So this new project has taken over my life. It's official. I needed to foster it through its newborn stage though so I could ensure it would bloom, ya know? I'm sixty pages deep at this stage. I'm thinking I'll post it on an alternating schedule with reposts of Gambit on A03 once I finish what I've got of In the East. So expect teasers for that in the weeks to come. I'd tell you what it's called but I dare not speak its name! Not yet anyway….


Chapter 15: Coquette

Yugi was consumed with instincts every year upon the start of summer. Her mother used to say the blooming of both worlds made people, girls, caught on the line between wilder. May makes even maids lusty and witches ravenous for higher pleasures…

Yugi couldn't, as when she was a child, thrown herself naked under the moon on the grass outside the caravan; lodged in ancient forests, absolutely alone. The women of her kinsfolk had clapped and sang and danced together to eat up new strength from the earth and direct it out to their lives. Now she was some queer approximation of a wife, a queen, she couldn't slip outside for the night but she could make do. She could always make do. It was infectious how much she could creep, sucking, in through the walls.

The French would arrive tomorrow. Atemu's weak eyed new way of dealing wiith her vexed Yugi's nerves but it all dissipated when she stripped every curtain and, locking the doors, sat naked on the tiles in the moon. Through one window, which she opened, she could see the full sickle lit shape on the horizon perfectly.

She had herbs roasting in the fire, things she'd had brought up from the gardens and the kitchens all week, that wafted alien smoke out the windows. The smell was death and sex, heaven and goddess, warning to Christians and sacrament to her.

She had the pleasure now of gems she hadn't had as a child. Qazzadara had gifted her a set of two dozen thumbnail sized gems of the greatest variety during Yugi's second Christmas at court and zhe had employed them ever since. Yugi's family, she suspected from her grandmother's writings, had been wealthier once or had at least known alchemist secrets. She knew the spiritual properties of the diamond, that meloceus could discover thieves, that garnet could cast out demons, hyacinth provoke sleep…She arranged them and, singing, dipped her fingers in the calf blood to paint her naked skin with prayers and promises.

It must've looked hellish but no more so she suspected than ritual self-mutilations of catholic priests. Yugi's medicine was all science but her religion was all for goddesses and funny fay folk somewhere in her old heritage.

She dabbed a swirl, a different shape to what she would normally place, on his navel. Another new one on the breast over her heart as she held the pages of his grandmother's book open with one hand and sung over and over rolling the words under her breath. Her life had changed and Atemu made her cautious.

Herself done, naked still, she spent the next hour changing chants, mixing blood and herbs, dipping gems in it and praying till she tranced either from the fumes or exhaustion. It was the most vulnerable, most exciting, time of her year. A rebirth and solidification. Prayers for herself and her dead done those she whispered then, next, were for the crops, her in-laws, futures and peacefulness.

She didn't say any for Atemu. She had never tried and would never try to plant some ghost of her magic in the direction of the Sultan. Yugi had never ever wanted to fight with this weapon of hers. Her mother gave it as a tool to protect and to grow. Though her grandmother and great grandmother had left vivid little passages to deal with men, womanizers, Catholics and witch burners Yugi was too devout to turn to them. She wheeled things to better fortune for herself not ill fortune for others. The general rule of thrice returned, of Karma, was something she'd learnt of under the name 'curses' as a child.

Perhaps some part of her sensed or feared Atemu would be immune to Yugi under the power of his much more vengeful, less businesslike, god. Yugi's goddesses could be negotiated with. Atemu's could not. Perhaps she worried, stomach tight, that the Sultan would sense it or that the gods of his homeland in conjunction with the Christian Lord would notice and disapprove. Yugi's goddesses had no monopoly, no chance, to woo off the offense of two pantheons…

So Yugi prayed for good fortune, for Mana'jet, Sesset, Kisara, Mahado, Qazzadara… She threw half notes, little inflections to Atemu's health but only because she was tied to the Sultan's house and needed them to reinforce her own. The husband of a witch had a funny mystical status, something never really clear, always in conflict, and partitioned into secrecy as Yugi was she was intent to keep the divide between Atemu and her blood as real as possible.

