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.