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  'Which is partly what prompted this plot, as I understand it,' Janne said delicately. 'Those counsellors looking to retire to enjoy the luxuries they've amassed have been finding it difficult to secure replacements.'

  'If their numbers dwindle, so does their power.' Kheda nodded. 'Whereas if the domain was thrown into confusion by the loss of their beloved warlord, at sea perhaps, with his senior wives and his heir—'

  'It wouldn't be so remarkable for one of their own to take power, to save the domain from anarchy.' Janne finished his sentence. 'A warlord need not necessarily beget his own children, as long as they are born to his wives and acknowledged as such. Several of the Redigal daughters are of age to wed—'

  'With those trusted and uninterested zamorin servants ready to advise them in their choices of lovers to bring new blood into the noble line,' concluded Kheda.

  'Or whoever the zamorin put forward as warlord might still have been in possession of his personal jewels.' Janne shrugged. 'Rumour also has it that several they have recruited in recent years haven't been fully qualified. Or overly astute, apparently,' she added with asperity.

  'How do you mean?' Kheda was intrigued despite himself.

  It's so easy to slip back into our old complicity. It was so easy to love you, Janne. I'll never love Itrac in the same way. But it's so much simpler to love Risala. She knows all my secrets and still loves me, even if I've yet to convince her I cannot believe in omens any more.

  'You've seen this new body slave of Coron's, Prai.'

  Janne drew closer, lowering her voice. 'Moni acquired him to be a new guard for her daughters. One of the newer zamorin counsellors saw Prai going clean-shaven, assumed he was another eunuch and let slip something that puzzled the boy. He went to Moni and she warned him not to reveal himself as a lover of men, but to play along with the foolish zamorin to learn what he could of their plots.'

  Kheda nodded his understanding as Janne continued.

  'She soon learned enough to blackmail the relevant counsellor into promoting Prai to be Coron's body slave. Obviously Moni knew Coron was more inclined to men than to women when she married him. Prai had come to admire Redigal Coron, so it was a short step to loving him once he had Moni's blessing.' Janne adjusted one of the ivory combs in her hair. 'Prai could pass messages to Coron in the privacy of their bedchamber without the zamorin counsellors interrupting or becoming suspicious. When Moni had proof of the plot and Ulla Safar's complicity, Prai told Coron and helped stiffen his resolve to rid himself of the zamorin in one stroke.'

  'I would never have thought Coron had it in him,' Kheda said frankly. 'He's always been so in thrall to those counsellors.'

  'They played no small part in guiding Redigal Adun to choose him as heir.' Pity coloured Janne's words.

  'Out of six or seven brothers—' Kheda grimaced at unwelcome recollection.

  When the old Redigal warlord knew he was on his deathbed, he had the rest strangled in their sleep. Our mothers told my brothers that tale to prove our father was offering them more merry limn some warlords.

  He cleared his throat. 'And Ulla Safar knew of this plot?'

  'And decided to enter into discussions with the leaders of the zamorin rather than tell Redigal Coron,' Janne

  confirmed. 'When Coron found out, Moni says that was the stone that set the landslide in motion. Coron's been increasingly troubled by the upheavals in these reaches, suspecting some disaster lurking unseen ahead of him.' She shivered though the breeze wasn't cold. 'He's been especially concerned by the appearance of those dragons. Such a potent symbol of the twisted evils of magic and his zamorin could offer no answers as to why they had come.'

  'No dragon overflew Redigal waters.' A qualm hollowed Kheda's belly.

  What will Coron and the other warlords make of it if another dragon comes? Or more savage invaders?

  'Coron saw their arrival as a dire omen.' Janne pulled her wrap tight around her shoulders. 'Then he discovered this murderous plot that was putting his whole domain at risk. So he offered equal weight in topaz for vials of creeth-tree resin.'

  'Why?' As soon as Kheda asked the question, he realised the answer. 'Because it's called dragon's blood when it's burned for divinations.'

  What would he have traded for the real thing?

  'Exactly.' Janne shrugged. 'Whatever he saw reassured him that all the good he had done as warlord hadn't been in vain, since Prai had been there to forewarn him of this plot.'

  Kheda frowned. 'Moni Redigal told you all this?'

