"My Lord Torchholder-there you are!"
Prince Kadakithis's relentlessly cheerful voice dragged the priest from his reverie.
"You're a devilish hard man to find sometimes. Lord Torch-holder. No, don't stand-I'll sit beside you."
"I was just enjoying the sunshine-and the quiet."
"I can imagine. That's why I followed you-to get you while you were alone. My Lord Torchholder-I'm confused."
Molin cast a final glance at the glimmering harbor and gave his whole attention to the golden-haired aristocrat squatting in front of him. "I'm at your service, my prince."
"Is Roxane dead or alive?"
The young man wasn't asking easy questions today. "Neither. That is, we would know if she were dead-a soul such as hers makes quite a splash when it surfaces in hell. And we would know if she were alive-in any ordinary sense. She has, in effect, vanished which we think, on the whole, is more likely to mean that she is alive, rather than dead, but safely hidden somewhere where even Jihan can't find her-though such a place is beyond all imagining. She might, I suppose, have become Niko herself-though Jihan assures us she would know if such a thing had happened."
"Ah," the prince said with an indecisive nod. "And the Stormchildren-nothing will change with them one way or another until she's either fully dead or alive?"
"That's a rather inelegant way of summing up a week's worth of argument-but I think that you're fairly close to the heart of the matter."
"And we don't want our visitors from the capital to know about her or the Stormchildren?"
"I think it would be safe to say that whatever chaos the witch could cause on her own it would be made immeasurably worse were it witnessed by someone, as you say, 'from the capital'."
"And because we don't know where she is, or what she's going to do, or when she's going to do it; we're trying to guard against everything and starting to distrust each other. More than usual, that is-though not you and I, of course."
Molin smiled despite himself-beneath that affable dense-ness the prince concealed a certain degree of intelligence, leadership, and common sense. "Of course," he agreed.
"I think, then, we're making a mistake. I mean, we couldn't be making it easier for her-assuming she actually is planning something."
"You would suggest we do something different?"
"No," the youth chuckled, "I don't make suggestions like that-but, if I were you I'd suggest that, rather than guarding against her, we put some sort of irresistible temptation in front of her-an ambush."
"And what sort of temptation would / suggest?"
"The children."
. "No," the priest chided, only half in jest now; the prince's suggestion had him thinking of intriguing ways to deal with both Tempus and magic. "Jihan wouldn't stand for that."
"Oh." The prince sighed and got to his feet. "I hadn't thought about her. But it was a good idea, wasn't it-as far as it went?"
Molin nodded generously. "A very good idea."
"You'll think about it then? Almost as if I had inspired you? My father said once that his job wasn't finding the solutions to all the Empire's problems but inspiring other men to find the solutions." Molin watched the prince make his way back to the stairway, greeting each group of laborers. Kadakithis had been raised among the servants and was always more confident, and more popular, among them than his aristocratic relations suspected. He might astound them all and become the leader Sanctuary, and the Empire, needed.
The priest waited until the young man had reentered the palace before quietly making his way toward a different stairway and the Ilsig Bedchamber where he would promote the prince's notions and his own inspirations to those most able to implement them.
Jihan was bathing Gyskouras when the Beysib guard announced him. She handed the inert toddler to a nursemaid with evident reluctance and headed for the door with the long, rangy stride of a woman who had never worn anything more confining than a scale-armor tunic. Water was her element; she glowed where it had splashed against her.
For a moment Molin forgot she was a Froth Daughter, remembering only that it had been well over a month since his wife had left him and that he had always been attracted to a more predatory sort of woman than was socially acceptable. Then an involuntary shiver raced down his spine as Jihan passed judgment on him; the flash of desire vanished without a trace.
"I was expecting you," she said, stepping to the side of the doorway and allowing him into the nursery.
"I didn't know I was coming here myself until a few moments ago." He lifted her hand to his lips, as if she were any other Rankan noblewoman.
Jihan shrugged. "I can tell, that's all. The rabble," she gestured toward the doorway and the city beyond it, "aren't really alive at all. But you, and the others-you're alive enough to be interesting." She took the Stormchild, Gyskouras, from the Beysib woman's arms and went back to the obviously pleasurable task of bathing him. "I like interesting..."
The Froth Daughter paused. Torchholder followed her stare to its target. Seylalha, the lithe temple-dancer and mother of the motionless toddler in Jihan's arms, was doing a very attentive job of wiping the sweat from Niko's still-fevered forehead.
"Don't touch that bandage!"
Seylalha turned to meet Jihan's glower. Before becoming the mother of Vashanka's presumed heir, the young woman had only known the stifling world of a slave dancer, trained and controlled by the bitter, mute women whom Vashanka had rejected; she seldom needed words to express her feelings. She made a properly humble obeisance, cast a longing glance at the child, her own son, Gyskouras, cradled in Jihan's arms, and went back to stroking Niko's forehead. Jihan began to tremble.
"You were saying?" Molin inquired, daring to interrupt the fuming creature who was both primal deity and spoiled adolescent.
"Saying?" Jihan looked around, her eyes shimmering.
If Jihan had not had the power to freeze his soul to the bedchamber floor, Molin would have laughed aloud. She couldn't bear to see something she wanted in the possession of anyone else and she always wanted more than even a goddess could comfortably possess.
"I wanted your advice," he began, lying and flattering her. "I'm beginning to think that we should seize the initiative with Roxane, or her ghost or whatever she's become, before our visitors from Ranke arrive. Do you think that we could bait a trap for her and-with your assistance, of course-catch her when she came to investigate?"
"Not the children," she replied, clutching the dripping child to her breast.
"No, I think we could find something even more tempting: a Globe of Power-if it looked sufficiently, but believably, unattended."
Jihan's grip on Gyskouras relaxed, a faint smile grew on her lips; clearly she was tempted. "What do I do?" she asked, no longer thinking of children, or even men, but of the chance to do battle with Roxane again.
"At first, convince Tempus that it's a good idea to give the appearance of doing something very foolish with the Globe of Power. Suggest to him that he could solve the problems within the Stepsons by letting them prove to themselves and everyone else that Roxane is dead and powerless."
"Tempus? He spends more time with his horses than he does here with me or the Stepsons. I'd like to do more than talk to Tempus." Her smile grew broader when she mentioned the man who was, by Stormbringer's command, her lover, companion, and escort during her mortality. "The two of us alone could take the globe and the witch...."