“I don’t know, what do men ever want with the things they fight wars about? Come on—I want to find Babba.”

“But he can’t get in, can he? The autarch? Our walls are too strong.”

“Yes, the walls are too strong, but he might besiege us. Then we’d all have to go hungry.” She poked her sister’s waist. “You won’t last long without sweetmeats and honey-bread.”

“Stop! You are a beast!”

“But you’ll get better at climbing stairs. Come on!” The jokes rang a little hollow even to Pelaya herself. It was hard to tease her sister, who was good and kind most of the time, with those terrible bells sounding all across the citadel hill, echoing and echoing.

They found their father in an antechamber to the throne room, surrounded by frightened nobles and patient guardsmen. “What are you girls doing here?” he asked when he saw them.

“Mama wanted to send Kiril to ask you what is happening,” Teloni said quickly. “But Pelaya ran quick like a rabbit and I had to run after her.”

“Neither of you should be here—you should be with your mother, helping with the little ones.”

“What is it, Babba?” Pelaya asked. “Is it the autarch…?”

Count Perivos frowned at her, not as if he were angry, but as if he wished she hadn’t asked him the question at all. “Probably. We’ve had a signal from the western forts that they are under attack, and also reports of a great army marching down the coast from the north toward the Nektarian Walls—the land walls.” He shook his head. “But it may be exaggerated. The autarch knows he can never break down our fortifications, so it may be he simply wishes to frighten us into giving him the right to navigate our waters on his way to attack someone else.”

Pelaya didn’t believe it, and she felt fairly certain her father didn’t either. “Well, then. We’ll tell Mama.”

“Tell her we should move the family down to the house near the market. Here on top of the citadel it may be dangerous, although even if the autarch manages somehow to take the western forts, the guns cannot reach us here. Still, better to spend your last dolphin on your roof, as my father used to say, just in case it rains. Go tell her to pack up. I’ll be back before the noon prayers.”

Pelaya stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Only a few years earlier she could only reach his face if he bent almost double. Now she could put her arms around his broad chest and smell the pomander scent in his robes. “Go,” he said softly. “Both of you. Your mother will need your help.”

“We’ll be all right down in the city,” Teloni said as they trotted back down the citadel’s main staircase, weaving through distracted and fearful folk, all scurrying as if the bells were summoning them to the gods’ judgment. “Even if the Autarch does fire his cannons, they can’t reach that far.”