The Heart of the mirage

CHAPTER THREE

The cool marbled hall, the elegant statuary decorating the wall niches, the great fireplaces that burned whole logs in the snow-season, the way rooms opened out on to fountained courtyards – 1 loved it all. If I listened, I could hear the splash of water mingling with the soft murmur of pink and grey mellowbirds. If I glanced through the archways to my right, I would see the vines, now rich with fruit, that covered the atrium. If I drew breath, it was to smell the trumpet flowers and lemon blossom, and just a wisp of freshly baked bread from my own kitchen ovens. If I reached out my hand, I would touch the soft velvet of the cold-weather drapes we drew closed to keep the room warm when the fires were lit and the wall fountains were heated.

This was the only home I could ever remember having.

And I had to leave it.

I looked back at Aemid and waved a hand at the foot basin. 'Since when has this been your job?' I asked, using the Kardi language, as I always did when talking to her. 'Where is Foressa – or Dini?'

She gave a grunt. 'They're busy.' It was a lie and both of us knew it. Before I could chide her, she blurted, 'What did the Exaltarch want with you?'

I smiled softly, touched that she had been worried. 'Something I never expected: he wants me to go to Kardiastan. With the rank of Legata, what's more.'

I was totally unprepared for the effect of this news on her. She jumped to her feet, dropping the sponge she had been using, and stood swaying, her fists clenched, her breath loud and rough. The normal olive-brown tint of her skin blotched unevenly, the lines on her face burrowed deeper.

'Aemid! Are you all right? What in Vortex has come

over you?' I was awash in her emotions: joy and fear and panic in equal parts. -

She didn't answer. Her eyes dropped to the sponge, but she didn't pick it up. Water ran in rivulets over the marble tiles. 'When?' she asked at last, the word a strangled sound in the back of her throat.

Seeing she was not going to fall, I released the supporting hold I had taken on her arm. 'I don't know; as soon as I can wind up my affairs here and obtain a sea passage. A week perhaps. I will have priority on any coastal vessel.'

'Wind up your affairs -?'

'It's very doubtful I shall be coming back for a while. What's upset you so, Aemid? Are you worried I'll leave you behind, or that I'll take you with me?' I looked at her uncertainly.

'Could I – is it possible? That I can go with you?'

'Well, of course, if that's what you want.' I was puzzled. 'I had no idea you felt so strongly about Kardiastan. All I've ever heard about the place seems to indicate it's damned inhospitable; a hellhole with a climate worthy of the Vortex of Deadi. Melete's heart, why would you want to return there? You belong here by now, surely.'

Aemid did not reply. She knelt and began to towel my feet dry with trembling hands, her grey head bent.

I went on, 'I shall take Brand as well, and I shall keep a skeleton staff here to maintain the house and gardens, but the other slaves will have to be sold. I can always buy another household in Kardiastan. You may tell the others. Tell them I shall see that they go to good homes.'

Aemid's head swung up in shock. 'There's no slavery in Kardiastan!'

I stared at her. 'What in the world are you thinking of? Weren't you yourself enslaved there? And what of

all the newly arrived Kardi thralls you see here in Tyr from time to time? Of course there is slavery in Kardiastan!'

'Oh – yes. Yes, of course,' she muttered, flushing. 'I was just – For a moment, I was remembering how it once was.'

'Aemid, you haven't been there for, what? More than twenty-five years? You were taken while the Kardiastan Uprising was still in progress, I know, but that was a long time ago. Those wars are long over; Kardiastan has long been a province of the Exaltarchy, and where the Exaltarch rules, there is always slavery. It is the natural order of things that the conquered should serve their masters. Now go and tell Brand I want to see him after I bathe. I have the stink of the Cages on my skin and I won't feel clean until I've washed. You can send Dini in to do my hair.' She nodded, apparently in control of herself again, but as she left the room, I noticed her hands trembled.

When I emerged from my bedroom a while later, clean at last and dressed more comfortably in loose trousers and a long loose top, it was to find Brand waiting for me.

