“Ah.” He stared out the window for a moment. “I see.”
He looked down at his hands, and spread wide his fingers. “Tonight, the empress has called a council. She will finally decide, she says, which offer of marriage to accept.”
The fingers closed into fists. He looked up at Irene. “You will state your opinion, then, for the first time. And you do not want Dadaji to refrain from arguing his, because he feels himself so deeply in your debt.”
She nodded. Kungas chuckled. “I never imagined Rome’s finest spymaster would hold herself to such a rigid code of honor.”
Irene made an inarticulate, sarcastic noise. “I hate to disillusion you, Kungas. I do this not from honor, but from simple—” She paused. When she spoke again, the acid-tinged sarcasm was gone from her voice.
“Some, yes. Some.” She sighed. “It is difficult to manipulate Dadaji, even for someone like me. It’s a bit too much like maneuvering against a damned saint.”
She reached up and wiped her face, restoring the spymaster. “But that is still not my reason. My reason is cold-blooded statecraft. Whatever decision the empress makes will be irrevocable. You know Shakuntala, Kungas. She is as intelligent, I think, as Justinian.”
She barked a laugh. “She certainly has the willpower of Theodora.” Then, shaking her head: “But she is still a girl, in many ways. If she discovers, in the future, that one of her closest advisers—he is like a father to her, you know that—withheld his advice on such a critical matter—” The headshaking became vigorous. “No, no, no. That would shake her self-confidence to the very roots. And that we cannot afford. She may make the wrong decision. Rulers often do. But her confidence must never waver, or all will be lost.”
Kungas eyed her, head aslant. “Have I ever told you that you were a very smart woman?”
“Several times,” she replied, smiling. She cocked her own head, returning his look of amusement with questioning eyes.
“You still have not asked,” she said softly. “What my opinion is. We have never discussed the matter, oddly enough.”
He spread his hands. “Why is that odd? I know your opinion, just as surely as you know mine.”
He dropped his hands and lifted his shoulders. “It is obvious. I even have hopes, once we explain, that Dadaji will be convinced.”
Irene snorted. Kungas smiled, but shook his head.
“You are too skeptical, I think.” The thick, heavy shoulders squared. “But we will know soon.”
He began to move toward the door, his head turned away. “I think it would be best, Irene, if you spoke first.”
“I agree. It will strike the harder, coming from an unexpected source. You will follow, of course, when the time is right.”
He did not bother to reply. There was no need. For a moment, never speaking, the man and woman in the room reveled together in that knowledge.
Kungas had reached the door. But Irene spoke before he could open it.
“Kungas.” He turned his head. Irene gestured at the writing table. “You can read, now. Kushan, rather well, and your Greek is becoming passable. Your writing is still very crude, but that is merely a matter of practice.”
His eyes went to the table, lingering there for a moment. Then, closed shut.
“Why, Kungas?” she asked. Her voice was calm, but tinged with anxiety. And, yes, some pain and anger. “My bed has always been there for you. But you have never come. Not once, in the weeks since the battle.”
Kungas reopened his eyes. When he looked at Irene, his gaze was calm. Calm, and resolute.
“Not yet.”
Irene’s own gaze was not so calm. “I am not a virgin, Kungas,” she said. Angrily, perhaps—or simply pleading.
The Kushan’s mask of a face broke in half. Irene almost gasped. She had never seen Kungas actually grin.
“I did not imagine you were!” he choked out. He lowered his head, shaking it back and forth like a bull. “Shocking news. Most distressing. I am chagrined beyond belief. Oh, what shall I do?”
As tense as she was, Irene couldn’t restrain her laughter. Kungas raised his head, still grinning.