“I am told you are nearly as fluent in Greek as Iskender,” Bey Ishak said, lowering his spyglass but keeping his gaze fixed on the distant steamer grounded on the spit. “I have a task for you.”

  “It is not my mother tongue, sir,” I said, modestly. “But I have been practicing regularly.”

  “As would I, if I kept a high-bred Greek pet who spoke not a word of Turkish,” the bey said. “But I do not, and I have too few thaumaturges to spare Iskender. You seem steady enough of nerve to rely upon—I saw the dogs and children at that farmhouse, and I remember how your nerve held steady when we were cheated at the dice table. I need a man who is stern of heart, severe of aspect, and speaks the language of the natives of the city.”

  The fact that he knew of Helena unsettled me; the description of her as a “pet” felt insulting, though it was an insult I was obliged to ignore. Even if I could have afforded to take offense on her behalf, the pragmatic reality was that by the laws of the Sultanate, she was little more than a “pet,” no matter that I loved her. She had been a gift of looted property, a prize of war whose ownership would remain just as mutable as that of a fine horse, dog, or falcon unless I married her or she bore a child that I acknowledged.

  My acquisition of her had not been in any way secret, but I had thought that the homely slave of a hostage prince would be easily enough forgotten. Helena’s decision to disguise her beauty had embarrassed Pasha Mustafa; the acuity of his vision called into question in front of everyone; if others remembered, then surely it meant they had continued to talk about it in spite of my hiding Helena away out of sight. With relevance in the sultan’s court came vulnerability, so I was doubly glad that I had taken her out of the palace under the pretense of selling her off before my journey, finding her a humble house where she could remain hidden.

  Once Bey Ishak had completed giving me his instructions, I repeated them back to him, proving that I had memorized his orders correctly. By now, the army was in sight from the city, moving at the sluggish speed of bombards dragged by ox teams. For all that my unit had silenced one early-waking farmer, I felt sure others would have noticed the arrival of the army, but the panicked burst of activity I could see as little dots representing men ran along the walls and through the city suggested that the city had truly been caught by surprise.

  If only the army had arrived earlier, it might have come within range of the walls before being noticed. I checked my equipage one last time and then set off down the hill. The bannerman and his brother followed twenty paces behind as I rode towards the city gate, my pistols re-plugged and stowed in my saddlebags, my shield hanging from my saddle. I was near a hundred yards from the gate when an arrow sailed out from the wall, landing point-first in the dirt—either poorly aimed or a warning. I halted, raising my hands above my head, a pale beige scarf clasped in my right hand.

  “A parley!” I shouted. “I come to parley!” Nervously, I glanced back over my shoulder.

  Behind me, the bannerman and his brother backed their horses up a little bit, bows held but neither raised nor knocked. I did not know whether they felt confident in their ability to return fire or were sensibly cautious of the defenders’ advantage in numbers and position on the heights of the city wall. Farther away, Bey Ishak’s army spilled outward to either side of the road, filling the low ground between and in front of two hills as the long file of the army on the move spread into offensive ranks. The bombards were nearly last, with three mechs trailing behind them in a rear guard.

  To the left of the army, I could see that Bey Ishak was still standing on the hill that I left him on, though his aide had ridden away. For a commander to give orders in the field and exercise any kind of stratagem requiring control of his army, he must know what the situation is, and there is no easier way to know the state of a battlefield than to see it from above. In the middle of the mix of a melee, a commander can be a great boost to morale but quite thoroughly and unfortunately unaware of the state of battle.

  “Dismount,” came the return call from the gatehouse, a shout audible above the creak of chains as the main gates shut. “And come forward.”

  I was halfway between my horse and the closing gates when two men emerged from the wall, presumably from a concealed postern gate. The first man’s hair was salted with white but not fully gray; like me, he was armored but only lightly armed, a simple one-handed sword on his belt. His breastplate had orichalcum inlay—likely enchanted and therefore vastly superior protection to my plated mail—but the rest of him was festooned with an explosion of colorful cloth. One leg of his hose was tight, and the other was in bagged folds, and his sleeves were both slashed and puffed, looking like a pair of pillows.

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  The second man was dressed more simply but more impressively, in silk clothes dyed a stark black—a rare color that had become fashionable in Venice recently. The art of making a good black dye had not reached Wallachia by the time I left, and the fashion had not been transmitted across the lines of hostility between the Serene Republic and the Sultanate. The man in black did not wear a sword on his belt, simply a pouch, an eating knife, and a thin silver dagger with a gemstone set in the pommel.

  “Hail, and well met,” I said, sketching out a bow as I addressed the two men in Greek, unsure which would speak with me.

