"Lord of Emperors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

CHAPTER XIV

He didn't know it was her, of course. Not until she spoke. In his dazed, stumbling state Rustem hadn't the least idea why this unknown woman was in his bedchamber. His first, incoherent thought was that she might be someone Bonosus knew. But that ought to have been a boy, surely?

Then he did believe he recognized her-as a patient, one of those who had come to see him the very first morning. But that made no sense. What was she doing here now? Did the Sarantines know nothing of proper conduct?

Then she stood up beside the window and she said, "Good evening, physician. My name is Aliana. It was Alixana this morning."

Rustem fell back against the door, pushing it shut. His legs felt weak. There was a horror in him. He couldn't even speak. She was ragged, dirty, visibly exhausted, looking like nothing so much as a street beggar, and it never for a moment occurred to him to doubt the truth of what she said. The voice, he thought afterwards. It was the voice.

She said, "They are looking for me. I have no right to place you at risk, but I am doing so. I must rely on your compassion for someone you have treated as a patient-however briefly-and I must tell you I… I have nowhere else to go. I have been avoiding soldiers all night. I was even in the sewers, but they are looking there now."

Rustem crossed the room. It seemed to take a long time. He sat down on the edge of his bed. Then it crossed his mind that he ought not to sit in the presence of an Empress and he stood up. He put a hand on one of the bedposts for support.

"How did you… why are… how here?

She smiled at him. There was nothing resembling amusement in her face, however. Rustem had been trained to look at people carefully, and now he did. This woman was at the end of whatever reserves of strength she had. He glanced down. She was unshod; there was blood on one foot, and he thought it might be from a bite. She had mentioned the sewers. Her hair had been cropped off, raggedly. A disguise, he thought, as his brain began to work again. Her garment had also been cut, just above the knees. Her eyes looked hollow, dark, as if one could see into the sockets, into the bone behind.

But she smiled at his fumbling incoherence. "You were much more articulate the last time, doctor, explaining why I might hope one day to bear a child. Why am I here? Desperation, I confess. Elita is one of my women, one of those I trust. I used her to report on Bonosus. It was useful, in obvious ways, to know what the Master of the Senate was doing that he might prefer… not be known."

"Elita? One of…?"

He was having a good deal of trouble. She nodded. There was a smear of mud across her forehead and on one cheek. This was a hunted woman. Her husband was dead. All those soldiers in the streets tonight, mounted, on foot, pounding at doors, they were there for her. She said, "She has reported generously of your nature, doctor. And of course I know myselt that you refused to follow orders from Kabadh and kill the Antae queen."

'What? I…You know that I…?" He sat down again.

"Doctor, we'd have been remiss if we didn't know such things, wouldn't we? In our own City? The merchant who brought you that message… have you seen him since?"

Rustem swallowed hard, shook his head.

"It didn't take long to have him offer the details. Of course you were closely watched from then on. Elita said you were unhappy after that merchant left. You don't like the idea of killing, do you?"

They'd been watching him, all along. And what had happened to the man who'd brought him the message? He didn't want to ask.

"Killing? Of course I don't," Rustem said. "I am a healer."

"Will you shield me, then?" asked the woman. "They will be here soon enough."

"How can I…?"

"They will not know me. Their weakness tonight is that most of the men searching have no idea what the Empress looks like. Unless I am betrayed, they will only be able to find women who don't appear to belong where they are and take them for questioning. They will not know me. Not as I am now."

She smiled again. That bleakness. Hollow-eyed.

"You understand," the woman by the window said quietly, "that Styliane will have my eyes and tongue put out and my nose slit and then she will give me to any men who still want me, in certain rooms underground, and then she will have me burned alive. There is… nothing else that matters to her so much."

Rustem thought of the aristocratic, fair-haired woman standing beside the Strategos at the wedding he'd attended on his first day here. "She is Empress now?" he said.

The woman said, "Tonight, or tomorrow. Until I kill her, and her brother. Then I can die and let the god judge my life and deeds as he will."

Rustem looked at her a long time. He was remembering more clearly now, rational thought coming back, some small measure of composure. She had indeed come to him that first morning, when he and the household had hastened to arrange the ground floor into treatment rooms. A woman of the common sort, he'd thought, had prudently made certain she could afford his fee before admitting and examining her. Her voice… had been different then. Of course it had.

The westerners, like his own people, had a limited understanding of conception and childbirth. Only in Ispahani had Rustern learned certain things: enough to understand that a failure to bear might sometimes arise in the husband, not the wife. Men in the west, in his own country, were disinclined to listen to that, of course.

But Rustem was not uncomfortable explaining this to the women who came to him. What they did with the information was not his burden or responsibility.

That woman of the common sort-who turned out to have been the Empress of Sarantium-had been one of those. And had seemed not at all surprised, after his questions and his examination, when he'd said what he said to her.

Looking closely, the physician in Rustem was shaken anew by what he saw: the absolute, clenched rigidity with which the woman was holding herself together, set against the flat, matter-of-fact way in which she spoke of killing and her own death. She was not far from breaking, he thought.

He said, "Who knows you are here?"

"Elita. I entered over the courtyard wall, and then up into this room. She found me here when she came to make up your fire. I knew she was sleeping here, of course. Forgive me for that. I had to hope she would do the fire in this room. I'd be captured by now if anyone else had come. They will take me right now if you call out, you understand?"

"You climbed the wall?"

