"Yes . . . It's me, Akka. Me."

"Your face . . ."

"Some Galeoth ingrate." Bitter laugh. "That's the way it is with Men of the Tusk and their whores. If you can't fuck them, beat them."

"Oh, Esmi . . ."

"Once the swelling starts I'll look a caste-noble virgin compared to you. Did you hear me scream when he-he kicked you in the face? What were you doing?"

"I'm-I'm not sure . . . L-looking for you . . ."

"Shush, Akka . . . Shhhhh . . . Not here. After."

"J-just say it . . . M-my name. Just say it!"

"Drusas Achamian . . . Akka."

And he wept, so hard that at first he didn't realize she wept with him.

Perhaps driven by the same impulse, they retreated into the blackness behind a dark pavilion, fell to their knees and embraced.

"It's really you . . ." Achamian murmured, seeing twin moons reflected in her wet eyes.

She laughed and sobbed. "Really me . . ."

His lips burned with the salt of mingled tears. He pulled her left breast free of her hasas, began circling her nipple with his thumb. "Why did you leave Sumna?"

"I was afraid," she whispered, kissing his forehead and cheeks. "Why am I always afraid?"

"Because you breathe."

A passionate kiss. Hands fumbling in the blackness, tugging, clutching. The ground spun. He leaned back, and she hooked burning thighs about his waist. Then he was inside, and she gasped. They sat motionless for several heartbeats, throbbing together, exchanging shallow breaths.

"Never again," Achamian said. "Promise?" She wiped at her face. Sniffled. He began slowly rocking her. "Promise me."

[Garbled]. For a time, they seemed one being, dancing about [garbled] from [garbled].

"I've already been robbed," she said, trying to smile. "[Garbled.] But I have a few things left. Not far from here."

"Will you stay with me?" he asked with tearful earnestness. "Can you [missing]."

He watched her swallow, blink.

[Missing.]

He laughed, pushed himself to his feet. "Then let's get your things."

They walked slowly, like lovers strolling through a bazaar. Periodically Achamian would stare into her eyes and laugh in disbelief.

"I thought you were gone," he said once. thought you were gone," he said once.

"But I've always been here."

Rather than ask what she [missing].

Just let this night last. Please . . .Leave me this one night . . .

The unspoken regions between them were well-marked, and for the moment, they steered each other clear of painful boundaries.

They paused to watch a mummer dip a leather rope into a basket filled with scorpions. When he pulled it clear, it seethed with chitinous limbs, pincers, and stabbing tails. This, the man proclaimed, was the famed Scorpion Braid, which the Kings of Nilnamesh still used to punish mortal crimes. When the audience encircled him, anxious for a closer look, he raised the Braid high for everyone to see, then suddenly began swinging it over their heads. Women screamed, men ducked or raised their hands, but not a single scorpion flew from the rope. The rope, the mummer cried over the commotion, was soaked in a poison that seized the scorpions' jaws. Without the antidote, he said, they would remain locked to the leather until they died.

For much of the demonstration, Achamian watched and delighted in Esmenet's expression, all the while wondering that she could seem so new. He found himself discovering things he'd never before noticed. The dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. The extraordinary white of her eyes. The smattering of auburn through her luxurious black hair. The athletic slope of her back and shoulders. Everything about her, it seemed, possessed a bewitching novelty.

I must always see her like this. As the stranger I love . . .

Each time their glances met, they laughed as though celebrating a fortuitous reunion. But they always looked away, as though knowing their momentary bliss wouldn't bear examination. Then something, a flicker of anxiousness perhaps, passed between them, and they ceased looking at each other altogether. A sudden hollow opened in the heart of Achamian's elation. He clutched her hand for reassurance, but she left her fingers slack.

After several moments, Esmenet tugged him to a stop in the light of several bright burning pots. She stared into his face, expressionless save for the hard set of her jaw.

"Something's different," she said. "Before, you could always pretend. Even when Inrau died. But now . . . something's different. What's happened?"

He shied from answering her. It was too soon.

