Two: the queen of the Antae was in Sarantium. A living tool in the hand of Valerius. A different kind of hammer. How the Emperor had achieved this (and Perun knew Shirvan respected the other ruler as much as he hated him) no one had been able to say, but she was there.

These things, taken together, spelled out an invasion of the west for any man who knew how to read such signs. Who could now fail to see that the vast sums of gold Valerius had paid-two instalments now-into Bassania's coffers were designed to keep the eastern border quiescent while he sent his army west?

Shirvan had taken the money, of course. Had signed and sealed the Eternal Peace, as they named it. He had his own border problems, north and east, and his own difficulties paying a restive army. What ruler did not?

But the King of Kings needed no dream-reader now to unveil for him the meaning of his nights. The charlatans might have tried to tell him the sounds of hammering, the images of fire and the restlessness flowed from the arrow wound and the poison in his neck. He knew better.

The poison that mattered had not been on his son's arrow, but was lying in wait: the venom lay in how much power Sarantium would have if Batiara fell into its grasp. And it might. It could. For the longest time he had almost wanted the Sarantines to go west, believing they would never succeed. He didn't think that any more.

The lost homeland of the Empire was fertile and wealthy-why else had the Antae tribes moved down there in the first place? If the golden Strategos, hated Leontes, could add that richness to Valerius's treasury, give him wealth and security in the west, no troops tied down in Sauradia, then…

Then how much more beleaguered would anyone sitting the throne in Kabadh feel?

It could not be allowed to unfold in that way. There was poison in all of this, deadly and absolute.

Some in that room might have hoped, wistfully, that a portion of the Sarantine money, if diverted to Moskav, could pay for a summer of unrest in the north, forcing Valerius to keep a part of his army back, undermining his invasion.

An idle thought, no more than that. The fur-clad barbarians of Moskav could as easily take the offered money and sweep down upon Mihrbor's wooden walls, within Bassania itself. They attacked when they were bored, where they chose, as they smelled weakness. There was no sense of honour, of proper conduct among those savage northerners, so sure of their safety in their wild, vast land. A bribe, an agreement would mean nothing to them.

No, if Valerius was to be impeded, they would have to do it themselves. Shirvan felt no compunction at all. No ruler who truly loved and guarded his country could be expected to be stopped in this resolve by something so trivial as a treaty of Eternal Peace.

Once a decision was made, Shirvan of Bassania was not the sort to waste time pondering such nuances.

An excuse would be created, some concocted incursion along the northern border. A Sarantine border raid from Asen. They could kill a few of their own priestly caste, burn a small temple, say the westerners had done so, breaching the sworn peace. It was the usual thing.

Asen, which had been burned and looted and bartered back and forth half a dozen times, would be the obvious target again. But there was more in Shirvan's thought, there was something new this time.

"Go farther west," the King of Kings said to his generals, in his deep, cold voice, looking at Robazes first and then the others. "Asen is nothing. A coin for exchanging. You must force Valerius to send an army. And so you will go to Eubulus itself this time, starve and batter it. And bring me back the wealth that lies within those walls."

There was a silence. There was always silence when the King of Kings was speaking, but this was different. In all their wars with Valerius and his uncle before him and Apius before him, Eubulus had never been taken or even besieged. Neither had their own great northern city of Mihrbor. The battles between Sarantium and Bassania had been entirely about gold. Border raids to north and south for plunder, ransom, money for the treasuries on each side, payment for the armies. Conquest, the sack of major cities, had never been an issue.

Shirvan looked from one of his generals to another. He knew he was forcing them to change the way they thought-always a risk with soldiers. He saw Robazes, as expected, grasp the implications first.

He said, "Remember, if they are going to Batiara, Leontes will be in the west. He will not be at Eubulus to face you. And if we draw enough soldiers from his army of invasion because they must go north to meet you instead, he will fail in the west. He may… die." He said that last very slowly, giving it time to register. They needed to understand this.

Leontes would be west. Their scourge. The too-bright image of terror in their dreams, golden as the sun the Sarantines worshipped. The military commanders of Bassania looked at each other. Fear and excitement were in the room now, a slow dawning of comprehension, first awareness of possibility.

Awareness also came, after, of certain other things. How this breaking of the peace would put those Bassanids in western lands-merchants, most of them, a handful of others-desperately at risk. But that always happened when a war began, and there weren't so many in any case. Such considerations could not be permitted to alter anything. Merchants always knew there were risks in going west (or east, for that matter, into Ispa-hani). That was why they charged so much for what they brought back, how they made their fortunes.

As Shirvan gestured his dismissal and the gathering made obeisance and began to break up, one other man did venture to speak: Mazendar the vizier, who was always licensed to do so in the presence of his king. A small, round man, his voice light and dry as the king's was grave and deep, he offered two small suggestions.

The first was about timing. "Great King, did you propose we attack before they sail west?"

Shirvan narrowed his eyes. "That is one possibility," he said carefully. And waited.

"Indeed, my dread lord, "Mazendar murmured. "I see a glimmer of your mighty thoughts. We can do that, or wait until they have set off for the west and then cross the border for Eubulus. Leontes will be pursued by fast ships with panic-stricken tidings. He may be ordered to send some of his fleet home. The remainder will feel exposed and disheartened. Or he may press on, always fearing what we do behind him. And Sarantium will feel utterly exposed. Does the King of Kings prefer that, or the other approach? His advisers await the light of his wisdom."

Mazendar was the only one of them worth listening to. Robazes could fight, and lead an army, but Mazendar had a mind. Shirvan said, gravely, "It will take us some time to assemble our army north. We will attend upon events in the west and make our decision accordingly."

"How large an army, my lord?" Robazes asked the soldier's question. He blinked in astonishment when Shirvan gave him a number. They had never sent so many men before.

Shirvan kept his expression grim and hard. People should see the countenance of the King of Kings and remember it and report it. Valerius of Sarantium was not the only ruler who could send large armies into the world. The king looked back at Mazendar. He had spoken of two suggestions.

The second concerned the queen of the Antae, in Sarantium.

Listening, the king nodded his head slowly. Was graciously pleased to agree that this proposal had virtue. Gave his consent.

Men went forth from that room. Events began to move at speed. The first signal fires were lit at darkfall that same day, sending messages of flame from hilltop to fortress tower to hilltop beyond, in all necessary directions.