Kings of Morning

FIVE

The Lady Orsana rose well before dawn, even now that the mornings came earlier. She bathed in the mosaic pool with her maids all about her, and picked out what to wear from a procession of living models, who stood in front of the fragrant steaming water one by one. A fingertip lifted slightly, and Charys, the Queen’s Eunuch, clapped his white hands to confirm the choice.

After she was dried, Orsana sat naked as a trio of artists who had been brought from all over the empire went to work on her face. They lengthened the lashes of her eyes with kohl, painted the lids malachite green, blushed her cheeks with Tanean vermilion and powdered her skin white with crushed chalk. She rose, and her clothing was draped around her as though on a statue. Her mane of heavy black hair was combed out until sparks crackled in it, then it was coiled simply down one collar-bone. In candle-light, the regime took twenty years off her age.

Lastly, the thin white-gold circlet that signified high royalty was placed carefully on her forehead. Slaves had lost their hands at this point for smearing her cosmetics.

A mirror of silvered glass was produced, and she studied herself in it. Her lips pursed ever so slightly. She lowered her eyelids, adopted the aloof, guarded pose which was her way of looking at the world, and raised one white, long-nailed hand to brush the attending slaves away.

Then Orsana strolled out of the dressing-suite, sipped some watered wine, and was ready to do battle with the day. She took up her accustomed position on a divan of midnight silk. Her maids arranged her robes artfully about her, and a bowl of fruit and a cup of wine were placed within easy reach. She sat, a silken spider, at the very centre of the harem, in a vast circular chamber which was dotted with fountains and hung with tapestries. Incense idled through the air in blue skeins, and petal-stuffed cushions were scattered everywhere on the tessellated floor. In this chamber, only the Queen had furniture to sit upon. Everyone else reclined on the cushions or stood. Beautiful young women kept station around the walls, giggling and gossiping behind pillars of Kandassian marble. These were the King’s concubines, and he had not chosen one of them himself.

A long-haired eunuch with a hip-desk padded from behind the hangings and went to one knee. He bowed his head, as pretty as any of the women around him. He lacked a finger on his left hand, his only imperfection.

Orsana nodded minutely at him. He opened the hip-desk bound to his body and produced a number of papers one by one.

‘Lady, lord Merach of Gansakr presents his respects, and would be grateful if you would receive him ere he leaves for the west.’

Orsana smiled, raised a hand and swung it in dismissal.

‘The Road-Stewards would like an audience today to discuss arrangements for the move to Hamadan.’

Orsana blinked. The white hand moved again.

‘The caravans are in from both Kosan and Ishtar. The merchant lords Amur and Peshtos send their greetings and beg to attend you as soon as they have made a suitable selection for your approval.’

‘They rode in ahead of their trains two days ago, to be with their mistresses,’ Orsana said with a smile. ‘That delay will cost them. Go on, Nurakz.’

‘The Prince Kouros, your son, desires an audience at once. My lady, he waits at the door.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes, lady.’

‘Send in my son, and then clear the chamber. And Nurakz, draw up a letter of credit on the House of Arkanesh, and have it ready here before noon.’

‘Yes, lady. For how much?’

Orsana stared at him. Nurakz went white, bowed his head, and withdrew.

‘Charys, you will stay, of course,’ Orsana said as the concubines within the chamber rose like a cloud of butterflies taking flight.

The tall eunuch bowed. He had a face like that of a totem fashioned out of white clay and left in the rain. Although he had the eyes of the high caste, his features were broad and strong as a soldier’s. He was bald save for a topknot of hair dyed cornflower blue and gathered up with a silver ring. A scar ran like an errant worm down one side of his neck, and his pale, hairless hands looked strong enough to strangle a camel.

The doors of hollow bronze clanged wide, and Kouros strode into the room in a billow of linen that was as blue as his mother’s robes. The doorkeepers hauled shut their charges behind him with rather more care.

‘It is to be done, mother; he’s going. Ashurnan will take the field. He leaves within the week.’ Kouros began biting his nails.

Orsana did not seem surprised. She nodded wisely, but within she was genuinely startled.

‘Merach,’ she said.

‘Yes. He talked to him all evening. I tried to have an ear on it, but failed. Rakhsar — ’

‘Rakhsar?’

