he moved. Nudity was far more comfortable. He went on: “Our own dragons, flying south into Unkerlant, have noted what looks to be something of a buildup of Unkerlanter soldiers in the northern regions ofKingSwemmel ’s realm.”
“We have noted the same thing.” Balastro didn’t sound very concerned. “I assure you it is nothing we can’t handle.”
“I am glad to hear that,” Hajjaj said, and hoped the Algarvian minister was right.
“We do keep an eye on things,” Marquis Balastro said, as if Hajjaj had denied it. “We also do our best to keep enemy air pirates from ravaging Algarve itself.”
“Aye, of course,” Hajjaj said. If you hadn’t lost Sibiu, you’d have an easier time of it, too. He didn’t say that; it would have been most undiplomatic. But that didn’t make it untrue.
Balastro bowed again; Algarvians were a punctiliously polite folk, even if they didn’t spend so much time on it as Zuwayzin did. “KingMezentio has ordered me to express his thanks toKingShazli through you,” he said.
“I shall be happy to do so.” Hajjaj bowed in return. “Ahh… his thanks for what?”
“Why, for his help in keeping Kaunian bandits here and, more to the point, keeping them out of Forthweg, of course,” Balastro answered.
“Oh.” After a moment, Hajjaj nodded. “He is very welcome. I speak for myself at the moment, you understand. But I shall convey your sovereign’s words to mine, and I am certain I speak inKingShazli ’s name here.”
He also wished he weren’t sayingKingMezentio was welcome. As far as he was concerned, the Kaunians who’d managed to flee from Forthweg had every right in the world to try to hit back at the Algarvians. But when they hit back, they unquestionably hurt the Algarvians’ war against Unkerlant. That, in turn, hurt Zuwayza. As foreign minister, Hajjaj found himself forced to condemn what he personally condoned.
Marquis Balastro smiled. “Believe me, your Excellency, I do understand your difficulty.”
And he probably did. He was a civilized man, in the best traditions of civilization in eastern Derlavai. Had Hajjaj not admired those traditions, he never would have chosen to finish his education at the University of Trapani. That didn’t keep him from wondering how such an eminently civilized man as Balastro could approve of the way his kingdom slaughtered Kaunians. He did, though-Hajjaj had no doubt of it.
His certainty oppressed him. He bowed his way away from Balastro and went over to the bar, where an Algarvian servitor who was almost surely also an Algarvian spy gave him a goblet of date wine. He was almost the only one in the room drinking the sweet, thick stuff. Even the Zuwayzi officers the Algarvian military attache had invited to the reception preferred vintages pressed from grapes. Hajjaj enjoyed those, too, but the taste of date wine took him back to his youth. For a man with white hair, few things could work such magic.
Sipping the date wine, the Zuwayzi foreign minister looked around the hall. There stoodHorthy, the Gyongyosian minister to Zuwayza, in earnest conversation with Iskakis, his Yaninan counterpart. They were both speaking classical Kaunian, a language that had never been used in either of their kingdoms but the only one they had in common. Hajjaj took another pull at his goblet, savoring the irony of that.
After a moment, Iskakis, a short, bald man with a mustache that looked like a black-winged moth perched between his nose and upper lip, sidled away from the large, leonineHorthy and started chatting up an Algarvian captain, one of the men on the military attache’s staff. The captain, a stalwart, handsome young man, beamed at the Yaninan. Iskakis was partial to stalwart, handsome young men. He was even more partial to boys.
His wife, meanwhile, was talking to Marquis Balastro. She was about half Iskakis’ age, and extraordinarily beautiful. Such a waste, that marriage, Hajjaj thought, not for the first time. Balastro, now, Balastro had the sleek look of a cat who’d fallen into a pitcher of cream. What Hajjaj saw as a waste, he saw as an opportunity. However civilized Balastro was, no Algarvian born had ever reckoned philandering anything but a pleasant diversion-unless, of course, he found himself wearing horns rather than giving them.
Balastro wouldn’t have to worry about that here. He stroked Iskakis’ wife’s cheek, an affectionate gesture that said he’d likely done other, more intimate stroking in private. Hajjaj wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d watched the two of them at a reception at the Gyongyosian ministry the autumn before.
