‘Don’t you think he intended we should use it to cripple the savage wizards so that we could kill them by less dubious means?’ Kheda looked up at the girl.
‘Which is what we did,’ she pointed out firmly, ‘as far as your friends among the neighbouring warlords and their wives are concerned. You needn’t favour the rest with any explanation.’
‘I don’t think Rekha believes that fireside tale of me as the bold hero, risking my own life to sneak in among the invaders to poison their mages’ cook pots, however far and wide you’ve got village versifiers proclaiming it.’ There was little humour in Kheda’s words. ‘I can’t see her and Janne letting their curiosity lie any time soon.’
‘You still have some of Shek Kul’s powder, don’t you? Couldn’t you show it to Rekha?’ wondered Risala.
‘And feed some to Dev to show her how it works?’ Kheda smiled to take the sting out of his words. ‘Then tell how we half-poisoned, half-blackmailed this mage from the north into using his own enchantments to defeat the sorcerous southerners? Then explain how we didn’t let him die of the wounds he suffered from their spells but patched him up and gave him the protection of being my body slave?’
‘When you put it like that, no, let’s not.’ Risala grinned back but Kheda could see the shadow in her eyes.
The same shadow that lies over me.
‘I don’t imagine Itrac would be any too pleased to learn just what her new lord and master is capable of,’ he said wearily. ‘And you could be certain Rekha would tell her. I don’t think the ladies of Daish want to see me making a success of this marriage they wished on us.’
‘You couldn’t very well do anything but many Itrac.’ Risala sounded indignant, folding her arms across her meagre chest. ‘When Janne Daish refused her further shelter and the domain she was born to spurned her as irrevocably tainted with magic. What were you supposed to do? Let some brute like Ulla Safar catch her, call her rape a man-iage and try claiming the Chazen domain for himself on the strength of wedding the last living survivor of the true warlord’s family?’
‘Since you put it like that, no, not really.’ Kheda shared another brief smile with Risala.
‘Speaking of Itrac, she’s making a fair job of patching up Olkai Chazen’s web of informers,’ Risala said briskly. ‘I found myself nearly tripping over their snares more than once.’
‘What are the islanders saying about Itrac?’ Kheda asked, diverted.
‘Half want to see her waddling around like a broody duck’ Risala was scornful. ‘The other half see that she has far too many tasks as it is to add the trials of pregnancy and childbed.’
‘Let’s hope Olkai’s informers pass on that message loud and clear,’ said Kheda with feeling. ‘And there’s no likelihood of Itrac inviting me to give her a baby any time soon—though Dev has his own explanation for that,’ he added sardonically. ‘Given that no domain would actively seek an alliance with such an insignificant warlord, he says that Saril plainly must have had something else to recom—
mend him to his wives. He reckons Itrac doesn’t want to risk taking me to her bed and finding I don’t measure up.’
‘That sounds like Dev,’ said Risala with contempt. ‘He should let his hair and beard grow in rather than shaving to look like a man’s man or a zamorin, even if he is a barbarian. Then some girl might take him to her bed just for the novelty of it and he’d be a lot easier to live with.’
‘Or even more intolerable,’ countered Kheda.
‘Mind you, there’s no end of speculation around the cookfires as to where you might find a nicely fertile second wife,’ continued Risala, blue eyes bright with mischief. ‘Or even a second and a third, to sit and nurse their swelling bellies while you and Itrac restore Chazen’s fortunes. You fathered enough children for Daish, so there’s no doubt as to your virility.’
‘That’s just what I need.’ Exasperated as he was, Kheda couldn’t help grinning. ‘Some lesser daughter prepared to risk the miasma of magic hereabouts in return for such a rise in her status. Have there been any rumours about who might put themselves forward? Perhaps that explains Rekha’s boldness.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Risala was puzzled.
‘Rekha Daish did her best to seduce me earlier.’ Kheda shook his head with mingled amusement and disbelief.
‘What did you do?’ Risala demanded with unexpected sharpness.
‘What do you think?’ Kheda raised his eyebrows. ‘I made my excuses and left as fast as I could, to try to work out what she was cursed well after.’
Risala cleared her throat.
‘Do you think I was tempted?’ On an impulse he didn’t stop to examine, Kheda reached out and took Risala’s hand.
‘Were you?’ She looked down at him, eyes shadowed beneath her raggedly cut hair.
‘A little.’ Kheda stood up and brushed the black locks away from her face with gentle fingers. ‘That bothers you, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ She didn’t blink, sapphire gaze fixed steadily on him.
‘I missed you so much while we were on that interminable voyage.’ Kheda caressed her pointed chin. ‘More than I realised I would. More than anyone else. I missed having someone I can talk to without weighing every word. I missed having someone I could trust not to judge me. I missed having someone who knows the worst of me and is still my friend.’
‘I just missed you.’ Risala pressed her face against his hand.
‘As for Rekha Kheda shrugged. ‘I’m far more tempted right now.’
‘Good,’ she breathed. ‘It’s taken you long enough to get around to it.’
He bent and kissed her. Her lips yielded, roughened by wind and sun. He could taste the salt on her. Risala reached a hand up to the back of his neck to kiss him harder, demanding more. Kheda broke free to catch his breath. ‘I’ll never hear the last of it from Dev if I get my elegant new clothes all creased.’
‘That’s something else the islanders like about you.’ Risala kissed him again. ‘You’re not some Redigal Coron, to be ruled by your body slave.’ She lifted her other arm up to encircle his neck.
Kheda set his hands on either side of her waist and drew her close, feeling his own passion rising as he kissed her long and urgently. Risala closed her eyes with a sigh of fervent pleasure.
Kheda paused in his kisses, though he still held her tight. ‘Itrac doesn’t need her life complicated by me taking a concubine.’ As he spoke, he slid one hand beneath Risala’s loose tunic, feeling her warm skin, her firm ribs.
She lifted his hand to cup one of her modest breasts. ‘And I can hardly be your eyes and ears if every eye is on me.’
Not if people think you’re anything more to me than my poet.’ Kheda felt her enticing softness harden beneath his palm.
‘Because the servants and slaves will soon spread the gossip.’ She pressed herself against him, claiming his lips with her own.
‘So we really shouldn’t be doing this.’ He kissed her again. Not where anyone might see us.’ No,’ she agreed before kissing the corner of his mouth. ‘It’s foolishness.’
‘I could get used to this kind of folly.’ Kheda shivered involuntarily. ‘But they would call you an old man’s folly.’
‘I’m old enough to know my own mind.’ Risala’s words were muffled by his kisses. ‘And you’re in your prime, not your dotage.’
‘Jevin, is that you? Are we wanted?’ Dev’s voice, artificially loud, rang out in the night beyond the archway.
Risala released him from her embrace and Kheda reluctantly wrenched himself away. ‘And speaking of folly, I have to go and spend a charming evening trying to stop Rekha and Itrac scratching each other’s eyes out before we’ve seen the new-year stars align themselves.’ Despite the heavy footfalls on the steps outside, Kheda kissed her one last time, swift and thorough.
‘I don’t think I have a poem suitable for that.’ Risala slid down from the table and tugged her tunic straight. ‘So I’ll go and get that bath I was talking about.’