Like Aemid, Brand was a house slave. The red flecks in the brown of his irises and the red flash over his forehead in his otherwise brown hair proclaimed his blood to be Altani. Altan Province was one of the conquered nations to the south of the Sea of Iss – but Brand never spoke of his home any more than Aemid did. He had been a gift from General Gayed to me on my tenth anniversary day. Twelve years old then, a defiant boy, skinny and undersized. Now he was a large man, taller by a head than I was, with a width to match his height and a strength to match his width.

– ''Ah, there you are,' I said. 'Did Aemid tell you what the Exaltarch wanted?'

He nodded. 'Yes, Domina. Or should I say, um, LegataV

A slave's existence had so instilled caution in him that his expression always had about as much animation as the standing stones of northern Tyrans. Right then, though, I suspected he was mocking me, but I couldn't tell for certain. Of all the people I had ever known, he alone was unreadable to me. I said, 'I think you know damned well that I don't care what you call me, although a little respect from time to time would be nice.'

'Of course, Domina.' The tiniest of pauses, then, 'Legata!

I resisted an impulse to throttle him. 'I do want to know what you think about the posting to Kardiastan, however.'

'Ah.' Serious now, he considered a moment before replying. 'I think the Magister Officii fears you.'

I nodded. 'And I fear you are right. I'll be a long time away. How do you feel about it, Brand?'

'Slaves don't have opinions on matters like that, er, Ligea. Where you go, I go, unless you will it otherwise.'

I gave him a sharp look, but I could not penetrate the mask he wore. He ignored my glance with unruffled urbanity. Gods above, I thought, twenty years as a slave, eighteen of them as my guard-servant, and none of it has destroyed either your dignity or your bloody pride, has it? Brand still knew his own worth, and he showed the world he valued himself. It often came as a shock to strangers when they noted his bronze slave collar. My friends warned me of the dangers of allowing helots too many liberties; I took no notice. My less charitable acquaintances spread the rumour I was besotted with my own thrall.

I was far from besotted. In fact, at moments like this, I felt more inclined to strangle the man. 'I should sell you before I go, preferably to the Domina Aurelia,' I growled, naming the highborn wife of the Prefect Urbis of.Tyr, a woman as stupid as she was frivolous. Her male slaves dressed in pink, had their hair curled and their faces plastered with cosmetics. She'd made me an offer for Brand once, after I visited her villa with him in attendance. I'd enjoyed telling him that, just for the rare joy of seeing his expression qhange.

He pretended to consider the suggestion. 'No, I don't think so, if you don't mind. However, a position as a guard in that whorehouse for the highborn in Via Dolce, now…'

I rolled my eyes. All I had heard from the slave quarters of the Villa Gayed over the years suggested Brand didn't much like to sleep alone. 'Sorry to thwart your amorous tendencies, Brand, but you are coming with me to Kardiastan. Naturally.'

'Naturally.' His tone was as dry as crumbled brick dust.

More veiled mockery, I supposed. I sighed inwardly and changed the subject. 'Something else, um, interesting happened today.'

He raised an eyebrow and waited, alert to my altered tone.

'The Oracle asked to see me.'

Everything about him stilled. When I didn't immediately explain, he said, 'As you say, interesting. From what I have heard, it is more normal for people to beg to see the Oracle, than the other way around.'

I nodded again. 'Indeed. And as I understand it, there is quite often a considerable… donation to the temple involved before the Oracle obliges.'

•»! He gave a half-smile. And you are not known for your generosity to religious cults.'

'No.'

'There was a deputation from the Meletian Temple at the door today, asking for donations for the Moon Festival. A coincidence, do you think?'

'Probably. They come every year. And are disappointed every year. They take enough from me at normal service collections.' Even as I spoke, though, I was wondering. Was this all a trick to increase my donation? Show the power of prophecy to the unbeliever in order to extract some of her wealth? I heard tales of unscrupulous temple priestesses from time to time. It was no more mad than the thought that the Oracle had the ability to predict the future. No, I thought, / won't believe that. If the gods did indeed intervene in our everyday life, if the Oracle always spoke the truth, then there would never be disasters such as the Kardiastan Uprising, or the earthquake deaths just last year in Getria, our sister city in the mountains. We would have been warned.

