“Until he became high king.”

“Until that,” said Eddis. “They had already assumed you and I would marry. They thought that Eddis and Sounis together would be a counter to Attolia. They did not expect him to be annux.”

Sophos kicked another rock, a smaller one, and this time the horse only flapped his ears in annoyance.

“You insisted we marry immediately, giving them no time to object. Do you regret that?”

“Never.”

“I mean politically,” he said. “Spare me my blushes.”

“Never,” she repeated, watching the worry lines on his forehead ease before adding, “I love your blushes too much.”

Watching the two of them, Eddis’s minister of war said something to the magus that made him laugh. Neither Eddis nor Sounis noticed.

In Attolia, no one was laughing. As ships disgorged Sounis’s soldiers, the tent city on the Fields of War grew larger and larger. Even in the face of the Mede invasion, Attolians were unsettled by the arrival of the army of a country with which they had so recently been at war. They looked with suspicion at the Sounisian soldiers. Efforts to integrate the two armies were mixed, as Sounisian barons were uncomfortable taking orders from okloi in Attolia’s standing army and the career military men of Attolia called the barons “Sometime Soldiers.”

“My queen.” Casartus was actually wringing his hands. “If we take the ships from Cimorene to blockade Roa, we risk losing Cimorene, and if the Mede take Cimorene, we will never drive them off.” He was a good strategist and probably right. “The allied navy dawdles under the Pents’ direction, and at the current rate we will not have all the forces from Sounis here to begin the march north. We must have more ships.”

“Can the Neutral Islands provide us with no ships?” Attolia asked.

“We have asked, Your Majesty. They hold their ships close, worried for their own defense.”

“And if Eddis were to ask?” she inquired with a trace of bitterness.

Casartus said, “I—we—do not think it will make a difference in this case, Your Majesty.”

When Sounis had faced an unexpected invasion of Mede soldiers and was in desperate straits, Eugenides had had the men to send to his aid, but not the means. He’d needed a flotilla of shallow-draft vessels and he’d summoned Ornon, ambassador of Eddis, to ask the Neutral Islands to supply them.

“Since when do the Neutral Islands answer to Eddis?” Attolia had asked, sharing a grim look with her admiralty, all of whom were also taken by surprise.

“They do not,” said Ornon. “We can ask, as a favor.”

“A favor you assume they will grant is not neutrality,” said Attolia.

Delicately, the king had explained that because Eddis was too poor to support her population, in every generation some had to leave to search for better fortune elsewhere. “Not all of them can be mercenaries,” said the king.

“Helen sent her people to corrupt the Neutral Islands?”

“It was her grandfather who first encouraged Eddisians to settle on specific islands with the idea that those islands, over time, might incline in Eddis’s favor.”

“I see,” the queen had said, indeed seeing several events in her history more clearly. The wars between Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia were over, hopefully forever, but it was still a sore point.

“Very well. Let us go to the Braelings again for advice,” said Attolia.

The Braelings, however, had little to offer. When Fordad was summoned to an audience in the megaron with the king and queen, he brought his secretary and his junior ambassador. The Brael ambassador, who might have spoken more informally in other circumstances, was very precise in his speech.

“Your Majesties have our support,” he assured the Attolians. “What ships we are free to commit will carry our troops and the Gants’ troops, but those ships are in Manse, only loading now. We expect them to arrive in time to convey their men to Stinos before the summer windstorms arrive. They will not reach Attolia in time to move Sounis’s forces, though they could continue to Roa after Stinos.”

“Allowing the Medes to leisurely unload a mountain of supplies and be long gone by the time the Braels arrive,” Casartus muttered.

Everyone was so carefully trying to avoid looking at the king that he had to clear his throat to get Fordad’s attention. He said, “There are three large Pent ships in the harbor now, that brought grain and other supplies we have purchased. The Pents are happy enough to make money from our war.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty. The Pents want you to know they have much to offer as allies if you are willing to apologize for the treatment of their ambassador, and as their special envoy, I have been empowered to accept that apology.” Knowing the king all too well, Fordad warned, “My government would withdraw all support if you were to deprive the Pents, in any way, of their ships, or the use of their ships, without compensation—”

“Compensation!” interrupted the king. “Do you mean to tell me that if we seize those ships, the Pents expect me to pay for them?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Fordad said, and named a staggering sum. The Pents were well aware of the Attolians’ desperation and her empty coffers. They had sent three exquisite ships, newly constructed, with unmarked decks and creamy white sails. They meant to have their apology.

The king appeared stunned. “So, I beg the Pents’ forgiveness or I come up with a king’s ransom? Those are my choices, Fordad?”

“Those are your choices, Your Majesty,” Fordad said regretfully. “The Pents are our allies, and the Brael will stand by our treaty with them. If you seize the property of the Pents without paying compensation, you will lose the support of my government.”

“Very well,” said the king, with a small sigh.

“You will apologize?” said Fordad, relieved.

“Oh, no,” said the king. “I’m seizing the boats. We’ll pay the compensation.”

Fordad didn’t think he was serious. He was trying to appear amused right up until Lamion came forward with a small carved box and opened it for the ambassador’s inspection. “Foest deost Fryst!” the Brael swore, shocked into his native language.

Three matching cabochon rubies nestled in the folds of gold velvet, each the size of his thumb, each the red of fresh blood.

Attolia, better at concealing her feelings, sounded only mildly curious as she leaned toward the king to ask, “Are those the rubies from the Attolian crown?”

“They are,” said the king proudly.

“Did you spend the night picking them out?”

“I did not, though one of my ancestors did—many, many years ago. The ones in the crown are glass. They’ve been glass for so long that I didn’t think you’d mind if we spent the real ones.” He smiled at her.

“And that?” Attolia pointed as Xikos stepped forward with another small case.

“That is the diamond and sapphire collection colloquially known as the Attolian Skies.”

“Which was lost during the Amanix uprising.”

“Which was stolen by my great-great-grandfather during the Amanix uprising, yes.”

Attolia, while continuing to stare at the king, addressed the Braeling. “I believe we have met your price, ambassador.”