"I'm a Mandate Schoolman," he said lamely. "What can I say? We all suffer . . ."

She fixed him with a canny scowl. "Knowledge," she said. "You all suffer knowledge . . . If you suffer more, it means you've learned more . . . Is that it? Have you learned more?"

Achamian stared straight ahead, said nothing. It was too soon!

She looked past him, sorted through the shadowy crowds. "Would you like to hear what's happened to me?"

"Leave it be, Esmi."

She flinched, turned away, blinking. She pulled her hand free and resumed walking.

"Esmi . . ." he said, following her.

"You know," she said, "it hasn't been bad, save the odd beating. Plenty of custom. Plenty of-"

"That's enough, Esmi."

She laughed, acted as if she were engaged in a different, more frank conversation. "I've even lain with lords lords . . . Caste-nobles, Akka! Imagine. Even their cocks are bigger-did you know that? I wouldn't know about the Ainoni-they seem to prefer boys. And the Conriyans, they flock about the Galeoth sluts-all that milk-white skin, you know. But the Columns, the Nansur, they like their peaches home-grown, though they rarely stray from the military brothels. And the Thunyeri! They can scarce bridle their seed when my knees flop open! Brutes though, especially when they're drunk. Stingy bastards, too. Oh, and the Galeoth-there's a treat. They complain I'm too skinny, but they love my skin. If it weren't for the guilt and anger afterward, they'd be my favourites. They're not accustomed to whores . . . Not enough old cities in their country, I think. Not enough barter . . ." . . . Caste-nobles, Akka! Imagine. Even their cocks are bigger-did you know that? I wouldn't know about the Ainoni-they seem to prefer boys. And the Conriyans, they flock about the Galeoth sluts-all that milk-white skin, you know. But the Columns, the Nansur, they like their peaches home-grown, though they rarely stray from the military brothels. And the Thunyeri! They can scarce bridle their seed when my knees flop open! Brutes though, especially when they're drunk. Stingy bastards, too. Oh, and the Galeoth-there's a treat. They complain I'm too skinny, but they love my skin. If it weren't for the guilt and anger afterward, they'd be my favourites. They're not accustomed to whores . . . Not enough old cities in their country, I think. Not enough barter . . ."

She studied Achamian, her look both bitter and shrewd. He walked, his eyes welded forward.

"Custom has been good," she said, looking away. The old rage had returned, the one that had driven him from her arms months before. He clenched his fists, saw himself shaking her, striking her. Fucking whore! Fucking whore! he wanted to scream. he wanted to scream.

Why tell him this? Why tell him what he couldn't bear to hear? Especially when she had her own things to answer for . . .

Why did you leave Sumna? How long have you been hiding from me? How long?

But before he could say anything, she veered from the armed throngs and walked toward a fire surrounded by painted faces-more harlots.

"Esmi!" a dark-haired woman called out in a brusque, even mannish, voice. "Who's your-" She paused, getting a better look, then laughed. "Who's your hapless friend?" She was stout-limbed and thick-waisted, but without being fat-the kind of woman, Esmi had told him once, prized by certain Norsirai men. Achamian immediately recognized her as someone who confused ill manners with daring.

Esmenet halted, hesitated long enough to make Achamian frown. "This is Akka."

The drab's heavy eyebrows popped up. "The infamous Drusas Achamian?" the woman said. "The Schoolman? Schoolman?"

Achamian looked to Esmenet. Who was this woman?

"This is Yasellas Yasellas," Esmenet said, speaking the woman's name as though it explained everything. "Yassi."

Yasellas's appraising stare remained fixed on Achamian. "So what are you doing here, Akka?"

He shrugged, saying, "I follow the Holy War."

"The same as us!" Yasellas exclaimed. "Though you might say we march for a different Tusk . . ." The other prostitutes burst out laughing-like men.

"And the little prophet," another said, her voice hoarse. "Good for only one sermon . . ."

All the women howled, with the exception of Yassi, who only smiled.

More jokes followed, but Esmenet was already pulling him into the darkness, toward what must have been her shelter.

