She'd dreaded that task almost as much as she'd grieved Eon's death. Yet now, this morning, she felt light-hearted again.

Why?

It was not an idle question. By now, a lot closer to the age of forty than thirty, Antonina had come to know herself very well. Her mind did not work the same way as her husband's. Belisarius was a calculator; a man who considered all the angles of a problem before deciding how he would handle it. Antonina, on the other hand, reached her conclusions through more mysterious, instinctive ways.

This was not the first time in her life she'd awakened in the morning, flush with the satisfaction of having come to a decision during her sleep. And if Belisarius sometimes shook his head wryly over the matter, Antonina remained serene in the knowledge that her way of handling such difficult business was so much easier than her husband's.

A servant entered, after politely coughing to announce her arrival. The woman didn't knock, for the simple reason that the Ta'akha Maryam had very few doors-and knocking on the thick walls of the entrance would be akin to rapping on a granite cliff.

"The aqabe tsentsen wishes an audience."

Antonina grinned. She really was in a good mood.

"I'll bet he didn't put it that way."

The servant rolled her eyes. "So rude, he is! No, Lady, he did not. He-ah…"

Antonina slid from under the thick coverings and scampered toward her wardrobe against the far wall. Her haste was not caused by any concern for keeping Ousanas waiting, it was simply due to the cold.

"He told you to roll the lazy Roman slut out of bed." Still grinning, Antonina removed her night clothes and began dressing for the day.

"Well. He didn't call you a slut. Lazy Roman, yes."