CHAPTER 27

PRE CARRIED THE velvet parcel of earrings, but lesser members of the retinue bore the sprays of flowers which would be thrown onto the altar. As they withered, their color and vibrancy would infuse the spirit on whose behalf they were offered.

Tabubu strolled free as a flame, pausing now to examine fabrics racked in an open-fronted shop. Her staff-bearers watched the crowd with their mistress in the corner of their eyes—ready to conform to her movements, protecting her without blundering into her path.

Good men, and they had more than a casual awareness of Samlor hil Samt.

At closer look, Samlor found Tabubu imposing, but the feeling she aroused in him was awe similar to that he felt beneath the gigantic reliefs of the river temple. The red silk of her headdress was diaphanous. Through it he could see that her hair was dressed in multiple braids, each banded at intervals with broad gold rings. Tabubu's bracelets bore complex designs in coral, carnelian and turquoise, all mounted in heavy gold.

The material of her dress was only slightly less transparent than her headgear, and the straps plunged to waist level in front. The pendant dangling across the cleft between her breasts was of metal filigree, gold and electrum—the alloy of gold and silver. It seemed to depict a crocodile swallowing the ball of the world.

Tabubu's eyes glanced across Samlor like sunlight from a glacier. The pendant, rather than the two husky attendants, changed his intention of speaking directly to her. Instead, he approached Pre. She had been watching him with amusement from the moment the caravan master reappeared in the forecourt.

"My friend," said Samlor carefully, using the bustle around them as an active form of privacy, "believes he can be of service to your mistress. It may be that she has a lawsuit that he can have settled to her advantage. Or—"

Pre's eyes had grown as hard as the jewels glaring from the cat on her bosom. "What would your master," she asked, "expect in exchange for these services? If he is merely a generous man, let him help those who have need of it."

"He's a very discreet man," said Samlor, aware that his own desire for discretion had put the situation in the maid's hands. "As discreet as he is powerful."

He could feel Khamwas staring at his back, demanding some indication of success. Damn him, he could handle his own affairs if he was in such a hurry! Where did he get the notion that Samlor was a pimp?

The spotted cat, smaller than an adult leopard, rose and fell with the breasts it covered.

"He would spend an hour with your mistress," Samlor plowed on, proceeding with what he had started, "in the most complete secre—"

"What!" Pre cried, bringing stares from all directions. "Why doesn't he just offer money, then? Does he think my mistress is a whore?"

Samlor trembled. All his emotions were turned to lust for the splendid woman whose harangue was making a public fool of him. He didn't understand it, but he never understood much when he was thinking with his dick.

"You there," called Tabubu imperiously. "Samlor. Come here."

Feeling as though he were encased in crystal, Samlor obeyed the scarlet-garbed woman. He remembered that he had intended to speak with her before, but he could not imagine how he had presumed so far. Her voice was contralto, and it reverberated as if it were coming from a hot furnace.

"If Prince Khamwas has something to tell me," said Tabubu, "then he can visit me at my home tomorrow."

She was tall to begin with, and the red silk of her headdress waved above her like the plume of a volcano. Samlor faced the woman as he had faced death many times before.

And not even Tabubu's dominating presence could quell his desire for her maid Pre.

"He should remember," Tabubu added, "that I am a priest's daughter and not a common prostitute. Not common at all."

She turned away with a flash of the pendant swinging between her breasts. The staff bearers moved to block Samlor if he tried to follow their mistress toward the inner court of the temple, reserved for religious purposes.

Samlor didn't notice them. For a moment he stood puzzled, though he knew that Khamwas would begrudge him every instant until he had reported.

Most people in Napata didn't even realize that Khamwas was alive, much less that he was accompanied—served, if you would—by a Cirdonian named Samlor hil Samt. Tabubu's knowledge was as striking as the woman herself. It was something for Khamwas to think about before he decided what he should do next.

As Samlor made his way back across the court, he thought of Pre clasping her arms around his shoulders and crossing her legs behind his buttocks as he thrust within her.