Before they were under way, and before all was said and done, the priests went under the Ila’s remaining awning for an audience: Marak saw them kneeling and bowing and speaking at some length. He wished them to the vermin of the desert: bad enough the several they already had, now there were twice that number, and he wondered how many more of this white-robed lot were loose among the tents of the caravan.

They were parasites, every one of them, in his estimation.

But the Ila called him, next, having dismissed the priests. Her tent remained uncollapsed. Its veils were down. But while the Haga were well toward finishing their packing, the Ila sat on her chair, the only chair in the desert, unless some villagers were equally fool enough to pack furniture instead of food… and sipped tea under the only tent still standing.

Marak went under it and sat down. His au’it went with him and sat, and her au’it sat cross-legged at her feet, with her open book and her pen in hand.

“The captain has told you we should be moving,” Marak said before the Ila said a thing. He made up his mind then and there not to pay abject courtesies or to play the courtier to the Ila’s whims. It would not serve her, him, or the people in their threatened thousands. He measured his retreat, if he had to, and he knew that not all the Ila’s men could or would prevent him and Hati and Norit riding up among the tribes at the lead, ignoring the Ila, and ruling from there. Their lives, and hers, were too precarious.

He did not intend it should come to that. But he did not intend to have the Ila delaying them in daily argument, either. Or to have other appurtenances taking up their supplies.

“The priests,” he said, “are a waste of water. They can pack canvas.”

“The priests will go back to the villages with my word,” the Ila said, likewise in the serenity of absolute power, and joined her gloved hands primly before her lips. “And keep me apprised of matters behind us.—How is your mother?”

“Well enough.”

“I hear you’ve sheltered Memnanan’s wife.”

“A matter of gratitude.” He was cautious. Lives ended, on the Ila’s whim. He might be secure, but others were not.

“And a matter of personal favor,” the Ila said, behind joined fingertips. “Are you corrupting him?”

“He pays you the favor,” Marak said. “The captain is devoted to you. For me, it’s a personal debt, and I’m paying what I owe him.”

“For what?”

“For not being jealous of me. He might have been, seeing you gave me command of this caravan. But he’s an honest man.”

“I know he is. A hundred have fallen, and Memnanan stands.—Do you still hear your voices?”

“Sometimes.”

“And the fever?”