Either way, precious son or great philosopher, Timonides could not let him be executed.

     Lighting a lamp, Timonides got down to the business of casting his master's horoscope, hoping to find some truth to mix in with the falsehood. He did not go through his usual ritual of bathing and praying and changing into clean robes, for the lie would only make him filthy again.

     But as Timonides went through his calculations, wrote down figures and degrees and angles, noted sun signs and moon houses, as Antioch slept and the stars wheeled overhead unconcerned with the star-reader at the Inn of the Blue Peacock who perspired over his equations and numbers, he saw a new and unexpected indicator emerge.

     He froze. Whispered an oath. Rubbed his sweating face. Picked up his pen and re-calculated.

     Finally Timonides sat back in shock. There was no question: the aspects of the progressing and transiting planets to that of Sebastianus's birth planet definitely indicated a new direction for him! The gods, through their precise arrangement of heavenly bodies, were crisply clear in their new message: Sebastianus was to take a turn southward from Antioch—he and Ulrika were now both to take a southern journey together.

     Timonides closed his eyes and swallowed with a dry throat. Calamity upon calamity! His doom was sealed, for not only was he going to falsify a horoscope, he was now going to disobey the unmistakable, divine message in the stars.

     Sick at heart, but knowing he had no choice, and that they were running out of time, Timonides hurried across the hall to pound loudly on his master's door.

     ULRIKA WAS NOT ASLEEP when the knock sounded at her door. She had been awakened earlier by a cry, and she had lain in the darkness trying to discern if it had been real or dreamed. And then she had heard muffled voices, a spell of silence, followed by footsteps across the hall, a banging on a door, and more muffled voices, but loud this time and sounding urgent.

     She had been about to get out of bed to see what the trouble was, when a knock announced someone at her door, and she opened it now to find Sebastianus on the other side. Clearly roused from sleep, he had hastily thrown a cloak over his shoulders, and underneath he wore only a loincloth.

     When he stared at her for a moment, Ulrika became aware of her own lack of clothing. She wore only a night dress—a thin shift that reached her knees—and her hair was undone and tumbled over her breasts. She felt naked.

     Collecting himself, Sebastianus said, "Ulrika, Timonides says your mother is in Jerusalem."

     "My mother! What—"

     The astrologer pushed his way through, waving a sheet of papyrus. "Yes yes, there is no doubt of it. Your mother is there, living with friends."

     She blinked, looked from Sebastianus to the astrologer. "But why are you doing a reading at this hour? And why my—"

     Timonides spoke rapidly. "A dream woke me up, ordering me to look out my window, where I saw a star streak across the sky. I knew this was a message that I must cast my master's horoscope, and there it was! A new message from the gods. My master is to leave Antioch at once for Babylon and you are to go to Jerusalem."

     "We did live for a while in Jerusalem," Ulrika said, "in the house of a woman named Elizabeth."

     "Yes yes," Timonides said as he shambled out of the room, talking as he left, "you must go at once to Jerusalem, reach your mother before she leaves. The house of Elizabeth ..."

     Timonides's voice faded down the corridor, and Ulrika found herself alone with Sebastianus, their eyes meeting in the dim light, unspoken words on their lips.

     "My mother can help me," Ulrika heard herself say, breathless at the sight of Sebastianus's bare chest, glimpsed between the folds of his disarrayed cloak, wondering why she wasn't more excited by the astrologer's news. "She will tell me where Shalamandar is, and the Crystal Pools."

     "I will take you to Jerusalem—"

     Ulrika placed her fingertips on his lips. "No, Sebastianus, you are to continue eastward. You must depart at dawn, as the stars command."

     They fell silent, held by the night and by their mutual desire. Longing burned in their eyes, and each knew the other's yearning. But both were bound by duty and oaths spoken long before Sebastianus and Ulrika had ever met.

     He found his voice. "I will send Syphax and a contingent of men with you so that you are well protected."

     "Thank you," she said, thinking that once again this strong and powerful man had come to her rescue. Ulrika knew Syphax, a stony-faced Numidian from the northern coast of Africa who hired himself out as a bodyguard and mercenary. He had escorted and protected Sebastianus's caravans for six years, and she knew he could be trusted.

     Sebastianus added, "He will see that you are safely delivered into your mother's care in Jerusalem." He looked at her for another long moment,and then on an impulse took her by the shoulders, drew her close, and said in a husky voice, "Ulrika, all going well and the gods willing, I will arrive in Babylon within six weeks. I plan not to depart for the Far East until the festival of the summer solstice, for the day after is the most propitious day in the year to begin a long journey. After you find your mother and learn the whereabouts of Shalamandar, join me in Babylon. I shall wait until the last possible moment before departing for China."

     "Yes," she whispered. "I will join you in Babylon." She reached up to touch Sebastianus's jaw, and when her fingertips met the fine, bronze-colored stubble of his beard, she saw—

     Sebastianus frowned. "What is it?"

     Ulrika opened her mouth but couldn't speak.

     He waited, wondering if she were receiving a vision. He had witnessed it before, had seen her delicate nostrils flare, her pupils dilate. The color left her face, and the skin at her temples grew taut.

     Outside, over the sleeping city of Antioch, a cloud sailed across the moon and bright stars, plunging the rooms of the inn into darkness. Momentarily blinded, Sebastianus and Ulrika felt their other senses heighten. Sebastianus felt Ulrika's warm skin beneath his hands as he continued to hold her shoulders, making him think of the softness of swans and mist. Ulrika smelled the rain still on him, reminding her of verdant forests and meadows. He heard her gentle respirations. She felt his warmth.

     And then the cloud sailed on, like a great trireme across the ocean of night, and starlight washed once more into the small room at the inn. Sebastianus saw a pale, feminine face. She saw eyes the color of a meadow.

     "There is treachery in your party," she finally said. "One of your men, who is close to you, will betray you."

     "Who? Which one?"

     "I do not know. I cannot see his face."

     The truth was, there was no face to see, for it was not a true vision that had just visited her, but a feeling. As her fingertips had touched Sebastianus's face, the most overwhelming sense of disappointment and disillusionment swept over her. Utter betrayal. Like a physical blow, and it was going to knock the spirit out of Sebastianus Gallus.

     "Is it perhaps one of Primo's recruits?"

     She shook her head. "He is a friend."

     "I trust all who are close to me," he said, "but I also trust you, Ulrika, and your instincts. And so I will be careful and watchful. We will say farewell in the morning, when we depart at the caravanserai."