"I'll hide the ring, kitten, so you can't steal it when I'm asleep. Now you're a plain woman, and by our lady, you'll stay that way!"
"What about the banquet?" said she. "I'm surprised you didn't have him take it back."
"Ah well, a man does now and again grow tired of figs and biscuits and water. We'll eat it. Just this once."
They all sat down, El Sareuk gave thanks to Allah and Godwin to his deity for the sumptuous repast, and they fell to. Yellow-eyes dipped her scarred, notched beak into her bowl of plump mice, and emitted a cry of pleasure. Everybody ate until four bellies well nigh burst with good food. Then they rolled up in their rugs and went to sleep.
CHAPTER V
Heraj looked into his crystal ball. Absently he flung out his right arm, which extended for seven feet and allowed the hand to grasp a beaker of honey wine sitting on a taboret across the room.
His eyes lit up greenly at what he saw in the ball. He tossed off the wine and hared out of his apartments, through the room where fourteen lieutenants of Mufaddal's force were playing at dice, and into his master's sleeping room. Mufaddal sat up from his rugs and howled.
"This damnable lack of privacy must cease! I—" Then he saw what his half-brother was doing casually with his left foot, and subsided. "Yes, Heraj? What is it?"
"Listen, al Mamun. I put a thought in Godwin's head this afternoon—just a suggestion, you know. He followed through beautifully."