‘Flattering…’ he managed before hurriedly turning back to retch again. When he lay back once again with grunt, as if he’d spent hours working on a farm, she noticed that he was a shade thinner than he had been when she had seen him board at Tamralipta. The strong winds near Ganjam and the roughness of the Kalingan Sea had not agreed with him. Still, it had done little to mar the perfection of his muscled arms, the hard planes of his stomach, his high-ridged face. He still smelled of spice and rain. Pity mingled with lust rose in her, and she crawled back on the bed, finding her way to his chest, her hand seeking, grasping hungrily.

‘Really, even now?’ her Lamb asked, staring in astonishment, but eagerly wiping his mouth with a rag. His voice was warm, like honey dripping off the comb.

‘I don’t have to kiss your mouth.’ She batted her eyelids innocently.

II

Afterwards, they lay on the floor, exhausted, having arrived there from the bed in rapid descent. She returned to her newly acquired habit of counting his scars. She found pleasure in him, but in truth the greater pleasure was after, when they lay together and he told her stories of the great peaks he had climbed, conjuring the river-lands, tree by tree.

She was a Kalingan, born of the Ocean Goddess. The old men spoke of how the first Kalingans had sprung forth from the Great Sea, riding on whales and sharks. The Salt Men, they were called. They came to the land and were made Gods by the Green Men, who offered them their daughters as offerings. In return, the Salt Men showered them with the riches of the sea and told them of the many ways to fool the Storm God. But the Green Men were not content. They trapped the Salt Men on land, killed their whales, and tortured them into revealing the secrets of conquering the Ocean Goddess. The Green Men forcibly married their daughters, and from this violent union came into being the Kalingan race. Not the most pious history.

With her Lamb, Mati felt like a Salt Woman who’d secretly come on land to mate with a Green Man. She taught him the magical ways of her bed, the Two Arts of the Sigh, and the secret ways to keep sea-fever at bay. In return, he spoke of the luxuries of ice. He painted scenes of meadows and glaciers. It was a world far removed from hers. He weaved a life before her eyes, of his days as a Resht in the casteist North, and she listened to him raptly.