"O God," Shimshek wept.
Yilan reached out and caught Shimshek's strong young arm. "I was Hannibal, hear me? And you Hasdrubal my brother; Caesar, and you Antony; I was Germanicus and Arthur and Attila; Charlemagne and William; Saladin and Genghis. I fight; I fight the world's wars, and this one is finished as far as it must go, do you hear me, my son, my brother, my friend? Am I not always the same? Do I ever hold long what I win?"
"Yilan Baba—"
"Do I ever truly win? Or lose? Only you and Gunesh. . . Roxane and Cleopatra; Guenevere and Helen. . . as many shapes as mine and yours; and always you love her." Terror was in Shimshek's eyes, and grief.
"Do you think I care?" Yilan asked. "I love you and her; and in all my lives—it's never mattered. Do you yet understand? No. For you it's love; for Gunesh it's sex. . . strange, is it not? For her it's sex that drives so many in this world, but you've always been moved by love and I—I've no strong interest there—but love, ah, a different kind of love; the love of true friends. I loveyou both, but sex. . . was never there. Listen to me. I'm talking frankly because there's no time. That there'll be a child. . . makes me happy, can you understand that? You've been so careful not to wound me; but I knew before you began. I did, my friend. Whenever you're young, children have happened if there was half a chance. . . and I don't begrudge a one, no, never."
"They haven't lived," Shimshek breathed, as if memory had shot through him. His grief was terrible, and Yilan reached out again and patted his arm.
"But some have lived. Some. That's always our destiny. . . you've begotten more of my heirs than I ever have. Mine are murdered. . . . Perhaps it's that which gives me so little enthusiasm in begetting them. But you've been more fortunate: have hope. Your heirs followed me in Rome. Have more confidence."
"And they brought down the empire, didn't they? I'm unlucky, Baba."
"Don't you yet understand that it doesn't matter?"
"But I can't stop hurting, Baba." He looked at the pipe cupped in his hand, and up again. "I can't."
"That's the way of it, isn't it?"
"Has Gunesh remembered?"
He shook his head. "I've thought so sometimes; and sometimes not. I have. . . for all this year, and more and more of late. That's why I'm sure it's close. That's why I didn't fight any further. I remember other times I remembered, isn't that odd? The conspirators in Rome. . . I knew they were coming long before they knew themselves. I felt that one coming. Modred too. I saw in his eyes. They'll accuse you of adultery this time too, do you reckon? They'll say Gunesh is carrying your child, and they'll demand your death with hers. And Boga of course will expect to lead when we're all dead."
"I'll kill him."
Yilan shook his head. "You can't save me. Save yourselves. It's only good sense. . . Boga has other names too, you know. Agamemnon, Xerxes, Bessus. . . don't sell him short."
"Modred."
"Him too."
"A curse on him!"
"There is. Like ours."
"Baba?"
"He's the dark force. The check on me. Lest I grow too powerful. I might myself be ill for the world, if there were not Boga. He reminds me. . . of what I might be. And often enough he has killed me. That is his function. Only woe to the world when we're apart. Hitler was a case like that. I was half the world away; we both were. He had the power to himself."
"Lawrence."
"That was the name. Bitterest when we two miss each other; hardest the world when Boga and I do. Pity Boga, he has no Patroclus, no Guenevere."
Shimshek smoked a time, and his eyes traveled around the padded interior of the wagon, which was only a wagon, perched on the world-plain, and smoky and deeply shadowed. But there seemed no limits and no walls, as if much of time hinged here.
"Sometimes," said Yilan slowly, "I live my whole life without seeing the pattern of what I do; sometimes. . . there is no design evident, and Boga and I and you and Gunesh. . . live apart and lost; sometimes in little lives and sometimes in great ones; sometimes I've been a baby that died before a year, only marking time til my soul could be elsewhere. Or resting, perhaps, just resting. Some of my deaths are hard."
"I'll go out with you this time. I've no fear of it."
Yilan chuckled and winced, a little twinge of pain in the gut. "Shimshek, you lie; you are afraid."
"Yes."
"And losing Gunesh would break your heart and mine; take care of her."
"Ah, Baba."
"You're the one who loves, you understand. My dear friend, I do think this time you may outlive me. You'll see a measure of revenge if you wait and watch."
"What is revenge if it never ends?"
"Indeed. Indeed, old friend. I'll tell you something I've begun to see. The balance swings. I move men only so far in a lifetime; only so much help to any side. I was Akkadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Kushite, Greek, Macedonian. . . I brought Persia to birth; defended Greece against it at Thermopylae; built an eastern empire as Alexander; and a western one as Hannibal; checked both as Caesar, and drove north and south; was Chinese and Indian and African. . . side against side. We live by balances; there is no revenge, and there is. Point of view, Shimshek." Shimshek only stared.
"Love Gunesh," Yilan said. "Live. I want you out of here before the dawn; slip her into your camp. When I am dead, there will be a bit of noise. Then sound the horn and ride. Probably there'll be great confusion—some attacking the city, some coming this way; you see the old man's still thinking. It's one of my best stratagems."
"No, Baba. I'll not leave you here to be killed."
"Don't be obstinate. You'll only hasten your death. And hers."
"Shall I tell her. . . what you've told me?"
"Is it peace to you, to know what I've told you?"
"No," Shimshek said heavily. "No, Father; no peace— There's no ending, is there?"
"As to that, I don't know. But from the world's dawn to the world's ending. . . we're the same. Unchangeable."
"Boga and you are the great ones," Shimshek said, "Isn't it so. . . that she and I are powerless?"
"Mostly," he said and watched pride vastly hurt. "Only—Shimshek, if it weren't for you—I might beBoga. Think of that. If not for you. . . and for her. Because I love you."
"Baba," Shimshek murmured, and laid down the pipe and put gentle arms about him, kissed his brow.
"Go," he said. "Go now, and when you hear the uproar that will follow when I'm dead. . . ride with Gunesh."
"I will not leave you, Baba. Not to die in your bed."
"Can you not? Do you grudge me a quiet death? Even Boga has chosen that for me this time, and I am tired, young firebrand; the old man is tired."
The curtain drew back. Shimshek reached frantically after his sword, but it was Gunesh.
"How much time must I give you?" she asked.
"Sit," Yilan said, patting the rug beside him, and she sat down there on her heels. "You have some persuasion in you, woman. Move this young man."
"To leave you?"
Yilan nodded grimly, motioned with the bowl of his pipe toward the peripheries of the camp.
"How does it look out there?"
"Like stars," she said. "If the sky could hold so many."
"Like the old sky," he said. "So many, many more than now. Do you ever dream of such stars, Gunesh? I do. And I tell you that you have to go with this mad young man, and not to lose that baby of yours and his. Can you ride, Gunesh?"
She nodded, moist-eyed; he had had enough of tears from Shimshek.
"No nonsense," he said.
"I have dreamed," she said, "that we've said this before."
"Indeed," he said. "Indeed. And shall again. Someday Shimshek will tell you."