'So, what message was it the Oracle wanted to impart?' Brand's question abruptly grounded my thoughts once more.

'That's just it. Nothing much at all. Merely that I was going to take a journey to look for a traitor and I would be successful and rewarded as a consequence. Substantially rewarded.'

'And is that true?'

'As far as I know it, yes.'

'No details as to how you were to catch your prey? No helpful hints?'

'None.'

He had put his finger on the real puzzle of what had taken place, of course. There had been nothing in what

I was told that was useful – so why was the message necessary?

I detailed exactly what I had seen and heard, marshalling my own recollections into coherent order, dismissing the more outlandish of my hallucinations. As I recited Esme's actual words, his smile broadened into a grin. When I was a child, Brand had accompanied me to all my school lessons; these days he stood behind me at every poetry reading, musical evening, theatre performance, Academy debate. He ›

knew execrable verse when he heard it. He said, 'So, j

the Oracle is a bad poet?'

'The worst. Or else Esme is a poor translator.'

'They paint a rosy future for you. A little, um, fulsome in the promises, though, don't you think?'

'Somewhat.' I frowned. 'The whole thing is odd.'

'You know what it sounds like to me? All that talk of "rightful place" and being wreathed, feted, honoured and celebrated in epic poetry? It's as if they are saying: "You're not getting what you deserve. Go to Kardiastan and you will get that, and more." They are appealing to your sense of injustice.'

My frown deepened. 'I don't feel hardly done by!'

'They might think you do. Do you believe in the Oracle, Domina?'

'In its connection to the divine? Or in the truth of its predictions?'

'Both.'

'Well, the temple priestesses maintain that if any of the gods want to communicate, they do so through the Oracle. But if a god is divine and powerful, then why the need for an intermediary? If we are to believe the myths, in the past they spoke to people directly. So, do I believe in the connection to the divine? Probably not. I am more inclined to think none of it is true, or ever was true.'

He remained silent, so I went on to the second part of his question. 'Nowadays, people go to the Oracle because they want to know the future. They want advice on the outcome of their more momentous decisions: whether to invest money, invade a neighbouring country, marry into a certain family. From what I've heard, the advice is often couched in such obscure language it is ambiguous and therefore easily moulded afterwards to what happens. You know the sort of thing: "Marry that woman and a great commercial dynasty will be founded." No one actually says whose dynasty. The more ambiguous it is, the greater the chances the prediction will come true.'

He nodded. 'Clever. But your prediction was not ambiguous. It clearly foretold your success and rewards.'

I stirred uneasily. 'Up until today I would have said it was all a temple scam. To make money out of the gullible. Now I'm not so sure…'

'You've not become a believer, have you?' His mockery mingled with amusement.

'No,' I snapped. Vortexdamn, I thought, why is it he always has the power to needle me? I took a deep breath. 'Brand, they knew too much. About me, about my latest orders. How could they possibly have known?'

'Without supernatural means? Could be any one of a dozen ways. Magister Rathrox told them. The Exaltarch told them. Someone else who knows told them. Perhaps they have spies in the palace. More to the point, why the whole rigmarole anyway?'

'Why do you think?' I asked.

Being Brand, he considered thoughtfully before answering. 'Someone wants you to go to Kardiastan, but is afraid you will refuse. This is a way to entice you by appealing to your sense of justice and your love of

a challenge. By predicting a rosy future if you go haring off to do the Exaltarch's bidding.' He chuckled. 'Whoever it is, they don't know you very well if they think you would be influenced by the muttering of a stone wall.'

I thought about that. The Exaltarch might believe I needed an incentive… and he had direct access to the Meletian Priestesses. I shivered. Was my presence in Kardiastan so important the Exaltarch would ask the priestesses to fake a prediction from the Oracle? Terror flickered, more tangible this time. And, keeping pace, that pleasurable frisson of excitement.

