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wasn't quite sure he was going about it the right way). At the same time, she was getting on his nerves. There were times, when they were apart, when all he could see was her face and body, and the urge to leave what he was doing and run to find her was almost more than he could bear. When he was with her, though, it wasn't quite the same. It was, he decided, a bit like literature. In literature--epic poems and classic drama and the like--gods and goddesses disguised themselves as mortals, and evil spirits took over people's bodies; and maybe, he rationalised, that's what had happened to her. He found it infuriatingly difficult to reconcile the way she looked with some of the things she said and did. She could be spiteful, petty-minded, incredibly insensitive. No big deal. What he found hardest to cope with was that she was boring to be with. When they were alone together and not making love (the euphemism was particularly inappropriate in this instance), he felt the way he used to feel when his least favourite relatives came to call, the restless, aching boredom that can only be kept in check by playing word games in your head, counting the tiles on the floor, imagining a game of chess, or picturing the inflicter of the boredom being torn apart by wolves. That wasn't love. He was prepared to believe that, in extreme cases, it was marriage, but only after half a century of egregious incompatibility. It's because we're both young, he told himself, immature and self-centred as a pair of drill-chucks. Also, when he tried to be objective, he found it hard to blame her. Her average day consisted of a late breakfast alone, a morning spent sewing or trying on clothes with her maid, lunch with her mother-in-law, followed by more sewing, reading, sketching, practising the lute and harp or exercising some other fatuous accomplishment held suitable for young noblewomen, concluding with family dinner at the long table, an hour sitting with the other women of the household, knowing her place, and finally bed with him, where he expected fiery passion and romantic love. He couldn't help thinking there had to be a better way for a person to live; especially for the wife and daughter of leading citizens of the Republic, and therefore one of the most privileged and fortunate women alive.
    He could see all that. Any fool could. The problem was, there wasn't anything he could do about it. If they had a house of their own, of course; or if they could run away together and live in the woods--no, she'd hate that. Spiders, for one thing. If it was just the two of them, without all the other people. He thought about that and shuddered. At least other people meant someone you could talk to.
    We'll grow out of it, he told himself. People do. Or they grow into it, the way your foot adapts if you spend twenty years wearing shoes that are three sizes too small. In any case, it would resolve itself (because if it didn't, society couldn't function), and in the mean time, at least he had his work to occupy his mind.
    Three days before the twins were born, Antigonus came in late. Instead of sitting down and reading through the morning reports in silence, he solemnly placed a small wicker basket in the centre of the exchequer table and took away the napkin that covered the contents.
    "What's this?" Basso asked.
    Antigonus looked at him gravely. "We're celebrating," he said.
    Amazing behaviour. "Celebrating what?" Basso asked. "The baby hasn't come yet, if that's what..."
    The old man lifted a large round simnel cake out of the basket and looked round for something to put it down on. "We're celebrating," he said, "the end of the war. King Moemfasia surrendered last night."
    What war? He had to think about it. "The Metanni," he said. "The dispute about the Strait of Neanousa."
    "Correct." Basso felt as though he'd just earned a bonus mark. "We now control the whole of the east coast as far as the Soter Peninsula." He paused. "Well?"
    It was as though someone had