Tomorrow the French would arrive, Yugi would be exhausted but she would also be stronger, lusher, readier than ever.


"Stop tapping!" Yugi cawed impatiently from behind the screen with her attendants in a bitterly foul mood this morning.

"If you shant let me pace damn it what else can I do!" Atemu snapped.

"Throw yourself off the ramparts for all I care!" His loving wife shrieked. "Tell the pigs not to come and save us both the agony of your nerves!"

"And to think you ever wished to be involved in politics!" He slapped at his seat sullenly, head back, teeth gritted.

"As with you and your delicate disposition! Stop that infernal tapping!"

Atemu's foot, which had been slapping up and down against the tiles, stopping briefly, had resumed its twitching again entirely without his notice but evidently not without Yugi's.

The French had landed in the bay. Within the hour they'd be ferried from docks to the palace with a processional guard and the equally elaborate formal greetings would begin. Yugi was unimpressed, displeased, but unable to escape the event found great joy it seemed in venting upon her husband.

Atemu had, as ambassador, engaged himself with Europeans upon countless occasions but never within the power struggles that formed the dynamic of two kings in conversation. To consort with the sovereigns of the East was to string up generations of intermarrying and bad blood. Across the desert a cousin of his ruled the nearest nation and their style of politics, given their culture, had always been informal. Between Europeans it was not so. Between the East and the West it was not so.

He was a passionate man, longed for victories, but while an excuse to garb himself like a continental king was appreciated the anxieties of potential cultural misunderstandings was...

He checked his foot was not fidgeting lest his wife take aim round the screen

The girls who had, for the moment been dressing the Sultana, now fluttered past him in hunching little bows. Dismissed they scampered like tiny woodland creatures and still out of sight Yugi groaned, fussing.

It was only on account of the other great wives being so put upon with tasks, dressing and preparing the court, that Yugi had been left with servants to help her dress but it had done nothing for her mood. Atemu supposed if Sesset, Kuli and Mana'jet had been within earshot Yugi would've been making foul little slurs with them about the impracticalities of the style.

"Damn it all," Atemu moaned one leg stiff at the knee the other kicked out arm flung over his eyes. His stomach quite enjoyed the rivers of the East but the wild grey seas of upcoming visitors through the continent set him queasy.

"Damn clothes," Yugi snapped, bustling past him. "I don't know why you insist on this."

"They'll think us savages, won't respect us, unless we look like Europeans." He groaned absently. "However much they want our alliance they're superstitious like that."

"I grew there," the Sultana sighed, "I believe every word of it but I still fail to see why we should come begging to them. These damn bodices are unbearable!"

Atemu moaned, caught it, and only then seemed to realize Yugi had changed. He blinked, behind his arm, and curious let it slip down into his lap trying to raise his head gently so as not to make it spin any further.

By now Yugi was, albeit uncomfortably, arranging herself in her seat. Her hands pulled the trail flowing from under her to one side of her legs and huffing tried to tangle with the slitted sleeves dangling round her.

Atemu stilled himself, a crocodile waiting in the reeds hoping the horses wouldn't notice it staring, as Yugi tried to settle.

The first time Atemu had been presented with the Gem Faher, during his father's reign, Yugi had been in a hastily refitted sari set that had noticeably once belong to a dead wife of the Sultan. The effect had been underwhelming given Yugi's nervousness at being presented as an outsider to the royal family, especially the sons, of Qazzadara. It had not at all been helped by Atemu's suspicions of the white folk and his superstitious realization, over the course of that day, that as women could not do the man's business of being doctors Yugi must've, therefore, been a witch.

He had never, ever, hence seen Yugi in anything remotely related to the continent. He found it impossible to imagine especially given for many years now Yugi had been one of the most richly decorated, traditionally garbed, women in his court. The saris and the wraps, the interplay of flow and tightness, was something that suited the Sultana after she had learnt to claim it and style it but this…

It was as if Atemu's inner philanthropist had, amazingly, spotted some rare imported fauna in its natural habitat utterly undisturbed by man. He now saw something as it was meant to be seen.

