Higher-ranking servants saw to Abivard and Roshnani. A plump eunuch said, «If you will please to come with me, brother-in-law to the King of Kings, yes, with your excellent family, of course. Oh, yes,» he went on, answering a question Abivard had been on the point of asking, «your conveyance and your driver will be attended to: you have the word of Sekandar upon it.» He preened slightly so they would know he was Sekandar.

«How soon will we be able to see the King of Kings?» Abivard asked as the chamberlain led them into the palace itself.

«That is for the puissant Sharbaraz, may his years be many and his realm increase, to judge,» Sekandar answered.

Abivard nodded and kept on following the eunuch but worried down where—he hoped—it did not show. If the King of Kings seldom left the palace and listened to the advice of Sekandar and others like him, how could he have any notion of what was true? Once, Sharbaraz had been a fighting man who led fighting men and took pleasure in their company. Now… Would he even acknowledge who Abivard was?

The apartment in which the eunuch installed Abivard and his family was luxurious past anything he had known in Videssos, and it was luxury of a familiar sort, not the icons and hard furniture of the Empire. Carpets into which his feet sank deep lay on the floor; thick, fat cushions were scattered in the corners of the rooms to support one's back while sitting. They had other uses, too; Varaz grabbed one and clouted Shahin with it. Shahin picked up his own, using it first for defense, then for offense.

«They're used to chairs,» Abivard said. «They won't know how comfortable this can be till they try it for a while.»

Roshnani was speaking to her sons in standard tones of exasperation. «Try not to tear the palace down around our ears quite yet, if you please.» She seamlessly made a shift in subject to reply to her husband: «No, they won't.» As if making a shameful confession, she added, «Nor will I, as a matter of fact. I got to like chairs a good deal. My knee clicks and my back crackles whenever I have to get up from the floor.»

«So Videssos corrupted you, too?» Abivard asked, not quite joking.

«Life in the Empire could be very pleasant,» his wife answered as if defying him to deny it. «Our food is better, but they do more with the rest of life than we do.»

«Hmm,» Abivard said. «My backside starts turning to stone if I sit in a chair too long. I don't know; I think their towns are madhouses myself, far worse than Mashiz or any of the Thousand Cities. They're too fast, too busy, too set on getting ahead even if they have to cheat to do it. Those are all the complaints we've had about Videssians for hundreds of years, and if you ask me, they're all true.»

Roshnani didn't seem to feel like arguing the point. She looked at the chambers in which the palace servitors had established them. «We are going nowhere, fast or slow; the God knows we shan't be busy, and the only way we can get ahead is if the King of Kings should will it.»

«As is true of anyone in Makuran,» Abivard said loudly for the benefit of anyone in Makuran who might be listening. Without seeming to, though, his wife had not only won the argument but pointed out that, palace though this might be for Sharbaraz, for Abivard and his kin it was a prison.

Winter dragged on, one storm following another till it looked as if the world would stay cold and icy forever. With each passing day Abivard came more and more to realize how right Roshnani had been.

He and his family saw only the servants who brought them food, hot water for bathing, and clothes once they had been laundered. He tried to bribe them to carry a note to Turan, the commander of the guard company that had escorted him to Mashiz. They took his money, but he never heard back from the officer. Their apologies sounded sincere but not sincere enough for him to believe them.

But having nothing better to do with his time and no better place to spend his money, he eventually tried getting a note to Denak. His sister never wrote back, either, at least not with a letter that reached his hands. He wondered whether his note or hers had disappeared. His, he suspected. If she knew what Sharbaraz was doing to him, she would make the King of Kings change his ways.

If she could– «Does she still have the influence she did in the early days of her marriage?» Roshnani asked after the Void had swallowed Abivard's letter. «Sharbaraz will have seen—not to put too fine a point on it, will have had—a lot of women in the years between.»

«I know,» Abivard said glumly. «As I knew him—» The past tense hurt but was true. «—as I knew him, I say, he always acknowledged his debts. But after a while any man could grow resentful, I suppose.»

Varaz said, «Why not petition the King of Kings yourself, Father? Any man of Makuran has the right to be heard.»

So, no doubt, his pedagogue had taught him. «What you learned and what is real aren't always the same thing, worse luck,» Abivard answered. «The King of Kings is angry at me. That's why he would not hear my petition.»

«Oh,» Varaz said. «You mean me way Shahin won't listen to me after we've had a fight?»

«You're the one who won't listen to me,» Shahin put in. Having the advantage in age, Varaz took the lofty privilege of ignoring his younger brother. «Is that what you mean, Papa?» he asked.

«Yes, pretty much,» Abivard answered. When you got down to it, the way Sharbaraz was treating him was childish. The idea of the all-powerful King of Kings in the guise of a bad-tempered small boy made him smile. Again, though, he fought shy of mentioning it out loud. You never could tell whose ear might be pressed to a small hole behind one of the tapestries hanging on the wall. If the King of Kings was angry at him, there was no point making things worse by speaking plain and simple truths in the hearing of his servants.

«I don't like this place,» Zarmidukh declared. She was too young to worry about what other people thought when she spoke her mind. She said what she thought, whatever that happened to be. «It's boring.»

«It's not the most exciting place I've ever been,» Abivard said, «but there are worse things than being bored.»

«I don't know of any,» Zarmidukh said darkly. «You're lucky,» Abivard told her. «I do.»

Someone rapped on the door. Abivard looked at Roshnani. It wasn't any of the times the palace servitors usually made an appearance. The knock came again, imperiously—or perhaps he was reading too much into it. «Who can it be?» he said.

With her usual practicality Roshnani answered, «The only way to find out is to open the door.»

«Thank you so much for your help,» he said. She made a face at him. He got up and went over to the door, his feet sinking deep into the thick carpet as he walked. He took hold of the handle and pulled the door open.

A eunuch with hard, suspicious eyes in a face of almost unearthly beauty looked him up and down as if to say he'd taken much too long getting there. «You are Abivard son of Godarz?» The voice was unearthly, too: very pure and clear but not in a register commonly used by either men or women. When Abivard admitted who he was, the eunuch said, «You will come with me at once,» and started down the halls without waiting to see if he followed.

The guards who stood to either side of the doorway did not acknowledge his passing. Not even their eyes shifted as he walked by. Roshnani closed the door. Had she come after him unbidden, the guards would not have seemed as if they were carved from stone.

He did not ask the eunuch where they were going. He didn't think the fellow would tell him and declined to give him the pleasure of refusing. They walked in silence through close to half a farsang's worth of corridors. At last the eunuch stopped. «Go through this doorway,» he said imperiously. «I await you here.»