Rustem hadn't been paying attention to where they were going, or who was around them, and he would blame himself for that later, even though it hadn't been his responsibility to look to their safety. That was why Nishik, querulous and dour, had been assigned to a travelling physician, I after all.

But as they'd crossed the choppy strait from straggling Deapolis on the southeastern coast towards the huge, roiling port of Sarantium on the other side, negotiating past a small, densely wooded island and then bobbing ships and the trailing nets of fishing boats, with the City's domes and towers piled up and up behind and hearth-smoke rising from innu-merable houses and inns and shops all the way to the walls beyond, Rustem had found himself more overwhelmed than he'd expected to be, and then distracted by thoughts of his family.

He was a traveller, had been farther east, for example, than anyone he knew, but Sarantium, even after two devastating plagues, was the largest, wealthiest city in the world: a truth known but never fully apprehended before this day. Jarita would have been thrilled and perhaps even aroused, he mused, standing on the ferry, watching the golden domes come nearer. If his newfound understanding of her was correct, Katyun would have been terrified.

He had shown his papers and Nishik's false ones and dealt with the Imperial Customs Office on the wharf in Deapolis before boarding. Getting to the wharf had been a process in itself: there were an extraordinary number of soldiers quartered there and the sounds of ship construction were everywhere. They couldn't have hidden anything if they'd wanted to.

The customs transaction had been costly but not unpleasant: it was a time of peace, and Sarantium's wealth was largely derived from trade and travel. The customs agents of the Emperor knew that perfectly well. A discreet, reasonable sum to assuage the rigours of their painstaking labour was all that proved necessary to expedite the entry of a Bassanid physician and his manservant and mule-which had proved on examination not to be carrying silk or spice or any other tariffed or illicit goods.

As they disembarked in Valerius's city, Rustem took care to ensure that no birds were aloft on his left side and to set his right foot down first on the dock, just as he had boarded the ferry with his left boot first. It was noisy here, too. More soldiers, more ships and hammering and shouts. They asked directions of the ferryman and made their way along a wooden quay, Nishik leading the mule, both men wrapped in cloaks against a sharp spring breeze. They crossed a broad street, waiting for carts to rumble past, and came into a narrower lane, passing an unsavoury assortment of the usual waterfront sailors and whores and beggars and soldiers on leave.

Rustem had been vaguely aware of all this as they went, and of how ports seemed to be the same from here to Ispahani, but he had mostly been thinking about his son as they'd moved away from the docks, leaving the noises behind them. Shaski would have been wide-eyed and open-mouthed, taking all this in the way parched ground absorbs rain. The boy had that sort of quality, he decided-he'd been thinking of him more than a man ought to dwell on his small child at home-an ability to take things in and then try to make them his own, to know when and how to use them.

How else explain the uncanny moment when a seven-year-old boy had come after his father into a garden carrying the implement that ended up saving the life of the King of Kings? And making the fortune of their family? Rustem shook his head, remembering it on a morning in Sarantium, walking with his soldier-servant towards the forum they'd been directed to and the inn beside it where they would stay if there were rooms to be had.

He was under instructions not to establish any direct link with the Bassanid envoy here, only the expected, routine note sent to report his arrival. Rustem was a physician searching for medical treatises and knowledge. That was all. He would seek out other physicians-he'd been given names in Sarnica and had set out with some of his own. He would make his contacts, attend lectures, give some perhaps. Buy manuscripts or pay scribes to copy them. Stay until summer. Observe what he could.

Observe all he could, in fact, and not just about the healing profession and its treatises. There were things they wished to know, in Kabadh.

Rustem of Kerakek was a man who ought not to attract any attention at all in a time of harmony between the Emperor and the King of Kings (a peace bought expensively by Valerius) with only the occasional border or trade incident to mar a smooth surface.

That ought to have been so, at any rate.

The outrageously clothed and barbered young man who wove his way unsteadily towards Rustem from a tavern doorway as he and Nishik ascended a steep, unfortunately quiet laneway, heading for the Mezaros Forum, seemed oblivious to such carefully thought out considerations.

This seemed equally true of the three friends similarly dressed and adorned who followed behind him. All four were dressed in Bassanid-style robes for some reason, but with crudely designed golden jewellery in their ears and about their necks and with their hair worn untidily long down their backs.

Rustem stopped, having little option. The four youths barred their way and the laneway was narrow. The leader swayed a little to one side then straightened himself with an effort. "Green or Blue?" he rasped, wine fumes on his breath." Answer or be beaten like a dry whore!"

This question had something to do with horses. Rustem knew that much, but had no idea what answer would be best. "I beg your indulgence," he murmured in what he knew by now to be perfectly adequate Sarantine. "We are strangers here and don't understand such things. You are blocking our way."

"We are, aren't we? Fucking observant, you are. Bassanid butt-fucker," said the young man, switching away from the Blue-or-Green business readily enough. Rustem's origin and Nishik's was obvious from their clothing; they hadn't made any effort to hide it. The vulgarity was disconcerting and the sour smell of wine on the young man's breath so early of a morning sickened Rustem a little. The fellow was doing damage to his health. Not even the rawest recruits off duty in the fortress drank this early.

"Mind your foul tongue!" Nishik exclaimed loudly, playing the loyal servant, but with a little too much edge in his voice. "This is Rustem of Kerakek, a respected physician. Make way!"

"A doctor? Bassanid? Saves the fucking lives of slime who kill our soldiers? The fuck I'll make way, you goat-faced castrate slave!" Saying which, the young man proceeded to alter the nature of an already unfortunate encounter by drawing a short, quite elegant sword.

Rustem, taking a quick breath, noticed that the other youths looked alarmed at this. Not as drunk, he thought. There's a hope here.

There was, until Nishik snarled an oath of his own and, unwisely, turned to the mule that had stolidly accompanied them all this way, grappling for his own blade strapped to the animal's side. Rustem was sure he knew what was in Nishik's mind: the soldier, outraged by insults and impediment from a civilian, and a Jaddite at that, would be determined to disarm him in a swift lesson. A well-deserved tutoring, undoubtedly. But it was not the way to enter Sarantium quietly.

Nor, in fact, was it wise for other reasons entirely. The man with the already-drawn sword happened to know how to use it, having had instruction in the blade from a very early age at his father's city home and country estate. He was also, as Rustem had already noted, well past the point of prudently evaluating his own conduct or that of others.

The young man with the stylish blade took a single step forward and stabbed Nishik between the third and fourth ribs as the Bassanid soldier was pulling his own weapon free of the ropes about the mule.