“Occasionally, but so far never hard. But there is a weal on my shoulder where she hit me with something sharp.” “The bitch.”

Smahii looked very indignant for a moment. Note, his instinct was of execration against the princess, still not sympathy for me.

“And now,” I said, “thanks to you, it’ll be all round camp that I’m the General’s plaything.”

“It saved you.”

“You could have saved me by exercising your authority as a lord. You were only being malicious. Don’t you realize—if she hears it I shall be flayed alive!”

“How madly gay. Nonsense, even if it did reach her ears I suppose he would protect you. I’m not pretending he’s kind, if it had happened in the forest he’d have let her torture you but now that her wishes are no longer so important he’d save you—”

“For a rainy day? You’re a fool, Smahii, and a stupid one at that. Your mind is just too ready to jump at things.”

“All right, Cija. I get it now. You want to appear virtuous, for several very practical reasons. But it’s no use trying to convince me. Your black monster Umsarunza is enough. The fastidiousness you display with me is well done—I was foolishly taken in by it for quite a while—you even hate (to lead the conversation from sex for a minute) to drink from someone else’s cup—but you can bathe in someone else’s bath water—”

“You are a squalid little brute,” I said with loathing. This is the tent, so you can leave me. You’re too nauseating to have to deal with in this heat.”

“So this is the tent.” He regarded its shell-pink exterior with interest. Then he took my arm and led me firmly inside. I whispered franctically. “No, you damned idiot, she’s already in a rage—”

Inexorably he yanked me in, and stood looking round at the pink ceiling, pink walls, pink rugs, pink cushions, and pink hangings. She sat at one end, wrapped in a long pink towel, with a fat sweating slave doing her toenails while another a fan to keep off as many mosquitoes as possible. “Come in at once,” she screamed, catching sight of me. “Where do you think you had a right to march off to?” Then, seeing Smahii, she heistated in surprise.

Smahii loosened my arm and made an impeccable bow. “Princess,” he said, “with my compliments, your slave returns to the Womb.”

Pushing me forward, he swiftly bowed himself out leaving the princess as pink as her surroundings.

When the dutiful husband came to her tent in the evening, there was a bandage across my back. She held out her hand to him, gazing up at him from the pillow with her big, soft, changeable eyes, twisting her head and pulling in her chin in order to simper lovingly at him.