‘Good. That gives me another hold on you.’

‘You don’t really need any more, you know. You’ve had me in thrall since you were about six years old.’

‘That’s nice,’ she said, snuggling even closer to him. ‘God knows I was trying.’ She paused. ‘I must say, though, that I’m getting just a bit put out with your impertinent little Styric Goddess. She always seems to be around. For all we know, she’s hovering unseen in some corner right now.’ She stopped suddenly and sat up in bed. ‘Do you suppose she might be?’ she asked with some consternation.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ He was deliberately teasing her.

‘Sparhawk!’ The pale light of the moon made it impossible to be sure, but Sparhawk strongly suspected that his wife was blushing furiously.

‘Don’t concern yourself, love,’ he laughed. ‘Aphrael’s exquisitely courteous. She’d never think of intruding.’

‘But we can never really be sure, can we? I’m not sure I like her. I get the feeling that she’s very much attracted to you, and I don’t much care for the notion of immortal competition.’

‘Don’t be absurd. She’s a child.’

‘I was only about five years old the first time I saw you, Sparhawk, and I decided to marry you the minute you walked into the room.’ She slid from the bed, crossed to the glowing window and parted the gauze curtains. The pale moonlight made her look very much like an alabaster statue.

‘Shouldn’t you put on a robe?’ he suggested. ‘You’re exposing yourself to public scrutiny, you know.’

‘Everybody in Chyrellos has been asleep for hours now. Besides, we’re six floors above the street. I want to look at the moon. The moon and I are very close, and I want her to know how happy I am.’

‘Pagan,’ he smiled.

‘I suppose I am at that,’ she admitted, ‘but all women feel a peculiar attachment to the moon. She touches us in ways a man could never understand.’

Sparhawk crawled out of bed and joined her at the window. The moon was very pale and very bright, but the fact that its pale light washed out all colour concealed to some degree the ruin Martel’s siege had inflicted on the Holy City, although the smell of smoke was still very strong in the night air. The stars glittered in the sky. There was nothing really unusual about that, but they seemed especially brilliant on this night of all nights.

Ehlana pulled his arms about her and sighed. ‘I wonder if Mirtai’s sleeping outside my door,’ she said. ‘She does that, you know. Wasn’t she ravishing tonight?’

‘Oh yes. I didn’t get the chance to tell you this, but Kring’s completely overwhelmed by her. I’ve never seen a man so bowled over by love.’