The Second Empire

T HEY had cleared a new set of apartments for her in the tower of Orma

“Well?” Heria asked. Serrim had been a bully when she was a mere concubine. Now that she had been catapulted into the Merduk nobility he had quickly become a sycophant. She disliked him the more for it.

“Lady, His Majesty has sent Shahr Baraz to you to be your personal attendant.”

The lean Merduk hauled his gaze from the window and met her eyes for the first time. He bowed without a word.

“My attendant? I have plenty of those already.” Shahr Baraz looked as though he belonged on a horse with a sword in his hand, not in a lady’s chambers.

“He is to be your bodyguard, and is to attend you at all times.”

“My bodyguard,” Heria said wonderingly. And then something stirred from her memory. “Was it not Shahr Baraz who commanded the army which took Aekir? I thought he was an old man—and—and no longer with us.”

“This is the illustrious khedive’s son, lady.”

“I see. Leave us, Serrim.”

“Lady, I—”

“Leave us. All of you. I want the chamber cleared. You can finish your work here later.”

A procession of maids left the room at once. The eunuch padded off with them, looking thoroughly discontented. Heria felt a brief moment of intense satisfaction, and then the cloud came down again.

“Would you like some wine, Shahr Baraz?”

“No, lady. I do not indulge.”

“I see. So you are my bodyguard. Who do you intend to protect me from?”

“From whomsoever would wish to harm you.”

She switched to Norma

The Merduk hesitated. A muscle twitched in his jaw. There was a long, livid scar there that ran from one cheek into his beard.

“Some words I know,” he replied in the same language.

“Do you understand this, then? That I believe you are nothing more than a spy set here by the Sultan to keep watch over me and report my every move?”

“I am not a spy,” Shahr Baraz said heatedly.

“Then why would the Sultan place the capable son of such an illustrious father in such a menial position?”

His grey eyes had flared into life. His Norma

“Why would he want to punish you?”

“Because I am my father’s son, and he thinks my father failed him before this fortress.”

“Your father is dead, then?”

“No—I don’t know. He disappeared into the mountains rather than return to court to be… to answer for his actions.”

She switched back to Merduk. “Your Norma

“I am no spy,” he repeated. “Even the Sultan would not ask me to be that. My family have served the House of Ostrabar for generations. I will not fail the Sultan’s trust—nor yours, lady. I swear it. And besides”—here a glint of humour pierced his ster

She actually found herself liking him. “Have you family of your own?”

“A wife and two daughters. They are in Orkhan.”

Hostages for his good behaviour, no doubt. “Thank you, Shahr Baraz. Now please leave me.”

But he stood his ground stubbornly. “I am to remain with you at all times.”

“All times?” she asked with one raised eye-brow. Shahr Baraz flushed.

“Within the bounds of propriety, yes.”

She felt a pang of pure despair, and abandoned the game. “All right.” The prison walls were still intact, then. She might be able to order about a flock of flunkeys, but her position was essentially unchanged. She had been a fool to think otherwise.

Heria turned to regard the view from the lofty window once more. The pain was there of course, but she kept it at bay, skirted around it as a man might avoid a bottomless quagmire in his travells. Somewhere over the horizon in the east the ruins of Aekir stood, and somewhere in those ashes were the remains of another life. But the man with whom she had shared that life was still alive. Still alive. Where was Corfe now, her one and only husband? Strange and terrible that the knowledge he lived and walked and breathed upon the earth was a source only of agony. She could take no joy in it, and she scourged herself for that. She bore another man’s child, a man who now called her wife. She had been e

She wanted to die.

But would not. She had a son in her belly. Not Corfe’s child, but something that was precious all the same—something that was hers. For the child she would stay alive, and she might even be able to do something to aid Corfe and the Toru

But the pain of it. The sheer, raw torment.

“Shahr Baraz,” she said without turning round.

“Lady?”

“I need… I need a friend, Shahr Baraz.” The tears scalded her eyes. She could not see. Her voice throbbed with a beat like the sob of a swan’s wing in flight.

A hand touched the top of her head gently, resting there only for a second before being withdrawn. It was the first touch of genuine kindness she had received for a very long time, and it broke some wall within her soul. She bowed her head and wept bitterly. When she had collected herself she found Shahr Baraz on one knee before her. His fingers tapped her lightly on the fore-arm.

“A Merduk queen is not supposed to weep,” he said, but his voice was gentle. He smiled.

“I have been a queen for only a morning. Perhaps I will get used to it.”

“Dry your eyes, lady. The kohl is ru

“A man who touches one of the Sultan’s women will have his hands cut off,” she reminded him.

“I will not tell if you do not.”

“Agreed.” She collected herself. “You must forgive me. The excitement of the morning…”

“One of my daughters is about your age,” Shahr Baraz said. “I pray she will never have to suffer as I believe you have. I would rather she lived out her days in a felt hut with a man she loved than—” He stopped, then straightened. “I will have your maids sent in, lady, so that you may repair yourself. It is inappropriate that I should be here alone with you, even if I am an old man. The Sultan would not approve.”

“No. If you want to do something for me, then have the little Ramusian monk sent here. I wish to speak with him. He is imprisoned in the lower levels of the tower.”

“I am not sure that—”

“Please, Shahr Baraz.”

He nodded. “You are a queen, after all.” Then he bowed, and left her.

A queen, she thought. So is that what I am now? She remembered the hell of Aekir at its fall, the Merduk soldier who had raped her with the light of the burning city a writhing inferno in his eyes. The terrible journey north in the waggons, John Mogen’s Toru