Yugi spotted him, became embroiled in the crosshairs of Atemu's stare and, sucking in, frowned cautiously.

"What?"

"I…" Atemu considered himself then very carefully. He shook his head, chin down, no, he decided, he had best not.

"What?" Yugi rasped sharply tone dipping into the venomous 'what now?' strain.

"I'll sound a right cad if I say it," he grumbled sickly.

Yugi scoffed; "You can't think I look any more ridiculous in this than I do."

"Well that's exactly the problem. I don't think you look ridiculous," he informed vaguely, "and I'm quite sure I'll find some new way to offend you if I attempt to elaborate."

"Oh. Oh now I'm curious," Yugi pivoted a little in her seat sceptically. "I have never, in all my years, heard a sincere compliment leave your mouth. I'm wondering if they exist."

"They do," Atemu defended grumbling, shifting himself back in his seat, away.

"Well then," the Sultana snorted with mild interest, "what do you think? Or is it just the manner of dress? It's my honest impression you'll take anything European over something otherwise in style."

"Perhaps," Atemu confessed mumbling, "I'll admit I have my preferences."

"Oh out with it then," Yugi groaned, brows pinching into a tiny frown. "It can't be any more offensive than half the things you've screamed at me. Would it burn well? Is that it?"

"No!" He cringed, hissing, sighing. "God I just… I don't know how to begin with you. I…" He paused, avoided eye contact, but straining sincerely tried to continue; "I think it suits you. I like the cut and the colours on you. I think…"

"Hmm…?" The Gem Faher murmured in a tiny, prompting, noise.

"I just…" He knew he was inching towards a tender nick in the stonework. "I think you could wear that every day and never want for admirers."

Yugi frowned to herself, to her knees and her folded hands and swallowing appeared dreadfully uncertain in the next second but not… not angry? Atemu turned his mouth into his palm, looking away though his eyes were want to stare at the way the cut accentuated the tiny hips. He was so painfully aware of how everything he said ought to be misconstrued like some appraiser at a slave market. He was so acutely pointed to the concept that it could all be taken as too sexual, tightened with his tongue in a way he'd never been with politics.

Yugi was still, yet, puzzled.

"So I've failed at compliments too have I?" He mumbled.

"No," Yugi dithered lingeringly, not quite looking at him. "I simply… it's so bizarre to imagine something nice leaving your mouth I don't know what to do with it."

"Surely Qazzadara said as much about you," Atemu diverted mouth still sullenly in his palm feeling useless and painfully incompetent.

"Well, yes," the wi- Atemu forced himself to stall on the word- Sultana rubbed one palm up her exposed forearm, "but I've never had anything like this. I was a peasant when last I saw those home shores. Miserable, poverty stricken, as foul as I'm sure you imagine."

"I try not to imagine anything lately," Atemu cringed, "I've been so ruined by it I'm afraid to try. I've no skill for good guessing it appears. Least of all with you. The matter is the matter though, isn't it? Currently, now, at hand…" he got lost trying to reign himself in managing to repeat himself stupidly, "you look fine now and you are a queen now. So… does it matter…?"

He sighed, tossed his hands and his shoulders, coming with an idea but too hesitant to place it firmly lest the screaming start all over. He felt with every tiptoe forward he found a new den of rattle snakes. Not that… well he'd let the path fall into ruin, he'd encouraged wild beasts to settle there, hadn't he? Yugi's reactions, he rued, were all his work and now he wasn't sure what he wanted but he couldn't stand to be angry any more given how wretched it made him feel to be cruel.

"I…" Yugi tasted the word and the mere continuation startled Atemu, rankled him, into a nervous defensive. "I suppose. I don't know that answer."

He eased, just a hair, and swallowed.

"You…?" Atemu let it die, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Hmm?" Yugi picked still trying to map something in her lap as her eyes glazed over into thoughtfulness.

"Well, you are a queen now, aren't you? Does what you were matter? The King of France certainly won't know and if he says anything well it's… I… it's not his business, is it?"

