“Good morning, Love.” She spoke softly. “What have you done to get poor Moneo so upset?”

Soothed by her presence and her voice, he smiled. “I did what I always hope to do. I produced an effect.”

“You certainly did. He told the Fish Speakers you were in an angry and terrifying mood. Are you terrifying, Love?”

“Only to those who refuse to live by their own strengths.”

“Ahhh, yes.” She pirouetted for him then, displaying her new gown. “Do you like it? Your Fish Speakers gave it to me. They decorated it themselves.”

“My love,” he said, a warning note in his voice, “decoration! That is how you prepare the sacrifice.”

She came up to the edge of the cart and leaned on it just below his face, a mock-solemn expression on her lips. “Will they sacrifice me then?”

“Some of them would like to.”

“But you will not permit it.”

“Our fates are joined,” he said.

“Then I shall not fear.” She reached up and touched one of his silver-skinned hands, but jerked away as his fingers began to tremble.

“Forgive me, Love. I forget that we are joined in soul and not in flesh,” she said.

The sandtrout skin still shuddered from Hwi’s touch. “Moisture in the air makes me overly sensitive,” he said. Slowly, the shuddering subsided.

“I refuse to regret what cannot be,” she whispered.

“Be strong, Hwi, for your soul is mine.”

She turned at a sound from the guest house. “Moneo returns,” she said. “Please, Love, do not frighten him.”

“Is Moneo your friend, too?”

“We are friends of the stomach. We both like yogurt.”

Leto was still chuckling when Moneo stopped beside Hwi. Moneo ventured a smile, casting a puzzled glance at Hwi. There was gratitude in the majordomo’s manner and some of the subservience he was accustomed to show to Leto he now directed at Hwi. “Is it well with you, Lady Hwi?”

“It is well with me.”

Leto said: “In the time of the stomach, friendships of the stomach are to be nurtured and cultivated. Let us be on our way, Moneo. Tuono awaits.”

Moneo turned and shouted orders to the Fish Speakers and courtiers.

Leto grinned at Hwi. “Do I not play the impatient bridegroom with a certain style?”

She leaped lightly up to the bed of his cart, her skirt gathered in one hand. He unfolded her seat. Only when she was seated, her eyes level with Leto’s, did she respond, and then it was in a voice pitched for his ears alone.

“Love of my soul, I have captured another of your secrets.”

“Release it from your lips,” he said, joking in this new intimacy between them.

“You seldom need words,” she said. “You speak directly to the senses with your own life.”

A shudder flexed its way through the length of his body. It was a moment before he could speak and then it was in a voice she had to strain to hear above the hubbub of the assembling cortège.