He swiftly changed tack. ‘The ring I gifted you looks pretty on your finger.’

Satyabhama held up her left hand to admire the ring. It was an emerald, the size of a grape. It caught the light as she turned her hand, glistening like fresh dung. ‘You’ve given me worse gifts, cowherd,’ she admitted.

‘It matches your viperous temper.’

Satyabhama snorted derisively.

‘You are a…’

She finally turned to look at him. Her eyebrows arched dangerously, making the bindi between her brown eyes wrinkle as if in a challenge. Krishna knew his next words would make or break the deal, wager notwithstanding. He breathed a grave melody into the flute.

‘A Goddess of War.’

That brought a smile to the side of her face she imagined he could not see. ‘It’ll do,’ she shrugged with feigned nonchalance.

Krishna nudged her shoulder with his flute. ‘I’m waiting for my share of compliments.’

‘What can Lord Krishna hear from me that he has not already heard from a thousand women?’ Satyabhama crept closer to him. ‘Heartbreakingly handsome... with hair like raven’s feathers...’ She twirled a strand of his hair around her forefinger. ‘Renowned philanderer with a vast network of spies, female spies of course. A puppeteer of kings, who has his fingers deep in every conspiracy in the realm. The world calls him the ‘Saviour of Mathura’. Surely, if I added any more praise,’ she whispered softly into his ear, ‘his tiny head would fucking burst!’

‘A risk worth taking, I assure you,’ Krishna replied with an offended look.

‘I love you too much to lose you for so trifling a cause. Alas husband, you are eternally bound to a life without flattery with me.’

Krishna sighed. ‘I guess I have no choice but to bear with vigour the curses the Gods deign to throw my way.’

Satyabhama winked. She rose and walked over to the merlon of the Keep. ‘It is hard to see anything beyond the black smoke. What was the wager again?’

‘The Magadhans will retreat within seven days.’

‘Hah!’ She turned towards him, leaning against the merlon. ‘That has never happened. Even under that dolt Shishupal, they stayed a month. And that was years ago.’

Krishna joined her by the battlements, pulling out his eye glass and extending the tubes before squinting through it. He could see the uninvited visitors battering against the Third Sister in a sea of iron and silver and polished steel, three thousand strong, a pride of paladins and knights, of cavalry and foot soldiers. Over their heads, a score of crimson banners whipped back and forth in the wind, emblazoned with the Lion of the Magadhan Empire.

‘Looks like one of their rocks managed to fly over the Third Sister. There’s a first time for everything.’

The Mathuran Walls, known as the Three Sisters, were a set of three concentric fortifications, forming a crescent around three sides of the City, each rising higher as they moved inward. On the fourth side, the rough currents of the Yamuna River formed a natural barrier, keeping enemies at bay. The Third Sister was the outermost wall of the City.