‘He knew no more than I. I made sure of it. He has made this decision on his own, mother.’

Orsana raised one eyebrow, plucked at her robe. Chalk dust fell from her face in minute avalanches.

‘You must go with him, then. And our plans must be brought forward. That is all. This is no great disaster, Kouros.’

Her son was gnawing his thumbnail, stripping back the horn to bring blood. ‘Darios assured me it would be of no moment, this — this invasion.’

‘I do not think he lied. I think only he has been overtaken by events. Darios is a loyal agent.’ Orsana stirred, moved up the divan and sipped at her wine. ‘Son, you must remember that some happenings have no author — they simply happen. There is not always a conspiracy afoot.’

‘Yes — yes, of course — don’t preach, mother. I am not a fool. I know these things — I have ears and eyes everywhere.’

Everywhere I bade you plant them, she thought. She was torn between love and exasperation. The lot of all mothers.

‘We have some warning, at least. How sure are you of Dyarnes?’

Kouros looked away, savaging another finger.

‘It is hard to tempt a man who can go no higher. Commanding the Honai is the summit of his ambition.’

‘Then you must threaten him with the loss of it,’ Orsana said sharply, a hornet-sting emerging from the honeyed voice.

Kouros collapsed onto a tall cushion. ‘I know, I know. Dyarnes must be handled more carefully. He is of the old nobility. If he thinks we compromise his honour, we will lose him utterly.’

Orsana smiled. ‘Well put. We also know he despises Rakhsar — ’

‘I am not sure he does not despise me as well, Mother.’

‘He is of the Asurian tribe. They despise everyone from beyond the Oskus, and always have. Play on his pride, and on his command. What about his second?’

Kouros brightened. ‘Ah, Marok. He is ambitious, and he has enough of the Magron blood in him to make him insecure. A great horseman — no-one can ride a Niseian like him. And he loves women.’

‘Then I do not need to draw the picture for you any further. A gift of two beauties, one four legged, one two-breasted. That will start the thing. A gift from the prince cannot be refused, and gives him a sense of debt.’

‘I do not need some kind of tutorial, mother. I have known Marok and Dyarnes since I was a boy.’

‘As they have known you. They must be certain that the boy is no more, that a king stands in his place.’

Kouros shifted uneasily in the depths of the cushion, plucking at his blue robe as though it had offended him.

‘Then you must give me more money. My father thinks it is good for a prince to rub along on a pittance; it imbues character, he says.’

Orsana raised one eyebrow. ‘Very well. I am having a draft drawn up today on the Arkanesh House. You shall have some of that. But do not make too big a splash with it, Kouros. You must not draw your father’s attention.’ Then she all but chuckled at the idea of Kouros splashing money around. Her son looked at her sourly.

‘When have I ever — ’

‘Yes, yes — that virtue not even I ever had to instil in you. No-one could ever accuse my son of being a spendthrift.’ She smiled at him with something approaching affection. ‘I remember when you were a child. No-one could part you from your toys, even when they were worn ragged. You used to sit alone in the gardens and play with armies of toy soldiers, and give them all names.’

‘You kept me from all others,’ Kouros said, quietly. ‘Even the slaves.’

‘You were the eldest son, the heir,’ she retorted. ‘There was no-one else worthy for you to associate with. I never let any of them forget who you were — never.’

‘I suppose you didn’t.’ Kouros’s face slumped in a kind of sadness, but only for a moment. It clenched again almost instantly into its lines of habitual anger. He thrashed his way out of the cushion and kicked it across the smooth marble of the floor.

‘When I am King, they will queue before my throne to befriend me,’ he said. ‘They will kneel, every one of them, and beg for my favour. Mother, I want Rakhsar to kneel before me ere he dies.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Kouros.’

His face spasmed, then he drew himself up. ‘No — of course — you’re right.’ He turned away. ‘I must go. Thank you — thank you, mother.’

‘Have you no kiss for me?’

‘Yes — yes, all right.’ He leaned over her like a blue thundercloud and let his lips touch her chalk-hued cheek. She touched his face. ‘You are not as other men, Kouros. You must be larger than that.’

