“Maybe. But there are armed guards she can summon instantly.”
“We know. But, Drak” — Orlan looked with a sickly smile at me, at which I pondered how much he really cared for the queen — “you are a kaidur. When you caress her, and bend over her, your arms about her, kissing her. Then you may place your hands upon her neck, so, and twist, so, and she will go quietly, and you may lay her, so, upon the couch.”
And Orlan Mahmud placed upon the table the two halves of the ripe fruit he had twisted apart.
We all looked at the two halves of that rich fruit as its juices seeped onto the sturm-wood. It was a shonage fruit, I remember, larger than a grapefruit, as red as a tomato, crammed with rich flesh and sweet juices. No one spoke.
The little secret meeting room hidden in the rear of a hovel
