Juliet McKenna - Western Shore

What inside knowledge can you offer me? You always had the most well-informed network of eyes and ears of any warlord's lady.

Janne Daish rallied, squaring her shoulders beneath her gossamer wrap. 'I imagine our hurt feelings are the least of Ulla Safar's concerns.'

'How so?' Kheda prompted.

Janne considered her reply. 'You may as well know,' she said at length, twisting the fringe of her wrap around her fingers. 'Ulla Orhan has been actively seeking support among the spokesmen of the domain's villages and islands. It's whispered he is looking to overthrow his father. So Ulla Safar had him locked in Derasulla's deepest dungeon.'

The back of Kheda's neck prickled as if a chill breath of wind had blown from the north. 'And Orhan will be sliced to quivering shreds for the fat snake's entertainment as soon as he's got a new son who looks healthy enough to live to an age of reason.'

'More likely it'll be a death leaving a presentable corpse,' Janne said dryly. 'Safar's predicament is compli-eated by the affection of the Ulla people for Orhan, despite their fear of Safar, Safar has had plenty of practice using

venoms to make it seem as though someone has died of a fever. Remember Orhan's mother.'

'Hence the tale of him being unwell.' Kheda shook his head. 'But Sirket said he'd had a letter—'

'I take it he let that slip with appropriate clumsiness?' Janne's smile gleamed in the moonlight.

Kheda was puzzled. 'It wasn't true?'

'It was true.' Janne tossed a shred from the fringe of her wrap into the silent water beneath the bridge. 'But the letter didn't come from anywhere on Hakere, so Safar can waste all the time and men he chooses beating the bushes on that isle.'

'Orhan has escaped his father's clutches?' Kheda frowned as he tried to make sense of this unexpected news. 'Is that what you were telling Taisia Ritsem?'

'That and warning her not to take any food or drink from Chay or Mirrel,' Janne said with distaste. 'They're frantically trying to dose each other and any other wife or concubine they suspect of receiving Safar's attentions, to be certain any babe he begets slips away. I wouldn't put it past either one of them to ruin Taisia's happiness out of sheer spite.'

'They are truly vile.' Kheda didn't hide his disgust. 'I've always thought they deserved each other, those two and Safar.'

'They're reaping a full harvest from the misery they've sown in the past.' Janne settled her wrap anew around her shoulders. 'With any luck they'll poison each other and Safar for good measure, while Orhan thrives on sailer pottage and spring water out in the forests.'

'Wouldn't we all be safer if Orhan were recaptured?' Kheda picked at the rope rail. 'If he dies, Tewi Ulla becomes the heir and there's no way she could hold that domain together.'

'Orhan has been paying court to Dau for over a year

now.' Janne folded her hands deliberately across her golden belt. 'Sirket, Rekha and I all agree that it would be a good marriage.'

'You want Dau to marry Ulla Safar's son?' Appalled, Kheda pushed himself away from the rope and set the whole bridge swaying.

'Not unless she chooses to,' Janne said with asperity, putting a hand on one of the posts to steady herself. 'I know you always thought Orhan a fool, but we've come to realise that was a feint to divert his father's suspicions.'

'It was a convincing deceit.' Kheda picked at the frayed palm rope again, biting back more heated words.

He's still not fit to wash the dust from my daughter's feet. But I have no say in such matters now that Sirket is warlord of Daish. Does he know anything more of the plots inside Derasulla's labyrinthine walls? Another of my lost brothers chose to serve the Daish domain as azamorin slave in that termite hill. Who does he send word to now?

'Ulla Orhan played a significant part in saving you from Ulla Safar's assassins,' Janne said pointedly into the silence.

'Is all this what's caused the breach between Redigal Coron and Safar?' asked Kheda abruptly.

'No, that was Ulla Safar overreaching himself once again,' Janne said with satisfaction. 'Coron discovered that those zamorin counsellors of his were plotting to overthrow him—'

Kheda searched his memory for some half-recollection. 'There was rumour—'

''This was no rumour,' Janne said tartly.

Kltcdii looked towards the silent darkness of the obser-vatory, 'Zamorin are supposed to be less interested in worldly ambltion than whole men, cut off as they are from fathering their own posterity.'

'Which is why Redigal Adun sought such scholars as tutori for his sons,' agreed Janne. 'I don't suppose he

foresaw that those zamorin would become such a powerful clique, renewing their number through adopted sons and co-opted nephews.'

Kheda shook his head slowly. 'What kind of man would willingly undergo castration? When so many die—'

'Which is partly what prompted this plot, as I understand it,' Janne said delicately. 'Those counsellors looking to retire to enjoy the luxuries they've amassed have been finding it difficult to secure replacements.'

'If their numbers dwindle, so does their power.' Kheda nodded. 'Whereas if the domain was thrown into confusion by the loss of their beloved warlord, at sea perhaps, with his senior wives and his heir—'

'It wouldn't be so remarkable for one of their own to take power, to save the domain from anarchy.' Janne finished his sentence. 'A warlord need not necessarily beget his own children, as long as they are born to his wives and acknowledged as such. Several of the Redigal daughters are of age to wed—'

'With those trusted and uninterested zamorin servants ready to advise them in their choices of lovers to bring new blood into the noble line,' concluded Kheda.

'Or whoever the zamorin put forward as warlord might still have been in possession of his personal jewels.' Janne shrugged. 'Rumour also has it that several they have recruited in recent years haven't been fully qualified. Or overly astute, apparently,' she added with asperity.

'How do you mean?' Kheda was intrigued despite himself.

It's so easy to slip back into our old complicity. It was so easy to love you, Janne. I'll never love Itrac in the same way. But it's so much simpler to love Risala. She knows all my secrets and still loves me, even if I've yet to convince her I cannot believe in omens any more.

'You've seen this new body slave of Coron's, Prai.'

Janne drew closer, lowering her voice. 'Moni acquired him to be a new guard for her daughters. One of the newer zamorin counsellors saw Prai going clean-shaven, assumed he was another eunuch and let slip something that puzzled the boy. He went to Moni and she warned him not to reveal himself as a lover of men, but to play along with the foolish zamorin to learn what he could of their plots.'

Kheda nodded his understanding as Janne continued.

'She soon learned enough to blackmail the relevant counsellor into promoting Prai to be Coron's body slave. Obviously Moni knew Coron was more inclined to men than to women when she married him. Prai had come to admire Redigal Coron, so it was a short step to loving him once he had Moni's blessing.' Janne adjusted one of the ivory combs in her hair. 'Prai could pass messages to Coron in the privacy of their bedchamber without the zamorin counsellors interrupting or becoming suspicious. When Moni had proof of the plot and Ulla Safar's complicity, Prai told Coron and helped stiffen his resolve to rid himself of the zamorin in one stroke.'

'I would never have thought Coron had it in him,' Kheda said frankly. 'He's always been so in thrall to those counsellors.'

'They played no small part in guiding Redigal Adun to choose him as heir.' Pity coloured Janne's words.

'Out of six or seven brothers—' Kheda grimaced at unwelcome recollection.