A servant left me at the partly opened gate to a courtyard. I could hear the splash of a fountain under the rattling song of the cicadas, and as I pushed the gate wider a cool breath of damp air touched my skin. The small courtyard was dominated by a central fountain and shaded by tall, branching trees that blocked out all but a tracery of blue sky. I came to the edge of the fountain and closed my eyes, standing motionless as the delicious chill of moisture painted itself over my bare arms and face.

“I thought you might enjoy some relief from the heat, being from the north as you are,” Alaric said in Gothic.

I opened my eyes to find him coming around the fountain toward me. “Thank you. You could give me no finer gift.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

“More mine, I think.” I sat on the edge of the fountain and plunged my hands into the deep basin of cool water. My eyelids fluttered, and I moaned softly. “I’m tempted to throw myself in.”

He chuckled. “Your gown would get soaked.”

I slanted him a suggestive look. “Not if I took it off. There’s nothing quite so lovely as cool water running over bare skin on a hot day.”

His eyes widened, and he seemed to have a hard time swallowing. “I—I shall leave you in privacy if you wish to do so.”

I flicked water at him, and grinned. “I was teasing. It would be an awkward swim in a basin this small, anyway.”

“Ah.”

“Besides, this gown in cotton; there’s no need to take it off. A little water won’t harm it.” I scooped up a double handful of the cool water and poured it down my front. It soaked through the thin white cotton, turning it transparent and revealing the swirling designs of the tattoos over my breasts.

“Lady Nimia!”

“Hmm?” I leaned over the basin and sloshed another wave of water over myself. It wicked down the fabric to my loins, giving hints of the body art there, as well.

“Your, your . . . your breasts are showing.”

I looked down at them. “Oh, I’m sorry—were you concerned about the tattoos? I assure you, they are not meant to be secret; at least I don’t believe so. They are traditional for the Phanne, from what I remember of my early childhood. They are to be worn with pride. Would you like to see them fully?” I reached for the shoulder of the gown.

“No! I mean, yes, I am interested, but . . .” He ran his hand through his hair, and looked up at the tree branches. “It would not be proper.”

“Because the symbols are not Christian? I thought the Visigoths were known for their tolerance of other faiths.”

He met my gaze, and I could sense his struggle to keep his glance from dipping lower. “It’s not proper for a man to look upon a woman’s body.”

“Can a woman look upon a man’s?”

“She would not want to.”

I burst into laughter. “Who told you that?”

His face colored. “It’s the truth. My wife, she did not want a lamp lit when we . . .”

I blinked at him, astonished. “Did you never see each other naked?”

“Of course not.”

“But you have Gesalic,” I said.

“One does not need to be naked to create a child.”

“Some parts of you need to be.” I pictured a dark room, and hands fumbling under sheets and undergarments. A quick joining, a silent woman suffering the thrusts of a man in her dry cunny until it was over. “For a married couple not to gaze upon each other . . . In truth?”

He nodded.

“That makes me feel terribly sad.”

He seemed uncomfortable and uncertain, and I didn’t want him to withdraw. “Never mind all that,” I said, turning my knees forward and sitting primly with my hands in my lap. “There are differences between how peoples do these things, yes? Greeks, Franks, Huns, Egyptians: they all have their different ways, which must surely seem shocking to their neighbors. It’s wrong of me to pass judgment on your way, however odd it may seem to me. We’ll speak of other things, shall we? Tell me about this courtyard. From the height of the trees, it must have been here a long while. Did you grandfather build it?”

His mind seemed lost in imaginings of what, exactly, Huns and Egyptians did that was so different, and it took him several moments to blink and come back to me. “No, a Roman built it, just as the Romans built all the structures, both physical and governmental, that we rely on for life to flow smoothly.”

“You admire them.”

“Since I’ve become king and come to fully understand the effort and order it takes to serve the people, yes. I admire their efficiency.”

“And yet, Gaul is yours now, not theirs. It’s a wonder your tribe could overcome them, if they were so ordered and efficient.”

“I think it was inevitable. When you hire foreign armies to fight for you, and pay them with your own lands, you must know what will happen in the end.”

“It’s not a mistake you’ll make?”

“I hope never to be in such a position. I would rather rely on talk and diplomacy than on swords and bloodshed.”

Such a different outlook from Clovis, who would prefer to smash every obstacle in his path. I wondered which way would prove most successful, in the end. “Diplomacy seems to be working, so far.”

“So far. Though Sygarius is a small problem that I wish to keep from growing larger.”

Ah, the important topic. Was this the point of this meeting? I had been hoping for something less . . . practical. “Let me return Sygarius to Soissons to face justice, and he will no longer be anyone’s problem.”

Alaric sighed. “The trouble with diplomacy is that no solution is as simple as the stroke of a sword could make it.”

He sounded depressingly like Sid in that moment, looking at what I thought to be a simple issue from not just two sides, but three or four. I didn’t know if he was needlessly complicating things, if he was timid in his decision making, or he had a wisdom far beyond the brutal cleverness of Clovis.

Assuming he was more wise than timid, how best to weight his choice in my favor? I could debate his reasons with him, or . . . perhaps the best course was not to direct him at all. To, instead, call on his manly instincts.

I gazed steadily up at him. “I will put my faith in you, that whatever diplomatic choice you believe to be right will not be one that puts either me or my son in danger from Sygarius. I place myself, and my son, under your protection.” I lifted my hands to him.

He could do nothing but take them, though he looked surprised, and held my hands as gently as if they were glass. “It is not a trust I take lightly.”

“Nor is it one I give lightly. You are the only man who has ever earned it from me.”

His hands tightened on mine. “I’m honored.”

I hoped so. I was taking a page from Sid’s book, and counting on his pride. Raised so high in my opinion as he now was, he wouldn’t want to disappoint me.

That was the idea, at least.

I smiled and rose, my hands still in his. I swayed closer to him, indulging my urge to breathe in his scent, and feel the size of his body in the air around me. “Now that I am in your hands, I can relax and enjoy myself. I have had such powerful yearnings since last evening, that I’ve hardly known what to do with myself.”

“Wh-what manner of yearnings?”

I wasn’t going to make it that easy. No, I had other plans that required a specific setting. His talk of the prudery expected even in marriage had given me a wicked idea. “I have been yearning . . . for soothing greenery. I should like nothing more at this moment than to stroll in a garden. Is there one near?”

“A large one, the other side of that wall,” he said, nodding toward it. “More an orchard than a pleasure garden.”

“Perfect.”