The Dance of Time

The ceremonies that followed were the usual tedious business. Fortunately, Antonina was spared the worst of it, thanks to Photius and Tahmina. Their own transfer from the ship to the dock had been no simple matter of walking down a gangplank. The Roman officials and Persian grandees had vied with each other to see who could produce the most absurdly elaborate palanquins for the purpose.

"I was scared the gangplank would collapse under the weight," Photius confided to her later. "Tahmina-did you see the idiotic thing they carried her off in?-was downright petrified."

The most interesting part of the day, perhaps ironically, was the tour of the new hospital. The one the Wife had established.

It wasn't hers, really. A

But, from what Antonina could determine, that didn't seem to matter. The young Roman noblewoman had struck the existing hospital like the monsoon. Leaving plenty of wreckage in her wake, as the monsoon does. But-also like the monsoon-leaving a greener land behind. One with life, where there had been death.

"I'm impressed," Ousanas admitted. For once, not joking at all. "I wouldn't have thought even the Emperor of Iran and all his executioners could have swept aside this much stupidity and carelessness. In that short a time, anyway."

Antonina eyed a nearby member of the Wife's Service, standing solemnly in the doorway to the next ward. Despite the purple uniform, he bore approximately the same resemblance to a "nurse" as a tavern bouncer bears to an "usher."

"She knew the trick," Antonina murmured. "I'm a little flattered, actually."

Ousanas cocked his head.

"Don't you see? She patterned the Service after the Hospitalers. That's what it takes, for something like this. People will simply evade the rulings of officials. Much harder to evade the strictures of a militant mass order."

"You're quite right," came a voice from behind. Turning her head, Antonina saw the chief of the Service in Barbaricum. Psoes, his name was. She hadn't realized he was following them closely enough to have overheard.

"You're quite right," he repeated. "She told me she got the idea from reading Irene Macrembolitissa's account of your exploits in Alexandria."

Antonina chuckled. "Irene's fables, you mean. She was long gone from Alexandria and on her way to India before all that happened. That account she wrote was entirely after the fact, and based on hearsay."

" Your hearsay, to make it worse," Ousanas grunted. "Told to her in one of your scandalous drinking bouts."

He surveyed the ward again, before they passed on to the next. This one was devoted to men recovering from amputations of the lower extremities, where the one they'd passed through earlier was given over to men who'd suffered more severe trauma. The harshly practical mind of the Wife was evident even in the hospital's new design. Triage, everywhere. Partly to keep diseased men from infecting men who were simply injured. Mostly, because the Wife accepted that some men would die, but saw no reason that other men should die u

In times past, hospitals simply heaped men wherever they happened to have a space, with no more forethought than a wind driving leaves against a fence. In such haphazard piles, a man suffering a simple amputation might die from neglect, simply because he was in a ward most of whose occupants were dying anyway.

Agathius came limping up. He'd lagged behind to reassure one of the soldiers from his own personal experience that while wooden legs were certainly a nuisance, they didn't seriously interfere with copulation. Once they were removed, anyway.

"Horrible," he muttered. "Thank God Sudaba remained in the palace and didn't see this."

Antonina lifted an eyebrow. "She never struck me as being particularly squeamish."

"She's not." Agathius glowered around the room. "That's what I'm worried about. She's already hard enough to control. Once she meets this cursed 'Wife'…"

The glower came to Antonina. "I'm blaming you, mostly. You and that damned Macrembolitissa. Hadn't been for your example-hers, even worse!-none of this would be happening."

"Men's lives are being saved," Ousanas pointed out mildly.

The glower never wavered. "Who cares? All men die sooner or later anyway. But in the good old days, whatever years we had given to us, we didn't have to spend half of them arguing with the women. It's your fault, Antonina."

That evening, over di

Sudaba wasn't interested in the official ceremonies. As a girl whose father was merely a dehgan, she might have been. As a young woman who'd now been married to the top Roman official in Mesopotamia for almost two years and had attended more official ceremonies than she could remember, she wasn't in the least.

What she was interested in hearing about-at length-was the hospital.

"I can't wait to meet this woman," she said.

Antonina smiled at Agathius. "Oh, stop glaring at the roast. It's already overcooked as it is."

" Your fault, I say it again."

It was odd, really, the comfort the stable-keeper took from the presence of the giant Roman soldier. Under any other circumstances, the man-Anastasius, his name-would have terrified him. The stable-keeper was Bengali. Despite the years he'd lived in Kausambi, he'd never really gotten accustomed to the size of western barbarians. The Ye-tai were bad enough. But no Ye-tai the stable-keeper had ever seen was as big and powerful-looking as this Roman.

Anastasius still did frighten the stable-keeper. But since he was so much less terrifying than his companion, the stable-keeper was almost relieved to have him around. He liked to imagine that the giant one would restrain the other-Valentinian, he was called, with another of those bizarre western names-in the all-too-likely event that the man reverted to the predator nature he so obviously possessed.

"Stop bullying the poor man, Valentinian," the giant rumbled.

"I'm not bullying him. I'm simply pointing out the facts of life."

The stable-keeper avoided both their gazes. Squatting on the floor of one of his stables and staring at the ground, he whimpered: "Why did I ever agree to this?"

"Why?" The one named Valentinian leaned over and casually spit on the ground. He was standing, not squatting, and leaning against a nearby stall. "Four reasons. First, you were stupid enough to catch the eye of somebody powerful-today, if not then-when he came through here some years ago, and impressed him with your competence and sterling character. Fucking idiot. You're what-almost fifty years old? And you still haven't learned that no good deed shall go unpunished?"

The stable-keeper whimpered again. "I didn't know who he was."

"Stupider still, then. The second reason is that this stable is about the right distance. Close enough that we could dig to it, far enough away that nobody will co

He spat again. "Just bad luck, that. The next two reasons were your own fault, though. To begin with, you were greedy enough to accept our money."