“He’s adorable. Adorable. Sweety.” Lady Ameretha Ventuel tickled the baby’s face and he made a snuffling sound at her. “Oh Bil! His hands! And his ears! His tiny little ears! Oh sweet thing!”

“Do you want to hold him?” asked Bilale. She nodded to the nursemaid, who passed the baby over.

“He smells so lovely. Oh Bil.”

Bilale smiled at her friend. “You should have one yourself, Retha.”

Nilesh the servant girl was amused to see Lady Ventuel make a shivery face.

The baby gurgled. It closed and opened its eyes, flailed around and spat its yellow milk spew onto Lady Ventuel’s dress. Lady Ventuel didn’t notice.

“Is he good?” said Lady Ventuel. She raised her eyebrows at Bilale. “He looks so like his father. The same face.”

Nilesh looked carefully away from her mistress as Bilale said, “He does, doesn’t he?”

The baby mewed in Lady Ventuel’s arms. It did the thing it did when it got angry, reared backwards in Lady Ventuel’s arms like a caterpillar. The nurse hurried over, took it back. Whisked it off to be fed.

“He’s a darling,” said Lady Ventuel. “Oh Bil. And he looks so well and healthy.”

“He’s strong for his age already,” Bil said proudly. “Janush our doctor says he is holding his head very early.”

Lady Ventuel noticed the yellow milk spew on her dress then. Nilesh came up discreetly and dabbed at the dress with a silk cloth.

“Is he sleeping well?” Lady Ventuel asked. She swatted Nilesh away. “Oh, never mind that. I’ll get the dress replaced.”

“Janush says he is doing everything well,” said Bilale.

“Can I see his bedroom?”

“Of course.” Bilale, Nilesh knew, was desperate to show it off. The cot was mother-of-pearl and silver, the draperies very pale green silk lace. The walls and ceiling were painted with green and blue and purple flowers; between the flowers there were red jewelled birds with gold beaks. The room faced north and was deliciously cool.

Bilale cried, sometimes, when she was alone with Nilesh, because so few people had come to visit the baby, admire his room and his cot.

Rumours running everywhere: “Lord Emmereth killed Lord Verneth! Lord Emmereth betrayed us to the demon! Opened the palace gates to him! Sold the High Priestess to the Altrersyr for a bag of gold!” No one knew where they came from; Lord Emmereth had saved the city, everyone knew that. And yet. And yet. “Lord Emmereth betrayed us!” It had … a taste to it. The latest stories had the High Priestess Thalia presiding over the feast of Year’s Renewal, sitting on a throne of diamonds, drinking firewine out of a human skull, wearing a dress so revealing she would have been more modestly dressed naked. No one believed them. But everyone believed them. “She’s certainly grasping life outside the Temple with both hands,” Lady Amdelle had said to Bilale. “You’ve got to give her that.”

Lady Ventuel was their first visitor since Lady Amdelle. Bilale’s dear friend, and it had taken her almost a month to gather herself to come. “I’ve been so worried about you, darling,” Lady Ventuel had gushed when she arrived, “it must be so dreadful for you, all this.”

The two ladies went up the stairs, Nilesh following. Lady Ventuel of course was enraptured by the baby’s room, spent ages cooing over the silver rattles, the perfumed sleeping robes, the miniature bathtub of white glass.

“So how are you, Retha?” Bilale asked when they had examined everything in the room. They sat down on a couch together, Bilale sent a girl for wine and cakes. “I haven’t seen you for so long! You look well.”

“Oh, I’m well enough.” The wine was poured, sweet scented over the sweet baby smell of the room. “Things are the same as always.” Neither Bilale nor Nilesh looked directly at Lady Ventuel as she sniffed at her cake carefully before taking a bite. “Delicious.” Her eyes narrowed. Nilesh thought: ah. Lady Ventuel looked like a servant about to ask something, cajole something out of Bilale.