That smile that was not a smile. "Physician, you don't want to know the things I have done or where I've been today and tonight."

And then after a moment she said, for the first time, 'Please?

Empresses never had to say that, Rustem thought, but in the moment just before she'd spoken it they'd both heard, even up here, a pounding at the front door, and through the window Rustem saw a flaring of torches in the garden and heard voices down below.

Ecodes of Soriyya, veteran decunon of the Second Amorian, a career soldier, was keenly aware, even with the turmoil of the night and the two fast cups of wine he'd (unwisely) accepted after searching the home of a fellow southerner, that one conducted oneself with composure in the home of a Senator, and had one's men do the same, even if they were frustrated and in a hurry and there was an enormous reward to be pursued.

The ten of them went about their business briskly and very thoroughly but didn't trouble the woman servants and took some care not to break anything as they flung open trunks and wardrobes and checked every room, above and below stairs. Things had been broken during searches earlier after they'd helped clear the faction rabble from the streets and Ecodes expected to hear of complaints in the morning. That didn't worry him unduly. The Second Amorian's tribunes were good officers, on the whole, and they knew the men needed some release at times and that soft citizens were always grumbling about the honest soldiers who protected their homes and lives. What was a broken vase or platter in the scheme of things? How far would one go in protesting that a servant had had her breast squeezed or her tunic lifted by a soldier in passing?

On the other hand, there were houses and there were houses, and it could be bad for one's chances of promotion to offend an actual Senator. Ecodes had been given reason to believe that he might make centurion soon, especially if he had a good war.

If there was a war. There was a lot of talk going about tonight as soldiers met and passed each other in the streets of Sarantium. Armies fed on rumour, and the latest was that they wouldn't be going west in any great hurry after all. The war in Batiara had been the grand scheme of the last Emperor, the one who'd been murdered today. The new Emperor was the army's own beloved leader, and though no one could possibly doubt the courage and will of Leontes, it did make sense that a new man on the throne might have things to deal with here before sending his armies sailing off to battle.

That suited Ecodes well enough, in truth, though he would never have said as much to anyone. Fact was, he hated ships and the sea with a fear deep as bones or pagan spells. The thought of entrusting his body and soul to one of those round, slow tubs hulking in the harbour with their drunken captains and crews frightened him infinitely more than had any attack of Bassanids or desert tribes, or even the Karchites, foaming at the mouth with battle rage, on his one tour of duty in the north.

In a battle you could defend yourself, or retreat if you had to. A man with some experience had ways of surviving. On a ship in a storm (Jad forbid!) or simply drifting out of sight of land, there was nothing a soldier could do but heave his guts and pray. And Batiara was a long way off. A very long way.

As far as Ecodes of Soriyya was concerned, if the Strategos-the glorious new Emperor-decided to have himself a good long think about the west for a while, direct his armies north and east, say (there was talk in the dark that the fucking Bassanids had breached the peace, sending a force over the border), this would be altogether a proper, wise thing.

You couldn't be promoted to centurion for a good war if you were drowned on the way, could you?

He accepted a terse report from Priscus that the courtyard and garden were empty. They had the house searches pretty much down to a routine now. They'd been in enough of them tonight. The main floor rooms near the front here had been made into some sort of medical chambers, but they were empty. The steward-a lean-faced, officious type-had obediently assembled the servants downstairs and accounted for the three women by name. Priscus and four of the others went down the hall to check the household staff's rooms and the kitchen. Ecodes, speaking as politely as he could, inquired as to who might be occupying the rooms upstairs. There had been two men until this morning, the steward explained. A recovering patient and the Bassanid doctor who was staying here as a guest of the Senator.

Ecodes refrained (politely) from spitting at the mention of a Bassanid.

"What patient?" he asked.

"Not a woman, a man. And we are under instructions not to say," the steward murmured blandly. The smooth, superior-sounding bastard had exactly the sort of city manner Ecodes most despised. He was a servant, no more than that, and yet he acted as if he'd been born to olive groves and vineyards.

"Fuck your instructions," Ecodes said, mildly enough. "I haven't time tonight. What man?"

The steward grew pale. One of the women brought a hand to her mouth. Ecodes thought (couldn't be sure) she might be hiding a giggle. Probably had to hump the thin-blooded bastard to keep her job. Wouldn't be unhappy to see him caught up a bit, Ecodes would wager.

"It is understood that you have ordered me to tell you?" the steward said. Lump of dung, Ecodes thought. Covering himself here.

"Fucking right it's understood. Tell."

"The patient was Scortius of Soriyya," said the steward. "Rustem of Kerakek had been treating him in secrecy here. Until this morning."

"Holy Jad!" gasped Ecodes. "You aren't spinning a tale?"

The steward's expression made it clear, if any doubt had hitherto existed, that he wasn't the tale-spinning sort.

Ecodes licked his lips nervously and tried to absorb this information. It had nothing to do with anything, but these were tidings! Scortius was by a long bowshot the most famous son of Soriyya today. The hero of every boy and man in that desert-bordered land, including Ecodes. Enough soldiers on leave had attended the racing today for the story of the Blues" champion's unexpected reappearance in the Hippodrome- and what had followed-to be known to everyone searching tonight. There were rumours he might die of his wounds: the Emperor and the greatest charioteer on the very same day.

And what would that do to the superstitious in the army, on the eve of what was supposed to be the grand war of reconquest?

