‘What are you saying?’ Chel said. He was beginning to feel lightheaded from the water’s warmth.

‘I’m saying, little man, that you don’t get to be nearly-queen of a reaver tribe as established as this one without being a vicious piece of work. She said she has a proposal for us. We need to be seriously careful—’

‘How are we getting on, gentlemen?’

Ruumi was standing over them, one boot on the pool’s edge, hands on hips, vapours curling around her like affectionate pets.

Rennic sent up a chaotic spray as he thrashed to face her. ‘The f—? I thought women weren’t allowed in here!’

Again, the flat grin, a half-sneer devoid of malice. Perhaps it was a cultural thing. ‘You misunderstand. The separation of the sexes is only to prevent the clouding of minds when concentration is required elsewhere. We are a passionate people, and the last thing our womenfolk need when they should be considering matters of tribal import is the peacocking of brutes. It impairs our progress. Much great thinking, planning, scheming, is done within the bathhouse.’

‘Uh-huh. Yet here you are.’

‘Here I am. You need not worry, I am fully sated for now.’

Blank looks shone up from the pool.

‘Sexually,’ she clarified with an encouraging nod. The blank looks became somewhat frozen. Undeterred, she continued. ‘Prince Tarfel, I promised you we would talk, and now we may.’

Tarfel edged forward through the drifting steam, an amorphous white streak from the neck down below the waterline. ‘I thought … when you said we should bathe, then we would talk … you meant, ah, after bathing.’

The smile flashed again. ‘Now seems as fitting as any, does it not? Brecki informed me of the gist of your intentions, I would like to hear the words from you. She was never the most accomplished linguist.’

Chel found himself wondering about Brecki’s fate, her motivations for bringing them back here after all, and had to snap himself back to the present. The hot water was definitely getting to him.

Tarfel seemed to be steeling himself, his weak chin jutting as he looked up at the elegant figure at the bath-side. ‘You wanted my brother dead before.’ He swallowed, larynx bobbing in and out of the water. ‘I want him dead now. What will it take for you to try again?’

The bathhouse had gone quiet, but for the gentle bubble and splosh of lapping water. Murmured conversation, unintelligible, drifted over the divider.

Ruumi’s smile had hardened, not with anger or dismay, but with satisfaction, small lines appearing beneath her eyes. ‘It is true, then. Tarfel Merimonsun is to raise his pennant against his brother, and plunge his kingdom into civil war.’

Tarfel was shaking his head, hands out of the water spraying droplets. ‘It’s not like that, it’s … it’s … He’s planning things—’