"My fellow citizens!" Saxa said. "Hail to the noble and generous Emperor who has granted you this gift. Carce rules the world, and the Emperor is the soul of Carce!"

His voice was pitched too high to command authority, but he was managing good volume; he would be heard. Hedia nodded approvingly.

"Long live the Emperor!" Saxa said. "Long live the Emperor, our father and god!"

Cheers and the banging of sandals on stone again overwhelmed the theater. Hedia noted wryly that her husband's fellow senators were the most enthusiastic, capering like monkeys in the orchestra. Nobody wants word to get out that he was behind-hand when everyone around him applauded the Emperor.

Hedia started to relax, but now that the immediate danger was past, memory of the dreadful glass figures returned. The memory gripped her like a hawk sinking its talons into a vole. She felt dizzy for an instant; she felt Alphena take her arm to steady her on the chair.

She recovered, straightening like the noble lady that she was. She patted her daughter's hand affectionately.

There was something very wrong going on, but there had generally been things wrong in Hedia's life-before her first marriage to Calpurnius Latus and most certainly ever afterwards. She had seen her way through those troubles, and she would see her way through this one also.

She had to, after all. What would poor dear Saxa and his children, her children now, do without her?

Tomorrow she would visit Anna, Corylus' housekeeper and his former nurse. Anna was the wife of the boy's servant Pulto-and she was a Marsian witch.

And if Anna couldn't send away those glass nightmares, Hedia would find another way. It was her duty as a wife and mother, and as a noblewoman of Carce.