Telouet followed his gaze. 'It seems liberal use of the lash is no guarantee of a well-mannered household, my lord.' His comment was just loud enough to reach the door wards.

'It is not your place to comment on another domain's practices.' Kheda's rebuke was perfunctory at best. 'Let's pay our respects to Mirrel Ulla and see if she at least will show us proper courtesy.'

'Do you want to change your clothes?' Telouet asked as they passed the door wards.

'It's not as if I've worked up much of a sweat.' Kheda shook his head. 'If we delay, we'll be hearing barbed comments about tardiness from Mirrel until we leave for home.'

Let one of the spies infesting this ant heap carry that kernel of gossip to her.

Telouet nodded discreetly to indicate the stairway they should take. 'Ritsem Caid and Redigal Coron show every sign of seeking help from the north.' He spoke just low enough to suggest a confidence but loud enough for listening ears.

'Not that they would want to, any more than we of Daish,' Kheda sighed. 'Let's hope we find some better alternatives tomorrow.'

Surely Safar will back down and form an alliance so we can drive out these invaders ourselves? He cannot risk losing his influence to unknown warlords who might well covet the riches of his domain, once they're invited into these reaches.

'East here, my lord.'

As Telouet muttered directions through the maze of corridors, Kheda found himself speculating what might happen if Ulla Safar did remain obdurate.

Janne warned you the fat toad would call your bluff, so she's won that wager. But what if it wasn't a bluff? Could there possibly be some honourable northern warlord who could tell us how to drive out this threat of magic. Could we find an ally strong enough to overthrow Ulla Safar when this is all over? Maybe you and Caid should investigate the possibility. You could trust each other in such an alliance, limited to a single objective, division of the spoils agreed in advance? But who would get this island and the massive strength of Derasulla? Do you hate Safar enough to see the Ritsem domain add such power to its own? A difficult question. Caid would certainly never let it pass to Daish, that's easy enough to see.

Such musings carried Kheda through the long corridors and up several flights of stairs. The Ulla wives all had apartments facing up river and, as first wife, Mirrel Ulla commanded an imposing suite on the very highest level where the air was freshened with the scents of the distant hills. Women slaves in lewdly diaphanous gowns and gaudy enamels simpered a welcome at the door.

'I see Safar has a new set of concubines to flaunt,' Kheda remarked to Telouet as they approached.

'I wonder where the old ones washed up downstream,' the slave murmured grimly.

They entered the room and Mirrel Ulla turned from windows that reached from floor to ceiling, opening on to a broad terrace shaded by diligently tended nut palms and perfume trees in ornate pots. Kheda stood where he might catch a breeze but the air was hotter than ever.

'My lord Daish, you grace our humble home with your presence.' A woman of moderate height and slender build, Mirrel advanced, arms outstretched, wrists laden with golden bracelets.

'No room could be called humble with you to adorn it.' Kheda took her hands and bent to brush them with his lips, careful not to catch any of her ornate rings in his beard.

Mirrel laughed prettily, laying an ebony hand across the breast of a black silk gown covered with tiny glass beads sewn into the patterns of feathers, as if some fabulous bird, every silver feather edged with gold, had been trapped and plucked. The bodice slid from silver to gilt with every breath she took, low-cut and close-fitted to display arms and bosom with calculated seduction, though the swell of her breasts was all but invisible beneath a convoluted necklace studded with sizeable diamonds. The skirt shimmered, made from separate lengths of cloth worked into individual gleaming plumes, all the better to display her elegant legs.

Your spies obviously told you Janne arrived displaying all the wealth and power of the Daish domain.

Mirrel's eyes looked beyond him, their hardness making a nonsense of the soft appeal of her artfully painted lips. 'Ritsem Caid! You are welcome, so very welcome, and Taisia!'

Kheda bowed and stepped away, releasing Mirrel to advance on Caid. Redigal Coron and his senior wife followed soon after and she quickly gathered him into their circle. Moni Redigal with her sizeable retinue headed for the junior Ulla wives who were gathered in a watchful knot, their own gowns similar in cut to Mirrel's but bare of beads, merely brocaded in feather patterns. The noise in the room rose as attendant body slaves allowed their masters and mistresses a little leeway, drawing aside to share their own news with each other, tolerating the intrusion of Derasulla's senior slaves as necessary.

Kheda glanced appreciatively around in order not to catch anyone's gaze and oblige himself to conversation before Janne arrived. The audience room was certainly worth admiring. Sandalwood shutters on the windows were the finest the island's carvers could supply and the cinnamon-coloured floorboards were waxed to glossy perfection underfoot. The walls were tiled; all the better to display the domain's other highly prized craft to visitors.

Mirrel's rooms boasted the lustre tiles that were so sought after in trade. Guests entered through a wall where golden tiles shaded imperceptibly to a sunset hue on one side and a fertile green on the other. As Kheda turned slowly towards the windows, he saw green sliding towards an airy blue on the one hand, orange blushing to soft red on the other. In the spaces between the tall windows, the advancing colours blurred into a dusky violet. With the delicacy of the pigments used, the effect was both subtle and eye-catching.

It's like being wrapped in a rainbow, a fine symbol for Mirrel, with its contradictions between blessing and caprice.

'My lord.' Telouet appeared with a crystal goblet.

'I notice neither our rooms nor Janne's have any of these lustre tiles,' Kheda remarked in an undertone. 'Do you suppose that's some insult? Should we seem oblivious or devise some retaliation?'

'Ask my lady Janne,' Telouet suggested.

'Kheda.' Moni Redigal appeared at his elbow, smiling cheerfully. 'How does that slave suit Dau? I do hope Rekha is pleased with him. How is she? How are the little ones?' Moni Redigal's appearance was nicely calculated not to outstrip her hostess but at the same time to make the room's decoration a backdrop to her own. She made a fine display of a warlord's wife, in gold silk shot with silver and wearing a rainbow array of gem-studded necklaces and bracelets.

Do I thank you for supplying a pair of competent hands to raise swords between my family and any invaders while I play Ulla Safar's pointless games?

'He seems entirely suitable, thank you. Rekha is well and all the children.' Kheda smiled back.

'I must write to Rekha.' Moni sipped before looking a little puzzled at her goblet. 'One of my sisters has married into the Kithir domain. I am to visit her soon and she may well be interested in trading Kithir carpets for pearls.' Born quite some distance to the north where crossing trade routes mingled many bloodlines, Moni was paler-skinned than all but the barbarian slaves in the room, her tight curled hair a distinctive russet.

'How far north do your trading contacts reach nowadays?' Kheda asked idly.

'Well into the islands of the central compass.' Moni laughed with high good humour.

Coron's ever-present guardians chose well, when looking for a woman with the talents to be senior wife of a complex domain as well as possessing a keen understanding that the warlord's duties were absolutely none of her concern and her opinion would never be sought or appreciated.