The autarch had rather conspicuously not said anything about his paramount minister being fed. An hour on dry land had settled Vash’s stomach and he was feeling extremely hungry, but he effortlessly stifled a sigh: all of the autarch’s servitors either mastered the art of hiding their feelings and stifling their needs, or else their cooling bodies were picked clean on the vulture shrines.

Vash bowed. “Of course, Golden One. As you say.”

“I ask your pardon for disturbing you, King Olin,” said Count Perivos.

The bearded man smiled. “I am afraid I cannot entertain you in the way I could have in my old home, but you are welcome, sir. Please, come in.” He waved to the page, who was watching with trepidation: Olin was only a foreign king, but everyone knew his visitor was of an important and ancient Hierosoline family. “Be so good as to pour us some wine, boy,” Olin said. “Perhaps some of the Torvian.”

Perivos Akuanis looked around the king’s cell, which was furnished in moderate comfort, though not exactly overlarge. “I am sorry you must live this way, Your Highness. It would not have been my choice.”

“But Ludis wished it so. He must have some hidden qualities, the lord protector, that he has a man as famous as you in his employ.”

Perivos began to say something, then looked over to the guards standing on either side of the door. “You may wait outside, you two. I am in no danger.”

They eyed him for a moment before going out. Count Perivos cleared his throat.

“I will be honest with you, Olin Eddon, because I believe you are an honorable man. It is not so much loyalty to Ludis that keeps me here, although the man did pull the country back into stability after a long civil war, but loyalty to my city and nation. I am a Hierosol man, through and through.”

“But you are of high blood yourself. Why is it that you yourself did not try to take the throne, or support someone more to your liking?”

“Because I knew with things being as they are I could do more good this way. I am not a king or even a king’s counselor. I am a soldier, and of a particular kind at that. My science is siege war, which I learned from Petris Kopayis, the best of this age. I knew I had no choice but to use that knowledge to try to save my city and its people from the bloody-handed autarchs of Xis. Thus, I could not afford to take sides in the last throes of the civil war.”

“I remember Kopayis—I met him when we fought the Xandian Federation here twenty years ago. Gods, he was a clever man!” Olin smiled a little. “And everything I have heard suggests you are his true successor. So you do not bear a grudge against Ludis, you say—and he bears none against you?”

Perivos frowned. “Never underestimate him, King Olin. He is a rough man, and his personal habits are…are disturbing. But he is no fool. He will employ any man who can help him, whether that man admires him or not, whether that man fought for him or not. He has servants of all shapes and religions and histories. Two of his advisers fought against him in the civil war, and came to their new positions straight from the gallows-cells, and one of his chiefest envoys is a black man out of Xand—from Tuan, to be precise.”