The first time I was told this I stood up and said briskly I was leaving, and my family with me. Akretenesh just looked disappointed. “You would never, I am sure, very sure, Your Majesty, be so rude to your host,” he said. He used that phrase often, I am sure, very sure, always followed by something I desired but would not be allowed. I grew to hate it as much as I hated him.

After some weeks of this, I was well practiced in controlling my frustration. I never thought I would have any reason to be grateful to my Ferrian tutor, Malatesta, but as it turned out, he had been good practice for dealing with the Mede. I did not swear or shout. I nodded politely when spoken to and let the most outrageous comments pass by. Of course we were as children to the more mature race of the Mede. Of course they knew better than we did how to regulate ourselves.

I kept myself busier than I had been out on the island of Letnos. I woke in the morning and occupied myself with martial arts. I had a practice sword and any number of helpful partners waiting on me in the training yard. I rode regularly and tried to improve my sword work on horseback. Akretenesh seemed to look with approval on these activities. I practiced firing Attolia’s gun, and he didn’t object. On the contrary, Brimedius’s armory was most helpful about providing lead and powder. The lead was pulled back out of targets to be reused, but my consumption of powder was not inconsequential. If I could have cost Brimedius ten times as much to maintain, I would have.

In the afternoon I read whatever Nomenus brought me from Brimedius’s library. Mepiles’s Lamentations did help me put my own discomforts in context, and I read a little from it every day. I paced in my room, talking to myself, and rehearsing for future speeches. I worried daily about the fate of the magus and the men in my army. Akretenesh of course gave me no news. I didn’t know even if the magus had lived or died, though I thought the Mede would probably have told me if my friend and advisor was dead. I worried about him, and wondered if he had safely reached my father.

I was free to move about as I pleased in the gardens and could ride out on one of Brimedius’s horses so long as I had someone from his guard with me. In the megaron I could roam through the public rooms and in the corridors on the way to my apartments. I walked those corridors, usually with Nomenus at my side, listening for any hint of my mother and sisters. Eurydice could be heard, if she chose to exert herself, across several fields and a small river. I never heard a sound and never caught even a hint of their whereabouts.

I spent my afternoons walking in gardens surrounding the megaron in search of some sign they might have left, a footprint in the flower beds, a plant stripped of its blossoms, twigs in a pattern, an arrangement of stones. I found nothing. I had faith that Ina was a cunning prisoner, but there was no sign that she had even once outwitted Akretenesh’s desire that she and Eurydice and my mother be kept from me.

I attempted to think charitable thoughts about Nomenus, who had taken on the role of my personal attendant, and the other people in the megaron, the servants and Brimedius’s guardsmen. I couldn’t blame them for my captivity. It was my own doing, after all, that had brought me to Brimedius. I tried to thank them honestly for their services. They were wary at first, but if they held me in contempt, they concealed it well. If the captain of the guard was a little stiff with me when we sparred in the mornings, he was never anything but polite.

I know that it may be wishful thinking or arrogance on my part to think so, but over time they seemed genuinely well disposed to me. Nomenus even scoured up a few more books of poetry for me to read from Lady Brimedius’s private collection, which was considerate of him. He never spoke to me of anything but my personal needs, making it clear that the business of kings was not his business. It was a fine line between sympathy and pity that he walked, and I was gradually won over by his kindnesses.

Remembering Gen’s suggestion that it is better if you believe what you want other people to believe, I tried to think charitable thoughts about Akretenesh as well. Except for the very essence of the matter—my captivity and his refusal to let me see my sisters and my mother—he was very accommodating. I still didn’t like him. His narrow, inflexible mind, his unshakable faith that the Mede way was the best way, and his unwitting condescension in offering it to me made my hackles rise, even without the added offense of his blatant intention to appropriate my country. Also, I hated the scent of his hair oil, which is a stupid thing to care about, and I am not surprised that it makes you laugh.

Fortunately, I did not have to pretend that I liked him. He was content once he could see that I was willing to submit to him because I had no other choice.

One day after weeks of uninterrupted quiet and sick frustration, there was a visitor to Brimedius’s megaron. Nomenus was arranging my meal on a tray when I asked him outright who had arrived.

“It’s Baron Hanaktos,” he said pleasantly, as if it were nothing that a man who’d tried to kill me was nearby. “The Mede ambassador has asked for an appointment this evening before dinner if that will suit Your Majesty.”

This is how they maintained the polite fiction that I was not a prisoner. It was “Your Majesty, this,” and “Your Majesty, that,” and “if it would suit Your Majesty.” Listening to Akretenesh say the words made me want to bite something, but Nomenus spoke them with a gentle amusement that made it bearable, as if it were an irony shared between us.

That evening Akretenesh brought me another letter.

“Your friend has sent greetings,” he said. “Were you expecting them?”

I had no idea whom he meant. My first thought was of Hyacinth, and I had no interest in any news from him. Seeing my confusion, he held up the letter, and I recognized the seals.

“Her Majesty the queen of Eddis?” I said rigidly, and Akretenesh promptly reconsidered his wording.

“Her Majesty, yes,” he said more respectfully.

I understood better how the queen of Attolia could have led her own ambassador by the nose. The Medes seem to be very conventional thinkers, so certain of themselves that they never even entertain anyone else’s opinions. I do believe that Akretenesh saw no differences between a woman who was a queen and one who was a seamstress, though he would recognize all the differences in the world between a prince and a farmer.

I said that yes, the letter was unexpected, and no, I had made no plans for communications in case I was separated from the magus and the troops. No, I didn’t think it likely that there was a secret message, but of course I couldn’t say for certain. Akretenesh again laid the parchment out on the table between us and smoothed it with his hand while he considered. Finally, with a little sigh, he folded it again.

“I am sorry,” he said. “It’s too risky.”

I looked away while I fantasized about throwing myself across the top of the spindly table and seizing Akretenesh by the throat to choke the life out of him, surrounded by the sound of crashing crockery.

After a deep breath, I said, “I understand.”

“I am relieved Your Majesty comprehends the difficulties of my position,” said Akretenesh.

“You have my sympathy, Ambassador. What are your thoughts of Her Majesty?” I asked.

“I regret I have never had the pleasure of meeting the queen of Eddis.”

“But your brother ambassador in Attolia has, and I know you have communicated.” He’d certainly made it clear that Melheret had conveyed the news that I was heading for Brimedius. Akretenesh pretended to have heard only the most flattering things about my intelligence and maturity from the same source.