‘I know. I have always known.’ He turned, one fist knotted in his robe, then halted. ‘And Roshana. Must she also — ’

‘Roshana must share her brother’s fate. You know this. Were she to marry some high noble, that man would be in a position to make a claim for the throne, however specious. We have been over this, Kouros.’

He nodded. ‘Goodbye, mother.’

‘Call on me this evening. We shall have more to discuss.’

His shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, mother,’ he said, and walked away looking somehow defeated, a shambling mountain.

It was not far, as a raven might fly, from the Queen’s seat at the heart of the harem to Roshana’s apartments. Even on foot, a swift-striding man might cover the space in under an hour, if the Honai were to give him free passage. But it was a great distance in terms of palace politics. One might almost say it was insurmountable.

The twins who were the issue of Ashurnan’s first love were generously housed in a tall, free-standing complex several stories high, whose balustrades were formed by the living limbs of gashran trees, native to the sheerest slopes of the eastern Magron. Here, they sprouted from gaps in the massive stone blocks of the structure, and they had been trained over centuries of wiring and pruning to make of their growth an adjunct to the architect’s vision. The Gashran was an interwoven complexity of stone and living timber, and had been given over to the lesser princes of Asur’s line for time out of mind.

Not for nothing was it set apart from the rest of the palace. Honai patrolled its grounds night and day and questioned or escorted anyone who ventured close; a Great King must needs keep an eye on the doings of his offspring, both high and low. The Gashran was not a prison — it was beautiful, luxuriously appointed, a palace in itself — but it was a monitored place.

Rakhsar and Roshana had lived within the bark and stone of its bewildering arrangements for all of their lives.

Roshana stood now in her own chambers, looking down at the sleeping boy in the bed before her with her komis drawn up around her nose. Above it, her eyes were bright amaranthine lights.

‘Will he live, Barzam?’

The tall Kefre bowed behind her. ‘Yes, lady. He is young, and he has the strength of the undercity in him. I have seen many of his kind recover from far worse.’

‘You will attend to him every day, Barzam.’

The Kefre spread his spatulate hands. ‘Lady, with all due respect, is that really necessary? This is but a hufsan slave, a creature of the — ’

‘You will do as I ask, or I will find a physician who will.’

‘Of course, lady. I am wholly at your command.’

‘Thank you, Barzam. If you have any further instructions for the staff, you may leave them with the steward on your way out.’

Wordless, unseen, the tall Kefre bowed behind her and left noiselessly.

On the other side of the heavy door he was brought up short. Rakhsar grinned at him and clapped him on the arm like an old comrade. ‘Barzam! She has you physicking her new pet, has she?’

‘She seems determined that the creature should survive.’

‘She was always like that. I’ve learned to let her have her way in these things. It’s not often Roshana digs in her heels, but when she does, Bel himself could not move her.’

‘It is always a pleasure doing the bidding of the lady Roshana,’ Barzam said, somewhat stiffly.

Rakhsar took his hand and placed into it a small pouch of doeskin that clinked as it left his fingers.

‘Your patience is much appreciated, Barzam. And your discretion, also. She means no disrespect.’

‘Roshana could not offend me. I delivered her,’ Barzam said, unbending a little.

‘I know.’ Rakhsar winked. ‘I was there.’

He could move extremely quietly when he set his mind to it. He eased the door shut behind him and stood with Roshana’s slim back within arm’s reach. Cocking his head to one side, Rakhsar considered his moment.

‘Do not creep about like that, Rakhsar,’ Roshana said without turning around.

‘I could have been an assassin.’

‘Then he would have the same garish taste in perfume as you.’

He joined her before the bed. They touched hands.

‘Sister, you pick a strange time to take in a stray. One might almost think Kouros planned it this way.’

‘He does not have the forethought.’

‘His mother does.’

‘No — this is all his own work. He has not changed since we were children. Even then, he was happiest off alone torturing something.’

Rakhsar bent over the boy. ‘He’s a pretty one. I can see how he has stirred that soft heart of yours. What exactly — ’

‘He was raped and castrated. I think Dyarnes had a hand in it. It is why he left last night’s dinner.’

‘Noble Dyarnes, father’s loyal shadow,’ Rakhsar said dryly. He lifted the coverlet, peered below, and winced. ‘When my time comes, I hope to God they take my head off first. Poor little bastard. Well, I suppose we can find some corner to tuck him into before we go.’

