The chancellor’s smile faded. “That is not possible.”

“Sir, I swear by my right arm that they come south by the thousands. We believe they do so at the call of Hanish Mein.”

“He has gone out of the Known World?”

“Scouts have seen them coming. They are a strange people, barbaric and fierce-”

“Foreign people are always thought to be barbaric and fierce.”

“They are taller than normal men by more than a head. They ride atop woolly creatures, horned things that trample men underfoot. They come not just with soldiers but with women and children and the elderly, with great carts like moving cities, pulled by rows of hundreds and hundreds of beasts like none I have heard described before. It is said they wheel siege towers and other strange weapons with them, and manage great herds of livestock…”

“You describe wandering nomads. These are figments of some liar’s fancy.”

“If these be nomads they are like none our world has ever seen. They sacked a town called Vedus in the far north. I say sacked, but in truth they simply rolled over it. They left nothing behind, but grasped up everything of value and carried it with them.”

“How do you know Hanish Mein has anything to do with this?”

The messenger fixed the chancellor in her gaze. She could have been no older than twenty-five, but there was more than that length of suffering and perseverance in her face. Thaddeus had often believed this to be true of female soldiers. They were, by and large, cast of finer steel than average men. She knew what she was talking about, and he should acknowledge it.

Thaddeus rose and motioned the woman toward a large chart of the empire on the far wall. “Show me these things on the map. Tell me all you can.”

For the next hour the two talked: one asking questions with ever-increasing gravity, the other answering with conviction. Running his eyes over the chart, Thaddeus could not help but imagine the howling wildness of the place they discussed. No other region of the Known World was as troublesome as the Mein Satrapy. It was a harsh northern plateau region, a land of nine-month winters and of a blond-haired race of people who managed to survive there. The plateau bore the name of the people who inhabited it, but the Mein were not native to the region. They had once been a Mainland clan from the eastern foothills of the Senivalian Mountains, not all that different from the early Acacians. After an earlier displacement-at the hands of the Old Akarans-they had settled there and been forced to call it their home for twenty-two generations, just as the Akarans had made Acacia their base for the same amount of time.

The Mein were a tribal, warlike, bickering people, as harsh and prone to callousness as the landscape they inhabited, with a culture built around a spiteful pantheon of spirits called the Tunishnevre. They held in common a pride in their shared ancestry, which they protected by living a cloistered existence. They married only with each other and condemned interbreeding with other races. Because of their perceived racial purity, any Meinish male could claim the throne as his own, so long as he won it through the death duel called the Maseret.

This system made for a rapid turnover of rule, with each new chieftain having to win the approbation of the masses. Once crowned, the new chieftain took the race’s name as his own, signifying his representation of all his people. Thus, their current leader, Hanish of the line Heberen, became Hanish Mein on the day he fought his first Maseret and retained the crown of his deceased father. The fact that Hanish roiled with hatred for Acacia was not news, certainly not to the chancellor. But what this soldier was telling him outstripped his imaginings.

At Thaddeus’s urging the messenger consumed all the food on the plate. Another was brought, with cheese this time, the hard variety that had to be cut with a sharp knife. The chancellor sliced wedges for both of them, and then drew back with the blade in hand. He stared at his reflection in it as he listened.

The messenger tried to fight away sleep, but as the night turned into the silent hours her eyelids drooped. “I fear I am failing,” she finally said, “but I have explained everything to you. May I now have an audience with the king? These things are meant for his ears.”

At the mention of the king, Thaddeus had an unexpected thought, not at all what he would have anticipated at this moment. He recalled a day the previous summer when he had found Leodan in the labyrinthine gardens of the palace. The king sat on a stone bench in an alcove, hemmed in on both sides by the vine-draped ancient stone that had been the foundation of the first king’s more modest abode. His youngest son, Dariel, sat on his lap. Together they studied a small object held in the boy’s hand. As Thaddeus approached, the king looked up with wondrous, joy-filled eyes and said, “Thaddeus, come look. We have discovered an insect with spotted wings.” He said it like it was the most important thing in the world, as if he were a child just as much as his son. Thaddeus liked the king most during these clear-eyed, day-lit moments, with the royal eyes unclouded by the mist that hazed them each evening. At those dark times he could be a bore to sit next to, but with his children…well, with his children he was a fool who remembered youth. A wise fool who still found wonder in the world…

“Chancellor?”

Thaddeus started. He realized that they had both been sitting in silence. The messenger had been distracted by her fatigue just as he was caught up in random reveries. He felt the sharp point of the cheese knife where it pressed against his finger. He said, “The king must hear all of this within the hour. You say that General Alain sent you directly here? You have not spoken of this to the governors?”

She answered crisply. “My message was meant for King Leodan.”

“Just as it should be.” Thaddeus tugged on an earlobe. “Sit here a moment. I will arrange a meeting with the king. You have done us a great service.”

The chancellor pushed himself up to his feet. He still held the knife, but he began to move away as if he had forgotten about it and carried it with him absently. As he passed the messenger’s chair and stepped behind her, he swung about. He flipped the knife around in his fingers and grasped the handle in a white-knuckled fist. At just the same moment that one hand clasped over the woman’s forehead, the other one slit her neck from left side to right. He had not been sure whether the tool would suffice for this purpose and he used more force than he had to. But the work was done. The messenger slumped forward without a word of protest. He stood for a moment just behind her, with the knife held out to one side, the whole blade of it and of the fist that held it stained a slow maroon. With conscious effort he willed his hand open. The weapon clattered to the floor and then lay still.

Thaddeus was not entirely the loyal servant of the king that he seemed, and for the first time in his life he had demonstrated this fact with a blood act that could not be rescinded. The hard truth of this stunned him. He fought to steady himself and direct his thoughts, to focus on details and action. He would have to send his servants away, and then he would dispose of this soldier’s body and clean the mess. It would take the rest of the night to accomplish this, but he would not even have to leave his compound. There was a dungeon beneath where he stood now. He had only to drag the woman down the winding staircase that led to it; shove her inside; lock the door; and leave it to the rats, insects, and worms to clean her bones undisturbed.

Dealing with the moral ramifications of what he had just begun would not be nearly as easy.