Daily they met at the falcons. They sometimes touched, just fleetingly, and it was as though the essence of her very being flowed into him. He convinced himself that she yearned for him just as much as he yearned for her, and certainly she gave every indication of enjoying his company. When he touched her, perhaps by accident, he sometimes detected a momentary flush in her cheeks, and he was deliciously conscious of it when she occasionally and quite deliberately reached out and touched him.
One day Sigmar sent for Chaldez. "They tell me you and Lam's wife are often seen together," he said, without any sort of preamble."
"We like the falcons," said Chaldez, quickly.
"That may be so, but there is more to it than that."
Chaldez was silent.
"She is not only the wife of my trusted servant," Sigmar said, "but she is my daughter. What do you say to that?"
Chaldez was shrivelling up inside by the second. At last he said "I don't know what to say."
Sigmar had in front of him a plate of sweet meats. He selected one, but before putting it into his mouth he said "I am not surprised you find her appealing. Her mother has the same effect on me. They are similar, don't you think - to look at?"
"Very."
Sigmar ate his sweet. "You will soon be gone," he said. "I have seen your men; they are ready, and winter is nearly over. The mission I have spoken about is ripe to begin. I can see no harm in you and Tamasi being friends in the meantime. Her marriage was not a love match, as I expect you know. Lam is not a jealous man and he has no objection to your friendship. Who knows what the war we are about to embark on will bring? None of us may see it through."
Afterwards Chaldez tried to get it clear in his mind what Sigmar had been trying to tell him. Did he not mind that he, Chaldez, was in love with his daughter? Was that his message? The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that he was right. The trouble was, he would have no chance of telling Tamasi until the next day, and the hours which separated them yawned before him like an unbridgeable gulf.
He thought about her almost continuously throughout the rest of that day, and for much of the night. Just occasionally Sigmar intruded into his mind, but Sigmar, his great enemy, was a problem he did not want to confront. At their first, disagreeable, meeting Chaldez had been able to hate him well enough, but gradually he had ceased to think of him as the man whom he must one day kill, and now when he thought of him it was as the Danbedekkan, and never as the man who had, or might not have, killed his parents.
The following day she was, as usual, with the falcons. His first words were "Your father knows that I see you."
She looked alarmed.
"I don't think he minds," he went on, and then he recalled, as accurately as he could, what he had said about having no objection to their being friends, and about her marriage to Lam: that it was not a love match and that Lam was not likely to be jealous.
Tamasi's eyes seemed to glisten and sparkle, and she moved towards Chaldez, so that he could feel her warmth. "I would like us to be friends," she whispered.

His heart was now pounding; she was very close, and looking up into his face, almost teasingly. Chaldez put his arms around her, pulled her into him tightly and kissed her lips. She pressed her mouth against his. He was conscious of nothing else. It was as though the rest of the world had been blown away, leaving them in each other's arms, two people merging into one.
His love hurt, and the only relief from the pain was to hold her.
At last she pulled away. "It's hopeless," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "There's nowhere we can be alone. We can't go to my husband's tent - there are servants everywhere all the time - and I can't be seen crossing the camp to go to yours. What are we going to do, Zakarrah?"
"You have a servant you can confide in, surely? Someone will be able to help us, I know it. These things can always be arranged." He thought, as he spoke, of Dan and how he had managed to keep numerous assignations during the Karandi war. He went on "I think even your mother might be sympathetic. She and you father will have talked about us. As your father said, I am soon to go away, and who knows what the war will bring? This could be our only chance."
No sooner had he said that than he knew he had gone too far.
“When must you go?” she demanded. “What do you mean ‘who knows what the war will bring’? I don’t want to lose you. I won’t let my father send you away.”
Chaldez pulled her to him again and brushed his lips against her hair. “I don’t want to lose you” he whispered. “And I do not intend to, but I must go when the time comes. I have a command, and your father is entrusting me with an important mission.” Then he held her so that he could look her full in the face, and said “I know you will find a way.”
She said she would see what she could do.

******

Chaldez and Dan had become regular guests at the evening meal in Sigmar’s pavilion, and that night they were invited once again.
When the meal was over, a servant came up behind Chaldez and told him quietly that someone wished to see him. Chaldez turned to Dan, sitting beside him, and said “I’ll see you later.”
Dan asked where he was going. Chaldez grinned “To see a friend,” he whispered.
Tamasi was waiting in an adjoining tent. She grasped his hand and said “quick. It has been arranged,” and she led him outside. The tent she took him to was close by. It was unlit, and inside it they were enveloped in total darkness.
Chaldez kissed her. “I wish I could see you,” he whispered.
“Feel what you cannot see,” she replied, and he called to mind the teasing expression he had noticed when she had said she wanted to be his friend. Very gently, he felt her her face, her nose, her lips, and then he drew her into his arms and kissed her again, her soft lips now parted and luscious.
As they kissed, she backed away, pulling him with her, and in another moment they had tumbled upon a deep pile of furs which formed a luxurious bed.
Chadlez felt consumed, not with lust but with adoration. He sighed, his senses overwhelmed by her closeness.
When they made love it was, he thought, the most exquisite experience of his life.

*******

The next day, he and Dan were summoned by Sigmar.
“You will tell your brother what I am saying,” he instructed Chaldez. He then embarked on the most detailed briefing yet concerning the approaching mission to cut the |supply lines between Kroya and the Murak armies.
The Imperial Horse, he said, was to have four guides, one of them being Nopin. They were to keep on the move and live by their wits.
“You will demand provisions and supplies as and when you need them, in my name. If they are not forthcoming, you will take whatever measures you think fit to secure them, but preserve your strength. There is no shame in refusing to engage a superior force; valour is of no use when it lies dead. Whatever treasure you seize from the Muraks is your to do what you like with, but I suggest you make a fair distribution of it. Your men will serve you the better.
“When you have found the routes used by the enemy, you will send messengers - travelling by different routes and leaving at different times to ensure that at least one gets through - back to me here. That way we will keep in contact. When I am ready, I will send for you so that together we can engage and destroy Cregitzig.
“Now prepare your men and draw your supplies, for you will be leaving the day after tomorrow.”
That evening, Chaldez met Tamasi again in the tent where they had loved the previous night. She seemed to crumple when he told her the news. He held her very close, very tight, their breathing in harmony.
Once more they lay on the bed of furs, but now Chaldez simply caressed her face, her chin, her neck and kissed her on the forehead, and their whispered endearments filled the darkness with sweetness and sorrows until they both fell asleep