Lady Ventuel said, “Actually, Bil, the real reason I came …”

The nurse came into the room with the baby, fast asleep and delicate as gossamer. It snuffled in its sleep.

“He’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen,” said Lady Ventuel. “You are so lucky, Bil.” Bilale lit up with joy, then, and all her scars seemed to fade.

“Aris is getting annoyed,” said Lady Ventuel. “The ban on travellers from Chathe entering the city … My brother is not pleased. I thought I should tell you. You could talk to Orhan, couldn’t you, Bil?” She cooed at the baby. “Oh, he’s such a darling, Bil. The guards at the gates are even stricter, now, and it’s all Orhan’s doing. You could talk to him.”

“There have been more outbreaks of deeping fever in Chathe,” said Bilale. She too looked at the baby. “Orhan is entirely right to take precautions.”

Lady Ventuel’s face went very sharp. “The Nithque’s refusal to let anyone from Chathe inside the city is costing Aris a fortune. And not just Aris. He’s been talking about it to Cam Tardein. Cam is not happy either. Nor is Holt Amdelle. Orhan said it would be rescinded and instead it’s stricter than before.”

“Whole villages die of deeping fever,” said Bilale, “in Chathe and Allene. It’s costing my own father. But Orhan is right.”

A mild fever, headaches, like being out too long in the sun. That was how Lord Emmereth had described it to Bilale, when she, too, had complained about the ban on travellers from Chathe entering the city, told him it was costing her father too much. The fever passed, the body felt healthy. Then fever again, worse than before. With the fever came vomiting. Bringing up blood. The body inside liquefying. The vital organs pouring out mixed with bile from the mouth. Raging fever. Screaming delirium. Agonizing pain. Final blessed death. It spread like a dust cloud, unstoppable. Then as suddenly it would stop. One in four might survive, if it were a mild outbreak. One in five. One in ten.

“A few people die in Chathe and it’s impossible to get hatha anywhere, and rose oil costs twice what it did, and my brother is losing money.” Lady Ventuel said sweetly, “I would have thought your husband had enough problems to deal with, without annoying people like this as well. My brother is thinking of petitioning the Emperor about it. As is Cam Tardein. People are not pleased. Really, Bil, do you want people to start feeling angry with Orhan about this, as well?”

They had been spat at, Lady Emmereth and Nilesh, coming back from the Great Temple to give thanks for the child, in the beautiful green silk litter that felt like travelling in a cool bower of leaves. Voices shouting “Murderer! Traitor!,” a rattle of grit and pebbles and then a horrible fat lump of phlegm running thickly down the silk, yellow and shiny, making Nilesh’s stomach turn and Lady Emmereth retch.

“It cannot be proved,” Janush would say to Nilesh, over and over. “Lord Emmereth did nothing. It cannot be proved.” It seemed sometimes to Nilesh that this was a strange thing for him to say. Bilale barely left the house now. The beautiful green litter with its silk like trees in morning rainfall had been hacked to pieces and burned.

“People are feeling the cost,” said Lady Ventuel. Her face was fixed with a smile, she took another bite of her cake. “They might start to complain. Blame the Nithque. Ask why he’s doing it. What it is he might be standing to gain.”

The two women stared at each other. Bilale’s scars were very red on her white skin. Nilesh felt herself afraid.

“Your husband has made a lot of enemies recently,” said Lady Ventuel. “I was so sad to hear about what happened to you in the street. You don’t want people to have any further reasons to feel angry, do you? You just need to talk to Orhan …”

Bilale said very weakly, “Retha …”

The baby made a little noise and Lady Ventuel said, “Oh, he’s so adorable. Listen to him!”

“I’ll talk to Orhan,” Bilale said. The baby whimpered and Bilale took it in her arms, held it very tight. “My beautiful beautiful baby boy.”

“Look at his little ears, he’s a darling,” Lady Ventuel said. “I knew you’d help me, darling.” She took another cake. “Thank you.”

