Not Spite or Friendship: An Attempt at Guessing Attolis’s Underlying Machinations

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We readers learned, at the end of Thick as Thieves (TaT), the real reason why Gen stole Kamet from Nahuseresh: 

“It wasn’t spite or friendship,” I said, glancing sideways at the king…. This was why I had been brought from the Empire, and this was why the Namreen had hunted us so relentlessly.  Not because Nahuseresh had been murdered, but because the emperor feared I could tell the king of Attolia where he was hiding his navy.” (TaT)

Just as, at the end of The King of Attolia (KoA) we found out the real reason why Gen decided to interfere with young Costis’s life.  Not spite, and not black humor, as Costis had thought throughout the book.  Policy.

“Sometimes, if you want to change a man’s mind, you change the mind of the man next to him first…. Archimedes said that if you gave him a lever long enough, he could move the world.  I needed to move the Guard.  I needed to move you [Teleus].” (KoA, p. 381)

Gen said this, so it must be true.  Right?  In the denouement, no less.  It’s not like Gen ever is known to state untruths or partial truths, or Turner to mislead her readers. 
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