And here was Ecodes, standing in the very house where Scortius had been recovering, treated in secret by a Bassanid! What a tale it would make! He could hardly wait to get back to the barracks.

For the moment, he simply nodded his head to the steward, his expression gravely sober. "I can see why this was secret. Be easy-it will never be revealed by us. Anyone else in the house?"

"Only the physician himself."

"The Bassanid? And right now he is…?"

"Upstairs. In his room."

Ecodes looked over at Priscus, who had come back along the hall-way. "I’ll do that room myself. We don't want complaints here." He glanced an inquiry at the steward.

"First room on the left from the top of the stairs." A helpful man, if you let him know the rules of the game.

Ecodes went up. Scortius! Had been here! And the man who'd saved his life…

He knocked briskly on the first door but didn't wait for an invitation. This was a search. The man might have done a good turn here, but he was still a fucking Bassanid, wasn't he?

He was, it appeared.

The naked woman riding the man in the bed turned as Ecodes opened the door and let out a muffled shriek and then a torrent of what was obviously foul abuse. Ecodes could only get the gist of it: she was swearing in Bassanid.

She dismounted from the man beneath her, swinging around to face the door, covering her nakedness hastily with a sheet as the man sat upright. He had-not unreasonably under the circumstances-an outraged expression on his face.

"How dare you!" he hissed, keeping his voice down. "Is this Sarantine civility?"

Ecodes actually did feel just a little bit intrusive. The eastern whore — there were always some of them here from all over the known world- was spitting and swearing, as if she'd never shown her naked backside to a soldier before. She had switched to Sarantine now, heavily accented but intelligible, and made a number of pungent, explicit assertions about Ecodes's mother and alleys behind cauponae and his own provenance.

'Shut up!" The physician slapped her hard on the side of the head. She shut up, whimpering. Women needed that sometimes, Ecodes thought approvingly… obviously a truth in Bassania as much as anywhere else and why shouldn't it be?

"What are you doing here?" The grey-bearded doctor struggled to assume a measure of dignity. Ecodes was privately amused: dignity was not easy when surprised beneath the pumping body of a whore. Bassanids. Not even men enough to get their women under them where they belonged.

"Ecodes, Second Amorian Foot. Orders to search all houses in the City. We're looking for a fugitive woman."

"Because none of you can get a woman! They all run from you!" the whore beside the doctor cackled, her mouth wide open at her own wit.

"I heard about the search," the Bassanid said to Ecodes, keeping his composure. "In the Blues" compound where I was treating a patient."

"Scortius?" Ecodes couldn't help but ask.

The doctor hesitated. Then he shrugged. Not my concern, the gesture seemed to say. "Among others. The soldiers were not gentle today, you know."

"Orders," said Ecodes. "Trouble to be stopped. How is… the charioteer?" This was huge gossip.

Again the doctor hesitated, again he shrugged. "Ribs broken again, a wound ripped open, loss of blood, maybe a fallen lung. I'll know in the morning."

The whore was still glaring at Ecodes, though at least she'd shut her foul mouth for the moment. She had a nice, ripe body, what he'd seen, but her hair was a tangled nest, her voice shrill and grating, and she didn't look especially clean. As far as Ecodes of Soriyya was concerned, you got mud and swearing with your soldiers, when you went with a girl you wanted… something else.

"This woman is…?"

The doctor cleared his throat. "Well, ah, you do understand that my family is a long way off. And a man, even at my age"

Ecodes grinned a little. "I won't go to Bassania to tell your wife, if that's what you mean. Must say, you could have done better here in Sarantium than this, or do you like them talking dirty to you in your own language that much?"

"Fuck yourself, soldier," the woman snarled in that thick accent. "Since no one else is likely to."

"Manners, manners," Ecodes said. "This is a Senator's house."

"It is," said the doctor. "And manners are in short supply right now. Be so good as to finish doing what you must and leave. I confess I find neither propriety nor diversion in this encounter."

I'm sure you don't, Bassanid pig, Ecodes thought.

What he said was, "I understand, doctor. Following orders, as I'm sure you realize." He had a promotion to protect. The pig was living here and treating Scortius, which meant he was important.

Ecodes looked around. The usual upstairs room for this neighbourhood. Best room, view of the garden. He crossed to the window over the courtyard. It was dark. They'd already searched down there. He went back to the door, looked over at the bed. The two people there gazed at him, sitting up, side by side, silent now. The woman had the sheet up to cover herself, mostly, but not entirely. She was giving him a glimpse, a tease, even as she swore at him. Whores.

You were supposed to look under the beds, of course-obvious hiding places. But you were also supposed to use your judgement as a decurion (a centurion-to-be?) and not waste time. There were a lot of houses to be searched before dawn. There had been no ambiguity about the orders given: they wanted the woman found before the ceremony in the Hippodrome tomorrow. Ecodes was willing to assert with confidence that the woman who had been Empress of Sarantium this morning was not under the bed on which these two Bassanids had been engaged.

"As you were, doctor," he said, allowing himself a grin. "Carry on." He went out, closing the door behind him. Priscus was coming down the hallway with two of the men. Ecodes looked at him; he shook his head.

"One room that was occupied, but it isn't any more. A patient of some sort."

"Let's go," Ecodes said. "I’ll tell you about that outside. You won't fucking believe it."

