I had traded my usual widow’s black dress and headscarf for a blue dress with black trim and a matching headscarf, a leather belt with a dagger around my waist, sturdy sandals upon my feet. It felt very odd not to be wearing widow’s black. It almost felt like a betrayal of Bahlar. But it was well known that Damla of the House of Agabyzus was a widow, and if I wanted to do this, I needed a disguise. Caina walked at my side, still wearing the robes and turban of the disguise she called Kyrazid Tomurzu, Cyrican factor. She even walked with the stiff arrogance I had seen in the factors and seneschals of high noblemen. “You could have made an effective actress,” I said. She smiled a little. “I spent some time with an opera singer when I was younger. She taught me a trick or two.” “I suppose anyone who looks at us,” I said, “will think a son is taking his aged mother for a walk.” She laughed. “You are not nearly old enough to be my mother. And you’re nothing like her, thank all the gods.”
