“Tell me one thing first,” he said. “Do you see me on the Throne of Morocco?”
Perdita closed her eyes for a moment. She felt as though her head was spinning with the insidious fragrance of the incense and she was half-stifled by its sweetness.
Then she saw quite clearly once again a man lying in the dust covered with blood.
She opened her eyes.
“Well?” the Sultan enquired.
“There is a Throne. I know you are reaching out towards it,” she said. “But, as I have just told you, my powers are dim, I am tired. I would rest.”
“You have courage,” the Sultan praised her, “the courage to tell the truth. There is no astrologer in this Palace, there is no seer in the whole of my territory, who would not have answered that they saw me in my triumph seated on the Throne with my enemies defeated.”
