like vitriol into the ear of the new queen, watching her face whiten, viciously satisfied to be the one to tell the girl what the world was like when you were a queen. And then none of that advice had been needed. Eddis had gone on as free in her mountains as Attolia had ever been enslaved. Eddis, with her loyal ministers, her counselors, her army, and her Thief to serve her.
“At any rate she won’t have her Thief back,” Attolia murmured, wrapping herself in her robe and sitting back down.
There was a knock at the chamber door, and a hesitant attendant stepped in. “Forgive me for disturbing you, Your Majesty, but the Mede ambassador has requested you to attend him.”
“Me attend him?” Attolia raised her eyebrow. “Oh, he does grow bold. Tell him I will be with him shortly.”
“He is in the outer chamber now, Your Majesty.”
Attolia sat up. “How fortunate that I do not have to receive him in my nightdress. By all means show him in.”
The Mede, when he entered, was fitted in the light armor for which the Medes were famous. He wore a curving sword at his belt. His beard was freshly oiled, and Attolia could smell the perfume from across the room even with the open window
behind her.
“Your ad hoc messenger has not returned,” he said.
“No.”
“But my messengers report that Eddis is moving her army out onto the plain below the pass.”
“My messengers have not yet told me so.” She knew Nahuseresh was intercepting her messages.
“I thought to bring the news to you myself.”
“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.