He remembered when she had told him, what his first reaction had been, an instant of doubt that he had swept away, feeling guilty for ever having thought it.
Just like Durun. Just like my son, and his scheming bitch wife, letting him raise a child that wasn’t even his own.
History was repeating itself. But this time, Mos was ahead of the game.
It was late as he stalked towards the Imperial chambers. His sleep patterns were erratic and took no account of the sun or the moons, and he had begun to fear the nightmares so much that he would do anything to put them off. He had been awake for more than forty hours now, dosed up with herbal stimulants to counteract the soporific lull of the wine, thinking in tighter and tighter circles until there was nothing left but a white-hot ball of fury that demanded release.
Oh, she had come to him to plead, or to demand, or to shout. Different approaches to the same end: she wanted to know what had possessed him, why he was acting this way. As if she did not know.
There were others, too. Kakre loomed in and out of his memory, croaking reports and meaningless observations. Advisers came and went. In some dim fashion, he had been aware of the other affairs of state which he was supposed to be attending to, but everything had become transparent to him in contrast to the one overwhelming matter of Laranya. Until it was resolved, he could not care about anything else. Reason had failed. The spies he had set to watch his wife had failed.
But there was another way; the only resort he had left.
He threw aside the curtain and stamped into the Imperial bedchamber. The violence of his entrance startled Laranya out of sleep. She sat up with a cry, clutching the sheets to her chest in the warm dark of the autumn night. Something moved in the pale green moonlight, by the archway that led to the balcony beyond: a figure, blurred, gone in an instant. Mos blundered across the room in pursuit, roaring in anger.
‘What is it? Mos, what is it?’ Laranya cried.
The Blood Emperor’s hands were clutched on the stone balustrade; he was glaring down the north-eastern side of the Imperial Keep where it sloped away in a clutter of interlocking sculptures and carvings. He cast about, looking up, then to his left and right, then leaning far out as if he might see underneath the balcony. It was no good. There were too many folds and creases in the ornamentation, too many looming effigies and archways where the intruder might have hidden himself. Gods, he was so quick! Mos had barely even seen him.
Laranya was at his elbow, in her nightdress, her touch fearful on his arm. ‘What is it?’ she asked again.
‘I saw him, whore!’ Mos bellowed, flinging her arm away. ‘You can’t pretend any more! I saw him with my own eyes!’
Laranya was backing away into the room. Some emotion midway between enragement and fear had taken her, and did not seem to know which way to resolve itself. There was a new edge to Mos tonight, and she was not at all sure what he might do.
‘Who? Who did you see?’
‘Shouldn’t you know? Was it that effeminate poet? Or is there someone else I should know who enjoys my bed?’
‘Mos, I have told you . . . I cannot prove it to you any more than I already have! There is no one!’
‘I saw him!’ Mos howled, stumbling after her, his face distorted and haggard. ‘He was just here!’
‘There was nobody here!’ Laranya cried. Now she was afraid.
‘Liar!’ Mos accused, advancing, looming in the greentinted shadows.
‘No! Mos, you are drunk, you are tired! You need sleep! You are seeing phantoms!’
‘Liar!’
She reached the dresser, knocking into it and tipping bottles of perfume and make-up brushes over. There was no further she could retreat.
‘A man cannot rule an empire when he cannot rule his wife!’ Mos snarled. ‘I will teach you obedience!’
She saw in his eyes what he meant to do, even before he had raised his fist.
‘Mos! No! Our baby!’ she pleaded, her hand going defensively to her belly.
‘His baby,’ Mos breathed.
Laranya did not have time to ask who he meant before the first blows fell; nor did she find out afterward, when he left her alone on the floor of the bedchamber with her body aching and her face bruised and blood seeping from between her