Achilles’s eyes and voice stayed dark. “Men fight best beside comrades that share their blood. That hasn’t changed, and won’t.”

“If this resurrects the old nation-states, and destroys people’s freedom to choose their laws and governments, it will undo this world. You see that, right? Imagine how quickly the Masons would degenerate into tyranny if the Emperor didn’t have to worry about tyrannical action making Members leave. The Masons themselves are a political miracle. They’ve designed an absolute dictatorship where the ruler is still subject to the will of the people; Aristotle couldn’t wish for a more mixed government. This war puts all that at risk, and I fear Europe more than anything may turn it into the old kind of war. Worse, Europe may use you to turn it into the old kind of war, as it may use me. A king may be a ruler of men, but kings can also be dragged along by those they rule. Even us.”

Achilles, King of the Myrmidons, nodded to his peer. “Chair Kosala said something very similar.”

Mycroft, has thy memory blurred again? This was Kosala speaking.

Kosala? No, good master, it is Spain who speaks, the king himself, quiet in his close-cut mourning clothes of finest lamb’s wool, woven by New Zealanders as a gift to the widower upon the loss of his first queen—a gift the king had hoped never to need again. See the sorrowful palace around us, reader? Every marble window frame festooned with black, while the furtive, broken motions of the servants tell of the grief that weighs down all Madrid like plague: Crown Prince Juan Valentín, rest in peace.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees that danger.” Spain’s words were soft, half winged, grief making him slow like a sleeptalker.

“National rivalries are not a problem I know how to solve,” Achilles answered flatly. “I’m more a product of nation and geography than any man living. It’s also not Europe’s biggest problem as I see it.”

“No? What is, then?”

“Rage,” Achilles son of Peleus replied. “That will be your problem, Europe’s cry for revenge, likely unstoppable.” He paused. “Or rather, you might be able to stop it but you won’t like the price.”

The two kings looked out together through the window, past the guards and gardens to the street beyond, where funeral garlands twined along the eves like the roots of some black parasite. Here too people gathered, Europeans, others, an undivided mass with new cars constantly replenishing what weariness took away. Some had flowers, candles, signs in universal English or European French:

REFORM!

ONE EUROPE, ONE LEADER

PUNISH OS!

SPAIN: EUROPE’S CONSCIENCE

INTEGRITY STABILITY MONARCHY

EUROPE NEEDS AN EMPEROR

“All the Hives are angry,” the soft king whispered.