She'd had a filthy mouth, that Bassanid whore, but a nicely curved rump, he thought, going down the stairs ahead of Priscus, remembering that first startling, arousing vision when he'd opened the door. He wondered idly if there'd be any chance of a girl himself, later tonight. Not likely. Not for honest soldiers doing a job.

In the antechamber by the front door he waited for his men to file out and then nodded to the steward. Politely. Even said a thank you. A Senator's house. He'd given them his name when they came in.

"Oh," he said, as a last thought struck him. "When did that Bassanid whore upstairs come here?"

The steward looked genuinely scandalized. "You foul-mouthed man! What a disgusting thought! The Bassanid is a well-known physician and an… an honoured guest of the Senator!" he exclaimed. "Keep your evil thoughts to yourself!"

Ecodes blinked and then laughed aloud. Well, well. Too sensitive by half! Told him something, didn't it? Boys? He made a mental note to ask someone about this Senator Bonosus later. He was about to explain when he saw the woman behind the steward wink at him, holding a finger to her smiling lips.

Ecodes grinned. She was pretty, this one. And it was obvious that the very proper steward didn't know all that was going on in this house.

"Right," he said, looking at the woman meaningfully. Maybe he'd have a chance to come back later. Unlikely, but you never knew. The steward looked quickly over his shoulder at the girl, whose expression immediately became entirely proper, her hands clasped submissively at her waist. Ecodes grinned again. Women. Born to deceive, all of them. But this one was clean, the way Ecodes liked, a bit of class to her, not like the eastern shrew upstairs.

"Never mind," he said to the steward. "Carry on."

The night was passing, swift as chariots; they were to find the woman before sunrise. The announced reward was extravagant. Even if divided among ten (with a double share to the decurion, of course) they could all retire to lives of leisure when their service was up. Have their own clean serving girls, or wives-or both for that matter. Little chance of any of that if they lingered or delayed. His men were waiting impatiently in the street. Ecodes turned and went down the steps "Right, lads. Next house," he said briskly. The steward closed the door behind him, hard.

He had been embarrassed by his own arousal under the sheets as she simulated lovemaking, appearing to be riding him as the door opened. She hadn't let him lock the door, and belatedly he had understood: the room was going to be searched, the whole idea was for the soldiers to find them engaged in the act, outraged at intrusion. Her voice, a low snarl changing swiftly to a nasal whine, speaking Rustem's own tongue with ferociously obscene eloquence, had startled him almost as much as it appeared to disconcert the small soldier in the doorway. Rustem, aware that his life was at risk here, had little trouble assuming a pose of anger and hostility.

Alixana had dismounted from her position upon him, clutching the sheets to herself. She fired another volley of invective at the soldier, and Rustem, inspired by fear as much as anything else, had slapped her face, shocking himself.

Now, as the door closed, he waited an agonizingly long moment, heard conversation outside, then steps on the creaking stairs, and finally murmured, "I am sorry. That blow. I…»

Lying beside him, she didn't even look over. "No. It was well done."

He cleared his throat. "I would lock it now, probably, if this were… real."

"It is real enough," she whispered.

All force seemed drained from her now. He was aware of her naked form beside his own, but not with desire any more. He felt a deep shame about that, and some other emotion that came unexpectedly close to grief. He rose and quickly drew on his tunic, without undergarments. He went over to the door, locking it. When he turned back, she was sitting up in the bed, the sheets wrapped fully around her.

Rustem hesitated, at sea and unmoored, then crossed and sat on the small bench near the fire. He looked at the flames and put a log on, busying himself with trivial activity. He said, not looking at her, "When did you learn Bassanid?"

"Did I do all right?"

He nodded. "I couldn't curse like that."

"I'm sure you could." Her voice was leached of nuance. "I picked up some when I was young, mostly the swearing. Learned more when we dealt with ambassadors, later. Men are flattered when a woman speaks to them in their own tongue."

"And the… voice?" That rancid harridan from some dockside caupona.

"I was an actress, doctor, remember? Much the same as a whore, some say. Was I convincing as one?"

This time he did look at her. Her gaze was vacant, fixed on the door through which the soldier had gone.

Rustem was silent. He felt as if the night had become deep as a stone well, as dark. A day so long it seemed beyond belief. Had started with his patient gone in the morning and his own desire to see the racing in the Hippodrome.

It had started differently for her.

He looked narrowly at the too-still figure on his bed. Shook his head at what he saw. He was a physician, had seen this look before. He said, "My lady, forgive me, but you must weep. You must allow yourself to do that. I say this… professionally."

She didn't even move. "Not yet," she said. "I can't."

"Yes, you can," said Rustem, very deliberately. "The man you loved is dead. Murdered. He is gone. You can, my lady."

She turned finally to look at him. The firelight caught her flawless cheekbones, shadowed the cropped hair, the smears of dirt, could not reach the darkness of those eyes. Rustem had an impulse-rare for him as rain in the desert-to cross to the bed and hold her. He refrained.

He murmured, "We say that when Anahita weeps for her children, pity enters the world, the kingdoms of light and dark."

"I have no children."

So clever. Guarding herself so very hard. "You are her child," he said.

"I will not be pitied."

"Then let yourself mourn, or I must pity the woman who cannot."

Again, she shook her head. "A bad patient, doctor. I am sorry. I owe you obedience if nothing else for what you have just done. But not yet. Not… yet. Perhaps when… everything else is done."

"Where will you go?" he said, after a moment.

