Play The Marriage Treaty

The road climbs out of the heat of the plain between two rows of cypresses, and at the top is Sarvestan. It's whitewashed brick around a great arched doorway faced in blue tile, with forty broad steps running down to a pool as long as a village street. The whole court is standing along the water in coloured silks, two hundred people at least. Nobody is talking. Halfway up the steps two people are waiting in red, a little apart. One is a tall man with a close black beard and a scar through one eyebrow. The other is a small woman with dozens of thin braids threaded with gold, fanning herself with a folded letter. Which one is it, then? Hryhoriy says behind you in your own language, not nearly quietly enough. Nobody has told you, and the treaty only says a child of the Shah. The tall man comes down first. He walks past the waiting grooms and takes your horse's bridle himself. A murmur runs the length of the pool. The woman follows him down and holds up a silver cup of water with rose petals floating in it. Drink, you've come a long way, she says in your language, with a farm-wife's accent from somewhere far north of Turiv. I'm Roshanak. That's my brother Bahram. Mind the second step when you get down, it's loose, and if you trip they'll all say it's an omen.