"Yes."
"Has he told you what I wanted to say to you?"
"No."
"Sit down."
She sat down beside him. He took her hand, kissed the palm of it and smiled in a way that wrung her heart again.
"There, now I have forgotten. I remember what I wanted to say, but I can't think how to say it. It must be the fit that has made me so forgetful."
She understood he was referring to the epileptic fit he had had recently.
He stretched himself so that the knuckles of his fingers cracked, and yawned loudly. Two deep wrinkles formed round his mouth. He looked like the ancient Sphinx with the face of Akhnaton.
"Do you remember my telling you, Dio, that my kingdom was coming to an end? Well, it has come to an end. I want to go away."
"How go away? Where?"