The hufsan was a bent, brown creature in a dun robe the same colour as his skin, His eyes were bright as a bird’s, and he had the long fingers of a musician, or a scholar.
‘Rinse your mouth out.’ A bowl was placed at Kurun’s mouth. ‘Good. Now spit — over your shoulder.’
The bloody liquid dribbled from Kurun’s mouth. The old hufsan wiped it away with the cloth Kouros had discarded.
‘You are no spy of Rakhsar. I could have told him that.’ He took a mortar from the table and scooped out the contents with one hand. Then he knelt between Kurun’s legs and began gently smearing it over the seared gash there. Kurun came to life again, struggled in the chair, moaned thickly.
‘Hold still. If it’s done right now, you’ll still look pretty down there, and you may even have a cock that works. This was done to you later in life than usual, so you may keep something of your manhood about you. You’ll never need to shave, though.’
He put the mortar away, wiped his hands, humming like a man content with his work, and produced a vial of amber-yellow liquid. He put it to Kurun’s bloody mouth. ‘Don’t waste a drop. This is juice of the poppy, and you’re lucky to get it. I think Dyarnes liked you. And the prince knew it, or he’d have gutted you for the fun of it. Believe me, I’ve seen it. But the black bastard still has some shame about him. He knows a needless killing would get back to his father. Dyarnes still serves two masters.
‘There. Good boy. In a moment or two you’ll feel the pain go, and all the worries of your little life. I’ll unbuckle you then.’ He stroked the boy’s thick black hair.
‘You are alive, and young, my friend. This shall pass, as all things do. It is not the end. Believe me, I know.’
‘Who?’ Kurun gargled.
‘My name is Hiram. I’m from the Harem.’ He giggled. ‘Hiram of the Harem, that’s me. They dragged me out of my bed to make sure you wouldn’t bleed to death. Yours aren’t the first balls I’ve picked up off the floor, believe me.’
‘Kurun shook his head, stared at the door. ‘Who — ’ he repeated.
‘Ah, I see. Well, you have been mixing in elevated company this night, kitchen-boy. The tall Honai was Dyarnes, master of the King’s Bodyguard. And the black-haired, grinning monster who sliced your manhood off was no less than prince Kouros himself, whom most think will one day sit in his father’s chair and rule the empire. He thought you a minion of his brother’s. Or perhaps he didn’t. It hardly matters.’ Hiram grinned, showing yellow teeth as uneven as the gaps in a broken fence.
Kurun sagged in the chair. His eyes dulled. ‘Death,’ he said, a long whisper that tapered into a sob.
Hiram stroked his hair again. ‘Not death, little one. Not tonight. Kouros tried too hard to be cruel. Roshana will see that you are well treated. She has her mother in her. And this will not be the first time Kouros has left something broken at her door. I remember, when they were children, he once strangled her favourite nightingale and set it on her pillow.’ Hiram’s face grew grim, the fine-wrinkled skin tightening about his mouth.
Kurun was sleeping now, breathing deep, his head sunk on his chest. Hiram began to unbuckle him from the chair.
‘From the kitchen to the Court. You are going up in the world, boy. One day you may even think the price was worth paying.’ His face twisted, something like self-mockery flitting across it.
‘One day.’
Across the ziggurats of the city the sunrise poured down, catching the golden plated Fane of Bel and setting it alight in a gleam of yellow flame. Those in the teeming streets below looked up at the sight and touched their foreheads in salute to the sun, to Bel the life-giver.
The world had been given another morning.
Along the Huruma the priests went in procession with their long-handled snuffers, putting out the street- torches and welcoming the dawn with ancient sonorous songs whose words they no longer understood, but whose melodies were woven into the very fabric of Ashur itself.
The traffic was already moving in long lines through every gate in the fabled walls, and in the irrigated fields beyond, farmers walked waist-deep in the last of the night’s mist. The air about them was alive with the croaking of frogs and the white egrets rose like flocks of ghosts from the palm trees.
Even at this early hour, there was a promise of heat behind the moist cool of the air, and shimmers of insects rose out of the damp ground to hang in clouds overhead. Summer was growing, and the season was turning towards the white blinding days of heat and dust that marked the zenith of the year.
Summer was growing, and the snows in the mountains were retreating up into the peaks, widening the passes. The good grass was thickening underfoot and the soil was hardening. This was the beginning of true campaigning weather.
It was the time for the fighting of wars.
FIVE
The Lady Orsana rose well before dawn, even now that the mornings came earlier. She bathed in the mosaic pool with her maids all about her, and picked out what to wear from a procession of living models, who stood in front of the fragrant steaming water one by one. A fingertip lifted slightly, and Charys, the Queen’s Eunuch, clapped his white hands to confirm the choice.
After she was dried, Orsana sat naked as a trio of artists who had been brought from all over the empire went to work on her face. They lengthened the lashes of her eyes with kohl, painted the lids malachite green, blushed her cheeks with Tanean vermilion and powdered her skin white with crushed chalk. She rose, and her clothing was draped around her as though on a statue. Her mane of heavy black hair was combed out until sparks crackled in it, then it was coiled simply down one collar-bone. In candle-light, the regime took twenty years off her age.
Lastly, the thin white-gold circlet that signified high royalty was placed carefully on her forehead. Slaves had lost their hands at this point for smearing her cosmetics.
A mirror of silvered glass was produced, and she studied herself in it. Her lips pursed ever so slightly. She lowered her eyelids, adopted the aloof, guarded pose which was her way of looking at the world, and raised one white, long-nailed hand to brush the attending slaves away.
Then Orsana strolled out of the dressing-suite, sipped some watered wine, and was ready to do battle with the day. She took up her accustomed position on a divan of midnight silk. Her maids arranged her robes artfully about her, and a bowl of fruit and a cup of wine were placed within easy reach. She sat, a silken spider, at the very centre of the harem, in a vast circular chamber which was dotted with fountains and hung with tapestries. Incense idled through the air in blue skeins, and petal-stuffed cushions were scattered everywhere on the tessellated floor. In this chamber, only the Queen had furniture to sit upon. Everyone else reclined on the cushions or stood. Beautiful young women kept station around the walls, giggling and gossiping behind pillars of Kandassian marble. These were the King’s concubines, and he had not chosen one of them himself.
A long-haired eunuch with a hip-desk padded from behind the hangings and went to one knee. He bowed his head, as pretty as any of the women around him. He lacked a finger on his left hand, his only imperfection.
Orsana nodded minutely at him. He opened the hip-desk bound to his body and produced a number of papers one by one.
‘Lady, lord Merach of Gansakr presents his respects, and would be grateful if you would receive him ere he leaves for the west.’
Orsana smiled, raised a hand and swung it in dismissal.
‘The Road-Stewards would like an audience today to discuss arrangements for the move to Hamadan.’
Orsana blinked. The white hand moved again.
‘The caravans are in from both Kosan and Ishtar. The merchant lords Amur and Peshtos send their
