Roshnani said, «I'd sooner bum that stuff than cook with it or sop bread in it the way the Videssians do.»

«I'm not fond of it, either,» Abivard answered. «But you'll notice all the children love it.» He rolled his eyes. «They should, seeing how Livania stuffs it into them every chance she gets. I think she's trying to turn them into Videssians from the stomach out.»

«I wonder if that's a kind of magic our wizards don't know.» Roshnani laughed, but the fingers of her left hand twisted in the sign to turn aside the evil idea.

She and Abivard walked down the hall to their bedchamber. He set the lamp on a little table by his side of the bed. The bed had a tell frame enclosed by gauzy netting. There were usually fewer mosquitoes inside the netting than outside. Abivard supposed that was worthwhile. He pulled off his caftan and lay down on the bed. Sweet-smelling straw rustled beneath him; the leather straps supporting the mattress creaked a little.

After Roshnani lay down beside him, he blew out the lamp through the netting. The room plunged into darkness. He set a hand on her hip. She turned toward him. Had she turned away or lay still, he would have rolled over and gone to sleep without worrying about it. As it was, they made love-companionably, almost lazily-and then, separating to keep from sticking to each other once they were through, fell asleep together.

The Videssian in the blue robe with the cloth-of-gold circle on the left breast went down on one knee before Abivard. «By the lord with the great and good mind, most eminent sir, I beg you to reconsider this harsh and inhuman edict,» he said. The early-morning sun gleamed off his shaved pate as if it were a gilded dome topping one of false Phos' temples.