The Kelt was initiated on the spot in a brief blood-sharing ceremony with the Aithiopians. Judging by his astonished expression, he was quite impressed. Rhita was less enthusiastic; she was tired, and vaguely wondered why she had to witness all this.

A cot was brought into the corridor and placed near the door of her sleeping chamber. Then the chamberlain gestured to the armorer and the Aithiopians and they left.

“You’re going to be comfortable here?” Rhita asked him, standing in the doorway. He patted the cot with the splayed fingers of one huge hand and shrugged.

“It’s too soft, mistress, but it won’t hurt me.”

“What do you think of all this?” she asked, her voice lower.

The Kelt pondered for a moment, thick dark-blond eyebrows knitted. “Will I go with you, or stay here?”

“You’ll come with me. I hope.”

“That’s okay, then.” He was obviously unwilling to comment further. Rhita closed her door and walked around the room, trying not to feel closed in. The fanciful murals painted above a wainscot did little to add to the room’s size. They depicted crocodile and hippopotamus hunters on Lake Mareotis, and were doubtless very old—perhaps two thousand years. Their sense of perspective was primitive. Rhita suspected she could do better herself, and she had never been a quick study at drawing.

After examining the exquisite furniture—ebony and ivory and highly polished silver and brass—she lay on the feather mattress and stared at the purple silk canopy hanging from the ceiling.

What in hell am I doing?

Teeth clacking together with exhaustion and anxiety, Rhita remembered she had not yet looked at the slate to see if there was a message for her today. She removed the slate from her case and turned on the display.

My dear granddaughter,

If you have met the queen, you know she is a very smart woman, tough and quite capable of holding her own in a troubled Oikoumenē. But she is also a woman who will die shortly—politically, perhaps, before her body dies. The Oikoumenē will soon be run by aristocratic administrators, men for whom politics is a precise and clear-cut science. They already resent her for her intuitions and unpredictable decisions. That is why the gates must be found and examined before she dies or is deposed. She is our last chance. No reasonable politician would allow an expedition such as this. For one thing, no reasonable man would believe in the existence of something like a gate. Kleopatra believes because it gives her a much-needed thrill, a sense of bigger things in a life focused on day-to-day crises. I have disappointed her once, but I think the need is still in her. All the same, do not be arrogant with our queen. Exercise your inborn caution. And beware the lure of the palace. It is a dangerous place. Kleopatra lives there as a scorpion among snakes.