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new.”
    It was one of the eunuchs who addressed me, speaking in the zenyan argot; Persian, I guessed by his tone. He was young and slender, and had a gentle look to him.
    “Yes,” I said.
    He shifted the tray he carried, balancing it on one hip. “If you wish ... if you wish, I will bring you a basin, and soap.”
    If his hands had been free, I would have kissed them. Instead, I made myself incline my head and answer graciously. “You are very kind.”
    He went away. I sat cross-legged on my couch and watched the zenana . In the Night Court, pageants are often staged for wealthy patrons; the Pasha’s Hareem was a common one, with scant-clad adepts reclining on cushions and disporting themselves in erotic play to the accompaniment of musicians. This was a dreadful parody of that sensual fantasy. The only pleasure I saw taken was in the smoking of opium, for there were water-pipes at many of the islands, and those women who smoked them fell back in heavy-lidded dreaminess. I saw one Ephesian woman tend to a crying boy of some eight years by blowing a thin stream of blue smoke from her own mouth into his. Presently he ceased to cry, and lay listless at her breast.
    “It seems a kindness,” I said aloud, watching.
    “It is.” It was the Persian eunuch returning, kneeling carefully to set a steaming basin of water on the carpet before my couch. “Until the Mahrkagir takes it away. Then they will suffer fresh torments and wish anew to die.” He looked up at me. “I am Rushad, lady.”
    “Thank you, Rushad.” Since there was nothing else for it, I undressed with the ease of long practice, kneeling opposite him in front of the basin. Rushad drew in his breath in a hiss, seeing my marque.
    “What is that ?”
    “A sign that I am dedicated to the service of our goddess Naamah.” I plunged both arms to my elbows in the steaming water, then took up the soap and began to raise a lather. “I am Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève of Terre d’Ange.”
    “Terre d’Ange,” he repeated. “Yes. There is one ... a boy ... who looks like you, who has your... your beauty. But he does not speak our tongue. How is it that you do?”
    “You have seen him?” I paused in the middle of my ablutions.
    “Yes, of course.” Rushad seemed surprised. “He is being ... confined.”
    “For stabbing someone with a fork. I heard.” I sat back on my heels, thinking. “Can you take me to him?”
    “No!” He shook his head in alarm. “I would not dare. I am not like the Akkadians, who are unafraid to die. I have done you a courtesy. You must not ask such things of me.”
    “Why did you?” I asked him, continuing my bath.
    Rushad considered, glancing over at the young Skaldi man I’d spoken to last night, who was now sitting against a wall, knees drawn up, his head low. “They say ... they say you talked to him last night, to Erich. That you spoke in his tongue. He was my friend, before, although we could not speak, not even in zenyan. Now ...” He shrugged. “He will not even try. I thought, maybe ...”
    “It is Skaldic,” I said. “I think there is no trace of it in this ... zenyan, you call it? Nothing he would understand. But he would not speak to me, either.”
    “Perhaps in time,” Rushad murmured.
    “Mayhap.” Reluctantly, I donned my travel-stained attire. “I will continue to try, if you will help me find a way to the D’Angeline boy.”
    “He will be back in the zenana soon enough.” Rushad fussed with the basin, avoiding my eyes. “You will see him then, if...” His voice trailed off. “Well, if you are here, you will see him.”
    With that, he left me.
    If there is anything worse than terror, it is terror and tedium commingled. I sat on my couch, combing out my damp, tangled hair with my fingers, taking the measure of the zenana , of many dozens of lives condemned to spin themselves out beneath the vast, brooding shadow of the Mahrkagir’s palace. How, I wondered, did they feel it? Did they sense it, the dire presence I had felt above? Did they know its name? Did they pray to their gods?
    Some did, I know; I saw it, then and later.
    There was a tall Jebean woman who told fortunes with bones, holding court on a carpeted island. Sometimes, with great ceremony, she would unravel a single crimson thread from her frayed garments and make a knotted talisman, handing it over in exchange for some small gift.
    There was a Chowati woman who sat on the floor with her hands on her knees, rocking back and