Nailing his owner was one of a body slave’s duties? I didn’t want to jostle that basket of crabs! “What will happen to Kaeska?”

“She will end up as Fourth Wife, unless she does something stupid enough to give Shek Kul an excuse to divorce her.” Laio leaned forward, suddenly intent. “Just what is this foreigner promising her? Do you think she might over-reach herself?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied cautiously, swallowing my mouthful. “He is definitely promising her a child and I know he is using drugs to addle her wits on the subject.”

“Drugs?” Laio looked thoughtful. “I could do much to discredit Kaeska if I let it be known she was indulging in filthy mainlander habits like that. Her negotiations will soon suffer as well. What about distilled liquor? Did you see any sign of that?”

I shook my head. “Would that be worse?”

Laio opened her mouth in exasperation then tossed her head with a sudden smile. “You mainlanders! Of course it would be. Narcotics and strong spirits dull the wits and rot the body; any domain that permits their use soon finds itself with troops on its beaches.” She frowned. “It’s not really enough to get Kaeska divorced though. Is there anything else I can use against her?”

“She’s been using tahn berries on Irith,” I volunteered.

“What’s that?” Laio looked mildly curious.

“It’s a plant; physicians steep its leaves to get a tisane that dulls pain but the berries are very addictive, narcotic, deadly after a while.”

Laio shrugged. “If Kaeska wants to poison her body slave, that’s her business. If she makes a habit of it, Shek Kul will be entitled to rebuke her for the wasted trade, but other than that he has no rights in the matter.”

“She’s had the poor bastard’s tongue cut out!” I objected with some heat.

Laio arched her finely plucked eyebrows. “How odd. Mutes haven’t been fashionable since before I was born. Still, we’re getting away from the point. How does this foreign man propose to get Kaeska with child?”

I forced myself to ignore these further unpleasant sidelights on Aldabreshin life. “I imagine he is going to use magic. He has all the signs of being a sorcerer of some kind.”

“Magic!” Laio breathed, eyes bright with exultation, clasping her hands to her face.

“Can Shek Kul divorce Kaeska for that?”

“He can execute her!” Laio looked like a child who’s woken to find Solstice come a season early. “You will get a substantial reward for this, for enabling us to get rid of her permanently, for such a crime!”

“Magic is punished by death?” I swallowed my mouthful with difficulty, almost choking on my incredulity, but Laio was too pleased to even get annoyed with my ignorance.

“Oh yes, it is absolutely forbidden. The elements are holy, they give us life and nurture us all. Interference with the balance is a desecration only redeemed with the lives of those involved.”

I breathed a silent prayer of heartfelt gratitude to Dastennin that I had not yet mentioned my own connections with wizardry or magic. “The man has been using thassin smoke on Kaeska,” I reminded Laio. “He’s turning her own senses until they betray her and using her desperation for a child to help him dupe her.”

Laio shrugged again, a favorite gesture of hers. “More fool her. Ignorance is no defense to bring before Shek Kul’s justice.”

“What will happen?”

“I will accuse her, Shek Kul will sit in judgment and weigh your evidence against her denials.” Laio bit into a juicy red fruit and licked her sticky fingers. “Then they’ll both be executed.”

This all sounded a little too easy but I tried to keep my disbelief out of my voice. “The Warlord will take the word of a mainlander slave against his own first wife?”

“You are an Islander now, you really must remember that,” Laio reminded me sternly. “Your word is as good as Kaeska’s.”

“When will you accuse her?” I remembered I had my own reasons for speeding up this plot, especially now I didn’t want to have to explain the Elietimm’s interest in my sword in any way.

“I will have to pick my time carefully.” Laio’s eyes darkened with cunning, focused on some point in the middle distance. “I think we should isolate Kaeska first. If we let Gar and Mahli know what she has been up to, Gar will want to get clear of her plots at once or risk being executed herself. That should net us some valuable information.”

“When will you tell Gar?”

Laio turned her gaze on me, irritated. “I will not tell Gar. You will tell Sezarre, who will tell her, so that she can come to us of her own accord and make it clear she is acting on her own suspicions and behaving as a good wife.”

I should have seen that coming. “All right. The thing is, that man, the Elietimm priest, he wants Kaeska to make a trade to get me as her body slave. He’s dangerous and if you want me alive and with enough of a grip on my wits to give evidence, you had better not delay too long.”

“What does he want of you?” Laio frowned, then laughed like a greenjay. “Perhaps Kaeska wants you to father this child of hers!”

That notion rocked me back on my heels; could the vision really have been Kaeska’s child after all? I shook my head firmly. No, the Elietimm wanted the sword, he had made that clear enough.

Laio wiped happy tears from her eyes. “So, what does this man want of you?”

I took my time chewing a mouthful of fruit before answering. Telling Laio that this man wanted to possess an enchanted sword, somehow mystically linked to me, probably in order to frustrate the magical plans of the wizards of Hadrumal, now sounded like a very bad idea.

“I imagine he knows that I can expose him, tell you all how barren his islands are, how little he has to trade.”

Luckily Laio was still so full of the notion of getting rid of Kaeska that she let this rather meager explanation slide past her. I realized that the Aldabreshin obsession with trade would make this sound perfectly reasonable to her, as would the notion that all the Ice Islander sought was an entry to commerce with the Archipelago.

A knock on the inner door startled us both and I scrambled to my feet to answer it. Grival stood on the threshold, looking more agitated than I could recall seeing him.

“The child, it comes.” He managed a rather forced smile. “Mahli wants you with her, my lady.”

“Tell her I’m on my way.” Laio ran her hands through her hair and tied it back all anyhow with a convenient scarf. She turned to me on her way out. “Keep yourself out of mischief and I think you might like to have that conversation with Sezarre today.”

I bowed low and watched her run lightly down the corridor, Grival striding purposefully beside her.

A letter written by the Archmage Holarin of Imat River in

the 3rd year of Emperor Aleonne the Valiant,

(original held in the Archive of the Archmage,

Trydek’s Library, Hadrumal).

Dear Dretten,

I note with interest your news of increased Relshazri trade with the Islanders from the Aldabreshin Archipelago. Now that you are living in the city, it is important that you understand somewhat of the basis of their hostility to magic, if only for your own protection. Most will tell you this antipathy stems simply from blind prejudice; this may be true in some cases but the origins of such a prevalent bias go much deeper. I will attempt to explain, given the limits of our present knowledge.

Although the Aldabreshi do not worship the gods as we do, it is a mistake to dismiss them as unthinking barbarians. The complex philosophies of the Archipelago are spun from their observations of the natural world, the behavior of animals, the seasons of flower and fruit, the shifting patterns of the stars and moons. More than this, the Aldabreshi believe in a wide range of unseen forces at work in the world about them. They have no concept of the Otherworld, rather believing that the essence, the spirit of a dead person, remains an intangible part of their household, their family. Do not mistake my meaning; they do not worship their ancestors like the barbarians of the far West, but see both the deceased and the still unborn as continuously linked to the living. Imagine, if you will, a tree felled by a storm later sending up a shoot that blossoms, death, growth and the prospect of new life all contained within the one plant.