Southern Fire

'Don't let me stand in the way of your duties, my ladies.' Kheda smiled and bowed to relinquish his claim on Moni before handing his crystal goblet back to Telouet. 'Find me some fruit juice.'

Kheda watched several of the Ulla slaves sliding speculative glances at Telouet as his body slave crossed the room to the broad array of gold and silver ewers standing in trays of crushed ice melting so fast the harried servants were constantly replenishing it.

'Lilla juice, I'm afraid.' On his return, Telouet handed Kheda a goblet with a rueful grin. 'That's all there is apart from wines.'

'What's Safar thinking of?' Kheda shook his head as he took it. 'Ah well, maybe he'll miscalculate his own drinking and drop dead in tomorrow's heat. Do you want to circulate a little, Telouet? See what you can learn for us? Some of those girls look as if they might trade some useful information for the pleasure of your presence in their bed.'

And they'll certainly learn nothing from Telouet, who assuredly knows idle chatter isn't among the proper uses for his tongue in the throes of passion.

'I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you, my lord,' Telouet said, though not without regret. 'I was talking to Ganil and he says the women slaves are desperate to get with child by some outsider, to get some claim on another domain and the chance of escape from this pesthole.'

'That's a new development.' Kheda frowned as he drank. 'Have their lives really become so insupportable here? Or is Safar prompting them? I wouldn't put it past him to come up with some spurious objection if one of his slaves insisted on her rights to demand support from the father of her child. He could easily finesse an argument over that into a wider conflict.'

'Or look to plant a spy on us.' Telouet's gaze slid to a pretty slave girl demure in a gown of silk gauze that left little to the imagination. 'Do you want me to try and find out?'

'Only if you find the ground bitterspine leaves in honey paste in the bottom of my physic chest first,' Kheda advised. 'Tip your sword with that before you sheathe it.'

'Dear me, you look very serious.' Kheda turned to find Taisia Ritsem at his elbow. 'But then this is rather a dull gathering. Isn't Ja

Kheda smiled with genuine pleasure. 'My lady Taisia, a delight to see you, as always.'

'Save your flattery for Mirrel,' she recommended with a fond twinkle as her body slave retreated to a discreet distance along with Telouet. No great beauty, Taisia wore a solitary comb to tame her dark, wiry hair, an elegant piece of silver filigree. The vivid blue of her draperies flattered her warm brown skin, a plain dress caught at each shoulder with a brooch of knotted silver strands worn beneath a wrap painted with a brilliant shoal of coral fishes. She wore a single necklace, a heavy chain with an uncut sapphire pendant nestling at the base of her throat.

'Then I'll say you're looking tired and apprehensive, shall I?' Kheda could well see what her body slave had sought to conceal beneath her cosmetics. 'And mourning Olkai.'

The barest suggestion of tears came and went in Taisia's dark eyes. 'Much to Mirrel's surprise, with her so long departed from our domain.' Her tone was acid.

'Rekha always says Mirrel's worst flaw is assuming everyone else thinks as she does. Ja

Where did you go, when you left our council, rather than coming straight here as you implied? You haven't changed that yellow tunic, and is it just the heat prompting all that sweat darkening the armpits or have you been about something more exerting?

An instant later Ja

Ja

'Ja

She moved to embrace Ja

Birut was standing at Ja

Dear me, Mirrel, with Ja