Amber’s voice, like a chill breeze through a warm room: If you jump off a cliff, God doesn’t catch you.

“Never said a word,” the steward said again, rubbing at the side of his throat with one rough thumb. “To say truth, that was the last time I went in as far as God’s doors, but I keep going back. How long will you be staying with us, honored one?”

“Just the night.”

“I’ll freshen your pack then. Have you any special requests of my provisioner?”

“No…Wait. A set of women’s clothing. Her size is near enough,” he said, gesturing up at the servant.

Lord Uyane’s spines twitched again, but, “Have you a preference as to color?” was all he said.

Meoraq didn’t, but before he could say so, he found himself thinking of Amber’s eyes. “Something green. With slippers. Eh, best make it boots. And…” What else did women like? “A girdle. Something…pretty.”

“It shall be do—” He broke off with a sigh and rubbed his brow-ridges, then slapped his thigh and said, “I can’t pretend I’m not intrigued. You’ve got a woman with you? Ha! Wouldn’t that have made some long walks shorter back in my striding days?”

“My wife,” said Meoraq, feeling as though he’d ought to say something in Amber’s defense.

“Well send her in, for our Father’s sake! My Nraqi would love to see a fresh face, if only for the night. She’s not fevered or anything catching, just thin-blooded and slow to come out of winter’s grip.”

“She stayed behind with her people so that I could travel more quickly. There was an infant among my camp and she was concerned that it should come out of the wildlands as soon as possible.”

The steward’s spines flicked as he smiled. “Fine woman. I’ll let Nraqi pick a few things out for her. She knows more about pretty things than I do. Sylseth, make yourself available for sizing when the Sheulek is done with you.”

“Yes, lord.”

The steward left them alone at last and Meoraq leaned back and let the girl bathe him. It was his first real bath since Tothax, and he enjoyed it but did not prolong it even for his pleasure. The girl was pleasing also, but mewled and bowed and proved herself so, well, grotesquely feminine that what arousal she inspired in him soon withered. It was Amber he wanted…and Amber was worth waiting for. Cleaned, dried and oiled, he dismissed her untouched and put himself to bed.

* * *

He slept like a stone, yet woke far too early, so that when the boy came trotting in to ring the daylight bells in House Uyane’s foyer, Meoraq was there to see it. He had been waiting as deferentially as was possible when lurking in a relative’s foyer, but as soon as dawn’s hour had been rung, he put a blunt end to courtesy and sent the boy to find him an usher out of the city.

Shortly afterward, as Meoraq stared broodingly at the tilework on the ceiling in an effort not to pace, Lord Uyane himself arrived to see him off. He brought with him a few servants to manage Meoraq’s provisions and a veiled woman walking slow at his side. She averted her eyes and mewled as her husband made the necessary introductions, then raised her open hands and called him kin and made all the proper obedience a wife was expected to show to the conqueror of her husband’s holdings, and then she reached right out and caught at Meoraq’s sleeve. “My Lord says I mustn’t ask,” she began, dipping her head prettily even as Uyane rolled his eyes and strolled away to inspect the bell-house. “But if you have no will in the matter, perhaps your wife might stay with me a small time while you make what remains of your journey? It is not so very far to Xi’Matezh, I know, but women do not measure distance or hardship as men do. We are very weak and silly things, sir, and a small time here among her kin would be a pretty present to grant her before she makes the terrible journey to Xeqor.”

“Wife,” murmured Uyane.

“I do not say that Xeqor is terrible,” she hastened to assure Meoraq. “Even here in sacred Chalh, Xeqor is known as one of Sheul’s brightest lamps, but even one hour in the wildlands is a terrible thing to a woman. Oh, please send her to me, sir! She shall be my daughter while she is here and have a mother’s love once more, if only for a few days. How find you?”

Flustered, Meoraq looked at Lord Uyane, but he was no help at all, deep in the study of the bells so that he would not have to notice his wife’s scandalous behavior.

Which was certainly far less scandalous than spear-hunting or wearing pants or calling her man a scaly son of a bitch or any of the myriad scandalous things that Amber did. All at once, Meoraq felt a momentary divide of sight: he saw the woman clinging on his sleeve and looking at him with those shy, earnest eyes the way he would have seen her a year ago, as a grossly unmannered embarrassment, and he saw her as she surely was, a lonely woman bored with lying around and convalescing, who would risk even her husband’s displeasure for a chance to see a new face and hear talk of the greater world beyond these walls. Just a lonely woman, who didn’t mind mewling at a stranger or calling herself weak and silly if it meant that, believing it, he might grant her just a few short days of fresh company. Amber’s company, even.

‘Perhaps they could go hunting,’ Meoraq thought, and laughed aloud.

Lord Uyane’s eyes were on him at once, narrow as a knife’s edge.

Meoraq put his hand over hers until she, with a sigh of defeat, removed it from his sleeve. He said, still smiling, “I do have a will in this matter, kinswife, and it is my will that the fierce woman who has dared as much as I to make this journey stand at my side when the doors of Xi’Matezh open. Yours is a kind offer, but I do decline.”

The woman gave obedience and retreated a few steps, enough to pick at one of the bundles carried by a stone-faced servant. “I set some things aside for her, although I had to guess at the fit,” she said, not quite pouting but near enough to it that her man sent her a censuring glance. “They’re all my own and not new, but in very good repair. I haven’t fit in this in ages,” she sighed, lifting out a richly embroidered girdle for a last wistful look. “And this…this is the cloak I myself wore when I came to Chalh to be married…and the crownet that went with it!” she exclaimed, holding it up to be admired. It was an uncommonly fine thing—a long strip of golden mesh meant to fit around a woman’s spine-ridge, with a clip on the end to keep a hood in place—although he doubted Amber would ever have any use for it. He thanked her anyway.

“Perhaps you will stop again on your return,” she said hopefully. “I could have more garments set aside and even have them altered for a better—oh! Oh, we could order a tailor in! Jaza!” She clasped her hands and sent a wide-eyed stare at her husband, her short spines quivering at their highest point.

He went back to looking at the bells, the coward.

“I haven’t had a gowning party since my little Semrrqi was a child,” the woman told Meoraq.

“She was twenty-two,” Lord Uyane remarked, scratching at the top frame of the bell-house and examining his fingertip.

“And a child.”

“The gown in question was for the wedding feast.”

“It was deep red all over,” the woman sighed. “With a white underdress and blackweave girdle and sleeves, all gilt with gold, and a hood to match. It took all day to make and we sat by the window for hours and ate little blue cakes.” She was quiet for a moment, her gaze far-off even as it rested on the crownet in her hands. “They were horrible cakes,” she said at last, dreamily. “I should very much like to have a gowning party again.”

“Wife,” Lord Uyane murmured again, just as indulgently as he had before.

“It isn’t the same when it’s just for me!” she insisted, then gave Meoraq an imploring stare. “Won’t you come to stay on your return, sir?”