"It matters in its own way," the Sultana shrugged mildly before shaking her head, "never mind. I'm becoming nostalgic, foolish, it's nonsense." She continued to shake, pushing herself up seemingly unable to sit still now for a moment longer. "No time for such nonsense."

"I've cocked it up have I?" Atemu grumbled quietly.

"No, no," Yugi dismissed, moving back towards the adjoining door to escape into her sitting room for the rest of her jewels. "I… No. No you've been very civil, if a little clumsy, I'll thank you for that."

And she was gone all soft sky blues, gold and stiff white gone with her and she off to her diamonds. Gorgeous swish, the parting sigh of sound, the curve of the small of her back accentuated as it disappeared, the narrowness of her shoulders leaving with her and lush, tender, arms.

Atemu shook his head.


They were to meet the French in the grand cathedral structure of the great hall. The screens put aside, the curtains stripped back to the walls, light thrummed off every white tile till the painted mandala upon the ceiling and the anthromorphic statues of precious stone in the niches shimmered with a vigour that was startling even to Atemu.

Blue, white and golden Yugi adjusted a diamond bracelet about one tiny wrist and sighed as the drums sounded up all the way from the main foyer drawing ever closer up the steps to the hall set high in the main body of the palace. Kisara and Mana laughed under their breaths over something behind Atemu, familiar voices twittering under the rumble of Seth to Zarzak and Falker to Abraxas who snickered like school boys. None of their amusement was directed upon Atemu. Doubtless they would be laughing about breakfast or some old adage they'd been reminded of, menial things. Their lazy contentment was helpful at least in bolstering Atemu.

The accustomed march of armed infantrymen eased up the stairs through the main doors, parting to form flanks for the entering French entourage and that old political smile wafting up Atemu found a part of himself he had forgotten slunk in with the foreigners. It was not quite confidence but some old sense of his ambassadorial skills that clunked against his sense of kingship.

"Majesty!" The Dauphin laughed, utterly at peace in his own strut, one hand extending while the other rested on the bauble hilt of his sword. His demeanour was half infectious as Atemu took the board white fingers hard in his own. "Monsieur Atemu at least we meet."

"Your Majesty, Monsieur Dartz," he supplied with a heavy squeeze and jolting shake of their hands. "Tis a pleasure to receive you in my home."

"A grand one at that," the sovereign appraised hand slipping aside as he glanced to the domed ceilings. "I must thank you for your courtesy, never in all my days have a seen such a fantastical city of white stone."

"You are most welcome here brother," Atemu inclined, "I trust you've been well attended since setting ashore."

"Notably so."

There was a subtle chink to Atemu's courage as he narrowed his glance aside and proceeded; "if I may introduce your Majesty…"

Atemu's arm found itself round Yugi's nimble waist with subtle kind of inexperience as the smaller, arms folded wilfully, stood tall with her tiny chin up; prepared for battle. Those eyes of hers only broke off from the impending glance of the Frenchman to impart a kind of warning to Atemu from the corner of her eyes when the Sultan's grip strengthened holding Yugi closer.

"Your Grace, allow me to present my wife, the Sultana; Yugi." Atemu gestured.

He was forced to squeeze when bowing her head with a mild courteousness Yugi, although smiling coyly, appeared to have no intention of offering his hand to the king. Without a glance the witch relented to offer her fingers and pressing the knuckles to his mouth with an air of adoration Dartz chuckled.

"Your highness," he greeted, "I must confess I was not expecting such…"

"A complexion?" Yugi snorted brazenly the corner of her mouth perking as Atemu's stomach agonized him at the offhand remark delivered in luxuriously eloquent French.

"A beauty," Dartz countered, his flirtations received with the slightest upward motion of one of Yugi's brows.

"You are too kind Sire."

"Not at all," he joked releasing Yugi's limp hand, "if I had known his Majesty had such gorgeous ladies I would've come sooner."

