"May these orders not be rescinded, great lord?" Rustem asked hesitantly.

"Of course not," said the King of Kings.

The finality in the quiet voice was, Rustem would later decide, as frightening as anything else that day.

"Summon the vizier," said Shirvan of Bassania, looking out upon night. "And my son."

Rustem the physician, son of Zorah, wished ardently in that moment to be home in his small house, shuttered against the wind and dark, with Katyun and Jarita, two small children peacefully asleep, a late cup of herbed wine at his elbow and a fire on the hearth, with the knocking of the world at his door something that had never taken place.

Instead, he bowed to the man lying on the bed and walked to the doorway of the room.

"Physician," said the King of Kings.

Rustem turned back. He felt afraid, terribly out of his depth.

"I am still your patient. You continue to be accountable for my well-being. Act accordingly." The tone was flat, the cold rage still there.

It did not take immense subtlety to understand what this might mean.

Only this afternoon, in the hour when a wind had arisen in the desert, he had been in his own modest treatment room, preparing to instruct four pupils on couching simple cataracts according to the learned devisings of Merovius of Trakesia.

He opened the door. In the torchlight of the corridor he saw a dozen tired-looking courtiers. Servants or soldiers had brought benches; some of the waiting men were sitting, slumped against the stone walls. Some were asleep. Others saw him and stood up. Rustem nodded at Mazendar, the vizier, and then at the young prince, standing a little apart from the others, his face to a dark, narrow window-slit, praying.