“My lord plays a bold game.”
“Tut, tut,” I said.
“But I shall not hesitate to take the full of my bond, unless my theories are most clearly disproved to me.”
“Tut,” I said, “you women, how you can play out the time needlessly. Show me sufficient cause, and you shall kill me where and how you please. Come, begin the accusation.”
“You are a tyrant.”
“At least I have not paraded my tyrannies in Atlantis these twenty years. Why, Nais, I did but land yesterday.”
“You will not deny you came back from Yucatan for a purpose.”
“I came back because I was sent for. The Empress gives no reasons for her recalls. She states her will; and we who serve her obey without question.”
“Pah, I know that old dogma.”
“If you discredit my poor honesty at the outset like this, I fear we shall not get far with our unravelling.”