‘I wouldn’t worry all that much about it,’ he told her, trying to keep his voice casual. ‘We’re very close together, you know, and it’s not really too strange that you’d know what I was thinking about.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course. It happens all the time. Ask any married woman, and she’ll tell you that she always knows what’s on her husband’s mind.’

‘Well,’ she said dubiously, ‘maybe.’ She snuggled closer to him. ‘You’re not being very attentive tonight, love,’ she accused. ‘Is it because I’m getting fat and ugly?’

‘Of course not. You’re in what’s called a “delicate condition”. Mirtai kept warning me to be careful. She’ll carve out my liver if she thinks I’ve hurt you.’

‘Mirtai isn’t here, Sparhawk.’

‘But she’s still the only one with a key to that door.’

‘Oh, no, she isn’t, Sparhawk,’ his queen said smugly, reaching under her pillow. ‘The door locks from either side, and it won’t open unless it’s been unlocked from both sides.’ She handed him a large key.

‘A very cooperative door,’ he smiled. ‘Why don’t I just slip on out to the other room and lock it from this side?’

‘Why don’t you do that? And don’t get lost on your way back to bed. Mirtai told you to be careful, so you ought to practise that for a while.’

Later – quite a bit later actually – Sparhawk slipped out of bed and went to the window to look out at the rain-swept night. It was over now. He would no longer rise before the sun to watch the veiled women of Jiroch going to the well in the steely grey light of dawn, nor would he ride strange roads in distant lands with the Sapphire Rose nestled near his heart. He had returned at last, older certainly and sadder and infinitely less certain of things he had always before accepted without question. He had come home at last, his wars over, he hoped, and his travels complete. They called him Anakha, the man who makes his own destiny, and he grimly resolved that his entire destiny lay here in this unlovely city with the pale, beautiful young woman who slept only a few feet away.

It was good to have that settled once and for all, and it was with some sense of accomplishment that he turned back to the bed and to his wife.

Epilogue

Spring came grudgingly that year, and a sudden late freeze stripped all the fruit trees of their blossoms, obliterating any chance of a crop. The summer was wet and cloudy, and the harvest scanty.