  'She wanted to be sure 1 knew why the Redigal domain is loosening its ties with Ulla.' Janne pursed her lips. 'She'll be making it quite clear to Itrac and Taisia Ritsem as well. Besides, now that Safar has lost his monopoly on the supply of iron in these reaches—' Whatever Janne was going to say was lost as a sweep of music rang out through the night.

  Kheda saw lamplight spilling through an open pair of

  doors in the side of the great hall. 'We had better get back to enjoy my lady Itrac's musicians.'

  'I'll go first.' Janne's face was unreadable in the moonlight. 'So no one suspects we've been indulging in some tryst.' As she walked away, the moonlight turned her gown to dark silver, outlining the seductive fullness of her hips and hinting at her long, shapely legs.

  Kheda started a slow count to a hundred as she disappeared into the darkness beneath the nut palms. A shadow detached itself from one of the upswept trees and Kheda saw the sharp line of a scabbarded sword cast on the ground by the all-seeing moons. His hand went to the crescent Chazen dagger at his own belt.

  'You shouldn't be out here alone, my lord.' Telouet stepped onto the moonlit path. Not quite as tall as Kheda, he was appreciably wider across the shoulders. 'Not when you still haven't chosen yourself another body slave.' His tone was accusing.

  'I've yet to find anyone who could hope to be your equal,' Kheda said lightly, hooking his thumbs in his turtleshell belt.

  Not only with a sword. Who could take your place after I had shared more of my life with you than with anyone else but Janne? But I couldn't burden you with the secrets I'm hiding now.

  'You don't need my equal, my lord,' Telouet said brusquely. 'You just need someone big and strong enough to guard your back. Ulla Safar might be rutting like a hog in his wallow but he could well send out spies and assas-sins again when he sees his influence cracking like mud in the sunshine.'

  'Then I'm glad Sirkel has you to guard him.' Kheda hoped the half-light hid the pang those words cost him. 'Shouldn't youu be in the hall serving your master?'

  'He wants to see you.' Telouet nodded past Kheda, his beard jutting belligerently. 'He's gone to the observatory.'

  The observatory? What if he's found Velindre? She should be able to talk her way out of it but what if he tells fanne? What does she know or suspect?

  Kheda hesitated as another swirl of music floated out through the open doors of the great hall. He made a swift decision. 'Walk with me. You can escort him back to the dining hall when we're done.'

  'Yes, my lord.' As Kheda turned, the slave slipped instinctively into step a few paces behind the warlord, into the position that had been his for so many years.

  'You've made a full recovery from the wounds you took at Derasulla?' Kheda forced himself to keep his words amiable.

  'Thanks to Sirket, when the wound festered.' Telouet's voice was tight. 'Your son was certainly paying attention when you taught him his healing herbs.'

  'I am sorry, Telouet, for your wounds and for everything else you suffered.' Kheda was glad the slave couldn't see his face as they walked on. 'For leaving you to believe I was dead.'

  'I would have followed you, my lord.' Telouet's voice cracked with emotion.

  And a journey to procure a wizard would have been the death of your trust in me, even if mischance hadn't killed you outright.

  'Did Sirket heed his oilier lessons?' Kheda distanced himselfwith dispassionate questions. 'I low is he managing Daish's alliances?'

  Telouet acced
ed grudgingly to the change of subject. 'When he gets the chance, he reminds my lords of Aedis, Sier and Tule how far Safar overreached himself in trying to have you killed. My lady Rekha lays the groundwork in her travels and then Sirket exploits any weakness he

  sees in Ulla Safar's pacts. His reading of the heavenly compass makes a powerful argument that it's time other warlords addressed Safar's malice,' Telouet said suddenly. 'He sees a potent omen in the way Chazen has successfully defied even greater evils.'

  Whereas if Safar hadn 't tried to have me killed, I'd never have been able to let everyone think he had succeeded and disappear to go in search of the magic Dev brought to defeat the invading wild men. I even believed that was some sign that I was doing the right thing.

  Kheda couldn't find the words to continue the conversation and they reached the observatory in silence. He halted, turning to look Telouet in the face. 'I'm glad to know Daish is in safe hands. There's something else I want to ask of you. Will you swear to me that you'll keep it to yourself, for the sake of all the years you served me so faithfully?'

