I would have liked to turn them out, for I had had a surfeit of Erran’s gifts and subtleties, and I had mused also on his plan to breed me like the bull. Yet I felt at once the sort of dreary urgent concupiscence that sometimes comes with fever.

Seeing me aroused—I had no means to conceal it—they glided at once to the couch. One kissed my mouth, the second caressed my body; then the second fastened on my mouth, and the first lay in my arms. It was like supping from two cups that changed their perfume and their sweetness at every sip, as each mingled with the other.

I appeased my hunger and my wrath with a murmuring, four-limbed, twenty-fingered, double-mouthed goddess of smoky desire, while the window reddened and dissolved in night.

My duet of lovers left me at sunrise. Later, the barber came back with his pots and blades. I looked at the razors, set out and gleaming, and I knew I should not be robbing him of them. The fight was done and no blows struck. The panther was safely locked again in his tasteful cage—if he had ever been out of it.

Erran visited me an hour before noon.

He glanced about, unmasked, smiling as ever, and indicated my untouched breakfast.

“No appetite, Vazkor? I’m sorry to note that.”

I said, “The last meal I ate here had a curious effect on my digestion. I fell asleep and dreamed that five senile old men were probing my body with their unwashed fingers. And when I inquired what they were at, these same perfidious old men declared that you, my lord, had sent them.”

Erran’s smile broadened.

“You are learning to be elegant,” he said. “How entertaining. To make a neat sentence one must control one’s anger. I see you have done so. However, I assure you the food hereafter will be pure.”

“I can forego eating with no trouble,” I said. “I have always needed little. A legacy of my sorcerer father, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. Certainly you are not quite human, my Vazkor. Though human enough, I surmise, to enjoy the other fare. Did the girls entertain you?”

“Ask them. No doubt they also had your leave to study me.”

“That test was rather one for you to set yourself. I want your answer, you see. Do you wish to live well with me, or ill? Agree to my terms, and you can stride about my holding like a free man, though with a bronze or two to guard your person from the other princes of Eshkorek, and also, I must admit, to dissuade you, should you unwisely suffer an urge to leave my court. There will be food and fine drink, women in plenty, boys if you’ve a notion for them. You shall break horses for me, the fiery stallions of the Eshkorek valleys. Not mean work for a strong tribal brave. Your rank will be of the bronze, but you shall sit in my hall for your meat. If you are obedient, you may rise to the silver.”