SOMETIMES JOXER THOUGHT that he was mistaken about everything. He must not really be here, because it was too unbelievable. He must really be back on the ship, in chains, passing out at the oars or crouched in the corner of Hassim's cabin where they kept him sometimes, and all this a fevered dream. Or maybe none of it had happened at all, maybe the dream came from farther back. Maybe he was still dying from Apollo's poison under that pine tree, or had fallen into a drift on his way to Rome and was freezing to death by the side of the road. Maybe--

Then he would catch himself, find those things in his head, and chase them away. How could you ever be sure of anything, if you started thinking like that? And if he was imagining the whole thing, well, the more power to him. Because never in his life, and he'd spent the whole thing it seemed imagining something better, had he ever conceived of anything as wonderful and marvelous as this.

He had been fucking Nebula to forget, and it had worked. He made love to Gabrielle and he remembered, remembered all of it--and watched it lose its power to hurt him. It dissolved and wafted away before his eyes, and he was left only with her. Safe with her. Safe! He didn't know about safe, maybe never had known, but this, this was it. Safe. He curled against her when he slept, even in dreams still conscious of the warmth of her body and her presence. Safe. Love.

He knew better, of course, than to use the l-word. Gabrielle wouldn't like that, and she might back off if she thought he was getting too involved. It was too late for that, of course. He'd been too involved for years, maybe since the moment he'd met her. But he wanted to please her, and if it pleased her for him not to speak of love then he would not. It was a small price to pay for having her body and her mind and her spirit so entwined with his. So what if it did not include her heart?

His life was as close to perfect as it could be. His life. He'd never thought he could amount to anything, and yet here he was. A hero to a Queen and a country, acclaimed wherever he went. A man with a position, a respectable position, someone people looked up to. A family, for Xena seemed quite pleased with the way he made Gabrielle happy and though she still wouldn't talk to him much, she was no longer giving him those strange looks he feared so much. Long warm balmy Sumerian days filled with fascinating debates and speeches. Evenings with good food and good company, playing with Eve while talking politics with Nebula and Suleiman and Xena, or walking in the gardens, or on the parapets while the sun went down and it seemed all of Sumeria glowed red and violet, so beautiful it hurt to look at it. And the nights. Oh, gods, the nights. Gabrielle's body, soft and hard by turns, the look of her and the feel and the smell and the taste, underneath him, engulfing him, his entire being concentrating into his hips and belly and cock until he thought he would shrink into a single point and lose himself in her forever. And her lips, and her hands, her soft voice that could say such words during and after! after! this was something different, something new and perfect, to be so happy just lying beside her and watching her sleep, drifting off himself to the sound of her snores. She had a lovely snore, Gabrielle.

And all this from a single moment when a curtain had parted. Sometimes he thought of it, and shivered. If he hadn't noticed...if he hadn't spoken in time...if he hadn't caught Khalil...

But he had. He'd stopped it, and everyone was fine. Okay, everyone except Khalil. He didn't want to think about Khalil so he put him into the dark place in his mind. There was a lot of room in there now because most of the dark things had faded into nothingness under Gabrielle's touch. But still they were building that... thing out in the plaza, and still...Khalil.

"It'll all be over in a couple of days," Nebula said. Her face looked haunted, and he didn't think she'd been sleeping much. "Well, I don't have to worry any more about fighting with the rest of my House. There is no the rest of my House any more."

The Lion House had been totally disgraced. Apparently it was fine to undercut the reigning monarch, to gather opposition against her and smear her name, but to physically attack her violated every taboo of Sumerian society. Why had Khalil done it? Joxer toyed with a spoon, unable to let the thought go. Khalil was afraid of being ashamed in front of everybody, just like Joxer was. So why had he done something that he knew would bring this onto himself? It didn't make any sense.

Nebula had invited them all, him, Xena, Gabrielle, Suleiman, and of course Eve to a private dinner, probably to take her mind off the formal sentencing in Court tomorrow. Gabrielle had bowed out, pleading exhaustion; Joxer couldn't blame her. Nebula was on the go all day, keeping busy, taking advantage of the cooperativeness of the Court to push through as many rulings and laws as she could. Nothing big, nothing that would provoke a showdown, but bit by bit her power was growing and her agenda was moving into place, and all without the Court really being aware of what they were agreeing to. They were gonna be way surprised one day when they finally realized what had happened, Joxer thought, and hoped he'd be there to see it. But poor Gab had to stick to Nebula like glue through all this, and she slept like a log through the night. Well, afterwards, anyway.

Xena poured a glass of palm wine. "That's not entirely a bad thing. They were your major opposition, after all. If they're not going to raise any objections tomorrow, and if the execution proceeds as planned without any immediate repercussions, I really think you'll have pulled it off. We should be able to relax security then, and get on with our lives."

"It will consolidate your power," Suleiman said. "Those few still left who claim a woman has not the strength of will to rule are falling silent in the face of this."

But Nebula still didn't like it. Joxer could see it in her eyes, and he wished he could offer her at least his hand for support, but it would be awkward and he held back. Poor Nebula. Maybe he would talk to Gab and see if they could figure out a way to get Morrigan over for a visit like he'd thought before. That would cheer her up.

Right now, though, she was looking at her food and not at the people around her, which was unusual for her. "What do the ritual laws say? How long do I have to be at the actual execution?"

"You only have to pronounce sentence. Then you turn your back and walk away. It's symbolic, Gab says." Joxer knew he was talking too fast but he wanted to fill up those sad empty spaces in the conversation as well as he could. "The priests cast the anathema, and then the executioner actually... uh, does it." Suleiman was acting as executioner. Joxer didn't envy him at all. "And there should be one representative from each House present, for the anathema."

