Chapter fifteen
Ill news of Vomanus of VindelkaI felt outraged, betrayed, soiled.
I spoke before I thought.
“I understood that Vomanus was — ineligible to marry the Princess!”
He stared at me narrowly, and lowered his cup. “Now where would you have heard that?”
Collecting my thoughts, I said, stumbling and bluffing my way through: “I am not certain — it seems it was a drunken evening, somewhere, men talking and boasting. But, clearly, it cannot be true.”
He leaned back, sizing me up afresh, but he neither confirmed nor denied what I had suggested.
Back there in hated Magdag where I had intrigued and fought for my slaves and workers I had last seen Vomanus. I had sent him with a message to Delia. He had always treated me as a comrade, and although he was a young man whom I delighted
