Nobody answered his question.
Twelve mouths opened. Twelve answers tried to climb out and died somewhere behind twelve sets of teeth, because the man was standing naked in the brazier light with his cock half hard and dripping and six ruined noblewomen sprawled behind him on a boat sized bed, and the question he had asked had landed in the room like a dropped blade, and every maid understood that the answer would decide something.
"Come here," Cang said. "All of you. Face the bed, hands on the throne backs. Bend over."
The thrones of the east wing hall stood in a crescent before the dais, twelve great chairs of blackwood and mammoth ivory for the hall's honored guests, and one by one the twelve maids filed to them and bent, and twelve skirts went down over twelve sets of hips, and the hall filled with the soft, nervous rustle of a dozen women arranging themselves into offerings.
He walked the line.