  'No.' Telouet folded his arms across his barrel of a chest. 'I am Daish Sirket's slave now.'

  'Then I'll ask anyway and it'll be for you to decide whether you tell Sirket.' Kheda smiled wryly. 'If some dark day comes when Itrac needs a true friend, if she needs more than just an ally and I cannot be at her side, make sure Sirket knows I want him to take my place, as he has done in Daish.'

  Because there's always the possibility that I won't break free from this entanglement with wizards before I'm discovered in betrayed. If there's no one I'd rather have ruling Daish in my stead, there's certainly no one else I'd trust to cherish Itrac and our innocent newborns.

  Confusion creased Telouet's broad brow. 'My lord—'

  I had better talk to him before someone comes looking for us ' Kheda strode away towards the dark observatory.

  'Watch the bridge for us.'

  The darkness inside the entrance hall was nearly

  complete. Just enough moonlight filtered though the door for Kheda to see Sirket sitting on the lower steps of the spiral stair.

  The youth stood up. 'My—' He choked on his words.

  'My son.' Kheda put his hand into a niche in the darkness and took up a spill of wood tipped with fluff from a tandra tree seed pod. Finding the waiting spark-maker, he squeezed it to snap the toothed steel wheel over the translucent grey firestone. A spark ignited the tandra silk and Kheda touched the burning spill to a wick floating in an open oil lamp. 'You can't begin to imagine how I've missed you.'

  'Father.' Sirket stepped forward. 'I don't know—'

  'I'm sorry.' Finding himself unable to look his son in the face, Kheda concentrated on nursing the fragile flame. 'Sirket, I am so sorry for everything I've put you through, you and your brothers and sisters. I had to save Daish, for all of you. Can you believe me when I tell you I couldn't see any other way of doing that?'

  Could I have seen some other path if I hadn 't been blinded by staring at portents and omens?

  'You were talking to my mother just now.' Sirket's voice was raw. 'Were you as cruel to her as the last time you met?'

  'We've made —' satisfied the lamp was well alight, Kheda blew out the burning spill '- a truce, if not our peace.'

  'She's tired and she's worried.' Sirket's own voice shook with anxiety. 'You may as well know sooner rather than later. The Daish pearl harvest has failed again.'

  'No!' Kheda stared at his son, aghast.

  'Do you know what the travelling seers are saying?' the youth said roughly. 'I'm sure you can guess. It seems my rule is proving inauspicious. They're not giving up on me just yet, though. Evidently this new family of yours is

  giving some of them ideas. Plenty of soothsayers are seeing unmistakable signs that I should be looking for a wife, to bring a new beginning to the Daish domain.' He drew a long, shaking breath before going on, his words tumbling over each other in an unstoppable torrent. 'They don't care that would deprive me of my mothers as well as my father, never mind the grief that would bring Mesil and Dau, never mind we'd see the littlest ones taken from us, to wherever Janne and Rekha and Sain chose to go. How will the middling ones ever forgive me if my marriage means that Sain must leave them all alone, handing them over to some stranger who's probably only married me for power and status and will soon find she's made a startlingly bad bargain?'

  He broke off and looked abruptly away, composing himself with visible effort. Then he glared at Kheda, accusing. 'How is the domain supposed to flourish if Janne and Rekha aren't managing the trade? It wasn't supposed to be this way, father. I should be able to wed at my leisure, and learn to rule by watching your example, just as my wife should learn what will be asked of her by travelling with your ladies. What am I supposed to do?'

  'Have more faith in the people of Daish, for a start.' Seeing the gleam of tears in Sirket's eyes, green as his own, Kheda felt his throat tighten. 'They will trust you to make the right choices, over when and how you marry, whatever the soothsayers are muttering into their beards. Ruling is difficult. I always told you that. When you next make your progress around the domain, have Telouet take the spokesmen of a few key villages aside, to point out how Daish trade would suffer if you were to marry. You're hardly likely to find a wife the equal of Janne or Rekha.'

  'You always told me to look for the signs and portents that would guide me.' Sirket scrubbed angrily at

  his eyes with the back of one hand. 'You never foresaw this.'