  “Hail,” the man in black replied, giving me only a curt nod as the colorful man returned the bow silently but in full. “Who are you, and wherefore do you wish to parley? Are you here simply to demand tribute?”

  “I am the Dragon’s son, but today, I come to you as an agent of Bey Ishak, who serves at the order of Pasha Mustafa, who serves at the order of Sultan Alaeddin,” I said. “I am here to demand your prompt surrender without the waste of a fight.”

  “Well, Dragon’s son, we are well supplied by the bounty of the sea,” the man replied. “These walls have stood off many hungry armies in the past and have not been breached by force for a thousand years.”

  “Do you not pay tribute to the Golden Emperor?” I asked, curious enough to overlook his rude failure to introduce himself. “If the walls have not been breached in a thousand years, then surely that means the city has surrendered without a fight before. Several times, I should think. Did you fend off the Mongols?”

  Taken aback, the man coughed, surprised enough to swallow words that lodged irritably in his throat as he found their use foreclosed. “The tribute we pay to the Undying Emperor is a voluntary affair, and to our benefit,” the man said. “Foreign ships taking port at Tanais pay higher fees. Nor can they continue upriver. Tanais trade is quite valuable to us.”

  I pointed northwest. “The sultan wishes to close the sea trade to Tanais. You may save both tribute and docking fees. Bey Ishak promises that if you surrender today, when he has waited for zero sunsets outside of your walls, he will have zero sixteenth parts of the city sacked. Then he will demand a tithe of zero boys and men out of every forty infidels of suitable age to be impressed into Sultan Alaeddin’s service. He further pledges that so long as he is governor of Pantikapaion, he will collect a head tax of but one akcheh per infidel citizen per year, as he has seen but one sunrise outside of your walls.”

  The man with the pillowed sleeves gave me a confused look. The man in the black silk was simply silent.

  “You do know what is meant by zero, yes? It is none at all.” I said, attempting to clarify.

  “I know the Hindu number system with its empty digit; I use it for my accounting,” snapped the man in black. “What I fail to understand is what this threat is meant to entail. A fraction of zero out of anything is simply the same as zero.”

  “Those are the words of his promise,” I said. “Precisely as he gave them to me.” I then repeated the bey’s promise, more carefully and slowly. “It is upon you to reach the rational epigogic conclusion.”

  “He offers nothing, and he has nothing.” The man in black crossed his arms. “We have several skilled earth mages who can prevent any undermining, and I do not see the sort of numbers and ladders required to overwhelm the wall by scaling. He will sit outside of the walls for a little while and then leave when hunger or the Golden Emperor drives him away. Which shall not take long—Hermonassa stands across the strait.”

  “Hermonassa has sent its best,” I argued. “And that best—four warships—was routed handily by a single steamship. As for your walls, they are much thinner than the walls of Constantinople, which Sultan Alaeddin breached in a single day—I know, for I was there.”

  “Preposterous propaganda,” the man in black blustered, but then sent a quick, nervous glance in the direction of his companion, who shrugged minutely.

  “The bey has mighty mechs and great bombards at his disposal,” I pointed out, looking at the stubborn black-clad man even though my words were aimed more at his companion, who I guessed knew more about military matters. “Your ancient walls will not stand long against modern weapons.”

  The man in black crossed his arms. “Is there anything else?”

  Reflexively, I wanted to argue further, but I could not even say to myself why I should hope for the bey’s gambit to succeed. The Sultanate did not deserve enlargement, and if the citizens of Pantikapaion could fend off the bey’s army until imperial forces arrived, it would probably be all the better for them. They knew their defenses better than I did—and with the whole of the bey’s army now in sight, they knew the strength of the Sultanate’s available forces as well as I did.

  “I will transmit your rejection to him,” I said in place of any further argument, “but may I know who you are? The bey will not credit an anonymous statement.”

  “I am Theophilos Romulides,” the black-clad man said. “And I am a councilor of this city. You may tell the bey that he cannot bluff his way through our walls.”

  With that, Theophilos turned, followed by the other man. I watched them as they went, already conversing in low tones to one another, but did not spot the postern gate. When they neared the wall, Theophilos gestured, and a small thick cloud of smoke erupted to conceal them. When it dissipated, they were gone, and archers on the top of the wall had begun to finger their bows. I took that as my cue to leave.

  “When next you want to parley, send a man out,” I shouted, directing my voice to the top of the wall and the men I could see there. I did not tarry longer, heading for my horse. It was a very short walk; as I had been standing there talking, the horse had ambled slowly in my direction while it grazed. I checked my pistols and my shield before mounting, then rode back to speak with the bey.

  I thought that the bey would be most sorely disappointed by the response from the city.

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