OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS Xena insisted on patrolling, which surprised Suleiman; generally she stayed close to Nebula and attended to matters of policy. "What about the baby?" the Guard asked.

Xena snorted. "It'll be hard, but I'll force myself to walk carrying the baby."

Sumerian women often returned to their jobs in the fields or shops the day after giving birth, their brand new infants swaddled close to their bodies. Suleiman laughed. "I am sorry," he said.

"You should be." Xena gave him a mock-serious glare before taking up Eve's carry-sack and hanging it from her shoulders, and starting out on her rounds.

Xena needed to know for herself, first-hand, what people were really thinking. Gossip was key in a situation like this. If anyone was planning anything, rumors would be flying. And despite her status as one of the Queen's personal Guard, the nobles still treated her with the disdain due to a female and an outsider. They wouldn't bother to hide their talk from her, the way they would from Suleiman.

She moved along the palace halls, visited the hanging gardens, the baths, the gaming-rooms, all the places where people congregated. She joined the conversations she could, eavesdropped on the ones she couldn't, and sought out chambermaids and bath attendants for their opinion. The palace was awash in talk, mostly speculation of how seriously Nebula would punish Hassim. Some thought she would go easy on him, since he was a member of her House. Some thought she would lock him up permanently. "That slave, you know," one noblewoman confided to Xena. "That softskinned one, the one Hassim brought back from Egypt. This is all because Nebula wanted it for herself, you know."

"Really."

"Which is silly, because if she asked Hassim he'd have to give it to her. That's the way things are done. Not like this." The woman allowed herself a shiver of scandalized delight. "Overkill. But delightful, don't you think?"

The woman's reaction was much like many people's. They were assuming Joxer was taking a central role in the situation, and that wasn't good at all. Xena would have to take him aside and give him a good talking-to... later. Good gods, the man was trouble. All he needed to do was show up somewhere and things instantly started falling apart. She was fond of Joxer and loved him dearly, but she really wished this time he'd stayed away. It would have been better for all of them. Especially Joxer himself. She thought of Hassim, and her hand twitched on the chakram.

"Mwah," said Eve, reproachfully.

"I know. I'm all right." Xena knew somehow, in her gut, that Eve understood just about everything that went on around her. She'd find out once her daughter learned to speak--and Xena wasn't sure if she was looking forward to that or not. "I'm perfectly calm," she told Eve.

"Goo."

"Yes, angry, but calm. That's something Gabrielle still has to learn."

"Along with the art of talking to herself?"

The trilling voice dripped with honey and poison in equal measure. Xena stopped and turned around. "Nyosa," she said coldly.

"Xena. Are you lacking for conversational partners lately? Maybe I can help."

"Why aren't you with Hassim?"

"Oh." Nyosa waved dismissively, the silver bangles on her wrists clinking. She wore a wrap woven in a complex spattering pattern of red and brown and black, as though fresh and dried blood had been sprayed across the cloth, and she had a string of rubies worked through her thick hair. "Hassim is no fun right now. Always complaining about jail. Perhaps when he is out he will become interesting again."

"Or Khalil?"

Nyosa laughed. "Xena, I have many, many friends. Khalil does not understand this and he becomes most tiresome on the subject. But surely you are a woman, and you understand." Her gaze flicked to Eve. "After all, you bear the evidence that you think the same."

Xena almost laughed in Nyosa's face at the transparent ploy, but outwardly remained calm and unaffected. That would aggravate Nyosa more, and perhaps induce her to become careless. "And what do your many friends think about what Nebula's doing?"

"My many friends think Nebula has very poor taste." Nyosa smoothed the cloth across her hips. "Many things are forgivable in a monarch, but poor taste is not one of them."

"I see."

"Well, I must go now and attend to something interesting instead of this. I am sorry you could not get me to give you the information you seek, Xena. Let it come as a surprise instead. I love surprises, don't you?" She laughed again, and sashayed away down the hall.

More games. Xena watched her go, arms folded. Everyone here was playing games, but Nyosa's were the most dangerous. One, she was looking out only for herself... "and two," Xena said aloud, "she's trying to annoy me. That is a very bad move."

"Cooo," Eve agreed.

But whether Nyosa was a danger, or only an annoyance, was not yet clear. So many things unclear. Xena hated that. What she liked was open conflict. At least then you could pick a side, and wade in swinging. She shook her head, and headed for Nebula's chambers.

And found the trouble she was looking for. Khalil was there, and she could hear his voice before she opened the door. "Sister, think of what you are doing!"

"The subject is closed, Khalil," Nebula said.