  'No.' Kheda looked steadily back at the young man. 'Just as no one foresaw my father's death in the collapse of his own observatory tower, least of all himself. I wasn't that much older than you when I had to learn to rule alone without his guidance. Plenty of seers were claiming that his fate was a deadly omen for Daish, within our own waters and in neighbouring domains. I was lucky no one saw some portent encouraging them to invade us.'

  There are probably some even now who are harking back to that catastrophe as the start of all these misfortunes. At least now I'm no longer tempted to agree with them.

  'That was different,' snapped Sirket. 'You were already married to my mother for one thing.'

  'The right wife is a great comfort in such difficult times,' Kheda agreed. 'The wrong one would be worse than no wife at all. Don't rush into anything because that's what you think the people want. Take your time and make your choice when the time is right for you. See what me and your mothers got right in our marriages, and see where we went wrong. Try not to make the same mistakes,' he added ruefully.

  Try not to find yourself married to a widow half your age because you feel guilty for the death of her husband and it's the only way you can protect her.

  'If I marry, Janne and Rekha and Sain must leave—' Sirket protested.

  'Why?' interrupted Kheda.

  'Why?' Sirket stared at him. 'Custom—'

  'Custom says that you're the warlord, Sirket, and that means the power of life and death and everything up to that in Daish is yours to use as you see fit.' Kheda cut the youth's words off with a sideways sweep of his hand. 'Custom is for customary times. There's nothing usual

  about the days we're living through. You said yourself that no one predicted any of these catastrophes. If you choose to marry, for the sake of the domain or for love or for something in between, ask Janne, Rekha and Sain to stay. If you refuse to deprive your sisters and brothers of their mothers' love and support, who's to gainsay you?'

  'What—' Sirket's mouth hung open for a moment.

  The lamplight in the hallway enclosed them, the stairwell and the open arches to the halls on either side black voids framed by vines painted on the plastered stone work.

  Kheda made an abrupt decision. 'I need you to hold Daish securely, my son. I need you to be Chazen's ally. I need you to be the warlord I raised you to be, the man I have always known you would become.' Kheda rubbed a hand over his beard. 'I have to go on another journey, alone. I'm glad of this chance to tell
you ahead of anyone else, even Itrac. I'm leaving here, tomorrow or someday soon. I don't know quite when I'll return but hopefully I won't be away for too long.'

  'You're leaving again?' cried Sirket. 'Why?'

  'The first time I left you, I was looking for some means to fight the wild men who brought such destruction out of the southern ocean. I can't tell you the whole truth of what I found and what I did but I won't tell you any lies.' Kheda looked steadily at his son. 'I came back with the means to kill their wizards and it wasn't just that blend of narcotics to stifle their magic that I showed you and Redigal and Ritsem. It was what gave me the means to fight the dragons when they came last year. It's what has helped me learn why the wild men came here. They came to wait for the dragon. That's why their wizards were fighting among themselves, to see who would be left, who would be strong enough to harness the evil of the dragon's magic for his own fell purposes.'

  'You killed the dragons.' Sirket's emerald eyes were rimmed with white. 'Both of them.'

  'I cannot be certain another one won't come flying out of the open ocean.' Kheda's face was as grim as his words. 'There are hints that we could see another wave of wild men come ahead of another such beast, driven by the same lust for the unbounded power of magic. I don't think Chazen's fragile prosperity will persuade the domain's people to stay and face such disaster again. If Daish confidence is balanced on the knife edge you tell me it is, such a calamity will throw all its islands into chaos. I won't stand idly by and let that happen, Sirket. There's a chance I can learn whether this danger truly threatens to return to plague Chazen and Daish and all the other domains of these southern reaches. Or if we can look to a future free from such fear.'

  'And you can only do this by going away on your own again?' Sirket's incredulous words echoed back from the white walls washed with golden lamplight and floated away into the darkness beyond the empty doorways.

  'I won't be wholly alone.' His hands behind his back, Kheda clenched his fists. 'But don't ask me who I'm going with.'

  'My mother Janne shared certain suspicions about that dead slave of yours,' said Sirket slowly. 'Was she right?'