And then turned completely away, from the men standing with her, from the dead in the clearing. Faced north, her shoulders straight as always, head lifted a little, as if to see beyond the tall pines, beyond the strait with its dolphins and ships and white-capped waves, beyond harbour, city walls, bronze gates, the present and the past, the world and the half-world.

"I believe," said Alixana of Sarantium, "it may even be over by now."

She turned back to look at them. Her eyes were dry.

"I have placed you in mortal danger, Rhodian. I am sorry for it. You will have to go back on the Imperial ship alone. You may expect to be asked hard questions, perhaps as soon as you land. More likely later, tonight. It will be known you were with me today, before I disappeared."

"My lady?" he said. "You don't know what has happened." He paused, swallowed hard. "He is cleverer than any man alive." And then her last word penetrated, and he said, "Disappeared?"

She looked at him. "I do not know for certain, you are correct. But if things have fallen out in a certain way, the Empire as we have known it is ended and they will be coming for me. I would not care, but…" She closed her eyes again. "But I do have… one or perhaps two things to do. I cannot let myself be found before that. Mariscus will take me back- there will be small craft on this island-and I will disappear."

She stopped, drew a breath. "I knew he should have been killed," she said. And then, "Crispin, Caius Crispus, if I am right, Gesius will be no help to you now." Her mouth twitched. A fool might have called it a smile. "You will need Styliane. She is the one who might guard you. She feels something for you, I believe."

He didn't know how she might know that. He was far past caring about such things. He said, "And you, my lady?"

A distant trace of amusement. "What do I feel for you, Rhodian?"

He bit his lip hard. "No, no. My lady, what are you to do? May I… may we not help?"

She shook her head. "Not your role. Not anyone's. If I am correct about what has happened, I have a task to do before I die, and then it can end." She looked at Crispin, standing very near him and yet in another place, another world, almost. "Tell me, when your wife died… how did you go on living?"

He opened his mouth, and closed it without answering. She turned away. They went back through the forest to the sea. On the stony strand of the isle, he was still unable to speak. He watched as she undipped and let fall her purple cloak, and then dropped the brooch that had pinned it and turned and went away along the white stones. The man named Mariscus followed her out of sight.

How did you go on living?

No answers came to him on the ship when he and the remaining Excubitor came to it and the mariners weighed anchor at the soldier's harsh order and they sailed back to Sarantium.

The Imperial cloak and the golden brooch were left behind on the isle, were still lying there when the stars came out that night, and the moons.

CHAPTER X

Cleander had done well by them, it appeared.

They were not among the enormous block of Green partisans-his mother had expressly forbidden that-but it seemed the boy had sufficient contacts by now among the Hippodrome crowd to have obtained excellent seats low down and near the starting line. Some of the morning attendees among the wealthier classes were inclined to miss the afternoon, it seemed. Cleander had found three seats that way. They had a clear, close view of the cumbersome looking start apparatus and the jumble of monuments along the spina, and could even see into the roofed interior space where the performers and charioteers were even now awaiting the signal to come out for the afternoon procession. Beyond that, Cleander had pointed out another entrance to and from the vast spaces under the stands. He called it the Death Gate, with evident relish.

The boy, dressed with perfect sobriety in brown and gold with a wide leather belt and his long, barbarian-style hair brushed back, was urgently pointing out all that took place to his stepmother and the physician whose servant he'd killed two weeks before. He seemed wildly happy and very young, Rustem thought, aware of ironies.

Thenai's had already been saluted by at least half a dozen men and women sitting nearby and had introduced Rustem with flawless formality to them. No one asked why she wasn't in the kathisma with her husband. This was a well-bred, well-dressed section of the Hippodrome. There might be shouting and jostling above them in the standing places but not down here.

Or perhaps, Rustem thought, not until the horses began running again. He acknowledged, with professional interest, an excitement within himself, undermining detachment. The mood of the crowd-he had never in his life been among so many people-was communicating itself, undeniably.

A trumpet sounded. "Here they come," said Oleander, on the far side of his mother. "The Greens have the most wonderful juggler, you'll see him right after the Hippodrome Prefect's horse."

"No faction talk," said Thenai's quietly, eyes on the gateway to the sands, where a horseman had indeed appeared.

"I'm not," said the boy. "Mother, I'm just… telling you things."

It became difficult to tell-or hear-things just about then, as the crowd erupted into full-throated salutation, like a beast with one voice.

Behind the single horseman came a dazzling, multicoloured array of performers. The juggler Cleander had mentioned was tossing sticks set on fire. Beside and behind him capered dancers dressed in blue and green, and then red and white, doing back flips and wheel-like movements. One walked on her hands, shoulders twisted into a position that made Rustem wince. She'd be unable to lift a cup without pain by the time she was forty, the doctor thought. Another entertainer, ducking his head to clear the tunnel roof, came striding out on high sticks that elevated him to giant size, and he managed, somehow, to dance on the sticks from that great height. Clearly a favourite, his appearance led to an even louder roar of approval. There came musicians with drums and flutes and cymbals. Then more dancers sprinted past, criss-crossing each other, long streamers of coloured fabric in their hands, drifting in the breeze and with the speed of their running. Their clothing was lifting, too, and there wasn't over-much of it. The women would have been stoned in Bassania for appearing in public so nearly naked, Rustem thought.

Then there came, just after them, the chariots.

"That's Crescens! Glory of the Greens!" shouted Oleander, ignoring his mother's injunction, pointing at a man in a silver helmet. He paused. "And beside him, that's the young one. Taras. For the Blues. He's riding first chariot again." He quickly looked across at Rustem. "Scortius isn't here."

"What?" said a florid, ginger-haired man behind Thenai's, leaning forward, brushing her. Cleander's mother shifted to one side, avoiding the contact, her face impassive as she watched the chariots emerge from the wide tunnel to the left of them. "You expected him? No one has any idea where he is, boy."

Oleander said nothing to that, which was a blessing. The boy didn't entirely lack sense. Behind the two lead chariots, the others came rolling quickly out as the performers ahead of them danced and tumbled down the long straight towards the kathisma at the far end. It was impossible to make out who was sitting there, but Rustem knew that Plautus Bonosus was among the elite in that roofed box. The boy had told him earlier, with an unexpected note of pride, that his father sometimes dropped the white cloth to start the games if the Emperor was absent.