The Diamond Throne

to the robed and veiled woman who had been shouting at him. He spoke in as mild and inoffensive a tone as he could manage
    ‘Hello, Lillias?’ she shrieked. ‘Hello, Lillias! Is that all you have to say for yourself, brigand?’
    Sparhawk tried very hard not to smile In a peculiar way, he loved Lillias and he was pleased to see her enjoying herself so much. ‘You’re looking well, Lillias,’he said conversationally, knowing that a comment like that would spur her to new heights.
    ‘Well? Well? When you have murdered me? When you have cut my heart out? When you have sunk me in the mire of deepest despair?’ She leaned back in a tragic posture, head up and arms thrown wide. ‘Hardly a morsel of food has passed my lips since that hateful day when you abandoned me penniless in the gutter.’
    ‘I left you the shop, Lillias,’ he protested. ‘It fed us both before I left. Surely it still feeds you.’
    ‘Shop! What do I care about the shop? It is my heart that you have broken, Mahkra!’ She thrust back her hood and ripped off her veil. ‘Assassin!’ she cried. ‘Look at your handiwork!’ She began to tear at her long, glossy black hair and to gouge at her dark, full-lipped face with her fingernails.
    ‘Lillias!’ Sparhawk barked in the tone he had only had to use a few times during their years together. ‘Stop that! You’ll hurt yourself.’
    But Lillias was in full voice now, and there was no stopping her. ‘Hurt?’ she cried tragically ‘What do I care about hurt? How can you hurt a dead woman? You want to see hurt, Mahkra? Look at my heart!’ She ripped open the front of her robe It was not her heart, however, that she revealed.
    ‘Oh, my goodness,’ Kurik said in an awed voice, staring at the woman’s suddenly revealed attributes. Voren turned his head aside, concealing a smile. Sephrenia, however, looked at Sparhawk with a slightly different expression.
    ‘Oh, God,’ Sparhawk groaned. He swung down from his saddle ‘Lillias!’ he muttered sharply to her ‘Cover yourself! Think of the neighbours – and all the children watching.’
    ‘What do I care about the neighbours? Let them look!’
    She thrust out her full breasts. ‘What does shame mean to a woman whose heart is dead?’
    Grimly, Sparhawk advanced on her. When he got close enough, he spoke quietly to her from between clenched teeth. ‘They’re very nice, Lillias,’ he said, ‘but I don’t really think they’re much of a surprise to any man within six streets in any direction. Do you really want to go on with this?’
    She suddenly looked a little less certain, but she did not close the front of her robe.
    ‘Have it your way,’ he shrugged. Then he too raised his voice ‘Your heart is not dead, Lillias,’ he declared to the audience breathlessly clustered on their balconies. ‘Far from it, I think. What of Georgias the baker? And Nendan the sausage-maker?’ He was selecting names at random.
    Her face blanched, and she shrank back, covering her generous bosom with her robe ‘You know?’ she faltered.
    That hurt him just a little, but he covered it. ‘Of course,’ he declared, still playing to the balconies, ‘but I forgive you. You are much woman, Lillias, and not meant to be alone.’ He reached out and gently covered her hair with her hood again. ‘Have you been well?’ he asked her very softly
    ‘I get by,’ she whispered.
    ‘Good. Are we almost done?’
    ‘I think we need something to round it out, don’t you?’ Her face looked hopeful.
    He tried very hard to keep from laughing.
    ‘This is serious, Mahkra,’ she hissed. ‘My position in the community depends on it.’
    ‘Trust me,’ he murmured. ‘You have betrayed me, Lillias,’ he said to the balconies, ‘but I forgive you, for I have not been here to keep you from straying.’
    She considered that for a moment, then sobbed, fellinto his arms and buried her face in his chest. ‘It’s just that I missed you so much, my Mahkra. I weakened. I am but a poor, ignorant woman – a slave to my passions. Can you ever truly forgive me?’
    ‘What is there to forgive, my Lillias?’ he said grandly. ‘You are like the earth – like the sea. To give is a part of your nature.’
    She thrust herself back from him. ‘Beat me!’ she demanded. ‘I deserve to be beaten!’ Huge tears, genuine for all he knew, stood in her glowing black eyes.
    ‘Oh, no,’ he refused, knowing exactly where that would lead. ‘No beatings, Lillias,’ he said.