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whilst he mused. She required a response to her grumbling over Ana.
    Herezah watched the eunuch’s tongue flick out and lick his lips in an obscene habit that revolted most, but one she had become used to over the years. She regarded the shrouded eyes too. Both signs that Salmeo was plotting.
    It was still a surprise for her, though, when he spoke his thoughts, and so directly. ‘I could just have her killed, Valide. She could accidentally slip or mysteriously drown—the boating excursion provides a marvellous opportunity. I can even manufacture a culprit if you ask this of me.’ His tone was sly and he did not look her in the eye, simply waited patiently for her response.
    He guessed the suggestion brought a flare of hope that would torch through Herezah’s body. The thought of the young odalisque, who was rapidly shaping herself as the Zar’s Favourite, disappearing from the harem echoed a daydream he suspected the Valide permitted herself. Ana was a threat to her. The Valide had not anticipated Boaz taking on the challenge of beinga Zar quite so swiftly. She had hoped he would accept the role in title only and then return to his more studious pursuits, giving her free rein to essentially run the realm. Her intention had been to always involve her son, probably holding meetings over supper each evening to discuss the day’s affairs as though she was consulting with him. Herezah was too clever not to factor in male pride, and Salmeo understood that she was more than happy to allow everyone in the palace to continue the pretence that a new Zar was confidently on his throne whilst she herself pulled all the strings of the puppet ruler.
    But it was not to be. For all her cunning and clever ways, Herezah simply hadn’t counted on her once shy, slightly withdrawn son actually embracing his new role, shouldering it with dignity and now living it with a real sense of purpose. That potential had slipped by her sharp senses and now she was paying the price of raising a well-educated son who had never been allowed to shirk a sense of duty.
    All of this taken into account, Herezah could struggle to live with this mature Boaz in her life and carve out new powers for herself. It would be enough. But what she couldn’t abide, Salmeo knew, was Ana and the profound effect this young woman was having on her son. Ana and her speedy rise in the Zar’s estimation threatened to kill off any aspirations that the Valide still held for herself.
    Nothing had occurred sexually between them yet, he knew this, but there was a bond, for certain. It had formed when the girl had first been brought to the palace—she had been lonely and vulnerable, whilst Boaz was uncertain and fearful of his new role as Zar. Herezah could only blame herself for having not paid sufficient attention to her son’s emotions at that time. Boaz had genuinely grieved for the loss of his father, whilst Herezah had expected him to get over the death quickly and find a similar excitement as she had at their new status—Valide and Zar.
    Of course her mistake was imagining that ambition would somehow naturally override Boaz’s love and grief for his father, and her expectations of her son had been interpreted by him as heartlessness, Salmeo deduced. The eunuch appreciated that Herezah was right to expect Boaz to show no weakness, to pick up his father’s mantle—overnight—in order to establish his rule. But from what he could tell it remained an unspoken rift between the Zar and his mother.
    Salmeo slipped one of the violet tablets he habitually sucked into his mouth. The flowery fragrance wafted towards the Valide and she pretended to ignore his soft sigh as he awaited her answer to his offer.
    ‘Too risky,’ she said finally. ‘Any number of things could go wrong. No, Ana needs to be entrapped by her own doing.’
    ‘I don’t follow, Valide,’ he said, lacing his fat, bejewelled fingers together, a sure indication that he was intrigued.
    She picked up her cup