There was a knock at the door. Janush came in. He looked very strange. As though there was a weight on him. Crushing him. His face was rigid.

He bent, whispered something in Bilale’s ear.

Bilale gave a cry. Her hand rose to her mouth. Her whole body flinched.

The baby stirred. Lady Ventuel said with concern, “Bil?”

Bilale got to her feet and Nilesh got to her feet also. Stepped forward to her mistress, for it seemed as though Bilale might fall down in a faint on the floor. Bilale said very slowly, “You need to leave, Retha. I … You will need to leave. Please.” She gave the baby back to its nurse, very stiffly, her hands shaking. The baby fretted, began to cry.

“What’s wrong? Bil?” Lady Ventuel also looked afraid. And it was so strange and rare and terrible, to see these great ladies afraid. The look on Bilale’s face reminded Nilesh of the time long ago when she had sat in Bilale’s bedroom, heard a doctor tell Bilale the sickness she was suffering from was blackscab.

Lady Ventuel’s face froze. She gasped. “Oh. Oh Bil. Something has happened to Orhan.”

Bilale said, “It’s nothing,” in such a strange voice Nilesh almost began to weep.

When Lady Ventuel had left them, Bilale did begin to weep. Screamed. Howled. Shook.

“Please, My Lady,” Nilesh begged her. “Please, please, be calm.”

“A messenger has come from Lord Vorley,” said Bilale finally. “The Emperor has summoned Lord Emmereth to attend him. Sent guards to ensure that Lord Emmereth is protected on the way.” She raised her hands to her mouth, tracing out the whorls of scar tissue across her lip. “Has he gone?” she asked Janush.

Janush bowed his head. “Yes, My Lady. Lord Vorley wanted to accompany him, the messenger said, but My Lord refused. He took his guards, but was otherwise alone.”

“Of course he would go alone.” Bilale picked at the scar. “Did he leave a message for me?”

Janush said, “No, My Lady. He did not.”

His death, thought Nilesh. He has gone to his death. To all our deaths.

Bilale’s white scarred hands closed over her stomach, her long gilded nails like worms against her dress. “Your husband has made a lot of enemies recently. But now it comes … Ah, Great Tanis. I should go to my father’s. We had agreed that. Send someone to Lady Amdelle.” She looked over at the baby flailing red and angry in its nurse’s arms. “No one will believe it is not his child.”

He is your husband, thought Nilesh. It won’t matter, whether they believe it’s your child or not. The penalty for high treason: if one of the great families is found to have committed treason against the Empire or the Emperor, they and every member of their household must be burned alive. Janush had talked to Nilesh about it, over and over, on and on. There was no escape. No appeal. No mercy. Janush and Lady Emmereth had watched it done to Lord Rhyl’s family. “They burned the girl who sewed Lord Rhyl’s nightshirts,” Janush had said. “A beggar Lady Rhyl ordered fed.”

“But it might not come to that, My Lady,” Nilesh said. “It might be nothing.”

“Nothing?” Bilale’s hands went back to the scars at her mouth.

“The Emperor … He may only want to talk with Lord Emmereth. Seek his counsel. That is what his post is, after all. Nithque. Counsellor and friend.”

Bilale shook her head. “For weeks, now, we have feared this. Since March Verneth’s death. I told you to send someone to Lady Amdelle!” Bilale shouted. Her voice was harsh: the baby’s cries grew louder, more afraid. The nursemaid cooed at it, raised it to her breast. Bilale watched. Wept.

“Yes. Yes. At once.” Nilesh rang the bell. A young man came in, so quickly he must have been waiting outside the door. Every servant and bondsman would be waiting at doorways, whispering in the corners, sick with fear. Some were perhaps already preparing to run away. The man bowed low, pretty hair bobbing. Nilesh gave him his order. He nodded, wide-eyed, looking around the room. There was fire reflected in his eyes. Seeing all the beautiful draperies and gilded wood torn down and running with flame.

