The tears had slipped down inside the veil. 'Please do not do this. Do not make Aria do this thing.' Her voice was low and there was a throb in it.

'Why ever not?' Aurungzeb was a picture of exasperation and perplexity.

'She is . . . she is so young.'

Aurungzeb smiled indulgently and took Ahara in his arms. 'It is hard for a mother, I know. But these things are necessary in affairs of state. You will become used to the idea in time, as will she. This Corfe is not a bad fellow. A little austere, perhaps, but he will be good to her. He had better be; she is my daughter, after all. With this our two houses will be joined for all time. Our peoples will become even closer.' Aurungzeb tried to hug her more tightly. It was like embracing a pillar of stone. Over her shoulder, he nodded meaningfully at Akran. The vizier rapped on the chamber doors. 'The Queen is leaving. Make way.'

Aurungzeb released her. He tilted up her chin and kissed her though the veil. Her eyes were empty, expressionless, their tears dried.

'That is more like it. That is the bearing of a Merduk queen. Now I feel you may need a rest, my sweetness. Akran, see the Queen back to her apartments. And Akran, see that Serrim gives her something to calm her nerves.' Another meaningful look.

Ahara, or Heria as she had once been, left without another word. Aurungzeb stood with his hands on his broad hips, frowning. She was Nasir's mother, hence the dam of a future sultan. And he had made her his queen - almost seventeen years now she had been his wife. But there was some part of her she kept always hidden, even now. Women! So many times more difficult to deal with than men. He thought she confided in old Shahr Baraz, but that was all. And he - you would think he was her father the way he watched over her.

A purr from the bed. 'My Sultan? It grows cold here. I need to be warmed.'

He rubbed his chin. Since Nasir was going to get a look at his new wife, why not do Corfe the same courtesy? Yes, Aria would also go, with a suitable chaperone from the harem. Her beauty would melt that stiff-necked propriety of his, and he would see sense. Excellent. Now where might this glorious double wedding be held? Aurungabar for choice - Pir Sar would be such a magnificent setting. No, Corfe would insist on it being in Torunn. He was King of Torunna after all. But it must be soon. This war was erupting around their ears, and once it had blossomed into full flower Corfe would no doubt take the field, perhaps not to return to the capital for months. Yes, let it happen in Torunn, and straight away. In fact, let Aria take the road at once.

Then Aurungzeb remembered that Odelia had not yet breathed her last. He said a quick, furtive prayer of apology to the Prophet for being so presumptuous. He liked and re­spected Torunna's present Queen; their letter correspondence had been a stimulating challenge. But he needed her dead, soon.

The Queen of Ostrabar sat in her chambers like a porcelain vase set aside in a velvet-padded box. She sat straight-backed on a divan and stared through the fretwork of an ornately carved shutter at the teeming sprawl of the city below. This place had been her home throughout her life, though in different guises. Once it had been Aekir, and she had been Heria. Now it was Aurungabar, and she was Ahara. She was a queen, and the man who had been her husband was a king. But of different kingdoms.

When she thought about it like that she had to marvel at the joke fate had played upon Corfe and herself. It had been a long time. She was past youth now, sliding into middle age with grown-up children by a man for whom she felt nothing but distaste.

And her daughter was destined, it seemed, to marry the man who had once been her husband.

How could Corfe do this to her, or to himself? Had he changed that much? Perhaps the passing years had healed or hardened him. Perhaps he was entirely a king now, with a politician's pragmatism. A matter of state, was that it?

'You sent for me, Mother?' It was Aria by the door, in the Queen's Wing and thus unveiled, a willowy version of herself as a young woman. Perhaps that was it. The resemblance to the ghost of a woman he once had loved.

'Mother?'

'Come sit with me, Aria.'

The girl joined her. Heria smoothed back the raven hair from her cheek with a smile. There was a dreamy sense of unreality that fogged her mind, but it was not unpleasant. Serrim, the ageing eunuch, had a small chest full of every potion and herb and drug that the east produced, and he had made her eat a tiny cube of pure kobhang an hour before. He and that wizened crow Akran had watched her swallow it down with ill-concealed relief. It was not that they were afraid of her, but they were the butts of Aurungzeb's anger when she committed some transgression, such as walking unaccompan­ied in the market, or receiving a male visitor without a eunuch present. The rules seemed to have become more stifling over the years, partly because she was the mother of the Sultan's heir, and partly because as a noble matron she was supposed to set an example, to lead a veiled life of discretion and inoffensiveness. She was no longer even allowed to ride a horse, but must be borne in a palanquin like some kind of aged libertine.

'Have you heard the rumours too, Aria?'

'About my wedding? Yes, Mother.' The girl's eyes fell. 'I am to be married to the King of Torunna, and Nasir is to marry his daughter.'

'You know then. I am sorry. You should have heard it from me.'

'It's all right. I know what is expected of me. I suppose it will be quite soon now. In the kitchens they are talking about a caravan being prepared for Torunn, and Nasir is to lead an army to help King Corfe. Imagine Mother, Nasir leading an army!' She smiled. She was a quiet, grave girl, but the smile lit up her face.

Heria looked away. 'He will be fine, as will you.' 'Will you be coming with us?'

The question rocked her. 'I -1 don't know.' A maniac notion filled her head, a vision of herself at her daughter's wedding, flinging herself at the groom, begging him to remember her. She blinked her stinging eyes clear. 'Perhaps.'

Aria took her hand. 'What is he like, Mother? Is he very old?'

She cleared her throat. 'Corfe? He is - he is not so old.' 'Older than you?'

She gripped her daughter's fingers tightly. 'A little older. Some years older.'

Aria looked thoughtful. 'An old man. They say he is lame, and bad-tempered.'

'Who says?'

'Everyone. Mother, my hand . . .' Heria released it. 'Are you all right, Mother?'

'I'm fine, my dear. Tired. Ask the maids to bring in a blanket. I believe I may well lie here and doze a while.'

Aria did not move. 'They've been giving you more of their drugs, haven't they?'

'It calms me, Aria. Don't be worried.'

Don't be worried, she thought. You are to marry a good man. The best of men. She closed her eyes. Aria eased her back on to the divan and stroked her hair. 'It will be all right, Mother. You'll see,' she whispered, her lovely face grave again.

Heria slept, and from below her closed eyelids the tears trickled down soundlessly.

There was an hour before the dawn, in the black throat of the night, when even a city as large as Torunn slept. Corfe's horse picked its way through the streets unhindered and he rode it with the reins loose on its neck as though the tall gelding knew the way better than he. And perhaps it did, for the bay destrier brought Corfe unbidden to the North Gate, where he saluted the sleepy gate guards and they, grumbling and unaware of his identity, opened the tall postern for him to lead his mount through. Once beyond the city walls he let the gelding have its head, and it burst into a fast canter. The moon was riding high and gibbous in a star-brilliant sky, but it was just possible to make out the glimmerings of the dawn speed­ing its way up over the distant ramparts of the Jafrar in the east. Corfe left the pale ribbon of the Kingsway and headed north, his steed dipping and rising under him with the undulating ground. But he kept his knees clamped to the gelding's sides and a loose bite on the reins, and almost it seemed that he might be afloat in a grey moonlit sea upon some bobbing ship, save for the eager grunts of the horse and the creak of the saddle under him.