A quick, reflexive smile, meaningless, born of nothing but the habit of wit, from a world lost. She said, "Now I am truly wounded. You tire of me in your bed already?"

He shook his head. Stared at her, said nothing. Then he turned deliberately back to the fire and busied himself there with movements old as all hearths, that any man or woman might have done in any age, might be doing even now, somewhere else in the world. He took his time.

And a few moments later he heard a harsh, choking noise, and then another. With a great effort, Rustem continued to gaze into the flames, not looking over at the bed where the Empress of Sarantium was grieving in the night, with broken sounds he had never heard before.

It went on a long time. Rustem never looked away from the fire, leaving her at least the semblance of privacy, as earlier they had simulated lovemaking. At length, as he was adding yet another piece of wood to the flames, he heard her whisper, "Why is this better, doctor? Tell me why."

He turned. In the firelight he saw the tears shining on her face. He said, "My lady, we are mortal. Children of whichever gods or goddesses we worship, but only mortal. The soul must bend to endure."

She looked away, but not at anything in the room. Said nothing for a time, and then, "And even Anahita weeps? Or the kingdoms would have no pity?"

He nodded, deeply moved, beyond words. A woman such as he'd never encountered before.

She wiped at her eyes with the backs of both hands, a childlike gesture.

Looked at him again. "If you are right, you have saved me twice tonight, haven't you?"

He could think of nothing to say.

"Do you know the amount of the reward they have offered?"

He nodded. It had been proclaimed by heralds in the streets from late in the day. Had reached the Blues" compound before sundown. Treating the wounded, he had heard of it.

"All you need do," she said, "is open the door and call out."

Rustem looked at her, struggling for words. He stroked his beard. "I may be tired of you, but not that tired," he said, and saw that her smile this time did touch, very briefly, her dark eyes.

After a moment she said only, "Thank you for that. You are more than I had any right to pray for, doctor."

He shook his head, embarrassed again.

She said, her voice a little stronger now, "But you must know you'll have to say something about this in Kabadh. You'll have to give them something.

He stared at her. "Something for…?"

"Some results from your being sent here, doctor."

"I don't see… I came to obtain some-"

"— medical knowledge from the west before going to court. I know. The physicians" guild filed a report. I looked at it. But Shirvan never has only one string to a bow and you won't be an exception. He'll have ordered you to keep your eyes open. You will be judged on what you have seen. If you return to his court with nothing, you'll give weapons to your enemies, and you have them there already, doctor. Waiting for you. It isn't hard to arrive at a court with people hating you beforehand."

Rustem clasped his hands together. "I know little about such things, my lady."

She nodded. "I believe that. "She looked at him, and then, as if making a decision, murmured, "Did anyone tell you that Bassania has crossed the border in the north, breaching the peace?"

No one had. Who would have told him that, a stranger among the westerners? An enemy. Rustem swallowed, felt a coldness enter him. If a war began, and he was still here…

She looked at him. "There were rumours all afternoon in the City. As it happens, I am quite certain they are true."

"Why?" he whispered.

"Why am I sure?"

He nodded.

"Because Petrus wanted Shirvan to do this, steered him towards it."

"Wh-why?"

The woman's expression changed again. There were tears still, on her cheeks. "Because he never had less than three or four strings to his bow. He wanted Batiara, but he also wanted Leontes taught a lesson about limitations, even defeat, along the way, and dividing the army to deal with Bassania was a way to achieve that. And of course the payments east would stop."

"He wanted to lose in the west?"

"Of course not." The same faint, almost indiscernible smile, shaped of memory. "But there are ways of winning more than one thing, and how you triumph matters very much, sometimes."

Rustem shook his head slowly. "And how many people would die in achieving all of this? Is it not vanity? To believe we can act like a god? We aren't. Time claims all of us."

"The Lord of Emperors?" She looked at him. "It does, but are there no ways to be remembered, doctor, to leave a mark, on stone, not on water? To have… been here?"

"Not for most of us, my lady." Even as he said that he was remembering the chef in the Blues" compound: This boy was my legacy. A cry from the man's heart.

Her hands and body were hidden beneath the sheets. She was still as stone herself. She said, "I'll grant you a half-truth there. But only that much… Have you no children, doctor?"

It was so strange, for the chef had asked him the same thing. Twice in a night, speaking about what one might leave behind. Rustem made a sign against evil, towards the fire. He was aware of how odd this conversation was now, yet sensed that somehow these questions lay towards the heart of what this day and night had become. He said, slowly, "But to be remembered through others, even our own heirs, is also to be… misremembered, is it not? What child knows his father? Who decides how we are recorded, or if we are?"

She smiled a little, as if he'd pleased her with cleverness. "There is that. Perhaps the chroniclers, the painters, sculptors, the historians, perhaps they are the real lords of emperors, of all of us, doctor. It is a thought."

And even as Rustem felt an undeniably warming pleasure to have elicited her approval, he also had a glimpse of what this woman must have been like, jewelled upon her throne, with courtiers vying for that approving tone.

He lowered his gaze, humbled again.

When he looked up, her expression had changed, as if an interlude was over. She said, "You realize that you must be very careful now? Bassanids will be unpopular when word gets out. Keep close to Bonosus. He will protect a guest. But understand something else: you might also be killed when you go back east to Kabadh."

Rustem gaped at her. "Why?"

"Because you didn't follow orders."

He blinked. "What? The… the Antae queen? They can't expect me to have murdered royalty so quickly, so easily?"

