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garden window. Mohammed sat easily, though his heart was still greatly troubled, and waited. The other woman, Taiya, was the youngest surviving daughter of old Khuwaylid and—when he was alive—his favorite. She sat stiffly, looking at the window, fingers picking at the rich brocade of her skirts. Hala glanced at her sister and then turned back to Mohammed, her small hands folded in her lap. Mohammed summoned a smile for her, but he was sure that it seemed false.
    "Brother, we feared that something had befallen you when you did not return with the caravan from Damascus."
    "Something did," grated Mohammed, suddenly assailed by a stabbing sensation of guilt at the quiet words. "There has been a great war in the North, between Persia and Rome. The Persian armies under the command of their great general, Shahr-Baraz, attempted to capture Damascus. I became involved, and my return was greatly delayed."
    "Involved?" Taiya's voice was quiet, but the anger in her voice was as bitter as spike-leaf tea. "With who ? What was her name? Neither Rome nor Persia is any friend of the Quraysh. What is the business of our house to meddle in their affairs?"
    Mohammed turned a little in the chair, facing Taiya squarely. "I met a man whom I would call my brother, if he were alive today. A true friend, for all that we met in a caravanserai in the foreigners' district of the Red City. He was driven to go north, to Damascus, and then to the City of Silk, Palmyra, and I followed him, for he needed my aid. How could I deny the brother of my heart?"
    "You were gone too long," Hala said, her voice rising a little.
    Mohammed nodded, still meeting her eyes. Tears threatened them, for Hala had loved her sister very much. Taiya, too, was on the verge of tears, but would fight to the end to keep this poor cousin from seeing them. "I know. There was a great battle at Palmyra, and we were besieged for many months. Flight was impossible. I barely escaped with my life."
    Taiya suddenly stood up and paced across to the door and threw it open. She looked out into the passageway, saw nothing, and then slammed it closed again. "All the time she lay sick, Khadijah could think only of you," Taiya snapped as she returned to the window. "When she could no longer see, and the fever had settled into her bones, all she asked for was news of you— you , the wanderer! The husband who is never in his own house—who spent his brief time at home mewed up in a cave, sharing porridge with beggars and thieves!"
    Hala stood and tried to take her sister by the arm. Taiya slapped her hand away, her voice rising still further. "You left her alone and she died! She trusted you when she trusted no one else—and you abandoned her! All she needed to live was your face, or your voice, and you denied her even this! At the end, she thought you had perished in the wasteland and then she died, sure that you would never come."
    Mohammed stood, his face tremendously calm. Taiya flinched and shrank back from him, but he did not raise a hand. Instead, he pushed the chair away and knelt on the stone floor and bowed to the two sisters, placing his head on the woven sisal mat that lay across the center of the room. "I am sorry," he said. "Had I known, I would have done anything to be here."
    He stood, and Hala stepped to his side, her hand smoothing his tunic, which had turned awry. Taiya just stared, her face a white mask behind the kohl around her eyes and the golden rings hanging from her ears.
    "I know," Hala said, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, making long marks in the powder on her face. "It was an evil circumstance."
    Mohammed's left eyelid flickered under the scar, and his face became a degree paler. "No... there is true evil in the world, but it is not circumstance. Do not say that this was evil; I have seen its face, and it did not pass this way."
    "Evil?" Taiya whispered incredulously. "You know so much of evil that you can see it, touch it, feel it, declare its worth?