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Varus—”
    Bhiku looked Varus in the face. His own brown eyes were bright and alert.
    â€œâ€”I am in a small way a magician also, a very small way compared to you. But I see you for what you are, as surely as I could see a burning village if I were standing beside it.”
    â€œI, ah…,” Varus said. Memories stirred in his mind, demons and monsters and perhaps gods whom someone had seen and things that someone had done. The person seeing had been Gaius Alphenus Varus, and the person working the terrible magic had been that Gaius Varus also … but—
    â€œThat wasn’t me!” Varus said, snarling at himself rather than at the little man before him. Bhiku gave no sign of having heard, save by an almost invisible twitch of his right eye.
    â€œI’m sorry, Master Bhiku,” Varus said. “I think of myself as a scholar, a philosopher if you will. Things have happened in my presence that I could not explain better than as manifestations of magic, but I have no conscious power over such things. I don’t, I certainly do not, hold myself out as a magician.”
    For the most part, the members of the Indian delegation were ignoring Bhiku and Varus. The three richly dressed Indians looked profoundly bored. They stood apart from their own subordinates as well as from the half-dozen members of Sentius’ household under the direction of an understeward.
    The exception was the woman, who watched Varus intently. Her skin was as dark as aged oak and contrasted sharply with her white garment. She had no wrinkles or visible blemishes.
    Varus started to break eye contact with the strange woman, but he caught himself before his muscles obeyed the thought. I am a citizen of Carce, he thought. Why should I allow myself to be cowed by a stranger while standing in the ancient lands of my people?
    â€œWho is the woman, Master Bhiku?” he asked without turning his head. After a moment she walked toward the pair of gardeners, putting her back to Varus.
    â€œOur lords’ lord, Govinda,” said Bhiku, “is not a trustful man. He is a great magician as well as the greatest of kings, but his duties prevent him from making the long sea voyage that was required to come here for the first time. Rather than send a magician to carry out the rites he wishes, he sent two of us.”
    Varus felt his face stiffen. “What rites would those be, Master Bhiku?” he said.
    â€œGovinda wishes the god Bacchus to be summoned to this place,” the old man said agreeably. “You might think that priests rather than magicians would be the proper parties to carry out the rites, but this is not the judgment of my master’s master.”
    Varus grimaced. “I see,” he said. “I don’t set much store by religious rites myself.”
    â€œIn that,” Bhiku said, “you and I are of the same opinion as Govinda.”
    The old man coughed, then continued, “He sent myself and Rupa, whom you asked about, to carry out the rite and to open a passage through the Otherworld by which we and our colleagues will return. Rupa is a member of the household of Ramsa Lal, a rajah subject to Govinda, but Ramsa Lal and Raguram, my master, are on terms just short of war. If indeed war has not broken out in the months since we sailed.”
    The old man smiled. Varus found Bhiku’s personality engaging, though their contact had been too short for him to be able to support his reaction with logic.
    â€œGovinda thinks that because our masters are rivals,” Bhiku said. “Rupa and I will make sure that the rites are carried out as he wishes.”
    The gardeners were watering the vine from a brass barrel. The container was certainly from India. Varus wondered if the water had been transported also, in furtherance of the “rites” to which Bhiku had referred.
    â€œYou told me what Govinda thinks, Master Bhiku,” Varus said. “What is your