‘We take him with us.’

‘You jest, sister. This is not some nightingale you can carry in a box. What purpose would it serve?’

‘I will not give Kouros the satisfaction.’

Rakhsar laughed. ‘Were you of a less fastidious nature, you could have had Kouros eating rice from your hand from before his own balls dropped.’

‘Do not be crude, Rakhsar. And I’d rather be dead than flirt with that murderous oaf.’

Rakhsar sighed. ‘My sister, so brave, so honest, as straight as a spear-shaft, and as likely to bend.’ Something like asperity crept into his voice. ‘How lucky you are to have the conniving Rakhsar as a brother, to dirty his hands so that yours stay clean. We can not all afford your scruples, Roshana. The little catamite stays here.’

‘You know better than to argue this with me, Rakhsar.’

They glared at one another. Finally Roshana touched her twin’s shoulder. ‘When are we to leave?’

‘Tomorrow night. I have arranged for a party in the grounds. We will slip away during it, under the noses of the Honai. I have briefed some slaves to provide distraction.’

‘And then?’

‘And then, sister, we must brave the passages of the undercity. I have a useful Kefre in our pay, a kitchen-master. He was questioned by the Honai last night and I thought the jig was up, but it turns out it was only to do with some errant slave.’ He frowned, looked at the boy in the bed. ‘Bel’s blood, I hope you are right about Kouros. If this is all connected, then it’s over for us before it begins.’ He turned to one side, deep in thought.

‘If Orsana suspected, we would be dead already,’ Roshana told him. ‘The boy’s coming here is a coincidence.’

Rakhsar stood up, as brisk and serious now as a soldier. ‘When he wakes, I should like to talk to him. He’s a creature of the undercity himself. Perhaps he will not be dead weight after all. You have your people warned?’

‘Three. Maidek, Saryam and Ushau.’

Rakhsar nodded. ‘I know them. Ushau for strength, Maidek for sense, and Saryam for companionship.’

‘I could not have put it better myself. And you, brother?’

He smiled. ‘I go alone.’

‘Is there no-one — ’

‘That I can trust? I am the younger son, Roshana. If Bel himself took me into his embrace, I would check my pockets afterwards.’

‘Perhaps that will change, when we are elsewhere.’

‘Perhaps. We have the whole wide world to escape to, but there’s barely a corner of it that does not know the imprint of the empire. Places to hide in may not be easy to come by.’

‘And is that all you mean to do — hide?’

‘I mean to survive, sister, by any means necessary. I am young yet. The world changes — the Macht are invading, the Jutha are in rebellion. Who knows what fractures and alarms and opportunities tomorrow may bring?’

Roshana hugged herself as though suddenly cold.

‘I just wish it were done, and we were away.’

‘One way or another, that part will be over soon enough.’ Rakhsar looked down on the bed, at the face of the sleeping boy. ‘In the end, I wonder if there is much we can do to influence our fate. They took this boy’s manhood last night, all his hopes for posterity, and then shoved him from the wings onto the stage of history. I hope he profits by the exchange.’

It was the cooler air that woke Kurun. It blew on one side of his face, and he was moving against it, but his right cheek was resting against warm flesh.

And then the pain.

The groan mushroomed out of him, seeming to leave him not through his mouth but by every pore of his tattered body. He writhed.

Immediately a pair of arms clutched him close. He was gagged, but not bound. He tried to wriggle free, ignoring the pain that seemed to flood his frame from the waist down. The arms clamped him tight against a huge, muscled chest, broad as a door. He might as well have been a kitten in the coil of a python.

‘Be still, you little fool,’ a deep voice said. ‘Mistress, he is awake.’

‘Open your eyes.’ A woman’s voice.

He saw a blur of white in dark, and eyes above it, bright as shards of window-glass catching the moons.

‘You are among friends, boy. My name is Roshana, and I will not let any more harm come to you. Nod if you understand.’

He recognised the perfect Kefren of the Court, smelled perfume tinting the night air, and nodded. Her fingers fumbled at the back of his head. They were cool, and the light of Anande the Patient glittered on her painted nails. The gag came off, leaving a sourness in his mouth.

‘My name is Kurun,’ he said doggedly, forcing down the pain, determined to make himself known. He would not die nameless.

