Kheda rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘So it’s not as bad as it could be. The domain’s not in an uproar.’
‘It would have been a cursed sight worse if we hadn’t got back when we did,’ Risala countered. ‘And the people need your leadership. Otherwise dread will spread like mildew.’
‘Slow but insidious.’ Kheda looked at her, his voice low. ‘Do they believe what we said happened to us and the Amigair
‘I think so.’ Risala wrinkled her nose with a suggestion of doubt. ‘They want to believe that it’s possible to escape a dragon, especially those who have friends or family on the triremes you’ve left out there to continue the hunt for the savages. And they’ve no reason to think their warlord wouldn’t tell them the truth,’ she concluded wryly.
‘I’d better get to the courier-dove lofts.’ Kheda pushed himself away from the wall. ‘And see what news there is from the Mist Dove and the others. Do you know if there have been any whispers on the wind from any other domains? Is Janne Daish inviting people to wonder why a magic so evil touches this domain, even if it chooses not to touch me?’ A knock sounded on the brass-bound door giving on to the hallway. ‘Dev? Have you been grinding the sailer to make that bread?’ The door opened to reveal Itrac. ‘Good morning, Kheda.’ Waving Jevin back, she pushed the door closed on his anxious face. She turned to face Kheda, her expression unreadable behind a mask of cosmetics. Risala slid off the bed to vanish swiftly away through the bathing room.
‘Itrac, good morning.’ Kheda brushed a chaste kiss on her cheek and then waited, uncertain what to do or say for the best.
How can I tell you I don’t blame you for panicking at the news that you might have been widowed a second time in strange and ominous circumstances? How can I do that without shaming you by letting you know I heard about your hysterics’!
‘Jevin is bringing your breakfast.’ The first wife of Chazen was wearing a long, wide-sleeved tunic over close-fitted trousers all in leaf-green silk shot with silver lights. Ropes of pearls bound the shimmering cloth at ankle, wrist, waist and neck and a crescent of silver-mounted nacre held back her long black hair, which was plaited into a torrent of narrow braids. ‘Dev was as weary as you. I told Beyau to leave him in his cubby hole.’ Itrac shrugged her disdain for a body slave who insisted on a permanent sleeping place of his own, rather than at the foot of his master’s bed. ‘He’ll hardly be fit to serve you if he doesn’t sleep himself out.’
‘We had a tiring voyage back here,’ Kheda said carefully.
‘And suffered in the sun when you had to make your own way back to the Yellow Serpent.’ Avoiding Kheda’s eyes, Itrac went to a tall coffer and took out a stubby jar with a rag-swathed stopper. ‘Let me oil your back before you finish dressing.’
‘Thank you.’ Kheda took the jar from her and poured a little of the emollient into his own palm before returning it. He rubbed the lotion into his hands.
Back to navigating the intricate complexities of the married life. You’re offering an intimacy but one that means you don’t have to face me. What does that tell me?
Now we have a dragon to plague us.’ Behind him, Itrac’s voice was as firm as her fingers rubbing balm into his muscles. ‘After all the trials of invasion last year.’
‘There is indeed a dragon.’ Kheda concentrated on relaxing his shoulders. ‘Though I’m not sure it’s here to plague us. For the moment, it seems most interested in devouring those remaining invaders. It’s entirely possible that their wickedness has brought this evil down upon them.’
‘Truly?’ Itrac’s hands stopped circling. ‘That’s how you read this?’
‘It’s certainly more than possible,’ Kheda said steadily. ‘I shall need to read the omens with considerable care, to see if things become any clearer.’
In the meantime, that’s the word we’ll start spreading as far and as fast as courier doves and dispatch galleys can carry it. And I’m sure the portents can be suitably ambiguous, in case the beast makes a liar out of me.
‘Hesi, on the Yellow Serpent, he said the dragon overflew them.’ Itrac resumed her rubbing and Kheda could feel a faint scoring from her silver-varnished nails. ‘It drove that boat your slave insists is his on to a reef?’
‘Some whirlwind was following in its wake.’ Kheda tried to strike an appropriate balance between awe and ease of mind. ‘It seems the poets were right: such creatures stir up chaos wherever they go.’ Thank you, Risala, for recalling that nugget from some endless epic or other. I imagine poets on every island will be unrolling those song cycles now. What will that do for morale]
‘So we will see the whole domain riven by this chaos?’ Itrac’s hands and voice both trembled.
Not if I have any say in it.’ Kheda turned to take her hands in his, looking deep into her brown eyes. ‘As I said, for now the beast seems content to eat those foul savages and I’m content to let it. I’ve ordered our triremes and warriors to drive the wild men into its very jaws, if they can do so without risking themselves.’
‘But you said we needed all our boats guarding the main sea lanes . Itrac faltered.
‘Which is why I decided to clear the western isles of the last invaders,’ Kheda reminded her. ‘That’s what our warriors need to be doing, isn’t it, dragon or no dragon? Besides, I’ll wager word of this beast clears Chazen waters of every parasite and pirate. They’ll be splashing their way north as fast as they can row. There can be a pearl in the least promising oyster, can’t there?’
He gripped her fingers tighter to stifle the next question on Itrac’s lips. ‘And we saw something very strange when we washed up close by the beast, something so strange no poet would dare imagine it. The creature covets gems, Itrac. Don’t ask me why, but it does. Dev and I saw a wild man buy his life with a handful of them. That’s how we managed to escape its notice, while it was besotted with its prize. We must send jewels to the triremes, so that they can buy their lives by distracting the beast with them, if need be.’
‘Jewels?’ Itrac’s eyes widened with pure astonishment.
Kheda nodded. ‘We keep this to ourselves, naturally, but don’t you see, this knowledge can buy us more time as and when the beast has eaten its fill of those invaders. I’ll stuff its mouth with every jewel Chazen can lay hands on before I let it devour a single one of our people.’
‘And when it’s eaten every gem we can lay our hands on?’ There was desperation in Itrac’s eyes.
‘All the while we’re keeping it sated, with carrion or whatever else it wants, we’ll be looking for the means to kill it,’ Kheda told her purposefully. ‘I will not give over this domain to that creature, Itrac. I refuse to believe we cannot kill this dragon. Those invaders came backed by magic and terror and we killed their wizards. I found the means to defeat their sorcerors in Shek Kul’s archive. I’ve already sent dispatch galleys to every warlord we’re allied with who has a library worth having between here and the northernmost reaches. There must be lore about such beasts somewhere.’
‘You’ve seen some portent telling you this is the best thing to do?’ Itrac’s face shone with frantic hope. ‘I have,’ Kheda lied doggedly. ‘And I shall go on using every divination known to me to see us through this peril.’
That much is no He. I’ll use every means I have of battling such evil. Every means, even if that requires consorting with wizards again.
Tears filled Itrac’s eyes. ‘Chazen Saril never showed such courage. He wouldn’t have gone looking for answers, for ways to fight back, not like you did. He’d have run from a dragon, just like before when the invaders came. He wouldn’t have come back for me.’