His entourage laughed, the Easterners chuckled darkly and impassive Yugi's vague smirk did not vanish but gave nothing more away. Unimpressed, uncharmed, Yugi for the first time in the entirety of their marriage leant into Atemu's arms.

Yugi glanced back, over his shoulder, into Atemu's face and with a smile that downright startled the Sultan whispered against his cheek in their mother tongue; "you owe me deeply for this." Then, laughing gently, turned back to Dartz cocking his chin.

"Hmm?" The King supposed at the whisper he could not discern.

"Nothing Milord," Yugi smiled playfully, "nothing but the reassurance of a typically jealous husband."

The Frenchmen chuckled; "so nothing does change across the sea, eh?"

"Nor the centuries," Yugi sighed.

Atemu had, it confronted him occasionally with a kind of surreal bizarreness, married a vicious, ballsy, little courtesan. The glimmer in the foreigner, the charisma, he respected but he wondered if Dartz underestimated the exact intellect and cunning of the white witch as Atemu so foolishly had. If he could keep them from turning upon each other it would be a joyous political mission.

"And what of your Queen, Sir, have we been blessed with their visitation also?"

"Alas," Dartz sighed shrugging, "her Majesty is presently engaged with the laying in of our newest child."

"A shame but hopefully such a sacrifice will come with the blessing of son," Atem smoothed.

"Indeed," he nodded, "until then I am sure the Sultana will be charitable enough to keep us all in good spirits."

"Oh I'm sure I can be quite enough for both of you." Yugi popped dryly, to the almost colouring and in some cases smirking of the startled French envoys whom immediately picked the pun.

Dartz laughed, Atemu bit his tongue in withering. Yugi appeared consoled to charming their guests, to playing kind, but to Atemu who found himself sensitive to the creature's true moods he could sense how tense it made the tight body in his arms.

The French, that benchmark of Western society and ideals, was the very antithesis of Atemu's Gem-Faher. Anzu would've revelled in the honour of receiving such a guest. Yugi was distrustful, ill-disposed to them, and knew quite keenly every demeaning assumption of the East Dartz might levy about them silently. Yugi was so aware of their being judged, embittered to it from years of practice, that putting the queen before the very embodiment of all she had run from across the sea was, Atemu sensed, quite dangerous. Oil and water would not mix, ignoring Yugi's heritage she was not, in the least, suited for Europe or Europeans.

Worse Atemu feared Dartz, judging from Yugi's complexion, might say something in passing he would expect Yugi as a Westerner to utterly console upon with the Dauphin but which Yugi would rebel from in offense. Yet the same could happen in reserve Yugi might in all likelihood say something which to her was quite civil and typical now which would send the Dauphin into revolt. Atemu then was put, squarely, as the peace maker. A disastrous position he had not occupied in years.


After giving the French an opportunity to freshen up dinner had the glamorous pre-amble of trained Eastern dancers. Yugi slid her mouth into her hand, resting her elbow upon the arm of her seat and to her right Atemu and Dartz whispered, chuckling.

The girls were well dressed but by European standards no doubt underdressed. Yugi had a sixth sense Dartz was quite grateful for the tits half on display and the reassuring demonstration that Eastern ladies could move their hips in a vastly superior manner to westerners.

Slipping her index finger across her bottom lip Yugi inhaled and drowning the men out focused on the lilting thwack of the percussion and the strings. After another spin the beat picked and instinctively the court knew to clap in synchronisation, palms slapping dead against each other for heavier sound.

These weren't their usual show dances, the games the East put on as mere amusements. These were the traditional routines, to satisfy Yugi, the steps where every motion of the arm and twist of the head was an illustration of one river spirit or another looking out for their vengeful lover. If Yugi had to endure jousting tomorrow, all the loutish white armoured splendour of men who would give themselves heat stroke by the afternoon, then tonight she'd watch the twisting of a proper story.

