I sleep uncomfortably with Narra and the other winegirls now.

She has redecorated the tent.

It is now all pale pink, except for the ceiling-hangings, which are rose pink. The brilliant cushions are all re-covered; the table now holds pink pots of gentle flower fragrances; I miss most the smell of musk which used always to be exotically strong in the tent.

She never curses me nor shouts at me, but twice when I have done something she didn’t like she has beaten me on the back with whatever she has handy, a thing the Beauty never did.

But generally she is as gentle as she looks, being very insistent only upon the fullest possible formal respect being paid her.

She can be very illogical and haughtily unjust.

There is no one in authority to whom a slave ever has the right to complain.

“But he is already married!” I finished.

“It makes little difference,” Ooldra said contemptuously. “His wife he married only because being the son-in-law of the king would ensure him the power he wanted in the army.”

“But he didn’t need to do that to get it—he is one of the epoch-making generals of the North on his own merit—”

“He had to make sure he was given the scope for being so. Advancement is difficult for an alien in that hidebound hierarchy, even though his father was great. As I was saying, he married only to get advancement. In this case he’s saved himself a lot of trouble in the forests. While he’s in them, and she’s within call of her people, he will of course bow to her every whim, cross her in nothing, and act generally like a loving worm.”

‘‘But the Beauty—he cast her off with a couple of sentences after the pink bride complained of her proximity. I was there when it happened! What disgrace to put upon her like that, in the eyes of the whole army she is now quite suddenly nothing! The humiliation of it—after all that they have been through together—does his callousness stem from his blood? Is his blood cold—is he totally a man-reptile?”

“I know this, Cija. He is one of Us—for he is not a mortal.”

‘Then it was not a god who found his ancestress fair, but a demon, in the shape of a crocodile or a serpent. It may be his strange blood—a coldness of emotion—he scares me because the quality of extreme callousness is allied with concentration on ruthlessness.”