She opened her eyes and looked at him again, unflinching. This was familiar territory, easier for her than they might guess. There had been wagers back home that she would die before winter. They had tried to kill her in the sanctuary. Two people she loved had been slain there, for her.

She was her father's daughter. Gisel lifted her chin and said hardily, "Indeed, my lord Emperor? Sarantine Fire? Or just a knife in the night for me? A small price to pay for such resounding glory, isn't it? A fealty oath! Tribute, advisers? Religious and military? Great Jad be praised! The poets will sing and the years resound with the splendour of it. How could you refuse such glory?"

A rigid silence followed. Valerius's expression changed, only a little, but watching the grey eyes Gisel understood how people might fear this man. She could hear the crackle of the fire in the stillness.

It was Alixana, predictably, who dared speak. "You are bested, love," she said lightly. "She is too clever for you. Now I understand why you won't cast me aside to marry her, or even properly receive her at court."

Someone made a choking sound. Gisel swallowed, hard.

Valerius turned to his wife.

He said nothing, but his expression changed yet again, became odd now, strangely intimate. And a moment later it was Alixana who coloured a little and then looked down.

"I see," she said quietly. "I hadn't actually thought…" She cleared her throat, fingered the necklace she wore. "That wasn't… necessary," she murmured, still looking down. "I am not so fragile as that. My lord."

Gisel had no idea what this meant, suspected no one else did. An intensely private exchange in a public space. She looked from one to the other again and then-quite suddenly-she did understand. Was sure of it.

Things were not what she had taken them to be.

She hadn't been invited to the Imperial Precinct before tonight, not because of negotiations with the usurpers in Varena or any rigidities of protocol, but because the Emperor Valerius was shielding his wife from Gisel's youthful presence and what-in purely formal terms-it meant, or could mean.

They all knew there was a way to simplify this reconquest of the Empire s homeland. She wasn't the only one who had seen it, sending an artisan on the long journey here with a private message. The logic, the sense, of a marriage was overwhelming. And the husband had been overriding the Emperor. Amazingly.

Which meant, if she was right in this sudden line of thought, that she had been admitted here now, tonight, only because… because a different decision had now been made.

Spring was coming. Was here, in fact. She took a breath.

"You are invading us, aren't you?" she said flatly.

Valerius of Sarantium turned from his wife to look at Gisel. His expression grave as a cleric's again, thoughtful as an academician, he said simply, "Yes, in fact, we are. In your name and the god's. I trust you will approve?"

He wasn't really asking, of course. He was telling her. And not just her. Gisel heard, almost felt a ripple pass through the small, luxurious room as men shifted where they stood or sat. The Strategos's nostrils actually flared, like a racehorse's hearing the trumpet. He had surmised, anticipated, but had not known. Until now. She understood. This was the moment of telling that Valerius had just chosen, moving with the moment, the mood, her own arrival here. Or perhaps this entire evening of music among intimates on the trembling brink of springtime had been arranged to achieve this instant, with none of the others knowing, not even his wife. A man who pulled hidden strings, made others dance for his needs, or die.

She looked at Alixana and found the other woman's steady gaze waiting for hers. Gisel, gazing into those depths, imagining what those dark eves could do to a man or a certain kind of woman, understood something else, entirely unexpected: improbable as it was, she had an ally here, someone else who also wanted to find a way to guide them all around this invasion and what it portended. Not that it seemed to matter.

"The Emperor is to be congratulated," a third woman's voice interjected, Styliane's tone cool as the night wind outside. "It seems his taxation officers have been more diligent than rumour suggests. It is a miracle of the god and his regent upon earth that adequate funds for an invasion are in the treasury after all."

The ensuing pause was brittle. Styliane, Gisel thought, had to have extraordinary confidence in her situation to speak in this way, in this company. But she would, wouldn't she? By birth and marriage-and disposition.

Valerius turned to look at her and his expression, remarkably, was amused again. "An Emperor receives the aid he deserves, Saranios once said. I don't know what that suggests about me and my servants, but there are ways of funding a war. We've decided to rescind pay for the eastern army this year. No point bribing Bassania for a peace and paying soldiers to keep it."

Leontes looked startled. He cleared his throat. "This has been decided, my lord?" He had obviously not been consulted.

"A fiscal matter, Strategos. I do wish to meet with you tomorrow to discuss the possibility of offering the soldiers land in the east to settle. We have discussed this in the past, and the Chancellor has now proposed we do it."

Leontes was too experienced to further betray his surprise. "Of course, my lord. I will be here at sunrise. Though I regret that I have been made a liar over something I said this afternoon at the wedding. I promoted the bridegroom and posted him east. Now he loses not only his promised increase in salary but all his income."

Valerius shrugged. "Re-post him. Take the fellow west with you. A small matter, surely."

Leontes shook his head. "I suppose it is. But I never take newly married men to a campaign."

"Commendable, Leontes," said the Empress. "But I'm sure you can make exceptions."

"Bad for an army, exalted lady."

"So is obduracy, surely," said his own wife, from her seat near the Empress. She set down her wine cup. "My dear, really. You obviously think the fellow is competent. Appoint him to your private staff, pay him yourself as you pay the others, post him east to Eubulus as your observer for a year-or until you think it is all right for him to be called west and killed in war."

The crisp precision of this in a woman, Gisel thought, looking from face to face to face, must surely be galling to the men assembled. Then she reconsidered, looking at the Empress. They might be accustomed to such things here-unlike her own court, where a woman speaking with authority could be marked for murder.

On the other hand, Gisel had reigned in Varena, in her own name. Neither of these women did. It mattered. It did represent a difference. And as if to underscore that, Styliane Daleina spoke again. "Forgive me, my lords, this presumption. I was ever too inclined to speak my mind." There was no real contrition in her tone, however.

"A trait of your father's," the Emperor said quietly. "It… need not be a failing."

Need not be, Gisel thought. The room seemed laden and layered with intricacies of past and present and what was to come. Nuances coiling and spreading like incense, subtle and insistent.

Styliane rose and made a graceful obeisance. "Thank you, my lord. I will ask your permission and the Empress's to withdraw. If matters of war and policy are to be discussed, it is proper that I take my leave."

It was, of course. No one spoke to gainsay her. Gisel wondered if she'd expected someone to do so. Her husband? If so, she would be disappointed. Leontes did escort his wife towards the door but turned back to the room as she went out. He looked at the Emperor, and smiled. The two men had known each other, Gisel remembered hearing, from before the day when the first Valerius had been placed upon the throne. Leontes would have been very young then.