The Shah had fed her daughter with passion, while starving her for love; so her bones became weak and brittle. The Zoroastrian was right. If not a fall from a horse, one day a single snap of a finger would have crumbled them.

For some women love resided and was nurtured in their heart; for Gold Dust it lived in her marrow and had not been fed properly. Rebekah understood. That need had been her companion all her life.

Years ago, when she had launched Gold Dust into the world, she had never imagined a day when she would ride to the pit to beg a petty acrobat to save her daughter. What would she tell him? “My daughter is dying from lack of love. It’s my fault. I taught her to be ambitious, but forgot to pluck all emotions out of her bones. Now her bones broke and her feelings spilled out.”

Rebekah did not knock on Soleiman’s door. Today she did not have patience for such formalities. She walked straight into his dark hole.

Soleiman the Agile opened his eyes, resenting the intrusion into his light sleep. But he did not spring up and clutch the sword, bouncing into a fit of acrobatic outbursts, as he had done on Rebekah’s first visit.

Rebekah caught her breath. He had changed. He was heavier. His body had lost its attractive suppleness. “Soleiman, what have you done to yourself now that I need you?”

He raised himself, recognizing Rebekah the Bundle Woman. Curse her. How dare she question his health? “What did you expect? I spent an eternity waiting. Unused muscles decay.”

“Bless your heart, sweetlove. You and my daughter suffer from the same disease, only hers is in the bones.” She saw a cloud pass over his face. At the thought that he still wanted Gold Dust, fresh hope filled her and she purred, “I’ve the remedy for your muscles, but you must promise me one thing.”

He folded his bedding and piled it away in a corner. He would not allow this woman to deceive him again. Was it not enough that he had rubbed his face raw with dyes only to be stared at as if he were a clown?

Rebekah’s gaze glided over his body. Despite the softness around his waist, she was certain youth and a strong incentive would restore his firmness. “Promise me, sweetlove.”

Pale sparks darted from his eyes. “I trusted you once. That was enough.”

She understood. She, too, had once trusted a respected merchant, offering with sincerity her daughter’s hand, forgetting she had been repeatedly rejected by all the forces that once mattered: by her mother, by her husband, by God himself. “Soleiman, please accept my apologies and don’t blame my daughter. I’m to blame.”

He remembered rumors his acrobats had brought him after the army had returned from war. The favorite was not well. She could not stop crying. She had contracted the plague. He never knew what to believe. “Is your daughter sick?” he mumbled.