Hot night --- streets are full of life
Carnival faces in Rembrandt light
And your hair tumbles down like Sahara gold

Half moon shining through the blind
Paints a vision of a different kind
And your hair tumbles down like Sahara gold
	---“Sahara Gold”, Bruce Cockburn, Stealing Fire

Through the open window Keldorn heard the faint sounds of an orchestra tuning up in one of the neighboring houses. Someone must be giving one last ball before the heat drove everyone to the country. Perhaps he should consider taking Maria and the children away to Esmelteran this summer. It had been so long since he had revisited the scenes of his boyhood…. It was time to talk to the Prelate about a furlough, followed by an instructor’s post here in the City. He had no desire for administration, though. Reflectively he soaped underneath his arms. Twenty-five years was enough to have spent in dungeons; he could finally accept that it was time to serve in some other capacity.

He turned again under the stream of warm water, rinsing the grime and worry of the day away. This shower had been the one alteration he had insisted on when they moved into this house; in everything else he had allowed Maria’s taste full reign. She had put up with more than he had ever meant for her to endure, he could see that now. Torm’s mercy be praised that he had returned home when he did; Maria might have even been pushed so far as to find another man to warm their bed, not just someone to walk with her in Government Park. It was lucky indeed that the girls had gone to a slumber party at the Jalpurns’ tonight. He loved his daughters, but tonight he wanted his wife.

He started as he heard the door open, and then heard Maria’s soft footfall. “I brought you some extra towels,” she said. He poked his head out from around the curtain. She was still fully clad, bless her, though she had changed to a red gown--- his favorite color. It was evident to him that Maria was going to let him play his favorite game tonight, that of slowly removing all the lovely, silky, lacy layers of her clothing, starting with her shoes and wimple--- and he would exert himself to perform all the tricks she professed to find so endearing. His wife caught his appraising stare, and curved her soft lips into a bewitching smile. “Will it please my lord to take a bit of supper before he retires?” she inquired.

Chuckling, he reached for the topmost of the stack of towels she held in her arms. “So long as you have laid it on that small table you were badgering Peony to bring up to our room earlier. Do you really think I have any intention of letting you out of my sight again this evening, my lady Maria?” He rubbed his head dry first, then toweled the rest of his body off, relieved that there were no new scars to distract her attention this time.

“You’ll have to catch me first!” she replied saucily, just evading the snapped end of the towel as she slipped out of the bathroom. He grinned, and donned the robe waiting on a hook behind the door.

He wound up eating his dinner with his wife perched on his knee, although he wouldn’t let her feed him bites with the fork as she wanted to do at first. “Maria, if you want me to be up to anything at all later, you’ll let a man finish his supper in peace!” he teased. “I can see I’ll need to stoke my furnace well to fuel the fires of passion!”

She wrinkled her nose at him fetchingly. “Well, I suppose, but you’d better not overeat, either. Remember that first visit to my parents’ country house after we were wed?”

He laughed heartily at the recollection, then stretched his arm around her still-slim waist, drawing her close. “My lady, I think you are in grave danger indeed of provoking me to grievous retaliations!”

“Such as?” she purred in his ear. For answer, he started fumbling with the sash of her dress with his free hand. Laughing, she batted it away. “Oh, no, Keldorn, I’ll not compete with the chops! Give me your full attention, or none at all!”

He picked her up and carried her, feet flailing, to the bed, dinner forgotten for the nonce. The paladin unpinned his lady’s wimple in a move perfected by years of practice, winding the newly-exposed golden locks around his fingers. He combed through them gently as he looked deeply into her blue eyes and pressed his lips to hers, tasting the sweetness of her mouth for the first time in many weeks. He felt her hands come up to his own head, as she ran her fingers through his own close-cropped hair. After a long moment, they broke the kiss, and he moved down to the foot of the bed to take off her red-sequined slippers….

Wet limbs striped with silver light
Locked together at the centre of the night
And your hair tumbles down like Sahara gold…

Animal grins and wild shining eyes
Laughing and shouting we're a hundred stories high
And your hair tumbles down like Sahara gold

They ended up feeding each other grapes at an hour well past midnight, chatting as they sat up under the sheets. When the paladin told his wife that he would soon be home for good, she launched herself at him unthinkingly, squashing the cluster of grapes that were resting on his chest as she threw her arms around him for sheer joy. They laughed and cried together, and as they tried to use the sheet to clean up the mess they wound up entangled together again, regardless of the sweat and sweet stickiness….