‘You have my sympathies. You simply collapsed, my friend. The body has a way of revoking permission to continue if you abuse it,’ Duryodhan said with a trace of smile. ‘As you are wont to do.’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, my Prince?’

‘It has its moments.’

‘I don’t suppose the people believe I am innocent of the murder of Prakar Mardin?’

‘Afraid not. But that is the least of their concerns. Seems that your ship was carrying a plague. Or so the dock guards claim. They burned it.’

‘Burned it? Plague! That’s impossible. I wouldn’t be…’

‘I know. There is something fishy here.’

Murder. Kala. It all came back in a sickening rush. ‘There was a wench, Prince,’ Karna attempted to sit up, without marked success. ‘She…she is the key to it all. She…’

‘He should rest, love,’ said a voice from the darkness. The sound of it singed his veins. A woman half-sauntered half-swayed boldly into the light. Karna’s eyes were drawn to the handsome stripes of red on her breeches, the gold lace lining the lapels of her jacket, criss-crossed by brass buckles. She wore knee-length boots, crafted from creamy soft leather, the broad tops clipped down with azure buttons embossed with brass swans. He would have recognized her full lips, high cheekbones and shadowy wind-chafed skin anywhere, though her long red hair was gone. She wore her black hair cut short, the ends resting softly on her neck. This was clearly a woman of high birth, not the cleaning woman who had seduced him.

‘Look at his poor bruised body.’ She came to stand beside Duryodhan, a hand possessively on his arm. She touched two fingers to her forehead. ‘May the waves carry you.’

Duryodhan smiled. ‘May the current bring you back.’

The colour drained from Karna’s face. His world grew dark as icy confusion flooded his mind. He did not know what was more shocking, the cleaning wench’s hand on Duryodhan or Duryodhan blushing like a schoolboy. ‘I…I don’t understand.’

‘So…’ Duryodhan began, clearing his throat.

‘Let me explain, my sweet,’ the woman placed a finger on his lips, the same finger Karna had sucked so avidly a few days before. ‘I told the Prince how I was out with my girls for an outing near the Jade Harbour ruins, to get my Prince his wedding gift, when the Ocean Goddess conspired to bring you to my camp, bloodied and poisoned. Though you were a stranger, it was clearly my duty to fetch a healer to you. I rode you back to the Palace to do so.’

‘It’s a good thing Mati found you, Karna. Not the ideal way I would have wanted my betrothed and my closest friend to meet, of course.’