If I choose to, how will that affect your decision-making for the day? You have complained that you have nothing to do; nothing that I choose to do or not do will change that.

[ the servants return at a clip. a small, midnight meal is brought in: a pile of tahchin rises, arranged in the middle of chunks of curried white fish. a slave brings in a dinner mat and unfurls it across the floor. alhaitham allows the platters to be arranged and the meal to be set before he gestures for kaveh to join him on the mat. the slaves retreat through the open door; he takes a plate, and then, pausing, looks to kaveh. ]

You had dinner already, I trust. Do not make yourself ill.