‘Oh, no,’ he refused, knowing exactly where that would lead. ‘No beatings, Lillias,’ he said. ‘Only this,’ and he gave her a single chaste kiss full on the lips. ‘Be well, Lillias,’ he murmured softly. Then he stepped back quickly before she could wrap her arms about his neck. He knew just how strong her arms were. ‘And now, though it rends my soul, I must leave you again,’ he declaimed. He reached out and drew her veil once again across her face ‘Think of me from time to time whilst I seek out the fate that destiny has in store for me.’ He did manage to resist the impulse to lay his hand on his heart.

‘I knew it!’ she cried, more to the onlookers than to him. ‘I knew that you were a man of affairs! I shall carry our love in my heart for all eternity, my Mahkra, and I shall remain faithful to you to the grave. And if you live, come back to me.’ She had both arms spread wide again. ‘And if you do not, send your ghost to me in my dreams, and I will comfort your pale shade as best I can.’

He backed away from her outstretched arms. Then he spun so that his robe would swirl dramatically – he owed her that much and vaulted into Faran’s saddle. ‘Farewell, my Lillias,’ he said melodramatically, jerking the reins to make Faran rear and paw the air with his front hooves. ‘And if we do not meet again in this world, may God grant that we meet once more in the next.’ And he drove his heels into Faran’s flanks and charged past her at a gallop.

‘Did you do all that on purpose?’ Sephrenia asked as they dismounted in the courtyard of the waterfront inn.

‘I might have got a little carried away,’ Sparhawk admitted. ‘Lillias does that to a man from time to time.’ He smiled a bit ruefully. ‘She gets her heart broken on an average of three times a week,’ he noted clinically. ‘She was always militantly unfaithful and just a little dishonest where the cashbox was concerned. She’s vain and vulgar and self-indulgent. She’s deceptive and greedy and grossly overdramatic’ He paused then, thinking back over the years. ‘I liked her, though. She’s a good girl, despite her faults, and living with her was never dull. I owed her that performance. She’ll be able to walk through the quarter like a queen now, and it didn’t really cost me all that much, did it?’

‘Sparhawk,’ she said gravely, ‘I will never understand you.’

‘That’s what makes it all so much fun, isn’t it, little mother?’ He grinned at her.

Flute, still sitting on Sephrenia’s white horse, blew a mocking little trill on her pipes.

Talk with her,’ Sparhawk suggested to Sephrenia. ‘She understands.’