‘You must make no noise — do you understand me? Not a sound, if you wish to live. Be brave for me now, Kurun.’ The cool fingers traced a line down his cheek for a moment, and then she had turned away.

Kurun raised his head slightly, and saw the jowled underside of a broad, hairless face, dark as walnut. ‘What’s happening?’ he whispered.

The arms crushed him closer, and a dull grunt of agony left him.

‘No noise,’ the deep voice above him said. ‘You make another sound, and I will break your neck.’

Kurun went limp, fighting the pain, the dark swirl of confusion. He could smell damp earth, and growing things. They were in the gardens, padding quickly and silently from shadow to deeper shadow, while above them, pale Anande shone down in a sky spattered full of stars. He blinked his eyes clear and tried to focus.

They halted, and there was a tense, frozen time of waiting. They were in among the trees, crouched like assassins. In addition to the ebony giant who held him and the komis-wearing lady, Kurun identified a hufsa girl, plainly clad as if for journeying, and a thin Kefre with a face as bonily angular as that of a mantis. Both bore packs too large for their frames.

Then another joined them. A masked Kefre who bore a naked scimitar. He dropped his komis to reveal a long, fine-boned face. He kissed the lady through her own veil. ‘It’s done, sister.’

She was looking at the sword, and the fine black line along the blade. ‘He took the money?’

‘He refused it. I offered him Bokosan steel instead.’

‘Rakhsar!’

‘Do you think this a game, Roshana? The way is clear, now. My contact waits by the kitchen platform. We must hurry.’

‘You have blood on your clothes.’

‘It doesn’t signify, not at night.’ The jewel bright eyes surveyed them all with the dispassion of a snake overlooking a nest of mice. ‘I see you brought him.’

‘I said I would.’

Kurun dropped his gaze as the Kefre stared at him. ‘Ushau, do not let him make so much as a squeak.’

‘Those are mistress’s orders,’ the deep voice rumbled above Kurun’s head.

‘Good. Now follow me, all of you, as quick and quiet as you can.’

They dashed across a space open and bright under the moonlight, and before them the buildings of the palace reared up like some sheer-sided mountain, decked here and there with yellow-burning flammifers. Kurun fought down a roll of agony that brought his gorge rising. He shut his eyes, pressed his forehead against the hot chest of the giant who bore him.

‘Stand here. Stay clear of the walls,’ Rakhsar snapped. ‘Saryam, mind your cloak — if it catches in the pulleys you’ll jam us in the shaft.’

They were standing on one of the platforms connecting the palace to the kitchens below. Rakhsar tugged on the communication rope, and at once there was a jerk. The thick wood trembled under their feet, and they began to descend.

Into darkness. Rakhsar up-ended the illuminating torch in its sconce and the last of its sparks winked out as they bounced off his bloody sword. The air popped in Kurun’s ears; they were descending very fast. Then there was a dull boom, and the platform was still, staggering them with its sudden halt.

‘My prince,’ a familiar voice said.

‘Auroc — nicely done. Now point us right for the undercity.’

Kurun stared open-mouthed in shock, and found shock staring back at him. Auroc’s face was bruised and swollen, but wholly familiar; the first familiar thing he had seen since leaving the kitchens.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said to the kitchen-master, the words a sob, gargled out of the giant’s grip.

‘I thought they killed you,’ Auroc said, disbelieving.

‘They damn near did,’ Rakhsar said. ‘Auroc, lead on. We are short on time.’

Auroc dragged his gaze from Kurun’s tearstained face. ‘Yes, of course. Follow me, my prince. I will take you to the Silima. From there, you follow the road all the way down.’

There was a time that followed when Kurun’s head bobbed on Ushau’s chest and his tears came hot and free. But the thought that had occurred to him could not be pushed aside.

The Silima? It did not seem right. It was akin to a burglar leaving a house through the front door. The Silima was the main thoroughfare of the undercity, and it was guarded night and day.

‘Auroc,’ he said thickly. ‘Master, the Silima cannot be taken. We cannot travel it and stay hidden. There are better ways.’

‘Be quiet,’ Auroc said quickly. He was sweating. And to Rakhsar, ‘Lord, the Silima is the quickest way out of the ziggurat. You will be on the streets within the hour.’