But there was a weakness in Brand's argument. 'I'm hardly likely to refuse a direct order from the Exaltarch,' I pointed out. 'Rathrox and Bator Korbus knew from the very beginning that I would go.'

'Maybe they just want you to go willingly, believing you have a spectacular future ahead. Rathrox knows exactly how ambitious you are. He must guess you would like to fill his shoes if he ever retires.'

I thought back to the meeting with the Exaltarch. To the feeling I'd had that I was missing something, that they weren't telling me the whole truth. Bator Korbus had implied Rathrox was keen to send me, but that he, Korbus, was dubious. Perhaps that wasn't quite the case. Oh, Korbus had been dubious of my abilities, true, but perhaps the Exaltarch was the one who wanted me in Kardiastan so badly he would stoop to anything to have me enthusiastic about it.

I frowned again. It all seemed so unlikely.

I felt a moment's intense nostalgia for my father, the man I had called Pater; I still missed his advice. He'd possessed such a talent for seeing ramifications, for visualising consequences. And always, always, his firm reassurance had given me faith in my own judgement.

'There were a number of messages for you today,' Brand said, changing the subject. 'Domina Curia has sent an invitation to a poetry evening in ten days' time – Segilus has apparently completed a new epic he wants to read to you all. Scholar Menet Senna wants to know if you'd like a seat at the debate on the validity of barbarian folk myths. A cloth merchant sent some samples of tie-dyed silk newly imported from Corsene. That rather unsavoury fellow who calls himself Bodran of Iss says he has some more information to sell about gold-smuggling, but he wouldn't deal with me so I told him to come back early tomorrow morning. Mazentius the Trademaster wants to know if you want to order anything from the Western Reaches. He has a caravan leaving for Pilgath in a day or two and said you might be interested in the papyrus they produce there. It's supposed to be much better quality than what we usually get from Altan. Um, I think that was all.'

Every word he said reminded me of the life I would leave.

I suppressed the sick feeling in my gut. 'I want you to take a message to Rathrox. A note from me, together with this list of names. The so-called Orsini conspirators.' I handed him Dorus's clay tablet.

He glanced at it and said, 'The fat jeweller came good, then, to save his son?'

'Yes. Damn it, Brand, it took me weeks to uncover that plot and now I have the names, someone else is going to round up the plotters and reap the praise for a job well done, because I won't te here.'

'Ah well, you've done similar things to others often enough, and planned it that way, too,' he said unsympathetically. 'Crabs shouldn't expect their fellow crabs to walk straight.'

I opened my mouth to give an irate retort, then closed it again. There was much truth in what he said. I'd a reputation for taking advantage of my fellow Compeer Brothers to further my own career – and yes, sometimes I'd prompted them into the mistakes in the first place, as Hargen Bivius could testify. 'Huh,' I said, a noncommittal grunt that could have meant anything.

I gave a wave of dismissal, but before he left he asked, politely enough, 'Are you going to issue a release request for the son?'

My friends were right: Brand could overstep the line. It wasn't his place to query things like that. Still, with Brand I preferred honesty to a dialogue based on intimidation, so I let it ride, and answered him. 'After Rathrox has someone check the authenticity of the list of names.'

He bowed his way out, passing Aemid on the way in.

'The Tribune Favonius Kyranon to see you,' she said. Her tone was neutral, but her face was pinched, accentuating the lines of middle age. Aemid did not approve of the legionnaire.

I pretended not to notice.

I hurried through into the entry hall where one of the lesser slaves was beginning to unbuckle the leather and metal battle cuirass of the soldier who stood there. 'Never mind, Dini,' I said. 'I'll do that.' I smiled up at the legionnaire and took his hands in mine. 'Favonius – well met. I didn't know you were back in Tyr. Welcome.'

