‘That boy does like to sow his seed around,’ Shakuni said. ‘If you must know, she wasn’t interested in him. On the contrary, she was more interested in the female spy I had planted in her household.’

Karna gave Shakuni a shocked look, praying Sudama had been too busy looking at the food to pay attention.

Shakuni shrugged. ‘Don’t be a prude. Ah, I see Lord Shalya Madrin. A member of the Eight. I envy him. He has made a glorious and rich career from war without once stepping onto a battlefield.’

Karna had met Lord Shalya in one of the feasts earlier. Grandfather of King Pandu’s two youngest sons, Sahadev and Nakul, he always looked like he had been forced into his clothes, his pink jowls bulging over the gilded collar of his lilac robes. ‘Let me guess…economic warfare too?’

‘Not at all. He…erm, exports it. A war broker if you will. They say he brought in the Greek Warlord, that one in the strange saree beside Shalya, to the Emperor’s cause. He is Kalyavan, Archon of the Yavanas.’

Karna had heard of Kalyavan. The Greek was a sleek, smiling boy whose fame with the sword, along with his flamboyance, was a byword on both sides of the Saraswathi river. He had been kind to Karna and Sudama at the feasts last week. But no matter how kind, the other suitors always called him Mlecchá the moment he left the room. Karna reckoned he had it better, for people never had to speak behind his back. Reshts didn’t deserve such decencies.

‘I don’t see the Emperor anywhere,’ Sudama said, standing on tiptoe and craning his neck to look around.

‘You will not miss him when he does arrive,’ Shakuni assured him wryly.

Shakuni pointed to many more representatives of the different glittering kingdoms of Aryavrat: Shishupal, Claw of the Imperial Army, dressed defiantly in Magadhan fatigues. The young Lady Chitrangada of Manipur, a foxy lady who wore a sharp red coat over thigh-high boots of deerskin. Karna had heard of the fierce women warriors of Manipur, where daughters and not sons carried on the family name. The grey-skinned Bhagadatt, the last Rakshasa of the East, stood still as a frozen shadow. Karna knew of this Eastern King, whose father had been slain by Lady Satyabhama, but this was the first time he had seen him. He seemed uninterested in whatever Kalyavan was saying to him. His hair was sharply combed over his grey skin, and his red eyes glittered like rubies in the night.