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around her was wrong. Nihmu’s hand was gone and there were men shouting – and blood – blood like red water flowing over her. She reached out – shouted. She could feel the next wave building already, could feel her whole groin convulsing, could feel that lovely alien presence coming – it was happening
now
.
    If that’s my blood, I’m in trouble!
she thought. Something or someone landed right on her legs, and she gave a choked scream and the next wave came—
    She fought to escape it, to
see
. . . brushed the sweaty hair out of her eyes and screamed. Shouting . . . the ring of bronze and iron . . . the scent of blood. She tried to focus . . . something . . . fighting?
    ‘Get him!’ roared a voice by the door, and then another . . . clang of bronze . . . ‘Guards!’ . . . ‘See to my lady!’—
    Wave!
    ‘Still there, love?’ Nihmu said by her ear. People were pressed against her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, and there was weight on her legs that she didn’t like, and shouting – men’s voices.
    ‘Breathe, honey bee.’ Nihmu was there. ‘Get her off her legs,’ she said.
    The weight came off her legs even as she felt herself opening, opening—
    Wave! This one didn’t stop. She rode it like a ship on the sea, and suddenly
—
    ‘I see the head!’ Nihmu shouted. ‘Clear the room!’
    ‘Yes, lady!’ Hama answered. Even in waves of pain and the confusion of whatever had just happened, Melitta knew Hama’s Celtic Greek. What on earth was he doing in her
birth room
?
    ‘Push!’ Nihmu and Nearchus spoke together, sounding eerily like a god.
    She didn’t really need to push any more than she already was. Her hips rose a fraction and suddenly it all came together. She tasted blood in her mouth and the muscles in her stomach and pelvis found a different purchase, almost like the first time she had mounted a horseunder her own power – the triumph of the heartbeat in which all her weight shifted and she
knew
she would make it up Bion’s back – a flood of release, a wet triumph.
    And a cry. ‘Now see to Sappho!’ Nihmu said.
    ‘A boy!’ Sappho said, and her voice sounded weak.
    Melitta seemed to surface, as if she’d been swimming in murky water. The room looked as if someone had tossed buckets of blood at it – the smooth plastered walls were strangely splashed, and the floor was wet.
    ‘Hathor!’ Melitta said. She saw her son – the blood – her son. ‘Artemis!’ she said. ‘Ah, my beauty,’ she said and reached her arms for him.
    There was blood everywhere. Sappho was lying on the floor, her head on Nearchus’s lap. Nihmu stood between her legs with the baby in her arms. Even as Melitta watched, Nihmu caught the cord in her teeth and cut it with a silver knife – a Sakje tradition. The baby wailed.
    The child’s grandfather – Coenus, a Megaran gentleman and now a mercenary, whose son, the newborn’s father, was eight months in his grave – appeared at Nihmu’s shoulder. He had a sword in his hand that dripped blood on his hand.
    ‘Gods!’ he said, his eyes wide. ‘He’s splendid! Well done, little mother!’ And to Nihmu, ‘I have two files of men hunting him – them. What in Hades happened?’
    Melitta sank back on the kline. ‘May I hold my son?’ she asked.
    Nihmu placed the baby on her breast but her eyes were still on Coenus, because he looked grey. ‘What happened?’ he asked again. He was looking at the floor.
    ‘One of the doctors tried to kill Melitta,’ Nihmu said. ‘Sappho stopped him.’
    ‘That’s insane!’ Coenus said. ‘The blood!’
    ‘Mine,’ Sappho murmured. ‘And his!’ She pointed at the Jewish physician who their friend Ben Zion had provided. He was lying on top of his own guts, already dead. ‘He tackled the man – gods, he died for us, and he didn’t even know us!’ Sappho was bleeding slowly from her upper thigh – a wound that Nearchus held together with one hand while he scrambled to make a tourniquet with the