He tapped his dusty cuirass. 'As you can see, I came straight here from the barracks. We got in late this morning.' He was a large man, of a size to match Brand, but his colouring was pure Tyranian: blond hair, blue eyes and a skin that tanned easily to smooth

honey-gold. His nose had been broken once and was now twisted to one side; it gave his looks a toughness to match the furrows and crinkles carved on his face by the sun and wind. He was thirty-five years old, and he looked it. He added, 'I have missed you, Ligea.'

I smiled with genuine pleasure and started to work on the buckles of his cuirass. 'I'm flattered, Tribune. How was the patrol?'

'Routine. Boring. Just the way we like it.'

'Liar. You much prefer being attacked by barbarians or bandits or rebels so you can prove, yet again, that the Exaltarch's Stalwarts are the best legionnaires in the empire.'

He laughed. 'Perhaps.'

'Where were you?' I asked, curious.

'In the mountains beyond Getria.'

That didn't make much sense as the area was devoid of people, but I didn't bother to think about it just then. I laid aside his body armour and sword belt and said, 'Now if you'll be seated, I'll wash your feet.'

He grinned at me. It was an honour to have the lady of the house perform the welcoming ablutions herself. I knelt, undid his leather greaves and sandals, and began to wash away the dust with long caressing strokes of the sponge, each movement deliberately sensual, my lips slightly parted, my eyes on his face all the while. He stood it for a minute or two, then made a sound that was almost a groan. 'You witchl' he whispered, and pulled me up onto his lap. I knocked the water bowl over, but neither of us cared. I just had time to laugh before his mouth clamped over mine with a need born of long abstinence. i

An hour later, as he half-drowsed in my arms on my divan, I said, 'Ah, Favonius, I could almost imagine

you haven't had another woman in the two months you've been gone.'

'I haven't,' he said, nibbling my ear.

'Come now, a legionnaire of the Exaltarch's Stalwarts, one Favonius Kyranon, without a woman? You'd be the laughing stock of your fellow officers!'

He grinned lazily. 'It takes a brave man to laugh at a Kyranon. You have spoiled me for other women. It's you I want and only you. Other women suddenly seem – insipid.'

'Then doubtless you availed yourself of the camp youths,' I said lightly. Many of the legion's slaves were chosen for their comeliness, and it was common enough for legionnaires to help themselves to what was available, even if their preference was otherwise.

'No,' he said. 'Not once. They hold no attraction for me.' He raised himself on an elbow. 'Ah, Ligea, you think I'm joking, but it's true. There's only one person I want on my pallet. I wish you'd think about making this union of ours legal.'

I felt a pang of regret. He'd asked before, and my answer had always been the same. And yet, sometimes I wondered if it might not be pleasant to be married. He came from a good provincial family and such a marriage would have added yet another layer to the legitimacy of my Tyranian citizenship. And, of course, it would have helped his career to be married to a general's adopted daughter. I smothered a sigh. 'It wouldn't work, Favo. And if you were honest, you'd admit it. I have all the attributes of your ideal lover, but none of your ideal wife. The very things you admire in me now would be the snags that put holes in a marriage.'

'How so?'

'You admire my independence, you like my fire and passion and lust for life – but you would want to

tame me if I were your wife. You wouldn't want me to be part of the Brotherhood for a start, would you?' Favonius was one of the few people who was fully aware of the extent of my Brotherhood connections.

He gave a quick frown. 'How can I feel happy with it? It's dangerous. It's not work for a woman. It's -'

I interrupted. 'It's what keeps me alive, Favonius. I need excitement and challenge. But because I'm a woman I'm not allowed to be a legionnaire or a seamaster or a trademaster or anything else adventurous or challenging. So I work for the' Brotherhood. You would take that away from me if I were your wife – and then wonder why I was no longer the woman you had fallen in love with.'

'As my wife you could follow the legion, I suppose,' he said doubtfully. 'Would that be excitement enough?'

'It would be eating the dust of the Stalwarts without being able to participate in their battles. Could you do it?'

He looked astounded. 7? A camp follower?'

