Chiun stood listening, his face intent, as the sounds of a low, intense argument began.
"He did not come to me," the Low Moo complained in a cat-spitting hiss. "And he is not in his room."
"I would have told you this," said the High Moo, "but you were nowhere to be found."
"I walked the beaches. I breathed prayers to the god of the waves who brings whites to our land. I thanked him abjectly, for you promised you would make this thing happen for me."
"You must be patient. The Master of Sinanchu has not yet given his blessing."
A bare foot spanked the stone floor. "I will not. I want him now. My hunger for him is great."
"He is not mine to give to you." The High Moo's voice was resigned.
"Then I will take him," the Low Moo hurled back.
"I warn you, do nothing to antagonize the Master of Sinanchu. Only he stands between our throne and these treasonous plotters."
"I will have him! I will feel the fire of his white kuna in my belly!"
"You are my daughter. You will obey me!"
"I am the Low Moo. I will not be denied the privileges that Low Moos of past time enjoyed."
The High Moo's answer was a strangled inarticulate rage. The Low Moo spat back a pungent curse. The exchange escalated and the Master of Sinanju heard a meaty slap, and there was the sound of a body falling.
There was silence in the room for a long time after. When the Low Moo emerged from the room, her cheeks blazing with shame. One darkening eye had already begun to swell.
Chiun looked for tears, but there were none.
"My father slumbers," she said, closing the door after her. Her feet slapped the stone flooring angrily as she disappeared around a turn in the corridor.
The Master of Sinanju resumed his resolute stance before the High Moo's chambers. He was once more the impenetrable rock of safety for his emperor.
Remo Williams slipped up to the palace like a drifting shadow. He might have been a trick of the light caused by the moon ghosting in and out of low-flying cloud scud. He decided to climb in through his bedroom window in order to avoid the Red Feather Guards at every entrance.
"Remo, you have come." The voice was sullen. But it lifted toward the last.
"Dolla-Dree?" Remo asked. A shadowy figure sprawled on his sleeping mat.
"I have spoken to my father. He no longer stands against our union. I have waited long for you to come to me."
"Yeah? Gave us his blessing, did he?"
"Come," she said, rising on her hands. She lay there like a great tawny cat. Remo picked out the dark spots of her nipples. She wore only the lower portion of her costume. Her eyes were wide and unwinking, like black jewels. Her pupils were so distended that the smoky iris was all but invisible.
Remo joined her on the sleeping mat.
"I wanted to talk to Chiun first," he said uncertainly.
"It lacks but an hour until the sun's bright eye returns. Let us do what we will while he cannot see us."
She leaned into him, her smooth arms wrapping around his neck. She nipped at his right earlobe. Then playfully bit into the left. Remo felt his desire for her stir within him. It was more curiosity than need. Sinanju had burned out raw lust a long time ago. But the Low Moo was an attractive creature. The word popped into Remo's mind unbidden. She seemed in the half-light less a woman than a woman-child, and perhaps not quite that. There was something feral in her eyes. They were sullen and sexy at once. They made Remo feel a new emotion. Something subliminal. An anticipation, and a kind of tingling anxiousness too.
Remo sought her lips, but, teasing, she avoided them and sank perfect white teeth into his shoulder.
"Cut it out," Remo said lightly. The teeth tightened. Remo frowned.
"I need you, Remo. I need your strength," she said through her tightening teeth.
"How about you need me a little less hard?" Remo asked gently but firmly, pushing her head away. He took her face in his hands.
"I get ahead of myself," she said. "Why do you not lie back?"
"You want to get on top?"
"I want you. All of you."
Remo let himself be pushed down. There was something in the air, something that was sexual but somehow outside of sex. He didn't know what it was. But he felt a little thrill course along his spine and the short hairs of his forearms lifted as if from static electricity.
Whatever the Low Moo had in mind, it was going to be very different, Remo decided. He closed his eyes as she mounted him. Let her surprise him.
The Master of Sinanju smelled blood.
His wrinkled face lifted suddenly. He sniffed in all directions. The scent emanated from the High Moo's quarters.
Chiun went through the door like a charging ram.
The High Moo lay on his bed, the golden plume of kingship drooping from his crown so that it brushed his broad nose.
A bone knife slanted up from the middle of his breastbone. He was not breathing.
Chiun fell upon the man. He didn't touch the knife. It had probably severed veins or arteries, and its blade might have sealed off the severed ends. To withdraw it would risk the free flow of royal blood.
Instead, the Master of Sinanju placed a fist over the High Moo's heart. It beat sluggishly. His mouth was open like a fish's.
Chiun pounded the fist with the flat of his other hand. Once. Again. Again. And again. The High Moo's bulk quaked and trembled. A whitish foam spilled from his lips and the coughing began. His eyes fluttered open stupidly. "Move not," Chiun admonished. "I will tend to you."
Chiun examined the knife. It seemed to have gone in deeply. But when he touched the hilt, it wobbled. The blade had snapped going in. He lifted it free.
The blade had gone in at an angle. There was less damage than had been apparent. Chiun left the tip in.
"Sit up," Chiun said.
The High Moo pushed himself so that his torso and head were supported by the wall behind his sleeping mat. "Who did this?" demanded Chiun.
"I know not," mumbled the High Moo. His eyes were glassy and blank. He seemed to be in shock, although the blood loss was insignificant.
The Master of Sinanju flew to the open window. He stuck his head out. A Red Feather Guard stopped pacing the open courtyard.
"You! Guard!" Chiun called. "Where have you been?"
"Here," the guard replied hastily.
Chiun motioned him close, and when he was within reach, the Master of Sinanju smashed the bone spear from his hand, and taking him by the throat, forced him to his knees. "Your emperor lies wounded by base assassins. I will ask you again. Who entered this window?"
"But, no one." Chiun squeezed harder. The guard's eyes bulged like frightened grapes.
"I swear by the moon," he said.
Chiun's visage drew tighter. But the fear in the guard's voice told him that he spoke the truth as he knew it. No one had entered by the window. And only one person had entered by the door.
"See that no further harm comes to the High Moo," Chiun warned, "or it will be on your head." He released the guard and swept out of the room like a harried specter.
The Low Moo was not in her quarters. She was not in the eating room. Chiun began to ascend the stairs to the second floor, when he heard voices. Remo's. And one other.
He padded back to the first floor. The voices came from Remo's room.
Chiun burst in.
"Chiun!" Remo said in surprise. He lay on his back, the Low Moo atop him. She was pulling at her skirts, loosening them.
"Don't you believe in knocking first?" Remo asked sheepishly.
"I have learned who desires the High Moo's death," Chiun said.
"So have I," Remo said.
"Then why do I find you like this?"
Remo pushed the Low Moo away and sat up. "I was on my way to see you," he said. "Honest. But I happened to bump into her. One thing just led to another."