It was late. Shadow had started to shroud the halls and courtyards of the palace by the time Arbasdos’s escort handed him over to the palace guard. There was a short exchange, out of earshot, and then four men assembled around him and off they went again. He had to quicken his step to keep up with his new escort, his heavy limp ringing out of kilter with the brisk tramp of their hobnailed sandals. These new guards knew where they were headed; it seemed to him that they led him away from the larger halls of the palace towards a quieter wing on the southern extremity of the complex of buildings, passing servants in a hurry to get the oil-lamps lit along the corridors and around the porticos and terraces overlooking the palace gardens. At last, and abruptly, they came to a halt in front of a heavy door of black ebony strengthened with brass studs.

The captain of the patrol banged a leather-grieved fist against the door and, without waiting for an answer, turned the latch and pushed it open.

‘In here,’ he said curtly and stood aside.

Uncertainly, Erlan passed him. The guard pulled the door shut behind him and he listened to their synchronised steps march away into silence.

He stood perfectly still. The room was tastefully appointed, easily large enough to take the few pieces of furniture placed about it. He noticed a doorway into another room which was cast in shadow, and opposite him an opening onto a balcony, through which he could see the sea wall of the city and beyond that the Bosporus.

Why would he be released from Arbasdos’s black hole into this empty set of rooms? Was he still a prisoner? If so, he infinitely preferred these new quarters.

There was a movement in the corner of his eye. He turned as a figure appeared out of the shadow and stopped in the darkened doorway.

Seeing it, he felt a strange fissure crack open in his chest. He was still dreaming, surely. This was some cruel mockery brewed in his befuddled brain. All of it – the pleasant scent filling the room, the dusky glow off the Bosporus, this slender form he knew so well, stepping gracefully into the dim light of the chamber – must be a lie. ‘You,’ he whispered.

‘Yes,’ she replied softly. It was her voice, and the shock of it struck him like a whip. Her face looked thinner than he remembered. It wore on it, he realized, the mark of suffering, her high cheekbones sharp as arrow-tips, the full curves of her lips a little drawn, the restless swirl of those dark ocean eyes calmer now but brighter, almost feverish. Yet she was still astonishingly beautiful.

‘I dreamed of you,’ he said.

Her lips pressed tighter, not quite a smile. ‘And I, you.’

‘I. . . I have a hundred questions. A thousand—’

‘Later,’ she murmured.