Xena eased the door open. Nebula sat in her elevated chair, her face stern. Joxer was in the room, standing a little behind her, his stance uneasy. He was the only one who noticed Xena enter the room, and for some reason looked down and away from her once he had. Khalil was pacing back and forth, clearly distressed, and took no notice of Xena. "Sister," he started again. His tone was agonized, not commanding.

"Khalil, this isn't about family. It's about the law."

"It is about family. You're bringing shame upon the House."

"Hassim's the one who brought shame upon the House," Nebula said coldly. "He openly defied the monarch--or doesn't that count as shameful, if the monarch is only a woman?" Khalil didn't answer this, almost as if he agreed with the rebuke, and Nebula went on. "I gave him a chance, which is more than I should have. He could have stayed in the provinces and never had to face his punishment, but he chose to challenge me on my own ground--and he will not win. No one will ever win doing that, do you understand, Khalil?"

Instead of answering, Khalil turned his back on her for a moment, drawing a breath-- and when he turned around again he was wearing the familiar disdainful expression, and his voice was once again calm. "Sister, I am only looking out for your best interests."

"I'm sure you are," Nebula said dryly.

"I would hate to see the House of the Lion brought low by the..." He stared directly at Joxer for a long moment.... "influence..." Again a pointed pause. "Of outsiders."

"My business. As it always has been. Royal privilege."

"Privilege, yes," said Khalil, his lip curling as if he smelled something foul, "a fine tradition unfortunately, for the monarch to seize someone else's toy and play a fool for a few moments'--"

"Enough," Xena said sharply. "Khalil, this audience is over."

Khalil looked at her balefully. "The audience is not over until the Queen says it is. Unless you are running the country now, outlander?"

"Khalil," Nebula said, "the audience is over. Be a good little weasel and run along now. You've had your fun."

Xena saw the look on Joxer's face and decided that Khalil'd had too much fun. She took the prince by the elbow and escorted him to the door. He shook free with a disdainful shiver, but when he stepped out into the hall Xena stepped out behind him.

Khalil sighed to signal how very put-upon he was, and turned to face her. The man had guts, Xena thought. And he was about thirty seconds from having them spattered all over the hall. "And what do you want?" he asked.

"I want to make sure you understand who's in charge around here."

"You?" There was challenge in his voice, and the time left to him decreased to twenty seconds.

"Nebula will be very annoyed if anyone was to make a scene at the trial. My job is to make sure Nebula doesn't get annoyed."

He snorted. "Nebula should have thought of that before she started this nonsense. It is a shame that she insists on pushing this so far--especially over something as insignificant as her new pet."

That did it. Xena gave him The Look and waited until she was sure she had his attention. "That man is a friend of mine," she said slowly and clearly. "Hassim threw him in chains and had him starved, beaten, and abused. He should thank whatever gods he fears that Nebula is punishing him, because if she wasn't, then I would be. Do you understand this?"

Khalil flicked his gaze away, acknowledging submission, but his voice remained steady. "I care nothing what happens to Hassim," he said. "One less competitor for the throne, and one less amusement for Nyosa to distract herself with. What I care about is being on the winning side. Do you understand that, Xena?" He smiled, that unsettling smile that looked so like Nebula's, and walked away.

Xena watched him go. One less immediate problem to deal with. But the others... She opened the door again, and the chief among those problems pushed his way past her. "I gotta go, Xena," Joxer mumbled. He paused to tap Eve lightly on the nose. She laughed and grabbed his finger, but he pulled it away. "Gotta go," he repeated, and walked quickly away down the hall.

"Mwah," said Eve, disappointed.

Xena sighed. "I know."

-----

That evening Nebula asked Joxer to stay the night again. "I'm tense," she said. "I need a diversion." He was more than agreeable to this. He needed a diversion himself.

He lay here now, satiated and satisfied, his mind pleasantly empty and drifting. These were the rare times he could get outside himself and not have to think. Nebula was warm and easygoing and didn't ask him to face things he didn't want to face, didn't know what he used to be and how far he had fallen. All she wanted was a friend and a little fun. He understood entirely.

She lay on his chest, one arm thrown across him like a lioness guarding a kill. Raising her head, she nuzzled sleepily at his throat, a few quick licks that made him shiver. "You're salty," she said. "Is that a Greek guy thing?"

"I wouldn't know. I've never tasted a Greek guy."

"Oh?" Her eyes glinted wickedly. "So what kind of guys have you tasted?"

