‘Is this answer enough for you?’ Gently, her hand slid behind his head and pulled him towards her. They kissed and it was like a spark to dry tinder in his heart. He breathed in the scent of her – even here she smelled like the woods of her homeland, fresh and free, untainted by the decadent concoctions of the perfumers of this city. He remembered that scent, remembered their one stolen encounter in the darkness among the byres of Uppsala. The start of so much. And yet the end of it all.

The kiss ended and she rested her forehead against his, her eyes closed. He listened to the ebb and flow of her breathing, answered by the distant turn of the waves on the Bosporus.

At last her fingers threaded through his. ‘Come,’ she said.

He must never know, Lilla thought to herself.

He will never know.

She lay in the darkness, her heart still beating fast, feeling joy, fear, relief, shame. Feeling too much for one heart to understand. Instead she focused on the presence of him lying next to her, sound asleep. She guessed the silk sheets and soft pillows were as good as a sleeping draught to his weary body after the torment he had endured. It was strange. She hardly knew the man and yet their lovemaking came as naturally as breathing. She remembered that from the first time. The only time. It was like inhaling him, drawing him deep inside her like the smoke of Urtha’s weed, filling her mind and body with him until those waves of sweet thunder swept through her body and left her undone.

Was that love? Did she love him? He had suffered and she couldn’t stand the thought of it. And yet here she was, about to ask him to suffer some more. . .

‘Lilla.’

She glanced down, surprised to see his dark eyes staring up at her.

‘You asked why I’m here. You deserve to know. . . I came to find the king of kings.’ He gave a wry snort. ‘But I only found more chains.’

‘Well, you’re free now.’

‘Thanks to you.’ He smiled. ‘So how much did I cost you?’

‘Enough.’ More than you will ever know, she thought. ‘But I’d have paid it twice over to see you free.’

He reached out and stroked her cheek. ‘I’ll pay you back.’

‘I don’t need you to,’ she said, hiding the pain behind a smile. ‘But you can help me.’

‘How?’

So she told him. Told him. . . almost everything, leaving out what she knew would only vex him. Now was not the time to stir up his wrath against Thrand. There would come a time for that, if the gods willed it. But there was nothing he could do about Thrand from here and she saw no good coming from infecting him with her fury.