In the old days, when Yugi was much younger, she'd been spellbound by these routines. Qazzadara had had her sit, for the first time, in the empty place of dead Sultana Ayesha and took her hand. It was nine or so months after Yugi's first arrival to court when her grasp of the language had solidified and, health miraculously improved, Qazzadara had taken to her as if a fish to water. She had read the Sultan a story the evening before, recited one actually, from her homeland and so the following evening Qazzadara had lent to her ear and gesturing had explained the tales of Eshu in the shadows of the dancers. Yugi had squeezed his old fingers tighter, beaming, and watching the rotations had across the room spied a young Atemu glowering furiously at the tiny eggshell white figure in his mother's seat. Yugi hadn't understood.

Perhaps that was wrong… Yugi had understood in some ways but not entirely in others. She'd been naïve once. She'd come from a culture where the families travelled, went their separate ways and converged at the will of the winds. They had old alliances but the unity they shared expanded to gypsies Yugi's parents had never, ever, met before the evening they camped together. They had nothing to fight over. Power was invested in those who could read and the heirlooms the women of Yugi's line passed invested with family magic. The books, the incantations were easily passed, but powerful talismans were not and had to be divided. Who was going to get the caravan? What gypsy stranger from across the mountains would Yugi's father have attempted to marry her to after an hour and a cup of warm tea?

Yugi had understood that she didn't appreciate the culture of royals. She'd never been exposed to it. She had learnt, she had been very, very, frugal and as much of a nuisance to the ladies as she possibly could be to have a diffusion of their knowledge. The days she had sat in Kisara's shadow just listening to everything she said, to everything Lurek said… till she could voice an opinion, until she had an opinion, until she could eclipse them.

Yet she had never truly understood Atemu's hatred for her. She still didn't. Qazzadara had placed her… Actually Qazzadara had not made her easy to like in those first few months by putting her in the Queen's seat simply because he was Sultan and no one could stop him. She had the protection at least of being known as a wise foreigner who had cured the old man of his ails, she had the reputation of being brave enough to travel alone and speak up for herself. That had endeared her but, in many respects, she had been as uncomfortably placed as Anzu…

Atemu's brothers had warmed to her. They had learnt how happy she was to amuse them with card tricks, how keen she was to hear Mahado explain religion or politics, how fascinating she found everything they would like to teach her on a whim, how proud she was of their achievements because it made Qazzadara proud, how sympathetic she was and how fiercely she would tut them, riling up like any of their sisters, at an insult.

It had been lonely, it had been hard, but it had fallen into place. Yugi loved this country, loved this culture, she was at peace with it but… Atemu had refused in the last months before his ambassadorship to eat with the rest of the court if she was there, to speak to her, to acknowledge her, to bow to Qazzadara if he walked past with her…He'd spat at her once…

Yugi shook her head, sighing.

The dancers drew their swords, balanced them as they moved and Yugi supposed that to Atemu she must've been frightening, as unlikeable as Qazzadara had found Anzu. She hadn't understood how she was offending him at first either.

Miserable she slumped, legs crossed under the long European skirt, and glanced to him in the soft light of the dances. He and Dartz were mumbling, laughing, still. They'd quite taken to each other already if the gossip was anything to go by. To have a European man must've been pleasant for Atemu.

He glanced in a brief instance, looking for his drink and, eyes darting a second time in surprise, found Yugi staring at him. He frowned, puzzled, immediately on guard and making a silent gesture with his face and lips asked; 'what?' Not angrily this time just stupefied.

Yugi shook her head, glanced back to the dancing, Atemu frowning at her falling expression.


Voyeurism in the guise of scantily clad dancers turned to dinner turned, for Dartz, to more dancing. Atemu, the strapping young Sultan, had a youthfulness Dartz was half jealous of and a wife he was utterly envious of after taking the milky minx once round the dance floor. The food had an acidic, spicy, strength too it imbued with a harsh rawness but the drink was smooth at least which helped. God knew the little lady could tip it back and swallow just as well as her blackened husband. It was all vaguely enchanting as if Dartz was watching children playing at being kings and queens, children who still had one innocent foot with the fairies and the other resting solidly in the realm of unapologetic crassness.

Finishing a mug beside the Sultan Dartz, stepping from the dais, spotted the white queen again as he laughed. Little thing was hard to miss dolled with a pallor of moonbeams in a court of Arabians.

