Sometimes the military succeeded in doing things properly, almost in spite of itself. Vinaszh knew the desert, was properly respectful of it and those who dwelled there. He could manage some of the dialects of the nomads, spoke a little of the Kindath tongue, and was unruffled by sand in his bed or clothing or folds of skin.

Still, there was nothing at all in the background of the man to suggest that the soldier son of Vinaszh the trader might have had the rashness to speak up among the mightiest figures of Bassania and offer the uninvited suggestion that a small-town physician-one not even of the priestly caste-be summoned to the King of Kings where he was dying.

Among other things, the words put the commander's own life at risk. He was a dead man if someone afterwards were to decide that the country doctor's treatment had hastened or caused the death of the king-even though Great Shirvan had already turned his face to the fire as if looking in the flames for Perun of the Thunder, or the dark figure of the Lady.

The arrow was in him, very deep. Blood continued to seep slowly from it, darkening the sheets of the bed and the linens that had been bunched around the wound. It seemed a wonder, in fact, that the king still breathed, still remained among them, fixedly watching the dance of the flames while a wind from the desert rose outside. The sky had darkened. Shirvan seemed disinclined to offer his courtiers any last words of guidance or to formally name an heir, though he'd made a gesture that implied his choice. Kneeling beside the bed, the king's third son, Murash, who had covered his own head and shoulders with hot ashes from the hearth, was rocking back and forth, praying. None of the other royal sons was present. Murash's voice, rising and falling in rapid incantation, was the only human sound in the room other than the laboured rhythm of the Great King's breathing.