“Then it was all for the best,” Rialus said. “The Giver provides for all worthies. A great success!”

Maeander did not like being led. “Do not get ahead of yourself. You failed to keep your general shackled. You sat at your window here as he marched out to threaten everything my brother has been planning for years now. The outcome was not that bad, true, but you have forced us to speed up our plans. And is it true that your general sent out messengers-several of them?”

“He did, but not to worry. I had them all hunted and slain.”

“Not true. One of them got through. One of them met with the king’s chancellor, Thaddeus Clegg.”

“Oh,” Rialus said.

“Yes. ‘Oh.’ Again, however, you have been saved by a piece of fortune.” He paused to let Rialus squirm a moment, and then said, “Thaddeus is…conflicted, enough so that he may not see his interests as aligned with Leodan’s.”

Rialus’s mouth formed an oval. “Conflicted?”

“Just so,” Maeander said. He reached down and pushed the tips of his fingers through olives set in a bowl on Rialus’s desk, imported delicacies not easy to come by in the Mein. He popped a few in his mouth and watched the governor. “Actually, Rialus, the reasons for his conflicted state of mind intersect with your own situation. Would you like me to explain?”

Rialus nodded, hesitant but too curious to refuse. Maeander spoke as he chewed. He asked Rialus to step back in time with him and to imagine Leodan and Thaddeus as they were in their youth. Imagine the young prince: dreamy, idealistic, indecisive in his acceptance of the power he was being groomed to wield, smitten by a young beauty-Aleera-who seemed of more import to him than his throne. Beside him his chancellor: resolute, confident, disciplined, a gifted swordsman, ambitious in the ways that Leodan was not.

“Leodan was never exactly a jewel in his father’s eye,” Maeander said, grinning.

Gridulan, he claimed, thought his son weak. But a son is a son; Gridulan had no other. He could not be denied. This is why Gridulan did the best he could to harden Leodan, even as he watched Thaddeus from the corner of his eye. He wanted his son to have a strong chancellor, but he had reason to fear Thaddeus’s gifts. Thaddeus was an Agnate, after all. He could trace his lineage back to Edifus himself. He might, in certain circumstances, make a legitimate claim to the throne. This became a greater threat-from the old king’s perspective-when Thaddeus wed a young woman, Dorling, also from an Agnate family. They had a boy child their first year together, a full two years before Aleera would give birth to Aliver. So there was strong Thaddeus, an officer in the Marah, with a young wife and child, with a fine lineage and the adoration of the populace and support of the governors-who saw the chancellor as a shrewd advocate for their causes. In short, Thaddeus had become a threat that Gridulan could not ignore, even if Leodan was oblivious to it.

“Guess what he did about it,” Maeander urged. “Have you any idea?”

Rialus did not, although it took him some moments to convince Maeander of this.

“I’ll have to tell you, then,” the Mein went on. “Gridulan conspired with one of his companions. At the king’s bidding, this companion acquired a rare poison, the kind used by leaguemen. Deadly stuff. He personally saw to it that Dorling consumed a dose of it in her tea. Her child-still nursing-was poisoned through his mother’s milk. Both died.”

“They were killed at the king’s order?” Rialus asked.

“Just so.”

At the time nobody knew what to make of the deaths. Some suspected murder, but no fingers were pointed-not in the right direction, at least. Gridulan was the first to offer Thaddeus condolences. Leodan was beside himself with grief. Thaddeus himself bore his suffering admirably, but he was never the same man afterward. Gridulan had chosen well. He managed to snuff out Thaddeus’s ambition while leaving the man alive to aid his son. Leodan did not find out about the murders until some years later, after his father died and he read his private logs. But what was he to do with the knowledge that his own father had killed his best friend’s wife and child all in order to protect him?

“Perhaps a strong man would have confessed everything to his friend,” Maeander said, shrugging, for he did not seem certain of this point. “Perhaps. In any event, Leodan kept his mouth shut. He told nobody, only meting out punishment against his father’s companion, the one who had administered the poison. Have you any idea who this person was?”

Maeander did not wait for Rialus to answer this time. “That’s right,” he said. “Your beloved father, Rethus, set the poison into play! That is why you are here before me now, a miserable governor of a miserable province. You are being punished-as was your father before you-for loyalty to Gridulan. Family secrets run deep, Rialus. I can tell by the perplexity on your face that I have both delivered surprises to you and answered old questions at the same time.”

It took Rialus a moment to gather his wits enough to ask, “How do you know all this?”

Maeander looked to one side and spit out an olive pit. “My brother has a great many friends in positions to know such things. The league, for example, watches all of this with interest, glad to offer bits and pieces of information to help us stir the pot. Believe me, Rialus, the story I just told you is true. A few months ago my brother shared the information with Thaddeus Clegg himself. The news made quite an impression on him. Because of it I think it fair to say he is no longer entirely on Leodan’s side. Think of the life Thaddeus has led since Dorling and his son died. Think of the love he showered on Leodan’s children instead. Think of how he supported the king when he faced the death-by natural causes, of course-of his own wife. Think how it would feel to discover that all of it was based on a lie, on murder, on betrayal. In his place, would you not want to see the Akarans punished? Revenge is the easiest of emotions to understand and to manipulate. Don’t you agree?”

Rialus did, although he desperately wanted time and solitude to digest all that Maeander had just revealed.

“In any event,” Maeander said, returning to the issue that had started the digression, “I will not kill you for your blunders, but I am afraid you will have to pay for them. I have promised Cathgergen to the Numrek. When they arrive, you will hand the fortress over to them. I trust you will not anger their chieftain, Calrach; from what I have seen of him he is not of a forgiving nature.”

“You do not mean…”

Maeander looked affronted. “Are you protesting? You would not have me give them Tahalian, would you? There is no other way. The fortress is theirs to rest and regroup in. If you like, you can let the army put up a defense, and then afterward you may escape to whatever fate awaits you. Do not look at me like that. Neptos, I have never known a man to so resemble a rat and in so many different ways.” For a moment actual anger flared in Maeander’s voice, but he harnessed it and spoke coolly. “You may now go on breathing, but true rewards come to those who serve us more effectively.”

“You have doomed me,” Rialus said.

“I have not doomed you. If you are doomed, the seeds of it were planted before ever I knew you. That is how it is with us all. That is all I have for you.”

Rialus managed to speak only after Maeander turned to leave. “You forget that I-I am the governor of this fortress.” Maeander fixed a bemused stare on him. Rialus changed tack, moving away from the suggestion of threat inherent in that declaration. “Perhaps I can yet prove myself.”

“Ah, are you as treacherous as your father? How would you prove yourself?”

“If what I have to offer pleases you, I must have your guarantee that I’ll be rewarded. I can give you the royal family-their heads, I mean.”