"And unofficially security in the crowd," Xena said. She reached out and punched Joxer on the shoulder. "And, I should think, the hero of the day."

"Ow." Joxer rubbed his shoulder. "Who, me? I'm not--" Too late he remembered it was Xena he was talking to and quickly shut up.

Xena gazed levelly at him. "That's right," she said. "You wouldn't want to be there, would you?" Then, amazingly, her eyes crinkled at the corners into a smile. A real smile, the kind he only ever saw her use on Gabrielle. "You're a good man, Joxer."

"I am?"

"Yeah. You did a good job with this one."

Joxer couldn't breathe for a moment. Xena thought he did a good job. She said so, in public, in front of Suleiman and Nebula.

Wow.

But still...Khalil.

"The sentencing tomorrow should go fine," Nebula said. She looked tired, more than tired, old. "I've never seen the Court so aligned on anything before. I want that done as quickly and efficiently as possible. No other business. Khalil is brought in, I pronounce sentence, he's taken out, and I leave." She pushed away the stew. "Give them blood," she said, almost to herself. "Give them blood, and they're happy."

"Bread and circuses," Xena said, and her face was dark.

The formal sentencing was like a dream, one of those foul dreams where you knew something horrible was about to happen and yet try as you might you couldn't wake yourself up in time to avoid it. Khalil marched up the aisle between the escorting Guards and the crowd shrank away from him as he passed, as if they could be contaminated by the regicide's touch. Joxer didn't watch the crowd, although he should have. He watched Khalil, watched how Khalil walked with head up and spine straight, ignoring the roar of the crowd that now broke over him in waves, again and again. Joxer didn't know how the prince could do it. Must be a prince thing, for Joxer would never have been able to do such a thing himself, in the face of such shame.

Nebula held her hand up in the ritual gesture for silence, and when she did not get it looked slowly across the room, caught every eye and stared them all down. Xena herself couldn't have done better. When all had fallen silent under her unspoken command, she spoke in that deep, solemn tone. "We are here to pass censure on Khalil for disobeying Our will and flouting Our law." Khalil. No longer Khalil of the House of the Lion, but Khalil of no name, like a commoner, like a slave. Joxer winced in sympathetic pain at the humiliation. "Is there any who would object?"

No one made a sound and yet Joxer sensed a rustling in the room, like dogs waiting outside the slaughterhouse for the kill. Nebula looked down at her brother and her face betrayed nothing. "Khalil, do you have that to say or show which will prove your innocence in this matter?"

Khalil looked her levelly in the eye. When he spoke it was the same royal tone as hers. "I am innocent in this matter of which I am accused. Never would I raise my hand against the sacred person of the monarch, and never would I raise my hand against my own sister. You know this to be true." The crowd stirred at this--the insolence, of a man being sentenced to talk back to the Queen--and Khalil waited before continuing. "Nevertheless, as you are my Queen, I shall accept your judgment and whatever punishment you deem fit."

Joxer saw Xena, sitting on the other side of the dais, frown slightly at this, but Nebula's face never changed.

"Khalil," she said, "You have disobeyed Our will and flouted Our law. Moreover, you have made an attempt on the life of your own monarch, an unnatural act that blasphemes the gods themselves. For this We pronounce you traitor to the throne, and for this We sentence you to a traitor's fate. At the second sunrise from this time, you will be put to death in the plaza in front of all to see, and your body given over to the birds and beasts to pick clean. This We say as Queen, and so it shall be done."

Khalil inclined his head slightly, in a bow that had no mockery in it. The Guards took him, turned him around, and marched him back out down the long aisle, before every member of the Court, and through the great carved doors once more. When the doors had closed behind them, Nebula said, "This Court is now at an end." She turned around and walked through her own set of doors, and that was that.

Shame. Joxer knew about shame. And despite everything, despite what Khalil had tried to do, Joxer still felt an unwilling sympathy for him. Shamed in front of his friends by Nebula's arrest of Hassim, shamed in front of Court by Nyosa's spurning him for his cousin, shamed in front of his family for his attack on his sister, the family shamed, the entire House shamed. It made Joxer's gut twist in unwilling sympathy, and some small voice in the back of his head said wouldn't it have been better, overall, if Khalil had been killed in the fall, as Joxer had feared at first? He'd killed him either way, hadn't he? And that would have been quicker, to go during the fight, not as much shame...Joxer pushed the voice away, but for some reason couldn't stop going over the fight in his mind. If he'd been too slow to keep Khalil from getting to the passageway; if he'd slipped as he usually did and let Khalil wriggle free; if he'd been knocked out when he was wrestling with him and not had to panic when Khalil went for his dagger and...

Joxer felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. He ran over the memory again, hoping against hope he was wrong, had everything out of order, had his memories scrambled from the bump he'd gotten, but no matter how many times he looked at it, he saw the same thing. Khalil had been on top of him, trying to get at his dagger. The dagger he'd just thrown at Nebula. Not even Joxer, absentminded as he was, could forget something like having thrown a dagger at his own sister five minutes previously. So how could Khalil? Unless...

Unless Khalil hadn't thrown the dagger after all.

For a second Joxer's mind blanked out. He wanted to run to Xena and tell her everything so she could tell him he was wrong, but he knew he wasn't wrong, and gods, what would Xena think of him when she found out?! He remembered Khalil's face, his anger, his outrage. It all fit, Khalil had seen the attempt and was out in the hall looking for the person who did it. He may even have thought it was Joxer himself. It all made sense where none of it had made sense before. Except for one thing. Khalil was going to die for the attempt on Nebula's life.

And Joxer had condemned an innocent man.