'It's what you just asked of me.'

He thought about that and then started to laugh. 'Now that's one of the reasons I love you: your conversation has all the spice of a new dish; you are never predictably boring like other highborn women.'

'Try thinking of me as a man and you may find me more predictable.'

He shook his head, still smiling. 'I could never think of you as a man. Ligea, I have something to tell you – which I shouldn't tell anyone, but I shall anyway. If a Brother can't be trusted with a secret, then who can, eh? The Stalwarts are being sent to Kardiastan.'

I sat up, slack-jawed, feeling as if someone had pummelled me with a fist in the midriff. It couldn't be

true. This had to be a joke. Or fate playing a trick? Both of us being sent to Kardiastan at the same time?

Finally I managed a stifled, 'Kardiastan? The Stalwarts on garrison duty?'

Favonius, never the most observant of men, didn't notice just how staggered I was. 'No. Active duty, as usual. We are to invade from the west.'

My astonishment grew. 'Across the Alps? Riding?' And then, 'Invade? But why? Kardiastan is already ours!' Inwardly, I fumed. Why hadn't the Exaltarch told me of this?

'That's what I always thought too, but it seems not all of it is.' He rolled over onto his back and put his hands behind his head. He was frowning slightly, as if he didn't quite believe what he was saying. 'The Exaltarchy invaded Kardiastan, what, twenty-six years ago?'

'About that,' I agreed.

'It seems we invaded from the coast inwards, bringing troops by ship. But there's one part of Kardiastan, in the west, bordering the Alps, where no Exaltarchy troops have ever been. The Kardis call the area the Mirage. An impassable desert separates this Mirage and the rest of Kardiastan.'

I began to take an even keener interest in what he was saying.

'The Mirage is a rebels' cauldron of intrigue and insurrection, with leaders there constantly stirring up trouble elsewhere. So we are to cross the Alps and take it.'

I stared at him in puzzlement. T don't understand. If the desert is impassable, then how can this Mirage be part of Kardiastan?'

'That's what I asked. Apparently it's only impassable to Tyranians. The Kardis don't have any

trouble crossing it. And don't ask me how that can be, because I don't know.'

'Surely it's a simple matter to find a guide who would show us the secret.'

'You'd think so, wouldn't you? Offer enough money, and someone would oblige. Or torture someone into explaining the trick.' A worried note crept into his voice. 'It has been tried, of course. More than once. Those who did set off with a guide – whether paid or coerced – never came back.'

I rolled off the divan and began to pace the floor, forgetting I was naked. 'It seems there's a lot I don't know about Kardiastan. Which is strange when you consider it's where I was born. When do you leave, Favo? And how many of you go?'

'A legion under Legate Kilmar, and as soon as we're fitted out. We'll leave from Getria in about two months, I s'pose. Less perhaps.' His eyes followed me, appreciative. 'Keep this quiet. With such a small force, surprise is essential for success.'

'Oh, it'll be a surprise all right. Mounted on gordaks across the Alps? You'll be lucky if you make it alive.' At least I knew now why he'd been in the mountains beyond Getria – they had been reconnoitring the route.

'Don't underestimate the Stalwarts. We'll be there. I just wish I didn't have to leave Tyr again so soon. You and I see far too little of each other.'

That at least was true. The Stalwarts, for all that their permanent garrison was in Tyr, were liable to be ordered away at any time if the situation in any of the provinces or tributary states warranted it, which often seemed to happen. I had known Favonius for six years, but in all that time he'd spent less than two years in Tyr.

I said, 'We have less time than you think, Favo. I'll be leaving Tyrans even before you do.' Briefly, I summarised my meeting with the Exaltarch. By the time I'd finished, the mellowbirds outside had quietened and gone to roost in the bushes around the fishpond as dusk darkened the garden.

