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touching my cheek. Maybe it was my mother, I don’t know.”
    A horrible wave of nausea and pity swamped me, making my heart lurch oddly. “When I was four,” I said, “I was sold into servitude in a brothel.”
    “And you were born again as something else.” The Mahrkagir’s face glowed with understanding. “Something more .” He held my face with his cold, cold hands. “Your gods were shaping you, Phèdre. There are forces at work here I dared not dream. But Angra Mainyu knew! Oh, he knew. We are alike, you and I. I summoned you, through the three-fold path. You were made for me.”
    I saw my twinned reflections in his gleaming black eyes, my face tear-stained, swollen-mouthed, nodding in helpless agreement. He smiled and released me.
    “Tahmuras will take you back,” he said, adding, “Don’t forget your dog!”
    And so I went, clutching the jade dog in one hand.
    There was a passageway from the Mahrkagir’s quarters that led to the lower halls outside the zenana . I walked with difficulty, bracing my free hand against the wall. Tahmuras waited patiently, watching to see if he would need to carry me; I daresay he’d done it often enough. My limbs felt leaden, as they had in my dreams, and my body ached in myriad places. I could feel my inner thighs sticky with blood, a dull agony between them. I clenched my teeth and ignored it, along with a mounting dizziness.
    And then we were there, and Tahmuras scratched at the latticed door, and Nariman the Chief Eunuch received me, his small eyes alight with cruel pleasure. He had already had his orders. I hadn’t expected that.
    It was morning, and the zenana was already astir. I hadn’t expected that, either. I stood wavering on my feet, praying I would neither vomit nor faint, while a hundred eyes stared at me with unalloyed contempt. They knew. It had been seen, in the festal hall; witnessed, and reported. I had committed the greatest blasphemy they knew-I had desired my own debasement at the hands of Death. Nothing else could be so foul.
    “Here is Phèdre of Terre d’Ange!” Nariman cried in a high, triumphant voice. “The Shahryar Mahrkagir has chosen a new favorite.” No one spoke. Nariman shoved me. “Go to your couch and get your things. Hiu-Mei’s room is to be yours. She died,” he added carelessly, “in the night.”
    I went, placing one foot in front of the other. No one met my eyes, not even Drucilla. I concentrated on the placement of my feet. It hurt to walk. I had not remembered that the zenana was so large. The stagnant reek of the pool made me feel ill. I stared at the tiled floor, the bare aisles between the carpets. Once, I drew too near someone’s couch and saw a figure shrink, whisking back her skirts lest my touch contaminate them.
    Blessed Elua, what have you done to me ?
    I paused for a moment, gathering myself, then continued. It must be near; surely, I had reached my couch! I raised my head to look ... ... and saw him.
    He was standing in my path, fists clenched, half-shaking with rage. A slight figure, standing no taller than my breastbone, his face white and bloodless, a shocking beauty. His eyes blazed like sapphires in that vivid, white face and his hair, lank and tangled, still fell with a blue-black sheen.
    “Imriel,” I said softly.
    With a viper’s speed, he darted forward and spat in my face, retreating before I could react, dodging around a set of couches.
    Somewhere in the zenana , someone clapped; someone loosed a shrill laugh.
    A warm gob of spittle slid down the side of my nose. I took a deep breath, fixing my gaze on my couch, a few yards away, Valère L’Envers’ marten-skin coat tossed carelessly at one end. I took one step, and then another. The room reeled crazily in my vision. I saw the couch hurtling skyward in a smooth arc and understood that I was falling.
    The last thing I saw before the tiled floor rose up to meet me was that someone had defecated upon my coat. Then darkness claimed me, and I knew no more.

Forty-Seven
    “THIS WILL hurt.”
    Drucilla’s voice was impersonal, all of yesterday’s-was it only yesterday?-warmth gone. I knelt without moving as she smeared a pungent salve on various weals and cuts. It stung like fury. “Camphor?” I asked.
    “Camphor and birch oil, mixed with lard.” She sealed the jar. “The Tatars use it on their horses, and themselves as well. It is the only thing I can get.” A muscle in her jaw twitched with distaste as she nodded at my lower