“Are you?” she murmured.
“And so glad to feel your touch.... I found a shroud on my threshold. And a knife.”
“The Yezidees are becoming mountebanks.... Where is the knife?” she asked scornfully.
“Sansa said it was poisoned. She took it. She—she said that a poisoned heart is more dangerous still.”
Then Tressa threw up her head and called softly into space: “Sansa! Little Silk-Moth! What are these mischievous things you have told to my lord?”
She stood silent, listening. And, in the answer which he could not hear, there seemed to be something that set his young wife’s cheeks aflame.
“Sansa! Little devil!” she cried, exasperated. “May Erlik send his imps to pinch you if you have said to my lord these shameful things. It was impudent! It was mischievous! You cover me with shame and confusion, and I am humbled in the dust of my lord’s feet!”
Cleves looked at her, but she could not sustain his gaze.
“Did Sansa say to you what she said to me?” he demanded unsteadily.
“Yes.... I ask your pardon.... And I had already told her you did not—did not—were not—in—love—with me.... I ask your pardon.”