"Very funny." He wasn't into guys at all, and the subject threatened to bring up exactly the kind of thoughts he was avoiding. Quickly he tapped her lips with his fingers to distract her. She trapped them in her mouth and sucked hard, ending the tease with a small bite. He pulled his hand away and made a great show of holding it up before his face, checking that all the fingers were intact. "You're a nice guy, Joxer," Nebula said for no apparent reason. She waited a carefully timed minute, and then added, "Which makes it even more puzzling why Xena puts up with you."

"I have many skills." He flipped her off of his chest with a mock growl and pounced on her.

"Well, two, at least. What's surprising is that she let you keep them."

Ooh. Impertinent woman. He held her trapped beneath him while he started covering her bared throat with tiny, annoyingly teasing kisses. She laughed and stretched herself beneath him--and then something happened. He didn't know what it was, but he could sense all of a sudden her heart was no longer in the game. Very well. He gave her a final kiss on the lips and eased off to the side, leaving her lying on her back looking at the ceiling. She was smiling, but her sigh was heavy. "One more day," she said. "One more day and it'll all be over. Then we can start again with something else."

"It won't take long. That's something."

"It'll take forever for all of them to sit down and shut up, though."

It would. On any day in court the various members of the Houses wasted hours of time squabbling over where they would be seated in the hall and who outranked who and to what degree, and at this session there would certainly be more of them than ever before. "Okay. The speech part won't take long."

"No, it won't. And then I'll get up and leave, in order to show I have no interest in discussing the matter. The Guard will follow me and close the door. And you'll be there, too, of course."

"In the gallery," Joxer said. It wouldn't do for him, with no official position at Court, to be standing with the Queen on such an important matter. Only her personal Guard was allowed on the dais, Suleiman and Xena and...Gabrielle.

Nebula touched his face, a surprising tender gesture from her. "You can be there, if you want. It's about you."

"And about all the other guys on the ship, the ones Hassim sold or..." Or who never made it to Sumeria, the ones who were maybe dolphins now, jumping and happy out at sea. He hoped so.

Nebula sighed, and stroked his cheek again. "You're right. It's about the law. It just gets more important when it's someone you know."

"What do you think the Court will do?"

"I don't think they'll do anything. Not at the trial. It'll be afterwards, when they go off and yap among themselves about it, when any trouble will start." She sighed. "Oh, well. The problems of power."

"Why are you Queen?"

"What?"

He hadn't meant to ask the question. It had just popped out. "Why are you Queen? You don't seem to like it much. Why did you take the throne, and not let Khalil or Hassim or someone have it instead? Why didn't you stay a pirate? You're always talking about how much better it was for you back then."

Nebula looked at the ceiling, her expression thoughtful. Finally she said, "It was because I was a pirate that I decided I had to take the throne."

Joxer curled against her and waited for her to elaborate. After a moment she went on. "See, if Khalil or Hassim or even someone from the Leopard or the Bull House had taken the throne, it would have been business as usual. You grow up in a royal House, you learn the world is a certain way. You rule because you were born to rule, and every House below you has to submit to you, and anyone who's not in a House doesn't count at all. You become someone like Hassim or Nyosa, who treats human beings the same way they might pull the wings off of flies and laugh at their pain. But when I left, I found that there were thousands of people in Sumeria outside the Houses, people with ambitions and hopes and dreams, people who wanted to be free to do what they wanted to do instead of living out their lives under the pressure of some royal whim or another. I suppose that sounds silly to you, but it had never occurred to me. It was just the way I was brought up."

"It's not silly," Joxer said softly. "My family taught me a lot of things about the way people are that I later found out were wrong. Some things you have to learn for yourself."

"I suppose I did." She half-smiled, no longer with him, off in her memories somewhere. "I learned about people, and in order to work my way up to captain of my own ship, I learned how to lead. I would never have come back and tried to take the throne, but when it became my turn to ascend I felt...I felt almost as if I'd learned all those things for a reason, that the gods meant for me to have learned them so I could come back and teach them to the Houses, and make Sumeria a better place." She laughed. "Now I know that sounds silly."

He shrugged. "Who can tell with gods?"

"Who can?" she agreed. "We're lucky here; our gods generally leave us alone, and we leave them alone."

"Way lucky." And way lucky for Xena and Gab that they had found their way here. He thought of Eve, growing up like the highly-valued Sumerian children, running freely about the streets and treated kindly by every adult they met. "It's not such a bad place here, not at all."

"And it'll be better once this slavery thing is put to rest once and for all. My life's work." She spoke it lightly, but he knew her well enough now to hear the seriousness underlying the tone. She meant what she said.

He kissed her lightly on the cheek. "I can't think of anything better."