A silence.

'That isn't the point," Danis said.

Then she shouldn't have mentioned it, he thought, but did not say. Didn't say it, because something was twisting in his own heart as he looked at her. Zoticus's daughter, as brave as her father, in her own way.

He said, "Did you… did Martmian sell your father's farm for you?"

She shook her head. "I didn't ask him to. Forgot to mention that to you. I asked him to find a tenant, to keep it going. He did. He's written me a few letters. Told me a lot about you, actually."

Crispin blinked again. "I see. Another thing you forgot to mention to me?"

"I suppose we simply haven't talked enough." She smiled.

"So there," said Danis.

Crispin sighed. "That feels true, at least."

"I'm pleased you agree." She sipped her wine.

He looked at her. "You are angry. I know. What must I do? Do you want me to take you to bed, my dear?"

"To help with my anger? No thank you."

"To help with this sorrow," he said.

She was silent.

'She says to say she wishes you had never come here," Danis said.

"I'm lying, of course," Shirin added aloud.

"I know," Crispin said. "Do you want me to ask you to come west?"

She looked at him.

'Do you want me to come west?"

"Sometimes I do, yes," he admitted, to himself as much as to her. It was a relief to say it.

He saw her take a breath. "Well, that's a start," she murmured. "Helps with the anger, too. You might be able to take me to bed for other reasons now."

He laughed. "Oh, my dear," he said. "Don't you think I-"

"I know. Don't. Don't say it. You couldn't think about… any of this when you came, for reasons I know. And now you can't for… new reasons, that I also know. What do you want to ask of me, then?"

She wore a soft cap of dark green, a ruby in it. Her cloak lay beside her on the bed. Her gown was silk, green as the cap, with gold. Her earrings were gold and rings flashed on her fingers. He thought, looking at her, claiming this image, that he'd never be gifted enough at his craft to capture how she appeared just then, even sitting still as she was.

Speaking carefully, he said, "Don't… sell the farmhouse yet. Perhaps you'll need to… visit your property in the western province. If it becomes a province."

"It will. The Empress Gisel, I have decided, knows what she wants and how to get it."

His own thought, actually. He didn't say it. The Empress wasn't the point just now. He discovered that his heart was beating rapidly. He said, "You might even… invest there, depending how events unfold? Martinian's shrewd about such things, if you want advice."

She smiled at him. "Depending how events unfold?"

"Gisel's… arrangements."

"Gisel's," she murmured. And waited again.

He took a breath. A mistake, perhaps; her scent was inescapably present. "Shirin, there is no way you should leave Sarantium and you know it."

"Yes?" she said, encouragingly.

"But let me go home and find out what I… well, let me… Ah, well if you do marry someone here, by choice, I'd be…Jad's blood, woman, what do you want me to say?"

She stood up. Smiled. He felt helpless before the layers of meaning in that smile.

"You just did," she murmured. And bending before he could rise, she kissed him chastely on the cheek. "Goodbye, Crispin. A safe voyage. I'll expect you to write me soon. About properties, perhaps? That sort of thing."

That sort of thing.

He stood up. Cleared his throat. A woman desirable as moonlight when the night was dark.

"You, um, you kissed me better the first time we met."

"I know," she said sweetly. "Might have been a mistake."

And she smiled again and went to the door and opened it herself and went out. He stood rooted to the spot.

"Go to bed," said Danis. 'We'll have the servants let us out, A good journey, she says to say.

'Thank you" he sent, before remembering they couldn't make out his thoughts. He wished, suddenly, he could make out his own.

He didn't go to bed. There would have been no point. Stayed awake a long time, sitting in a chair by the window. Saw her wineglass and the flask on a tray but didn't take them, didn't drink. He'd made himself a promise about that, earlier tonight, in the street.

He was grateful for clear-headedness in the morning. A message- more than half expected-was waiting for him when he came down the stairs, delivered at sunrise. He ate, went to chapel on impulse, with Vargos and Pardos, then to the baths, had himself shaved, paid some visits in the Blues" compound and elsewhere. Was aware, as the day progressed, of the movement of the sun overhead. This day, this night, one more, then gone.

Some goodbyes not yet done. One more coming at darkfall.

In the palace.

"I had considered a flour sack," said the Empress of Sarantium, "for memory's sake."

"I am grateful, my lady, that you left it as a thought."

Gisel smiled. She had risen from a small desk, where she'd been opening sealed correspondence and reports with a small knife. Leontes was north and east with the army, but the Empire was still to be run, guided through changes. She and Gesius, he thought, would be doing so.

She crossed the room, took another seat. She was still holding the small paper knife. It had an ivory handle, carved in the shape of a face, he saw. She noticed his gaze. Smiled. "My father gave me this when I was very young. The face is his, actually. It comes off, if you twist." She did so. Held the ivory in one hand, the suddenly hiltless blade in the other. "I wore this against my skin when I boarded ship to sail here, had it hidden when we landed."

He looked at her.

"I didn't know, you see, what they intended to do with me. At the… very last, sometimes, we can only control how we end."

Crispin cleared his throat, looked around the room. They were almost alone, one woman servant with them here in the Traversite Palace, Gisel's rooms, that had been Alixana's. She hadn't had time to change them yet. Other priorities. The rose was gone, he saw.

Alixana had wanted dolphins here. Had taken him to see them in the straits.

Gesius the Chancellor, smiling and benign, had been waiting to escort him to Gisel himself when Crispin presented himself at the Bronze Gates. Had done so, and withdrawn. There was no hidden meaning to this after-dark invitation, Crispin realized: they worked late in the Imperial Precinct, especially in wartime and with a diplomatic campaign already unfolding for Batiara. He'd been invited to see the Empress when she had a moment to grant him in a crowded day. A countryman sailing home, bidding farewell. There was no secrecy now, no abduction in the dark, no private message that could kill him if revealed.

That was past. He had journeyed here, she had journeyed even farther. He was going back. He wondered what he'd find in Varena, in the place where wagers on her life had been drunkenly made in taverns for a year.

Men had won those wagers, lost them. And those of the Antae lords who had sought to murder her and rule in her stead… what would become of them now?

"If you'd been a little quicker in your planning," Gisel said, "you might have taken an Imperial ship. It left two days ago, with my messages for Eudric and Kerdas."

He looked at her. Again the eerie sense that this woman could read his thoughts. He wondered if she was like that with everyone. Wondered how any man could have been foolish enough to wager against her. She had glanced away just now, was gesturing to her woman to bring him wine. It was carried across the room on a golden tray inlaid with precious stones around the rim. The riches of Sarantium, the unimaginable wealth here. He poured for himself, added water.

"A careful man, I see," said the Empress Gisel. She smiled, deliberately.