"A letter? An afternoon visit? A private word exchanged during today's reception?"

He looked up at her, read the cold anger, and was silent, though within him, looking at the fury of her, something else registered and he felt again the stirrings of desire. Being the man he was, he thought he knew the source of her outrage.

She said, glaring down at him, "As it happens, that last is exactly what Strumosus did today."

"I didn't know that," he said.

"Well, obviously," she said tartly.

"Did you accept?" he asked, a little too brightly.

She wasn't about to let him off so easily. "Why are you here?"

Scortius became aware, looking at her, that she was wearing nothing at all beneath the silk of her dark green robe. He cleared his throat.

"Why do any of us do what we do?" he asked, in turn. Question for question for question. "Do we ever really understand?"

He hadn't expected to say that, actually. He saw her expression change. He added, "I was restless, couldn't sleep. Wasn't ready to go home to bed. It was cold in the streets. I saw drunken soldiers, a prostitute, a dark litter that unsettled me for some reason. When the moon came up I decided to come here… thought I might as well try to… accomplish something, so long as I was awake." He looked at her. "I'm sorry."

"Accomplish something," she echoed dryly, but he could see her anger slipping away. "Why did you assume I'd be alone?"

He'd been afraid she'd ask that.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I was just asking myself the same question. There is… no man's name linked to yours, I suppose, and I have never heard you to be…" He trailed off.

And saw the ghost of a smile at the edge of her mouth. "Attracted to men?"

He shook his head quickly. "Not that. Um… reckless with your nights?"

She nodded. There was a silence. He needed more wine now but was reluctant to let her see that.

She said, quietly, "I told Strumosus I couldn't change factions."

"Couldn't?"

She nodded. "The Empress has made that clear to me."

And with that said, it seemed painfully obvious, actually. Something he ought to have known, or Astorgus certainly. Of course the court would want the factions kept in equilibrium. And this dancer wore Alixana's own perfume.

She didn't move, or speak. He looked around, thinking it through, saw the wall hangings, the good furnishings, flowers in an alabaster vase, a small crafted bird on a table, the disturbing disarray of the bed coverings. He looked back up at her, where she stood in front of him.

He stood up as well. "I feel foolish now, among other things. I ought to have understood this before troubling your night." He made a small gesture with his hands. "The Imperial Precinct won't let us be together, you and I. You have my deepest apologies for the intrusion. I will leave you now."

Her expression changed again, something amused in it, then something wry, then something else. "No you won't," said Shirin of the Greens. "You owe me for an interrupted sleep."

Scortius opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again when she came forward and put her hands behind his head and kissed him.

"There are limits to what the court can decree. And if there are images of others that lie down with us," she murmured, drawing him to the bed, "it will not be the first time in the history of men and women."

His mouth was dry with excitement, unexpectedly. She took his hands and drew them around her body by the bed. She was sleek, and firm, and extremely desirable. He didn't feel old any more. He felt like a young chariot-racer up from the south, new to the glories of the great City, finding a soft welcome in candlelit places where he had not thought to find such a thing at all. His heart was beating very fast.

"Speak for yourself," he managed to murmur.

"Oh, but I am," she said softly, cryptically, before letting herself fall back onto the bed and pulling him down with her amid the scent, unmistakable, of a perfume only two women in the world could wear.

'Well, I'm grateful you had the decency to silence me before you-" 'Oh, Danis, please. Please. Be gentle." "Hah. Was he?

Shirin's inward voice was lazy, slow. 'Some of the time." The bird made an indignant sound. 'Indeed." "I wasn't," said the dancer, after a moment. 'I don't want to know! When you behave-" "Danis, be gentle. I'm not a maid, and it has been a long time." "Look at him, sleeping there. In your bed. No care in the world." "He has cares, trust me. Everyone does. But I'm looking. Oh, Danis, isn't he a beautiful man?

There was a long silence. Then, 'Yes," said the bird, silently; the bird that had been a girl slain at dawn one autumn in a grove in Sauradia. 'Yes, he is.

Another stillness. They could hear the wind outside in the dark, turning night. The man was, indeed, asleep, on his back, hair tousled.

Was my father?" asked Shirin abruptly.

'Was he what?

'Beautiful?

'Oh." Another silence, inward, outward, darkness in the room with the candles burnt out. Then, 'Yes," said the bird, again. 'Yes, he was, my dear. Shirin, go to sleep. You are dancing tomorrow.

'Thank you, Danis." The woman in the bed sighed softly. The man slept on. 'I know. I will now.

The dancer was asleep when he woke, still in the dark of night. He had trained himself to do this: lingering until dawn in a strange bed was dangerous. And although there was no immediate threat here, no lover or husband to fear, it would be awkward in the extreme, painfully public, to be seen leaving the house of Shirin of the Greens in the morning.

He looked over at the woman a moment, smiling a little. Then he rose. Dressed quickly, glancing once more around the silent room. When he looked back at the bed she was awake, and gazing at him. A light sleeper? He wondered what had awakened her. Then wondered, again, how she'd known he was on the roof.

"A thief in the night?" she murmured sleepily. "Take what you want and go?"

He shook his head. "A grateful man."

She smiled. "Tell Astorgus you did all you possibly could to persuade me."

He laughed aloud, but softly. "You assume this is all I can do?" Her turn to laugh, a low ripple of pleasure. "Go," she said, "before I call you back to test it."

"Good night," he said. "Jad shelter you, dancer."

"And you. On the sands and off."

He went out the doors to the balcony, closed them behind him, mounted the balustrade. He leaped up to the roof, swung himself onto it. His shoulder didn't hurt at all now. The cold wind blew but he didn't feel it. The white moon was over towards the west, though much of the night was yet to run before the god finished his battles under the world and dawn could come. The stars were bright overhead, no clouds at all. Standing on Shirin's roof in this elevated quarter of the vast city he could see Sarantium spread below him, domes and mansions and towers, random torches in stone walls, clustered, jumbled wooden houses, shop fronts closed up, squares, statues in them, an orange glow of flame where the glassworks were, or perhaps a bakery, lanes running crazily downward, and beyond them, beyond them all, the harbour and then the sea, vast and dark and deep, roiled by the wind and hinting at forever.

In a mood he could only call exhilarated, one he could remember from long ago but hadn't experienced in some time, Scortius retraced his steps to the front edge of the roof, swung himself down to the upper balcony there, and then, moving lightly, lowered himself to the portico. He stepped down into the street, smiling behind the cloak he drew across his face.

'Fuck him!" he heard. "That bastard! Look! He came from her balcony!"

Exhilaration could be dangerous. It made you careless. He turned swiftly, saw half a dozen shadowy figures, and wheeled to run. He didn't like running away, but this wasn't a situation that presented options. He was feeling strong, knew he was fleet of foot, was certain he could out-sprint whoever these assailants were.