Kurun felt fear as cold as water down his back. ‘Master, I do not think — ’

Auroc struck him across the face.

Kurun swallowed that pain along with the rest. He had to point out the mistake. Auroc was wrong. He wanted to save him from his error. At last he said to Rakhsar, ‘Lord, this is not right. My master is guiding you awry.’

Rakhsar brought up the keen point of the scimitar and levelled it easily at Auroc’s throat. ‘Is that so?’ He studied the kitchen-master for a long, brittle moment.

‘Kouros questioned you, didn’t he?’

‘Lord, I was interrogated due to a misunderstanding — this whelp here left his post and spied on the King in the gardens. I was held responsible. That’s all, I swear it!’

‘Even I have heard of the Silima,’ Roshana said. She dropped her komis and stepped closer to Auroc. ‘And if I have heard of it, then it is no secret.’

‘It is the fastest way down to the streets,’ Auroc persisted. He wiped his brow. ‘It is a busy thoroughfare, yes, but all the easier to lose yourselves in.’

‘Auroc,’ Kurun whispered. He was weeping. ‘I meant no harm to you.’ His voice rose. ‘Masters, I know a better way.’

‘Shut your mouth — ’ Auroc raged, and cocked his fist.

‘You will not strike him again,’ Roshana told the kitchen-master evenly. She turned to Kurun. Those beautiful eyes were hard as sunlight on snow. ‘Are you sure of this?’

‘Lady, you can kill me if I am wrong. But I know that you cannot leave the ziggurat by the Silima — there are guards at every junction. Folk of your caste are never seen there — you cannot go unnoticed, not all the way to the bottom. Auroc is sending you wrong.’

‘Is that it, my friend?’ Rakhsar asked softly. The scimitar-point never wavered. ‘Did Kouros dig the truth out of you?’

‘My — my prince,’ Auroc stammered, ‘I am your faithful servant.’

‘I bought you — that is as far as your faith goes. Now tell me, Auroc, what have you told Kouros of our excursion?’

Auroc looked as lost as a landed fish. No words came. Rakhsar nodded grimly. ‘You see, Roshana, why I trust no-one? As long as loyalty can be bought by the deepest purse, Kouros will always outbid us.’

Auroc finally collected himself. He glared down upon Kurun, in despair and sudden fury. ‘You stupid little fool. I was trying to help you. You would have risen under me, Kurun. We would have served under the sun together. Now you have killed us both.’

‘Not him. Me,’ Rakhsar said, and he thrust the scimitar into the kitchen-master’s throat.

The tall Kefre stood there, eyes wide, hands flapping like wounded birds. His knees began to bend but the sword-blade held him upright. Blood gurgled out of his neck, the rent in his flesh widening around the steel of the scimitar. Then he sank, still upright, and slowly slid off the blade to collapse like a boneless heap of rags on the ground. Under him, the black pool opened out like the quickened blossoming of a flower.

Rakhsar stepped back from it to save his shoes. He wiped clean his blade on the kitchen-master’s robe, then turned to Kurun with a face like an ivory mask. ‘You had better be right, boy, or I will make an end of you less neat than this.’

Kurun’s tongue seemed frozen to the roof of his mouth. He squirmed, but the giant Ushau held him fast. Roshana was still looking at him, something desperate in her face now.

‘Kurun,’ she said gently. ‘Now you must tell us where to go.’

They trod the narrow corridors of the slave-city, mazing their way through the intestines of the ziggurat. They drew stares wherever they went; it was impossible to disguise the high-born nature of Rakhsar and Roshana. It was in their eyes, in their clothes, in the very way they walked. Resourceful though the twins might be, they had no real experience of life below the summit, and took it as no more than their due when the lesser inhabitants of the undercity drew back to let them pass, staring open-mouthed.

Kurun was in the lead, still clasped in the arms of the ebony giant. He muttered directions to Ushau, picked a convoluted path towards the less inhabited regions of the undercity. In doing so, he steered close to the cliff of his knowledge of the place, taking the company down little-used tunnels and passageways. As they descended, so they began to hear through the very stone the rhythmic thump of the waterwheels far below, upon which thousands toiled to water the gardens of the Great King. The sound was like the ceaseless beat of some enormous heart.

