'I'll still be interested in anything she recalls about Fel's likes or dislikes,' Caid assured him.

'You've got Ulla islands all too close to the sea-lane between you and the Endit domain,' Kheda reminded Caid discreetly once they were out of earshot of the gardener. 'Provoke our fat friend too much and he might just decide to squat in your path.'

'And offend Endit Fel like that, now he'll have a choice of where to trade for iron?' countered Caid gleefully. 'Oh, I am looking forward to sticking a few pins in Safar's fat arse.'

And obviously to a new accommodation between the Ritsem domain and Endit Fel. What are you hoping to get out of that? When am I going to find a chance to ask? Not walking Derasulla's corridors, not when any number of listening ears could be hiding in these honeycombed walls.

As Kheda thought this, the ingratiating servant appeared from nowhere, bowing and dry-washing his hands. 'My lords, may I escort you to your quarters.'

'Take us to my lady Janne.'

The two warlords walked in silence as the beardless servant bobbed and bowed before them, his meaningless compliments for themselves as ceaseless as his praise for his master. Kheda heard Caid's man Ganil matching Telouet step for step, chainmail jingling softly.

'How much lower in the citadel are we going?' Ritsem Caid asked sharply as their walk continued.

'Here we are.' The slave led them around a corner and gestured at a door. 'My lady Janne Daish's apartments. Your accommodations are just along the corridor, great lord.' The slave struggled to bow and point at the same time.

'I will see that everything is as we require.' Telouet headed for the door, face promising comprehensive retaliation if everything was not exactly to the standard befitting his master.

'You may go.' Kheda dismissed the fawning slave and knocked on Janne's door.

Birut opened it a hand's width with a forbidding scowl. 'My lord.' Face clearing, he flung the door open. 'And my lord Ritsem Caid, my ladies.'

Janne was seated with Itrac on a midnight-blue carpet patterned with stars and ringed with a bank of luxuriantly stuffed cushions. Intricately carved sandalwood side tables bore silver incense burners in the form of questing hounds and shallow bowls of cobalt ceramic were piled high with yellow rose petals. Half sunk into the earth of the original river island, the room was broad with an airy feel thanks to the white marble lining its walls where tall vases of alabaster stood full of fresh vizail sprays filling the room with their heady scent. By contrast, the floor was brilliant with tiles making an intricate interlace of green and blue. The windows high in the north-facing wall were shaded with awnings as was the flight of steps leading up and out into a private garden where Kheda could hear the soothing plash of a fountain and smell the shady promise of perfume trees.

'Do these rooms suffice, my wife?' Kheda asked with a faint note of displeasure. 'They are rather small.'

'They are adequate, my husband, and cooler than any suite on the heights. Doubtless Mirrel Ulla had the sense to realise we'd be more concerned with our comfort than our consequence at such a time of trial. Birut, drinks for our lord and our honoured guest.' Janne nodded to the slave, who picked up a splendid set of ewer and goblets in gleaming Jahal ware from a side table.

Kheda took the cup Birut offered and sniffed it cautiously.

'Lilla juice and spring water.' Janne nodded to the Daish musician sat in one corner of the room with more modest rug and cushions. He had been plucking a soothing lilt from his circular lyre. Picking up his bow, he started a livelier tune with a loud flourish.

'At least he's not trying to poison us with river water.' Kheda shrugged and drank.

'It will be nice to have a change from lilla fruit, when the rains come,' Itrac ventured unexpectedly.

Ritsem Caid had emptied his goblet and was holding it out for a refill. 'Where are you housed, Itrac Chazen?'

'She's sharing these apartments with me,' Janne answered for her, a glint in her eye.

'Mirrel Ulla offered me a room among her own household,' said Itrac uncertainly. 'Since I am here with no retinue of my own.'

Caid snorted. 'You're here with Janne Daish, celebrated first wife and her husband an honoured guest. She just wanted you locked up with the rest of Safar's women, so we could all get used to the notion.'

'That's what I suspected,' agreed Janne.

'I take it you're ready to marry without delay?' Caid looked sharply at Kheda and then to Itrac. 'If you hear the worst from Chazen.'

So you spared some thought for the complications of the Chazen situation, in between gloating over your new opportunities and making plans to ally with Endit Fel. That's a relief.

'I was thinking it might be less of a slap in the face for Safar if she married Sirket.' Kheda smiled reassuringly at Itrac. 'But let's hope it doesn't come to that.'

'What do you mean?' Itrac stared at the two warlords, plainly confused.

'I hadn't thought it appropriate to discuss the delicate issue of her status with Itrac' Janne rebuked both men with a minatory look. 'Not while she still mourns Olkai Chazen's death.'

'If Saril is killed,' Itrac said, eyes dark with pain, 'I'll just go to the Thelus domain. My father would welcome me back.'

'Your father is far from here.' Janne forbore to rebuke such naivety with some effort. 'With Olkai dead and Sekni's fate unknown, you are senior wife to the Chazen domain and as such, you would hold considerable power, should we hear that Chazen Saril is dead.'

Itrac hid her face in shaking hands, the jaunty music of the lyre at cruel odds with her distress. A piper joined the tune, in an attempt to cover the rising voices in the room.

Janne gathered her close in comforting arms but her voice was gently implacable. 'There is no Chazen child yet of an age of reason. Even if there were, the domain would still be vulnerable without a strong regent. That would be Olkai's duty but with her dead, you must take up the challenge.'

'It's your duty to the domain to wed a man strong enough to rule as warlord until one of Saril's children is of the age of discretion,' Caid agreed soberly.

'Which is why I thought of Sirket,' explained Kheda. 'With his own inheritance waiting, he wouldn't disinherit Saril's children in favour of his own.'

Not while I'm alive to tan his hide for trying, anyway.

'Safar won't back down for anyone less than another warlord.' Caid shook his head emphatically. 'Anyway, Sirket's not here. You must be wed inside the day some message bird brings word of Saril's death, Itrac, if you're to safeguard your domain. You should have brought Sirket with you if that was your plan, Kheda.'

'I wasn't prepared to bring him into this kind of danger, any more than you were about to risk Zorat,' Kheda retorted.

'Zorat is needed in the Ritsem isles,' declared Caid.

'If either of them was here, Safar would just be taunting them to provoke some rudeness or argument to give him an excuse to ignore the real concerns before us,' Janne said curtly. 'We cannot afford to indulge his nonsense when all our safety is at stake. If we do not stand together against magic, we'll all be lost!'

The mention of magic silenced everyone, even the sweeping lyre and piping flutes of the musicians. Janne snapped furious fingers at them and they hastily resumed their tune.

The music barely covered Itrac's sudden sobs. 'Why are we talking like this? You're talking as if Saril's already dead. Maybe he is. How will we ever know? Who's ever going to hold the Chazen islands anyway, plagued with magic and monsters, and anyway, everyone's going to be dead, Saril and Sekni and all the children, just like poor Olkai, burning in agonies and—'