"Milday," Dartz threw his hand out at Yugi's passing, "another dance?"

The creature, Sultana as the natives said, was intensely lovely in an utterly old world way Dartz found. The coquettish never yielding way of her expressions, the feline arch of the jaw and the maturity of the eyes set in a very timeless face paved the way for ample adoration. Pausing in the step from the dais she considered him like a rider would a horse and Dartz considered he wouldn't mind being ridden.

"Of course Milord," she allowed, sliding her hand into his.

"You honour me with your patience," he teased kissing her tight knuckles.

"You shall make my ladies jealous if you continue to dote at me."

"I suppose they should be used to it by now," he led them into the foray of the dancers who parted like tiny ships before the waves.

They were half a turn in before, comfortable with the anonymity of their whispers, Dartz made his play for important politics. A European Queen was, to him, a great foot in the door of any nation.

"It must be very hard for you here."

"Hmm?" Yugi frowned, one brow hiking. "Not at all Majesty, why ever would it be?"

"You, I'm sure, milady must know of the work of Christ," he hinted.

"Aye, I know of him." The minx refused to give anything, cautious of sharp ears?

"To be a Christian princess in a country of heathen gods is a lonely martyrdom." He supposed as they twisted. "Though his Majesty seems quite amicable to the Gospel from what we have discussed. You ought to be congratulated upon sharing such goodness with him."

"Oh no, no," Yugi laughed snorting tensely. "You must put that honour solely on his first wife. I taught his Majesty nothing of Christ. I will not pretend I did."

"You are humble," Dartz flattered with a smile that the disinterested Queen seemed to pass over quite turned away at the subject strangely. It was bizarre. Still, he pressed on; "I know it must frustrate your Majesties, as much as it does any prince in Christendom, that just over your border hostile fractions infest the Holy Lands."

"Well I heard that's what men had crusades for in Europe?" Yugi snorted lazily, blatantly refusing to bite.

"It would be a great mercy, a work of God, to have those lands safely invested in the hands of monarchs amicable to both the people native to them and the papacy of Christ. In a world like that pilgrimages could be safe."

"You ought to make peace with the Babylonians then," the Sultana suggested coyly. She evidently understood but foot stubborn refused to step into the implication. "His Majesty would liaison happily."

"Ah but, perhaps, his Majesty ought to consider expanding his authority?" Dartz suggested, pushed to the limit of polite conversation.

Sharp, hooded, eyes considered his face. The Sultana hummed and spinning out then back sighed; "No Sir I don't imagine he would. You see," Yugi grasped his shoulder hard, focused suddenly. "Here in the East we are all kin. Surely Sir you have a brother or a cousin perhaps? A friend you love dearly invested in a seat of great power whom you would not abandon or betray for anything? I can see most men do. Well, here, that king of Babylon you call hostile is his Majesty's cousin as are most kings across this continent."

The way Yugi manuvered them, face to face, keen tongued to make sure the emphasis was imparted was powerful. As a man with a sweet, docile and sometimes fanciful wife the competence Dartz rubbed against was raw and startling.

"I see," he collected himself, music draining off. "Of course I meant no harm." He backtracked subtly. "Only to express an interest," A Christian interest he was surprised to find so dully received by a white queen but then again…good, sinless, white women didn't have to become queens in savage nations did they?

"Of course," Yugi smiled coyly, "it's only a matter of culture."

"Understandably." He nodded.

"Hmm, well," Yugi let them stop with a little strength in her hands speeding the process. "Your Highness I ought to excuse myself for the evening."

"Oh it's not so late," Dartz teased.

"Aye but husbands who take their time have preferences about curfews," the Sultana hinted almost obscenely. Dartz smirked, imagination splitting.

"I imagine they do."

"I didn't think you would have to," Yugi patted his arm teasingly, "not with a happy wife."

"Hmm…" Dartz mumbled after the swaying hips disappearing back towards the dais.


Next time: a bow, an arrow, and an epiphany… will Atemu admit the truth to himself? Yugi? Or both?