She shook her head, implacable. "No, but they can expect you to have died trying by now, doctor. You were given instructions."

He said nothing. A night deep as a well. How did one ever climb out? And her voice now was that of someone infinitely versed in these ways of courts and power.

"That letter carried a meaning. It was an explicit indication that your presence as a physician in Kabadh was less important to the King of Kings than your services as an assassin here, successful or otherwise." She paused. "Had you not considered that, doctor?"

He hadn't. Not at all. He was a physician from a sand-swept village at the southern desert's edge. He knew healing and childbirth, wounds and cataracts, fluxes of the bowel. Mutely, he shook his head.

Alixana of Sarantium, naked in his bed, wrapped in a sheet as in a shroud, murmured, "My own small service to you, then. A thought to ponder, when I am gone."

Gone from the room? She meant more than that. However deep the well of night felt to him, hers went deeper by far. And thinking so, Rustem of Kerakek found a courage and even a grace in himself he hadn't known he had (it had been drawn from him, he was later to think), and he murmured, wryly, "I have done well so far tonight at being careful, haven't I?"

She smiled again. He would always remember it.

There came a knock then, softly at the door. Four times swiftly, twice slow. Rustem stood up quickly, his eyes darting around the room. There was really nowhere for her to hide.

But Alixana said, "That will be Elita. It is all right. They'll expect her to come here. She's bedding you, isn't she? I wonder if she'll be upset with me?"

He crossed the room, opened the door. Elita entered hurriedly, closed the door behind her. Took one quick, frightened look at the bed, saw that Alixana was there. She dropped to her knees before Rustem and seized one of his hands in both of hers and kissed it. Then turned towards the bed, still on her knees, looking at the ragged, dirty, crop-haired woman sitting there.

"Oh, my lady," she whispered. "What are we to do?"

And she took a dagger from her belt, laying it on the floor. Then she wept.

She had long been one of the most trusted women of the Empress Alixana. Took a pleasure in that fact that was almost certainly reprehensible in the eyes of Jad and his clerics. Mortals, especially women, were not to puff themselves up with the sin of pride.

But there it was.

She had been the last person awake in the house, having offered to tend the downstairs fire and put out the lamps before going up to the doctor's bed. She had sat in the front room alone for a time in the dark, watching white moonlight through the high window. Had heard footsteps in the other ground-floor rooms, heard them cease as the others went to their beds. She had remained where she was for a time, anxiously. She had to wait, but feared to wait too long. Finally, she had walked down the main-floor hallway and opened a bedroom door, silently.

She had prepared an excuse-not a good one-if he was still awake.

The steward who ran this house for Plautus Bonosus was an efficient but not an especially clever man. Still, something had been said when the soldiers left-a misunderstanding that could have been amusing but wasn't, at all, with so desperately much at stake. An exchange that might be fatal, if he put the pieces together.

There was a huge reward on offer, incomprehensibly large, in fact, proclaimed by heralds throughout the City all day. What if the steward woke in the night with a blinding thought? If a daemon or ghost came to him carrying a dream? If he realized under the late moons that the soldier at the door hadn't been calling the grey-bearded doctor a whore but had been referring to a woman upstairs? A woman. The steward might wake, wonder, feel the slow licking of curiosity and greed, rise up in the dark house, go down the hallway with a lamp lit from his fire. Open the front door. Call for a guard of the Urban Prefecture, or a soldier.

It was a risk. It was a risk.

She had walked into his room, silent as a ghost herself, looked down upon him where he lay sleeping on his back. Sought a way to make her heart grow hard.

Loyalty, real loyalty, sometimes required a death. The Empress (she would always call her that) was still in the house. It was not a night to take chances. They might trace the steward's murder to her but sometimes the death required was one's own.

"My lady, I could not kill him. I tried, I went to do it, but…"

The girl was weeping. The blade on the floor before her was innocent of blood, Rustem saw. He looked at Alixana.

"I ought to have known better," Alixana murmured, still wrapped in the bed linens, "than to make you a soldier in the Excubitors." And she smiled, faintly.

Elita looked up, biting at her lower lip.

"I don't think we need his death, my dear. If the man somehow wakes in the night with a vision and goes for the door and a guard… you can run them through with a sword."

"My lady. I don't have"

"I know, child. I am telling you we need not murder to defend against this chance. If he were going to rethink that conversation, he'd have done it by now."

Rustem, who knew a little of sleep and dreams, was less sure, but said nothing.

Alixana looked at him. "Doctor, will you let two women share your bed? I fear it will be less exciting than the words suggest."

Rustem cleared his throat. "You must sleep, my lady. Lie in the bed. I will take a chair, and Elita can have a pillow by the fire."

"You need rest as well, physician. People's lives will depend on you in the morning."

"And I will do what I can do. I have spent nights in chairs before."

It was true. Chairs, worse places. Stony ground with an army in Ispahani. He was bone-weary. Saw that she was, as well.

"I am taking your bed from you," she murmured, lying down. "I ought not to do that."

She was asleep when she finished the sentence.

Rustem looked at the servant who had been on the edge of murdering for her. Neither of them spoke. He gestured at one of the pillows and she took it and went to the hearth and lay down. He looked at the bed, and crossed there and covered the sleeping woman with one blanket, then took another and carried it to the girl by the fire. She looked up at him. He draped it over her.