Here, though, Iskakis’ wife twisted away. At first, Hajjaj thought that was playacting, and clever playacting to boot. Iskakis might prefer boys, but Yaninans had a prickly sense of honor. If Iskakis saw Balastro making free with the woman he thought of as his own, he would certainly call out the Algarvian minister. That their kingdoms were allies wouldn’t matter a bit, either.
Then Hajjaj saw the fury distorting the Yaninan woman’s delicately sculpted features. That wasn’t playacting, not unless she belonged on the stage. He hurried over toward her and Balastro. Yanina and Algarve were both allied to Zuwayza, too. The things I do for my kingdom, he thought.
“Everything’s fine, your Excellency,” Balastro said with an easy smile.
“This man is a beast, your Excellency.” Iskakis’ wife spoke fair Algarvian, with a gurgling Yaninan accent that made Hajjaj pause to make sure he’d understood her correctly. But he had. Her glare left no room for doubt.
“She’s just a trifle overwrought,” Balastro said.
“He is a swine, a pig, a pork, a stinking, rutting boar,” Iskakis’ wife said without great precision but with great passion. Then she said a couple of things in Yaninan that Hajjaj didn’t understand but that sounded both heartfelt and uncomplimentary.
Hajjaj said, “I gather the two of you have quarreled.” Balastro nodded. Iskakis’ wife dipped her head, which meant the same thing among Yaninans. Hajjaj went on, “You would be wiser not to show it. You would be wiser still not to show each other any kind of affection in public.”
Balastro bowed. “As always, your Excellency, you are a font of wisdom.”
Iskakis’ wife snarled. “You do not need to worry aboutthat.” Could looks have killed, the Algarvian minister would have died. Iskakis’ wife stalked away, arched nostrils flared, back ever so straight, hips working with fury.
With a sigh, Balastro said, “Well, it was fun while it lasted. Never a dull moment in bed, I’ll tell you that.”
“I believe you,” Hajjaj said: Half the men in the room were eyeing that swiveling backside with one degree of longing or another. Iskakis, otherwise preoccupied, was not among them. A good thing, too, Hajjaj thought.
“Aye, in bed Tassi’s splendid. Out of bed…” Balastro rolled his eyes. “A bursting egg for a temper and a razor for a tongue. I’m not all that surprised Iskakis would sooner stick it somewhere else.” He glanced over toward the Yaninan minister and the officer with whom he was talking. He made a face. “Though notthere, by the powers above.”
“No accounting for taste,” Hajjaj said, a profoundly unoriginal truth. Before too long, he took the opportunity to make his excuses and go back to his home in the hills above Bishah. Getting out of the clothes he’d worn and into the usual Zuwayzi outfit-sandals and, for outdoors, a hat-was, as usual, a great relief.
He was about to go down into the capital the next morning when someone knocked on the one door in the fortresslike outer wall to the sprawling compound that was as much clan center as dwellingplace. Tewfik, the ancient majordomo who presided over the residence, made his slow way out to see who was disturbing his master. He sent a younger, sprier servant hotfooting it back to Hajjaj. “Your Excellency, you’ve got to come see this for yourself,” the servant said, and would say no more even when Hajjaj barked at him.
And so, grumbling under his breath, Hajjaj went out to the gateway. There he foundTewfik looking, for once, quite humanly astonished. And there he also found Tassi, the wife of Iskakis the Yaninan minister. Polite as a cat, she bowed to him. “Good day, your Excellency,” she said. “I come to you, sir, seeking asylum from my husband, and from Marquis Balastro, and from everything and everyone outside Zuwayza.”
“Do-do-do you?” Hajjaj knew he was stammering, but couldn’t help it. He felt at least as astonished asTewfik looked.
Tassi dipped her head, as she had at the reception: sure enough, a Yaninan nod. “I do. You see? I already begin to follow your customs.” By that, she meant she stood before him wearing only sandals and a straw hat. Marquis Balastro occasionally aped Zuwayzi nudity. With Balastro, the effect was more ludicrous than anything else. With Tassi …
All at once, Hajjaj understood that the Algarvian wordsnude andnaked were not perfect synonyms. His own people, who took their bare skin for granted, were nude. Tassi was naked, using her skin for her own purposes. Sensuality came off her in waves.
And she knew as much, too, and relished the confusion-among other things-she paused. “Take me in, your