Here, the denizens of the dark ways were even more wary than those above, darting into shadows and side-alleys as the company passed. Rakhsar had drawn his sword again, and his eyes gleamed with a light of their own. His sister took his free hand, and the twins proceeded thus while the two other servants brought up the rear, bent under travel-bags, and as wide-eyed as owls in the hot deepening darkness.

‘Here,’ Kurun said at last. He squeezed shut his eyes a second, fighting a wash of nausea. He felt wetness on the backs of his thighs, and dared not speculate on it.

They were in a wider space, an arched passageway so low that Ushau’s head scraped the ceiling. Beyond there was more light, torches burning, a heat slightly less heavy, and the sense of moving air. There was noise also, the rattle of iron wheel-rims on stone, the braying of mules, and the clink of masonry. Many voices rose and fell, not the sea-rush of an aimless crowd, but the purposeful give and take of people at work.

‘This is the stone-cutters’ valley,’ Kurun said. ‘We are at the level of the streets now. If we go through here, there is a gateway which is always open in daylight, and then we are outside.’

‘It must be near dawn by now,’ Rakhsar said, wiping his face.

‘They will sound the chime when the sun rises,’ Kurun told him tiredly. ‘That’s when the shift changes. That would be the best time to try for the outside.’

He was fading away. The torchlight seemed to be circling a loom of widening shadow. His face was gripped by strong fingers, and shaken.

‘Stay with us, boy. When we stand under the sun, you can sleep all you want.’

‘He is bleeding, master,’ Ushau said.

‘Set him down.’ Roshana’s voice, quick and sharp.

Kurun was laid down on the stone. They opened his legs and peeled the soaked chiton from his thighs. He cried out, but the scream was smothered by Ushau’s huge palm, and the other held him down while Rakhsar and Roshana examined him. Rakhsar’s upper lip peeled back from his teeth. ‘Bel in his heaven, what a mess.’

‘Maidek,’ Roshana said, ‘Can you do something?’

The skull-lean Kefre knelt beside them. He looked Kurun’s injuries over with some interest, like a man at a market-stall.

‘They closed the wound with fire, mistress, but missed part of it. I would bind the boy’s legs together for now. He will need to be sewn up, but I cannot do that here. I need — ’

A brass clang rattled through the air, as though some titan had dropped a metal pot out of the sky. Rakhsar stood up. ‘Your butchery can wait, Maidek,’ he said. ‘That’ll be the chime the boy spoke of. Ushau, clamp him tight.’

The light grew, grey and cool across the massive chamber ahead. It revealed gangs of hufsan, who were now straightening from their labour upon orderly rows of squared stone, heaps of rubble. A swarm of talk rose. Suddenly the place seemed crowded, as more apron-clad hufsan trooped in from outside, and from stairways and ramps leading down from the dark bulk of the ziggurat above. The tall gateway loomed beyond, brightening moment by moment. There was an inrush of cooler air that brought the dust of the stoneworkers with it to grit their teeth, and something else. The mingled stinks of the world beyond, the promiscuous perfume of the city itself.

‘The boy was right,’ Roshana said. ‘That is the light of the dawn.’

‘Up. Move,’ Rakhsar snapped. ‘Follow me.’

He had sheathed his sword, but kept his hand on the hilt as they trailed through the work-gangs, gathering rock-dust, the sweat and toil of the slave-city pressing in on them with the milling crowds of workers. The fresh, cool air of the city beyond drew them on, filling their lungs. Rakhsar uttered a strangled laugh as they stepped out of the ziggurat, into the morning cacophony that was Ashur, and looked around themselves like an island of idle fools in a sea of busy people.

‘I smell grilled frog,’ Rakhsar said to his sister, grinning. The sweat lay like pearl beads on his forehead. ‘What say you we treat ourselves to one, and then find a place to lay our heads for a while?’

He strode off, and the rest trailed after him like the tail of a kite. Ushau looked down on Kurun and tapped a knuckle against the boy’s chest.

‘You are a good little fellow,’ he said. Then he held Kurun close, and followed his master, and they were lost in the coursing torrent of faces, bodies, flapping feet and waving hands that was the Imperial City, while behind them the ziggurats were lit up, level by level, by the burgeoning light of the dawn.