Anjana strode up the gleaming white steps to Kalsini's front entrance.

She stopped for a moment, and cast an affectionate glance over the pale, glittering palace, which was illuminated in brilliant hues of violet and gold in the light of the setting sun. It had been her home ever since she had wed the king, or the krigsherre, as he was called. Her husband, a burly young man with an impish smile and large ears, spent most of his days training the younger soldiers and instructing the low-ranking commanders. His name was Lashanth, though she often called him Lasha simply to see the red rise in his cheeks and neck. Payesha was like a daughter to them both; she received her priestess's training from Lashanth and a few other priests in the afternoon, and her lessons in healing were delivered by Anjana in the evenings and sometimes the mornings.

As the two guards flanking the lapis-inlaid door bowed to her, she strode past them and into the entrance hall, which was adorned by fine paintings, priceless gems, and a gold-embroidered carpet upon the floor. She had barely the time to hand her bow and daggers to an attendant when she felt something hit her from behind and swarm up her back to perch on her shoulders. Anjana looked upward to see the round, gleeful face of her four-year-old daughter peering down at her.

"My Kamala," she said, plucking the child from her shoulders and cradling her in her arms. "My baby." Anjana pressed a kiss to her daughter's forehead and started up the wide staircase with Kamala on her right him. "What did you do all the day while I was gone?"

"I sneaked into the servants' hall."

Anjana sighed. "Have I not told you time and again that you are too small to go down there? You could get hurt, and I would never know." She tossed Kamala into the air, and the little girl shrieked in delight. "Do you want me to leave the Guard and stay at home to mind you?"

"No. Payesha is lots more fun when you're not here," said Kamala complacently.

Her mother lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? How so?" Anjana fervently prayed that Payesha had not conjured up yet another mad scheme with Ninitha and Khala. On a previous occasion, they had exchanged the signs that announced the entrances to the boys' and the girls' dancing-halls. Several young girls had fainted upon seeing a band of raucous boys come crashing into the girls' dancing room.

"Oh, she killed her newest patient. Killed him dead, one of the seamstresses said so. I was under the table while she was talking to a cook."

Anjana stopped short.

"Killed her newest-"

"The elf. Everyone says that one oughtn't to trust Yesha with any kind of sleeping draught-"

"Oh, sweet Deva." Anjana stuffed Kamala unceremoniously into the arms of a nearby maid and ran up to the third floor. She had a stitch in her side by the time she reached the infirmary, and was clutching her side in a rather ungainly fashion when she burst into Glorfindel's sickroom. He had been looking at a map in his pack. Payesha was by his side, and she held a quill in one hand.

"Kalsini ought to be right about here," she murmured in Westron, pointing to a spot on the map. "We're quite near the border and only a few leagues from the sea, so this is where we'd be." Payesha took the map from Glorfindel and drew a six-pointed star on a spot to the south and west of Mordor.

"What is going on?" asked Anjana in Haradic, addressing Payesha directly. "I leave for just one day and I come back...and apparently the servants have been gossiping about you killing the elf? WHAT has happened, Payesha?"

Payesha lifted her brows. "Nothing happened, my Lady. I brought Glorfindel breakfast in the morning, gave him a sleeping-draught, and then came back to talk with him. To improve my Westron, you know. I'm still terrible with the grammar and he's been helping me. And then he brought out a map of Aksha and asked me where we were. His map hasn't got any cities plotted in Harad at all, so I just told him where Kalsini should be."

Now it was Anjana's turn to lift an eyebrow. "Glorfindel?"

"That's his name. Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower."

"What is he, a prince?"

At this, Payesha's jaw dropped and she turned back to Glorfindel. "I forgot to inform you, my lord, that my liege and tutor is also the queen of Harad. You are standing in her presence."

Glorfindel's eyes widened. "My greatest apologies, my Lady. I had no notion that I was in the presence of royalty." Anjana's jaw dropped; Glorfindel had uttered the two sentences in near-perfect Haradic.

She inclined her head to him in response and then answered in Westron. "If you would excuse the two of us, Glorfindel, I must have Payesha now. I have returned late and she will have hardly any time for her studies at this rate."

Glorfindel nodded. "Of course, my Lady. And-I have not thanked you properly for saving me yesterday. If not for you, I would probably have died by the time my companions returned. I owe you my life."

Anjana waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Of course not. And I did nothing; It was my attendant who walked all the way back to Kalsini so that you would not be jostled too much by the horse. Rest well tonight, and keep off the back of your head if you can."

"Thank you, my Lady."

As soon as Glorfindel showed signs of reclining upon his pillows, Anjana seized Payesha around her wrist and practically dragged her from the room. Though the previous queen of the Haradwaith, Lashanth's dead mother, would have thought it scandalously improper, Anjana was only twenty-six and merely seven years older than Payesha herself. "What happened? Do not say that the rumor about you killing him was entirely unwarranted. I know enough by now to realize that although the servants of Kalsini may have wagging tongues, there is a grain of truth in nearly every embroidered tale they tell. So, tell me," Anjana had recovered from her shock, and her voice was no longer strained. "What went on today?"

"Well, I accidentally overdosed him with sleeping-draught," said Payesha with a shrug. "The servants got that part right, at least. But it was the weakest one, so he woke up before long. I had nothing else to do, so I talked with him. I embarassed myself thoroughly in the morning-he asked me for my name, and I mistook the intent behind his questions. He asked me to teach him basic Haradic."

"So that you did not embarrass yourself again in Westron? You looked to be doing quite well in it from the little I heard."

"I think that's why, although, of course, he was far too polite to say so, my Lady." Payesha made a wry face. "Either way, I think I've made an interesting friend."

"All right. I'll concede that if you've done any damage today, it was ephemeral and entirely accidental," said Anjana with a grin.

"What lessons have I to-night?" asked Payesha, trying and failing to smother a yawn that suddenly took hold of her.

"None, child. Go rest. It was merely a ruse."

Payesha yawned again and then stumbled off to bed.