Erik mulled over Madame Valerius's words for some time after they had returned to the house by the lake. Here he was, well into the fifth decade of his life (or so he surmised, based on how old people had thought he was when he cared enough to start counting the passing years), and he was in love with a woman young enough to be his daughter! She'd be nineteen soon, if he recalled correctly.

Christine had buried herself in one of his books on architecture; she seemed to enjoy gazing at the sketches he'd drawn over the years of all the places he'd visited. Every few moments, he would hear her gasp in amazement or sigh with pleasure.

When he ventured past her to make some tea, he noticed that she was lovingly caressing the lines of a sketch he had drawn of a building in Nizhny-Novgorod. His breath caught in his throat. The building held special significance for him; it was to have been his house . . . the home where he had hoped to raise a family . . . had he and Anahita been able to marry . . .

. . . if he ever came across that damned fur trader again . . .

"Do you like that one, Christine?" Erik whispered.

She emitted a startled gasp. "Oh!" she whispered back. "Yes . . . It's so lovely! I think . . . I should like to visit such a building as this someday."

"Perhaps, my dear, once the season is over . . . we might make a trip to Nizhny-Novgorod. We could go during the summer." If he had hoped to bring a smile to her face with that declaration, he failed. She frowned. "What troubles you, Christine?" He did not like to see her perturbed.

"It's . . . I'm not . . . troubled. You have thought that far ahead?" An odd look glazed her eyes. While she had been wondering about their next few weeks together and how soon he might tire of her, he was speaking of planning events that were still a good eight months away!

Did she dare allow herself to hope? Could she take the chance of letting herself start to truly love this man?

They stayed up for a few more hours, sipping tea and talking about sights they could see along the road out of France, across Europe, and into Russia. With every city and town he told her they could stop in, she became more determined that she would be a good girl and not upset him. If she continued to please him throughout the ensuing months, and did all he asked, he would keep his promise to show her all the wonderful places he had been before he lived beneath the opera house in Paris.

It all fascinated Christine so that she couldn't bear to be parted from Erik's side; she fell asleep holding his hands.

Erik's lips twitched at the sight of her slumbering form. He'd watched her sleep before, of course, but this was different. She looked peaceful and content, and he knew it was because of all his lavish promises of the beauty she would see on their journey.

Did he dare hope that she would remain loyal to him for so long?

Erik awoke with a start. He'd not suffered any of the nightmares that were wont to plague his sleep. Gradually, he realised that Christine still had his spidery icy hands firmly clutched in her own. His hands hadn't known such warmth in so long . . .

When he used to dance with Anahita, her hands were like a fire that tickled his with a pleasant heat; she made him feel as though there were nothing he could not do! He was good then, never harmed anyone with any of his tricks, and he only sought to give the people what they wanted. He was an entertainer in those days.

That was before he had been forcibly brought before the Shah and his favourite wife. The little sultana, as Erik had called her, had been so bored with the run-of-the-mill torture inflicted on political prisoners that she demanded some new form of amusement.

That damned furrier had already kidnapped his beloved Anahita, so Erik was perfectly willing to travel to find her. But he kept returning to Nizhny-Novgorod in case there were some word of her that had made its way back to the fair.

After nearly a year, the daroga showed up in Erik's tent. Even without his mask, he proved able to hide his true emotions. He acted aloof, as though he couldn't be bothered to go all the way to Persia just to entertain a bored monarch and his consort with his feats of legerdemain and ventriloquism.

And yet, the Persian man could sense something else behind Erik's carefully chosen words. He swore that, whatever reason he had for going with him to the Empire, it would remain a secret locked away in his soul, and the daroga would not betray him.

Along the journey, something happened, something that neither man would ever speak of again, but it was of such import that it bound the two in ways that no other could hope to fully comprehend.

Once they arrived in the court and presented themselves to the shah, Erik had a short time in which to prove himself and endear himself in whatever ways he could to him and his favourite. By day, he performed feats of wonder and of horror; by night, he would sneak about outside the palace and call for Anahita with the words that only she would recognise.

He feared that he had been wrong, that she had not been brought here, but taken to some other monarch in some other land. He despaired that he had failed her . . .

Until one night, he heard the plangent notes of the song that only one person besides himself had ever been able to replicate . . .

Oh, those rosy hours of Mazenderan! Anahita had been allowed a garden on her terrace, and she had a lovely little row of rosebushes growing there along the walls. The delicate rosewater that she was able to coax from those perfect petals was considered a treasure by the little sultana, and she was none too pleased to discover that one of her lowly servants should be so favoured by the man she had gone to so much trouble to have brought to her court!

It was for that very preference that Erik showed Anahita that she was tortured.

The little sultana had cruelly mocked him once, saying that a man who looked like a corpse deserved a corpse for a bride. He had refused to give in to one of her more wicked whims, and so she had lashed out at him with words, for she knew all too well that she could never harm him physically.

The daroga, though, owed Erik a debt of gratitude that he could never hope to repay, even if he lived another hundred years. They managed to smuggle the wounded and emaciated woman out of the city. She very nearly resembled a corpse, Erik had noted sadly as he had carried her out of the city.

Gone was the healthy glow and soft blush of her cheeks; she was now gaunt and sallow. The glimmer had left her eyes to be replaced with an unfocussed haze.

The trio fled on camels and ventured east. How they happened upon a tribe they could trust, he could no longer remember, but they had taken Anahita in as one of their own.

When the shah discovered that Erik was absent, he feared that his prized architect was sharing his secrets with the Empire's enemies! As soon as Erik returned to his place in court, it was ordered that his eyes would be put out. Unfortunately, the shah knew that Erik's genius was so great that he might be able to design other palaces with mazes and secret corridors, despite having no eyes to see their progress.

And so the daroga helped Erik yet again.

Erik roused himself from his tortured reverie and pried his hands from Christine's soft warmth. He needed to ensure that the water was hot enough for a bath and begin preparing breakfast before she awoke!