"I would have preferred to march straight to Romelia," Alpheo admitted, easing himself down into the wide-backed sofa that had been prepared for him. The silk cushions sighed beneath his weight, perfumed with orange blossoms and the faint musk of incense.
Before him lay a table draped in purple cloth, a color rare and costly enough to make any merchant sweat. Upon it sat a silver platter of tangerines, their skin glistening with dew, a bowl of pomegranates split open like wounded hearts, and a goblet filled with wine the color of old blood.
For a moment he could almost have been mistaken for one of those soft, perfumed lords he had spent his reign defeating.
The irony wasn't lost on him.
At heart, though, Alpheo was still a man of appetite. A customer of high tastes, yes.
War was just one of those.
