'Sirket knows what you've been planning?' Kheda struggled with the notion. 'He approves?'
'No.' Janne shook her head vehemently. 'He knows nothing. He doesn't even know that you are still alive. He only told me what he read in the skies. Rekha and I saw how it bore on our situation.'
'What are you going to tell Sirket?' Now it was Kheda's turn to be cold as tears threatened Janne's composure.
'I will tell him that you have returned, that you did something, I don't know what, to defeat the sorcery that gave the invaders their strength.' She paused to swallow a sob. 'I'll tell him you see the impossibility of ever returning to rule the Daish domain, touched as you have been by magic. I'll tell him you're turning all your talent to rebuilding the Chazen domain, so that it might be a bulwark to defend Daish against any return of these savages. Are you going to make a liar out of me to our son?'
Her plea tore at his heart. Kheda rubbed a hand over his beard. 'I thought I knew you. I thought that sharing my bed and my heart and my fears and joys with you meant I knew you. I never did, did I? You kept yourself so very well hidden. All right, Janne, I won't bring all the grief you promise down on our children, or on my domain, my former domain,' he corrected himself sarcastically. Heart too full to say anything else, he threw up his hands and turned on his heel.
'Where are you going?' called Janne in consternation.
'What do you care?' Kheda threw back over his shoulder.
'Where do I send Itrac?'
Janne's unexpected query stopped Kheda in his tracks. He turned to look at her. 'What?'
'She's your responsibility now, Chazen Kheda,' Janne told him defiantly. 'The domain she was born to won't have her back, not with the taint of magic on her. I've pleaded her case but they won't yield. You can't let her loose, not till you're sure she doesn't carry Saril that was Chazen's child. If she bore such a babe, someone like Ulla Safar could marry her and try forcing a claim on the domain.'
'What will you do if I don't take her?' Kheda spat. 'Feed her some shellfish?'
Janne flinched as if he had struck her but she didn't relent. 'Where do I send her?'
Kheda gave up. 'The Chazen dry-season residence. Tell her I'll find her there.'
Who knows, by then, I might even have worked out what to tell her, how to explain what I have done and how it landed me in this mess. If it wasn't for the sand beneath my feet, the breeze in my face, I could almost imagine this was some horrible dream. But no, no dream. I couldn't dream such agony and not wake from it.
Kheda stormed down the beach to row back to the Amigal. As he swung himself up on deck, Dev and Risala were standing there, faces avid with curiosity. Kheda glared at them with challenge in every line of his body and both hastily adopted studiedly neutral expressions.
'Can't say that looked to be going well from here,' said Dev cautiously. 'Not that we could hear much, but isn't that Chazen Saril who's just died such a remarkably painful death?'
Finally, something to shake that bastard's composure. That might almost make this all worth it.
'He ate some bad shellfish,' said Kheda in as dispassionate a tone as he could manage. 'Which leaves the Chazen domain without a ruler. Janne Daish believes this is my destiny rather than returning to depose my own son. I am forced to agree with her.'
'Oh,' said Risala blankly.
'Forced?' Dev looked slyly at Kheda. 'There's a handful of ways that trireme could come to grief, before it ever comes to port.'
'I would hate to think of that happening,' Kheda said with cold threat.
'So where do we go now?' Risala tried to see past Kheda to the shore.
He didn't look back. 'I need to get to the dry-season residence of the Chazen warlords. I don't know what there'll be left of it but it's somewhere to start.' He glanced down at the little skiff bobbing at the Amigal's side. 'Can I have this? You can take me as far as the main sea lane before you turn north, can't you?'
Dev's response surprised him. 'I'll take you all the way you want to go, never mind that.'
Kheda hesitated. 'You should go north, both of you. There'll be all manner of suspicions floating on the breezes round here.'
'Suspicions maybe, but none so many witnesses,' grinned Dev. 'No one understands that savage gabble.'
'Janne says there are Chazen islanders telling of the final battle between the invaders and some unknown mage,' Kheda said with difficulty.
'Crazed with fear and thirst and hunger, who can be sure what they saw?' Dismissing them with an airy wave, Dev limped painfully down the deck towards Kheda. 'You don't get rid of me that easily. You owe me and plenty, don't forget that. It's a good thing those savage mages weren't interested in turtle shell and pearls, otherwise you'd be hard pressed to pay me this side of the next new year stars.' He passed Kheda and went to sit by the tiller. 'You and the girl better raise the sail if we're to make Chazen waters by nightfall.'
Kheda looked at Risala. 'We can find you a ship going north, I'm sure of it.'
'Shek Kul will want a full report, not half a one,' she said, attempting to equal Dev's offhand manner. 'He'll want to know that you've got a firm grip on the Chazen domain.'
'Let's hope you can take that news north sooner rather than later.' Kheda looked down at the cipher ring pensively.
'The sooner we start, the sooner it'll be done,' Risala encouraged him.
Not trusting himself to reply, Kheda turned to use the heavy sweeps to turn the little ship while Risala busied herself with the sails. Dev tended the tiller in unconcerned silence. Once they had the Amigal on her way across the open waters, Kheda went to stand in the prow, alone with his thoughts.
How can she be so cold-hearted, so ruthless? Her iron will's not so admirable now, is it, when it's turned on you instead of against the domain's foes? Rekha, of course she'd go along with Janne. I've always known there'd be no question for her if it came to a choice between me and her children. Sain, well, I've barely had time to lay claim to her loyalty.
How can I claim any loyalty from any of them, when in truth, I've done all that Janne accused me of? Did I misread the omens and the stars that led me to this? I don't believe so. But is it so unexpected that there be a price to pay for dealing with wizards, even if my intent has been pure? Have I brought this upon myself? If my intent had not been pure, perhaps I would be dead now, killed by the poison in the shellfish.
Could Sirket possibly have the right of it? He's not mired in magic the way I have undeniably been. There's certainly too much truth in what Janne had to say to ignore it. If no one claims the Chazen domain, we won't need invaders to bring disaster on the southern reaches; we'll bring it on ourselves.
What now? Do I dare take the omens from the stars tonight? Should I be studying the skies and all the signs of nature around me? How will I read them if I do, when I have absolutely no feeling for this Chazen domain, no claim upon its people and not the first notion what's going to happen now?