his head. ‘It’s unlikely. The apprentice wasn’t wearing a seal. It’s only on behalf of seal-bearers that they seek vendetta.’
She considered his words; glanced across to the sleeping form of her mother before she next spoke. He noticed then the red welts on the side of her neck, running down beneath the collar of her robe. They looked like the heat tracks left behind after a Purging.
‘But this will be personal to them,’ she ventured. ‘A public humiliation. A murder of one of their young.’
She considers this now, Ché reflected. Long after the act is done.
‘No, they don’t think in such terms. They have a code of sorts. Vendetta is a matter of natural justice for them, or at least a simple matter of cause and effect. They abhor revenge, though. To seek vendetta for their own personal reasons would go against their own creed in every way I can think of.’
‘I see,’ she said, and her tone was one of lightness, perhaps amused by the idea of such a principle. ‘Bushrali said much the same himself. I wanted to hear it from you too: someone who has lived with them, and been one of them.’
Ché could not help but look away at that moment, even though he knew it would betray his sudden discomfort. He almost jumped as he felt her hand pat his leg. Ché met the Matriarch’s chocolate-dark eyes, and saw something different in them this time, a softness.
Sasheen smiled.
‘Guanaro!’ she called out to the room. ‘Is it time for breakfast yet?’
The old priest in attendance emerged from the side chamber next to the door. He nodded and went back inside, where Ché could hear gruff orders being given, and the clatter of chopping boards and cupboard doors being opened and shut.
‘Some buttered sandshrimps, perhaps!’ she hollered after him.
Sasheen settled back, watching the fire in the hearth before them. Her hand restlessly stroked the leather arm of the settle. ‘I have not given you my thanks yet,’ came her quiet voice.
‘Matriarch?’
‘You performed a great service in leading us to the home of the Rōshun. You proved your loyalty to me, and to the order. That’s why I requested you as my personal Diplomat in this,’ she waved her hand towards the map, ‘scheme of ours. You understand?’
Ché offered a shake of his head, and watched her turn to regard him.
‘I go forth to war on one of the riskiest ventures we have ever attempted. Once I leave this sanctum I will be as vulnerable as any other. Not only from the enemy, but from our own people. General Romano for instance. He would pluck out my eyes given half the chance. So,’ and she smiled once more, a tight fleeting thing, like a confession, ‘I will need those around me who I can trust with my life, who I can be certain will follow my commands. Who can get a job done without qualms.’
‘I see,’ replied Ché.
She did not seem entirely satisfied by his response. Sasheen turned to fix herself a hazii stick from a table next to the settle. ‘I’ve given the general order. We leave with the fleet for Lagos on the morning after next, to join with the Sixth Army in Lagos.’
Ché felt a little flutter of anticipation in his chest. For an instant, he looked at her with the cold eyes of a murderer, hearing the rasping voice of one of his handlers in his mind, telling him what he must do should the Matriarch show weakness or be exposed to the possibility of capture during the campaign.
‘You will miss the Augere then,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Sasheen acknowledged, searching for a match as she spoke. ‘All those hours of tedium parading myself to the chattel.’
Smoothly, Ché rose and crossed to the fire, feeling her eyes tracking him. He lit one of the rushes standing in a clay pot on the hearth, brought the burning end of it back to Sasheen, who was indeed watching him with amused interest.
She placed her fingers against his hand to steady the tip of the rush. Her kohl-rimmed eyes flickered up to meet his own, her lips pursed softly around the end of the hazii stick. He felt a pulse in his thighs, his groin.
Stop it you fool. You know she is this way. Using her charms with those she must rely upon.
He settled himself amongst a cloud of hazii smoke, whilst Sasheen turned back to the door of the side chamber, perhaps drawn by the smell of frying