He went back to the window. Looked out, saw the trees in the garden below made silver by the white moon. He closed the window, drew the curtains. The breeze was strong now, the night colder. He sank down in the chair.

It came to him, with finality, that he was going to have to change his life again, what he had thought was to be his life.

He slept. When he woke, both women were gone.

A greyness was filtering palely through the curtains. He drew them back and looked out. It was almost day, but not quite, the hovering hour before dawn. There was a knocking at the door. He realized that was what had awakened him. He looked over, saw that the door was unlocked, as was usual.

He was about to call for whoever it was to come in when he remembered where he was.

He rose quickly. Elita had replaced her pillow and blanket on the bed. Rustem crossed there. Climbed in and under the sheets. There was a scent, faint as a dream receding, of the woman who was gone.

"Yes?" he called. He had no idea where she was, or if he ever would know.

Bonosus's steward opened the door, impeccably dressed already, composed and calm as ever, dry in his manner as a bone. Rustem had seen a knife in this room last night, meant for this man's heart while he slept. He had been that close to dying. So had Rustem, a different way-if a deception had failed.

The steward paused deferentially on the threshold, hands clasped before him. There was an odd look in his eye, however. "My deepest apologies, but some people are at the door, doctor." His voice was practised, murmurous. "They say they are your family."

He broke stride only long enough to throw on a robe. Dishevelled, unshaven, still bleary-eyed, he bolted past the startled man and tore down the hallway and then the stairs in a manner worlds removed from anything resembling dignity.

He saw them from the first landing, where the stairway doubled back, and he stopped, looking down.

They were all in the front hallway. Katyun and Jarita, one visibly anxious, the other hiding the same apprehension. Issa in her mother's arms. Shaski was a little ahead of the others. He was gazing up fixedly, eyes wide, an intent, frightening expression on his features that only changed, only melted away-Rustem saw it-when his father appeared on the stairs. And Rustem knew, in that moment he knew as surely as he knew anything on earth, that Shaski was the reason, the only reason, the four of them were here and the knowledge hit him in the heart like nothing ever had.

He went the rest of the way down to the ground floor and stood gravely before the boy, hands clasped in front of himself, very like the steward, in fact.

Shaski looked up at him, his face white as a flag of surrender, the small, thin body taut as a bowstring. (We must bend, my little one, we must learn to bend or we break.) He said, his voice quivering, "Hello, Papa. Papa, we can't go home."

"I know," said Rustem softly.

Shaski bit his lip. Stared at him. Huge eyes. Hadn't expected this. Had expected punishment, very likely. (We must learn to be easier, little one.) 'Or… or to Kabadh? We can't go there."

"I know," said Rustem again.

He did know. He also understood, after what he'd learned in the night, that Perun and the Lady had intervened here beyond any possible measure of his worthiness. There was something constricting in his chest, a pressure needing release. He knelt down on the floor and he opened his arms.

"Come to me," he said. "It is all right, child. It will be all right."

Shaski made a sound-a wail, a heart's cry-and ran to his father then, a small bundle of spent force, to be gathered and held. He began to weep, desperately, like the child he still was, despite everything else he was and would be.

Clutching the boy to him, lifting him, not letting go, Rustem stood up and went forward and drew both his wives into that embrace and his infant daughter, as the morning came.

It seemed they had inquired of Bassanid mercantile agents on the other bank, and one of them had known where Rustem the physician was staying. Their escorts, the two soldiers who had crossed with them from Deapolis on a fishing boat before daylight (two others remaining behind), were waiting outside in front of the house.

Rustem had them admitted. Given what he now knew, it was not a time for Bassanids to be on the streets of Sarantium. One of them, he saw with astonishment (he had thought himself to have reached a place beyond surprise now), was Vinaszh, the garrison commander of Kerakek.

"Commander? How does this come to be?" It was strange to be speaking his own tongue again.

Vinaszh, wearing Sarantine trousers and a belted tunic and not a uniform, thank the Lady, smiled a little before answering: the weary but satisfied expression of a man who has achieved a difficult task.

"Your son," he said,'is a persuasive child."

Rustem was still holding Shaski. The boy's arms were around his neck, his head on his father's shoulder. He had stopped crying. Rustem looked over at the steward and said, in Sarantine, "Is it possible to offer a morning meal to my family, and to these men who have escorted them?"

"Of course it is," said Elita, before the steward could answer. She was smiling at Issa. "I will arrange it."

The steward looked briefly irritated by the woman's presumption. Rustem had a sudden, vivid image of Elita standing over the man's body in the night, a blade in her hand.

"I would also like a message taken to the Senator, as soon as possible. Conveying my respects and requesting an opportunity to attend upon him later this morning."

The steward's expression became grave. "There is a difficulty," he murmured.

"How so?"

"The Senator and his family will not be receiving visitors today, or for the next few days. They are in mourning. The lady Thenai's is dead."

'What? I was with her yesterday!"

"I know that, doctor. It seems she went to the god in the afternoon, at home."

"How?" Rustem was genuinely shocked. He felt Shaski stiffen.

The steward hesitated. "I am given to understand there was… a self-inflicted injury."

Images again. From the day that yesterday had been. A shadowy, high-ceilinged interior space within the Hippodrome, motes of dust drifting where light fell, a woman more rigid than even he himself was, confronting a chariot-racer. Another drawn blade.

We must learn to bend, or we break.

