She closed the door and bolted it.

A sudden absolute certainty came over Sparhawk, and he rose to his feet. ‘Welcome, your Imperial Majesty,’ he greeted Oscagne’s hooded companion.

Emperor Sarabian pushed back his hood. ‘How the deuce did you know it was me, Prince Sparhawk?’ he asked. His Elenic was only slightly accented. ‘I know you couldn’t see my face.’

‘No, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk replied, ‘but I could see Ambassador Oscagne’s. He looked very much like a man holding a live snake.’

‘I’ve been called a lot of things in my time,’ Sarabian laughed, ‘but never that.’

‘Your Majesty is most skilled,’ Ehlana told him with a little curtsey. ‘I didn’t see a single hint on your face that you understood Elenic. I could read it in Queen Betuana’s face, but you didn’t give me a single clue.’

‘Betuana speaks Elenic?’ He seemed startled. ‘What an astounding thing.’ He removed his cloak. ‘Actually, your Majesty,’ he told Ehlana, ‘I speak all the languages of the Empire – Tamul, Elenic, Styric, Tegan, Arjuni, Valesian and even the awful language they speak in Cynesga. It’s one of our most closely guarded state secrets. I even keep it a secret from my government, just to be on the safe side.’ He looked a bit amused. ‘I gather that you’d all concluded that I’m not quite bright,’ he suggested.

‘You fooled us completely, your Majesty,’ Melidere assured him.

He beamed at her. ‘Delightful girl,’ he said. ‘I adore fooling people. There are many reasons for this subterfuge, my friends, but they’re mostly political and not really very nice. Shall we get to the point here? I can only be absent for a short period of time without being missed.’

‘We are, as they say, at your immediate disposal, your Majesty,’ Ehlana told him.

‘I’ve never understood that phrase, Ehlana,’ he confessed. ‘You don’t mind if we call each other by name, do you? All those “your Majesties” are just too cumbersome. Where was I? Oh, yes – “immediate disposal”. It sounds like someone running to carry out the trash.’ His words seemed to tumble from his lips as if his tongue were having difficulty keeping up with his thoughts. ‘The point of this visit, my dear friends, is that I’m more or less the prisoner of custom and tradition here in Matherion. My role is strictly defined, and for me to overstep certain bounds causes earthquakes that can be felt from here to the Gulf of Daconia. I could ignore those earthquakes, but our common enemy could probably feel them too, and we don’t want to alert him.’

‘Truly,’ Sparhawk agreed.

‘Please don’t keep gaping at me like that, Oscagne,’ Sarabian told the ambassador. ‘I didn’t tell you that I was really awake when most of you thought I was sleeping because it wasn’t necessary for you to know before. Now it is. Snap out of it, man. The foreign minister has to be able to take these little surprises in his stride.’

‘It’s just taking me a little while to re-adjust my thinking, your Majesty.’

‘You thought I was an idiot, am I right?’

‘Well –’

‘You were supposed to think so, Oscagne – you and Subat and all the other ministers. It’s been one of my main defences – and amusements. Actually, old boy, I’m something of a genius.’ He smiled at Ehlana. ‘That sounds immodest, doesn’t it? But it’s true, nonetheless. I learned your language in three weeks, and Styric in four. I can find the logical fallacies in the most abstruse treaties on Elene theology, and I’ve probably read – and understood – just about everything that’s ever been written. My most brilliant achievement, however, has been to keep all that a secret. The people who call themselves my government – no offence intended, Oscagne – seem to be engaging in some vast conspiracy to keep me in the dark. They only tell me things they think I’ll want to hear. I have to look out of a window to get an accurate idea of the current weather. They have the noblest of motives, of course. They want to spare me any distress, but I really think that someone ought to tell me when the ship I’m riding in is sinking, don’t you?’

Sarabian was still talking very fast, spilling out ideas as quickly as they came to him. His eyes were bright, and he seemed almost on the verge of laughing out loud. He was obviously tremendously excited. ‘Now then,’ he rushed on, ‘we must devise a means of communicating without alerting everyone in the palace – down to and including the scullery boys in the kitchen – to what we’re doing. I desperately need to know what’s really going on so that I can bring my towering intellect to bear on it.’ That last was delivered with self-deprecating irony. ‘Any ideas?’

‘What are your feelings about magic, your Majesty?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘I haven’t formed an opinion yet, Sparhawk.’

‘It won’t work then,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘You have to believe that the spell’s going to work, or it’ll fail.’

‘I might be able to make myself believe,’ Sarabian said just a bit dubiously.

‘That probably wouldn’t do it, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘The spells would succeed or not depending on your mood. We need something a bit more certain. There are things we’ll need to tell you that will be so important that we won’t be able to just trust to luck.’

‘My feelings exactly, Sparhawk. That defines our problem then. We need an absolutely certain method of passing information back and forth that can’t be detected. My experience tells me that it has to be something so commonplace that nobody will pay any attention to it.’

‘Exchange gifts,’ Baroness Melidere suggested in an offhand way.

‘I’d be delighted to send you gifts, my dear Baroness,’ Sarabian smiled. ‘Your eyes quite stop my heart, but –’

She held up one hand. ‘Excuse me, your Majesty,’ she told him, ‘but nothing is more common than the exchange of gifts between ruling monarchs. I can carry little mementos from the queen to you, and the ambassador here can carry yours to her. After we’ve run back and forth a few times, nobody will pay any attention to us. We can conceal messages in those gifts, and no one will dare to search for them.’

‘Where did you find this wonderful girl, Ehlana?’ Sarabian demanded. ‘I’d marry her in a minute – if I didn’t already have nine wives – oh, incidentally, Sparhawk, I need to talk with you about that – privately, perhaps.’ He looked around. ‘Can anyone see any flaws in the baroness’s plan?’