"All of us camp in bands," she said, pre-empting any questions or observations. "We watch out for one another."

"So I gathered . . ."

"This is mine," she said, kneeling before the greased canvas flaps of a low wedge tent not so unlike his own. Achamian found himself relieved: without a word she crawled into the blackness. Achamian followed.

Within, there was barely enough room to sit upright. Beneath the incense, the air smelled of rutting-if only because Achamian couldn't stop imagining her with her men. She disrobed in the routine manner of a harlot, and he studied her lithe, small-breasted silhouette. She looked so frail in the remains of the firelight, so small and desolate. The thought of her pinioned here, night after night, beneath man after man . . .

I must make this right!

"Do you have a candle?" he asked.

"Some . . . But we'll be burned." Fire was the perennial fear of those raised in cities.

"No," he replied. "Never with me . . ."

She withdrew a candle from a bundle in the corner, and Achamian ignited it with a word. In Sumna, she'd always marvelled at such tricks. Now, she simply regarded him with a kind of resigned wariness.

They both blinked in the light. She drew a stained blanket across her lap, stared vacantly at the snarl of coverings between them. He swallowed. "Esmi? Why tell me . . . all that."

"Because I had to know," she replied, looking down at her hands.

"Know what? What makes my hands shake? What makes my eyes dart in terror?"

Her shoulders hitched in the gloom; Achamian realized she was sobbing.

"You pretended I wasn't there," she whispered.

"I what?"

"That last night at Momemn . . . I came to you. I watched your camp, your friends, only hidden because I was too afraid that I would . . . that I would . . . But you weren't there, Akka! So I waited and waited. Then I saw . . . I saw you you . . . I wept with joy, Akka! Wept! I stood there, right before you, weeping! I held out my arms, and you . . . and you . . ." The anguished light in her eyes dulled, flickered out. She finished in a different voice-far colder. . . . I wept with joy, Akka! Wept! I stood there, right before you, weeping! I held out my arms, and you . . . and you . . ." The anguished light in her eyes dulled, flickered out. She finished in a different voice-far colder.

"You pretended I wasn't there."

What was she talking about? Achamian pressed palms to his forehead, wrestled with the urge to lash out-to punish. She stood close enough to touch-after all this time!-and yet she receded . . . He needed to understand.

"Esmi?" he said slowly, trying to collect his wine-addled wits. "What are you-"

"What was it, Akka?" she asked, rigid and cool. "Was I too polluted, too defiled? Too much a filthy whore?"

"No, Esmi, I-"

"Too bruised a peach? peach?"

"Esmenet, listen to-"

She laughed bitterly. "So you're going to take me to your tent, you say? Add me to the bushel-"

He seized her by the shoulders, crying, "You speak of bushels to me? You?" speak of bushels to me? You?"

But he immediately repented, seeing his own savagery reflected in her terrified expression. She had even flinched, as though expecting a blow. He noticed, as though for the first time, the bruising about her left eye.

Who did this? Not me. Not me . . .

"Look at us," he said, releasing her and carefully drawing back his hands. Both beaten. Both outcasts. Both beaten. Both outcasts.

"Look at us," she mumbled, tears spilling down her cheeks.

"I can explain, Esmi . . . Everything."

She nodded, rubbed her shoulders where he'd grabbed her. Female voices chimed in unison outside-they had started singing like the other harlots, promising soft thighs for hard silver. Firelight glittered through the open flaps, like gold through dark waters.

"That night you're talking about . . . Sweet Sejenus, Esmi, if I didn't see you, it wasn't because I was ashamed ashamed of you! How could I be? How could anyone-let alone a of you! How could I be? How could anyone-let alone a sorcerer! sorcerer!-be ashamed of a woman such as you?"

She bit her lip, smiled through more tears. "Then why?"

Achamian rolled to his side and laid next to her, his eyes searching the dark canvas above.

"Because I found them found them, Esmi-that very night . . . I found the Consult."

"I remember nothing after that," he concluded. "I know I walked through the night, all the way from the Imperial Precincts to Xinemus's camp, but I remember none of it . . ."