“Well, well, well…”

She stood in the doorway, bright light from the hall beyond glowing in her dark hair and down the edges of her white dress, her head on one side and the faintest ghost of a smile on her shadowy face. She seemed hardly to have changed. So often in life, moments that are long anticipated turn out to be profound disappointments. Seeing Ardee again, after all that time apart, was undoubtedly an exception. All his carefully prepared conversation evaporated in that one instant, leaving him as empty-headed as he had been when he first laid eyes on her.

“You’re alive, then,” she murmured.

“Yes… er… just about.” He managed half an awkward smile. “Did you think I was dead?”

“I hoped you were.” That wiped the grin off his face with sharp effect. “When I didn’t get so much as a letter. But really I thought you’d just forgotten about me.”

Jezal winced. “I’m sorry I didn’t write. Very sorry. I wanted to…” She swung the door shut and leaned against it with her hands behind her, frowning at him all the while. “There wasn’t a day I didn’t want to. But I was called for, and never had the chance to tell anyone, not even my family. I was… I was far away, in the west.”

“I know you were. The whole city is buzzing with it, and if I’ve heard, it must be common knowledge indeed.”

“You’ve heard?”

Ardee jerked her head towards the hall. “I had it from the maid.”

“From the maid?” How the hell could anyone in Adua have heard anything about his misadventures, let alone Ardee West’s maid? He was assailed with sudden unpleasing images. Crowds of servants giggling at the thought of him lying around crying over his broken face. Everyone who was anyone gossiping about what a fool he must have looked being fed with a spoon by a scarred brute of a Northman. He felt himself blushing to the tips of his ears. “What did she say?”

“Oh, you know.” She wandered absently into the room. “That you scaled the walls at the siege of Darmium, was it? Opened the gates to the Emperor’s men and so on.”

“What?” He was even more baffled than before. “Darmium? I mean to say… who told her…”

She came closer, and closer, and he grew more and more flustered until he stammered to a stop. Closer yet, and she was looking slightly upwards into his face with her lips parted. So close that he was sure she was going to take him in her arms and kiss him. So close that he leaned forward slightly in anticipation, half-closing his eyes, his lips tingling… Then she passed him, her hair nearly flicking in his face, and went on to the cabinet, opening it and taking out a decanter, leaving him behind, marooned on the carpet.

In gormless silence he watched her fill two glasses and offer one out, wine slopping and trickling stickily down the side. “You’ve changed.” Jezal felt a sudden surge of shame and his hand jerked up to cover his scarred jaw on an instinct. “I don’t mean that. Not just that, anyway. Everything. You’re different, somehow.”

“I…” The effect she had on him was, if anything, stronger now than it used to be. Then there had not been all the weight of expectation, all the long day-dreaming and anticipation out in the wilderness. “I’ve missed you.” He said it without thinking, then found himself flushing and had to try and change the subject. “Have you heard from your brother?”

“He’s been writing every week.” She threw her head back and drained her glass, started to fill it again. “Ever since I found out he was still alive, anyway.”

“What?”

“I thought he was dead, for a month or more. He only just escaped from the battle.”

“There was a battle?” squeaked Jezal, just before remembering there was a war on. Of course there had been battles. He brought his voice back under control. “What battle?”

“The one where Prince Ladisla was killed.”

“Ladisla’s dead?” he squealed, voice shooting up into a girlish register again. The few times he had seen the Crown Prince the man had seemed so self-absorbed as to be indestructible. It was hard to believe he could simply be stabbed with a sword, or shot with an arrow, and die, like anyone else, but there it was.

“And then his brother was murdered—”

“Raynault? Murdered?”

“In his bed in the palace. When the king dies, they’ll choose a new one by a vote in Open Council.”

“A vote?” His voice rose so high at that he almost felt some sick at the back of his throat.

She was already filling her glass again. “Uthman’s emissary was hanged for the murder, despite most likely being innocent, and so the war with the Gurkish is dragging on—”

“We’re at war with the Gurkish as well?”

“Dagoska fell at the start of the year.”

“Dagoska… fell?” Jezal emptied his glass in one long swallow and stared at the carpet, trying to fit it all into his head. He should not have been surprised, of course, that things had moved on while he was away, but he had hardly expected the world to turn upside down. War with the Gurkish, battles in the North, votes to choose a new king?

“You need another?” asked Ardee, tilting the decanter in her hand.

“I think I’d better.” Great events, of course, just as Bayaz had said. He watched her pour, frowning down intently, almost angrily, as the wine gurgled out. He saw a little scar on her top lip that he had never noticed before, and he felt a sudden compulsion to touch it, and push his fingers in her hair, and hold her against him. Great events, but it all seemed of small importance compared to what happened now, in this room. Who knew? The course of his life might turn on the next few moments, if he could find the right words, and make himself say them.

“I really did miss you,” he managed. A miserable effort which she dismissed with a bitter snort.

“Don’t be a fool.”

He caught her hand, making her look him in the eye. “I’ve been a fool all my life. Not now. There were times, out there on the plain, the only thing that kept me alive was the thought that… that I might be with you again. Every day I wanted to see you…” She did nothing but frown back at him, entirely unmoved. Her failure to melt into his arms was highly frustrating, after all he had been through. “Ardee, please, I didn’t come here to argue.”

She scowled at the floor as she threw down another glass. “I don’t know why you did come here.”

“Because I love you, and I want never to be separated from you again! Please, tell me that you will be my wife!” He almost said it, but at the last moment he saw her scornful sneer, and he stopped himself. He had entirely forgotten how difficult she could be. “I came here to say that I’m sorry. I let you down, I know. I came as soon as I could, but I see that you’re not in the mood. I’ll come back later.”

He brushed past her and made for the door but Ardee got there first, twisted the key in the lock and snatched it out. “You leave me all alone here, without so much as a letter, then when you come back you want to leave without even a kiss?” She took a lurching step at him and Jezal found himself backing off.

“Ardee, you’re drunk.”

She flicked her head with annoyance. “I’m always drunk. Didn’t you say you missed me?”

“But,” he muttered, starting for some reason to feel slightly scared, “I thought—”

“There’s your problem, you see? Thinking. You’re no good at it.” She herded him back against the edge of the table, and he got his sword so badly tangled up with his legs he had to put a hand down to stop himself falling.

“Haven’t I been waiting?” she whispered, and her breath on his face was hot and sour-sweet with wine. “Just like you asked me?” Her mouth brushed gently against his, and the tip of her tongue slipped out and lapped against his lips, and she made soft gurgling sounds in her throat and pressed herself up against him. He felt her hand slide down onto his groin, rubbing at him gently through his trousers.

The feeling was pleasant, of course, and caused an instant stiffening. Pleasant in the extreme, but more than slightly worrying. He looked nervously towards the door. “What about the servants?” he croaked.