Rustem took a deep breath. He was thinking very hard, Bonosus could not be intruded upon, but the need for protection was real. Either the steward would have to make arrangements here himself for guards, or else…

It was an answer. It was an obvious answer.

He looked back at the man. "I am deeply saddened to hear of this. She was a woman of dignity and grace. I will need a different message sent now. Please have someone inform the acting leader of the Blue faction that I and my family and our two companions request admission into the compound. We will need an escort, of course."

"You are leaving us, doctor?"

The man's expression was impeccable. He had been very nearly killed in his sleep last night. He'd never have awakened. Someone might have been knocking at the steward's bedroom door, finding his body even now, raising a terrible cry.

The world was a place beyond man's capacity to ever fully grasp. It had been made that way.

"I believe we must leave," he said. "It appears our countries might be at war again. Sarantium will be dangerous for Bassanids, however innocent we might be. If the Blues are willing, we might be better defended within the compound. "He looked at the man. "We pose a danger here to all of you now, of course."

The steward-not a subtle thinker-had not considered that. It showed in his face.

"I will have your message sent."

"Tell them," added Rustem, setting Shaski down beside him, a hand across the boy's shoulders, "that I will, of course, offer my professional assistance for the duration of any stay."

He looked over at Vinaszh, the man who had set all of this in motion one afternoon in winter when the wind had been blowing from the desert. The commander spoke Sarantine, it appeared: he had followed this. "I left two men on the other shore," he murmured.

"It might be unsafe for you to go back to them. Wait and see. I have asked for you to be admitted with us. This place is a guarded compound, and they have reason to be well disposed towards me."

"I heard. I understand."

"But I have no right to act for you, it occurs to me. You have brought me my family, unlocked for. For many reasons I want them with me now. I owe you more than I can ever repay, but I do not know your wishes. Will you return home? Does duty demand as much? Did you… I don't know if you have heard about a possible war in the north."

"There were rumours on the other bank last night. We obtained civilian clothing, as you see. "Vinaszh hesitated. He removed his rough cloth cap and scratched his head. "I… I told you your son was very persuasive."

The steward, hearing them speak in Bassanid, turned politely away and crooked a finger at one of the younger servants: a messenger.

Rustem stared at the commander. "He is an unusual child."

He was still holding the boy, not letting go. Katyun watched them, her head turning from one man to the other. Jarita had dried her tears, was making the baby be silent.

Vinaszh was still grappling with something. He cleared his throat, then did it again. "He said… Shaski said… told us that an ending was coming. To Kerakek. Even… Kabadh."

"We can't go home, Papa." Shaski's voice was calm now, a certainty in it that could chill you if you thought about it at all. Penin defend you, Anahita guard us all. Azal never know your name.

Rustem looked at his son. "What kind of ending?"

"I don't know." The admission bothered the boy, it was obvious. "From… the desert."

From the desert. Rustem looked at Katyun. She shrugged, a small gesture, one he knew so well.

"Children have dreams," he said, but then he shook his head. That was dishonest. An evasion. They were only here with him because of Shaski's dreams, and last night Rustem had been told-quite explicitly and by someone who would know-that he was probably a dead man if he went to Kabadh now.

He had declined to try to assassinate someone. And the orders had come from the king.

Vinaszh, son of Vinaszh, the garrison commander of Kerakek, said, softly, "If your intention is to stay here, or go elsewhere, I humbly ask permission to journey with you for a time. Our paths may part later, but we will offer our assistance now. I believe… I accept what the child sees. It happens, in the desert, that some people have this… knowing."

Rustem swallowed. "We? You speak for the other three?"

"They share my thought about the boy. We have journeyed with him. Things may be seen."

As simple as that.

Rustem still had his hand across Shaski's too-thin shoulders. "You are deserting the army." Harsh word. Needed to be used, brought into the open here.

Vinaszh winced. Then straightened, his gaze direct. "I have promised to properly discharge my men, which is in my power as their commander. The formal letters will be sent back."

"And for yourself?"

There was no one who could write such a letter for the commander. The other man drew a breath. "I will not go back." He looked down at Shaski, and he smiled a little. Said nothing more.

A life changed, changed utterly.

Rustem looked around the room, at his wives, his infant daughter, the man who had just thrown in his lot with them, and in that very moment — he would say as much long afterwards, telling the tale-the thought came to him where they would go.

He had already been in the distant east, he'd tell guests, over wine in another land, why not journey as far to the west?

Beyond Batiara, well beyond it, was a country still taking shape, defining itself, a frontier, open spaces, the sea on three sides, it was said. A place where they might begin anew, have a chance to see what Shaski was, among other things.

They would need physicians in Esperana, wouldn't they?

They were escorted down through the city, the streets quiet, unnaturally so, to the Blues" compound just before midday. On orders from the factionarius Astorgus-released only that morning from the Urban Prefecture-half a dozen men were sent across the straits with a note from Vinaszh to fetch his other two men from their inn in Deapolis.

On his arrival in the compound, after they were welcomed (respectfully) and given rooms, and just before he went to see his patients, Rustem learned from the small chef who had been in charge last night that the search for the missing Empress had been called off just before dawn.

It seemed that there had been further changes in the Imperial Precinct during the night.

Shaski liked the horses. So did little Issa. A smiling groom with straw in his hair carried her as he rode on one of them and they walked a slow circle around the open yard, the baby's whoops of laughter filling the compound, making people smile as they went about the tasks of a brightening day.