Favonius sat up, his forehead wrinkled in dismay. A klip-klip flew into the room, the rhythmic flashing on its head still dim in the half-light, and he swatted irritably at it. 'But that sounds as though it's unlikely you'll be returning to Tyr for – for Ocrastes knows how long! That bastard of a Ligatan. How can you bear to work for a snake-eyed, ungrateful turd like that?'

'I work for the Exaltarchy, Favo. Not for Rathrox, or for the Brotherhood or even for the Exaltarch.'

'What d'you mean? They're all the same thing in the end.'

'No, they're not.' The klip-klip landed on the back of my hand and I stared at the perfection of its delicate winged body and its tiny flashing light as I tried to put what I felt into words. T work for the idea of the Exaltarchy- for what it symbolises. An empire where everyone speaks the same tongue, an empire without war or border disputes, where nations pay tribute to Tyrans or become provinces, and have peace in return. Where a man can travel along the tradeways and the seaways from one land to another in safety.

'That is why I despise people like these Kardis, even though I myself was born one of them. They stir up rebellion and bring trouble and death and fear. They deal in terror. They destroy. They are the reason I am glad to work for the Brotherhood. The public fear us but, believe me, the prosperity of the Exaltarchy is as much due to us as to you legionnaires. It's a pity people forget that.'

Only half listening and uninterested in my philosophy, he said mulishly, 'Damn it, Ligea, we're unlikely to meet in Kardiastan. You won't be going anywhere near the Mirage. And what if Rathrox won't ever recall you to Tyrans?'

The klip-klip flew from my hand, its light brighter now. This time Favonius caught it and crushed it in his fingers.

I said, T shall face that scorpion when it raises its tail. For now, I'll try to do what I'm being sent to do. And who knows, we might meet there. After all, you surely won't return to Tyr across the Alps. Once you've conquered the Mirage, you should be able to solve the problem of crossing the desert and be able to return through Kardiastan proper.'

'You are scratching your left palm,' he accused.

I looked down at my hand guiltily. It was a joke between us that whenever I was worried I itched the lump – the size and shape of half a pigeon's egg cut lengthways – in the middle of my palm. He stood up and came to take me in his arms. T don't like this, Ligea. You are right to be worried. Kardiastan is a strange place. I've heard strange tales. They are an odd people."

I looked at him, deliberately arch. 'I am Kardi,'

He lifted my hand and kissed the deformity on the palm. It was hard and solid beneath his lips. 'And look how different you are!'

'I am not odd!' I was careful not to be whenever I moved in highborn circles. I kept my work for the Brotherhood as quiet as I could, and tried to appear as Tyranian as possible. I kept out of the sun and powdered my face to lighten my skin, I had my hair highlighted to make it more blonde than brown. I was accepted as Tyranian. It was, after all, what I felt myself to be.

He asked, 'Do you remember Kardiastan?'

'No, not really. Except -'

'Except what?'

'Oh, sometimes I have the faintest recollections. About a woman; my mother, I suppose. My real mother. Sometimes, something will remind me of her. A whiff of perfume, a particular laugh, a certain colour. And then there's this.' I indicated the swelling on my hand. 'I seem to remember her telling me not to show it to anyone. Goddess only knows why. I remember it as being… different then… somehow. Oh, I don't really recall, but my mother – my adoptive mother, Salacia – told me before she died that when the General first brought me home I was so sensitive about the lump I would not unfold my fingers, not even when I was asleep. They couldn't understand why. They were going to force my fingers up to see what it was I hid there, but Aemid persuaded them it was better not to upset me. She made me a glove to wear. And in a couple of months I opened my hand of my own accord, I suppose when I'd decided no one was going to worry about the lump there.' I gave a wry smile. T must have been a funny little thing then. I couldn't have been three years old, but I was obviously as stubborn as a closed mussel.'

'You still are,' he said with a laugh. 'Ligea, I am dirty with the dust of my journey. I've spent most of the day with my backside plonked in the saddle of a gorclak. I smell of sex and sweat and animal hide – how about a soak in that sunken bath of yours?'

I tilted my head. 'With me?'

His eyes twinkled. 'I thought you'd never ask.'