Bilale stared at the baby suckling, rubbed at the patterns of her scars.

“Everything will be all right, My Lady,” said Nilesh dully. “Your beautiful boy … Of course it will be all right.”

“Better he had never been born. My beautiful beautiful baby boy.” She glanced at the window. The sky was beginning to grow dark. Thick, weary yellow light. In the gardens evening flowers were coming open; a gardener went around lighting the lamps. A bad time. Any moment they would hear the toll of the twilight bell. Seserenthelae aus perhalish. But now comes the time when the death things are here.

A knock on the door, they both started in terror. It cannot be fair, Nilesh thought, all I do is attend her, I know nothing about anything beyond the walls of this room. Why should I burn? Why should I die? What have I done? And the baby. So small … My beautiful beautiful beautiful baby boy … The door opened. Lady Amdelle came in. From the speed of her arrival and her face she knew what was happening, had set out before Bilale had sent for her.

“Bil!” Her voice frightened. Her face frightened. Nilesh had never seen her like this, this distant terrifying woman, perfect as gems, impossible to imagine how she lived or thought or went about her daily business, her world so far removed from Nilesh’s life, so far even from Bilale’s. Perfect. But here she was, frightened, looking older, tired, weak, afraid.

The two women embraced.

“You have had no word from him?” asked Lady Amdelle. “But why now? Things seemed calmer. I had heard nothing. Nothing new has been said. Has it?”

Bilale shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. That last absurdity about the false High Priestess … But that was nothing new. More nonsense.”

“Holt is going to see Darath and Elis,” Lady Amdelle said. Holt, thought Nilesh. Lady Amdelle’s husband. Very powerful. Very rich. “Perhaps if we can find some bargain with Cam … If we can offer him enough …”

“You should have got Symdle married off to Zoa before,” said Bilale. “He’d have a stake in it, then.”

“That was Cam’s choice. And it’s obvious why, if he knew any of this. Or started the rumours himself. But it was too late anyway. As soon as March was poisoned, that was ended. We lost.”

“Can Elis not get Leada to try to win over Eloise?”

“How? Eloise told Ameretha she’s going to take Leada back to the House of Silver tonight.”

Nonsense. Babble. A part of Nilesh thought: these are the great ladies of the Sekemleth Empire. The great high powers of the world. My mistress. My Lord Emmereth’s own sister. How can they be powerless? How can they be afraid? A part of Nilesh thought: they sound like birds. Like little pethe birds, chattering away at each other, shiny bright and meaningless. Little pethe birds in cages, beating their little wings.

“Your father has influence with some of the merchant families. They seem to think Orhan has done well enough for the city. They won’t want to see him fall.”

“He’s afraid,” Bilale said hopelessly in response. “Too afraid to act.”

“Then he’ll see you and his grandchild die.”

“He says it will not come to that. He thinks—”

A part of Nilesh thought: how can my mistress’s own father be afraid?

A part of Nilesh thought: stop talking! What do you think any of this will do? Do you think you can talk it away? Order it away? Buy it? Rattle off enough lordly names? If I was you, I would be running for the gates with a bag of gold hidden in my cloak, as some of the servants are doing already. They prattled on like birds in cages and she wanted to scream it at them. Run away! Run away!

There was a commotion in the corridor outside; Lord Emmereth came into the room. His face was haggard. He looked from his wife to his sister to the baby sleeping suckling, seated himself wearily on a couch. Slumped. One of his body servants fussed around him, fetched him a cup of water and a cup of wine. Finally he waved the boy away with a frown. Turned towards Bilale. His eyes fixed on Nilesh standing behind her chair.

“You, too, Nilesh. And the—and my son.” His voice was cracked as his sister’s was. “Doubtless my wife will tell you all, or the guards I took with me. But a man must have some dignity left in his own house. And a child should not hear these things.” He almost smiled at the nursemaid. The baby stirred, angry at being disturbed in its slumber, whimpering, flailing its arms.