Empire Of Blood

Chapter 18

Blade was slightly uncomfortable at being so suddenly left alone in the chamber. Those unseen but vigilant guards were still in place. If Princess Tarassa were still plotting some treachery, he could be killed as easily as swatting a fly.

On the other hand, if he tried to leave the chamber, he probably would be killed by the guards before he took five steps. It was a good thing the princess had decided that he and Kukon were friendly or at least harmless. If she'd decided otherwise, he and Dzhai would already be dead and the rest of the men would have died as soon as orders reached the harbor. Their deaths would be quick-Princess Tarassa did not seem to have Kul-Nam's love of torture and pain. But they would be sure.

Blade barely had time to complete this thought before the screens across one door were pushed aside. Five women filed out into the chamber. The one in the lead was a gray-haired matron who looked well past fifty. The others were barely more than girls.

The matron coughed to get his attention. «Prince Blade, it is desired that you come with us.»

«I hear.» He walked across the chamber toward the women. They formed a circle around him and led him through the door and down a long, winding corridor. The corridor walls were covered in plain white plaster, smoothed to perfection, and the floor was polished stone.

The matron wore baggy black trousers and a knee-length green tunic and carried a long, leaf-shaped knife in her belt. The four girls were unarmed and wore fine cotton robes, nearly transparent. The glimpses of graceful young bodies under the robes reminded Blade of how long he had been without the sight, let alone the touch, of a woman.

He refused to feel at all sorry for himself. It had been even longer for most of the men aboard Kukon. He hoped they would not run completely wild when they went to town with Princess Tarassa's silver in their pockets.

The corridor ended in a bath chamber, even more richly decorated than the audience chamber. Everywhere was white and pale green and black marble, gilded bronze, enameled copper, tile in a score of colors, censers and intricate lamps burning perfumed oil. An enormous couch half buried in silken cushions stood at one end of the great sunken bath. At the other end rose a carved wooden stand sagging under the weight of gold and silver flasks.

Now the girls fluttered around Blade like four butterflies. They undid his weapons belt and handed it to the matron, who hung it over the wooden stand. Piece by piece, they stripped him until he stood naked on the edge of the bath.

The matron pulled a weighted cord at one end of the wooden stand, a long, bronze pipe swung down out of the ceiling, and steaming hot water gushed out of the pipe into the bath. in a few minutes the tub was filled.

The first few minutes in the tub were sheer delight for Blade. He could not have found more pleasure in taking any or even all four of the girls to the couch. He could feel the dirt and sweat and salt floating off his skin and the strain and aches dissolving out of his bones. He felt that he could gladly stay in the steaming tub for a week.

After a while he began to hope that the girls would peel off their gowns and join him in the tub. The chamber was now full of steam, and the dampness made their gowns cling enticingly. None of them did so, however. Instead, they scuttled around the edge of the tub, putting sponges, brushes, soap, and powdered coral within Blade's reach. Apparently there were some uses he was not supposed to make of them. Well, he was a guest, his hostess had made the rules-and besides, there was the matron standing by with her knife to enforce them.

Blade soaped himself thoroughly, brushed every inch of his skin, then rinsed. He did this three times before he felt clean enough to climb out of the tub. Then he lay down on the couch and waited for whatever was to happen next.

Blade's muscles were warmly relaxed, but his mind was still cool and alert. Baths were good places for murders that could be made to look like accidents. And if they didn't care about making death look accidental, there was the matron's knife and the scrapers and razors the girls were now picking up.

The girls went over every inch of Blade's body with the scrapers, with the powdered coral, with a cool, lightly scented oil, and with their strong, skilled fingers. Their touch was warm and firm, but so entirely impersonal that they might have been kneading bread dough.

Then the women left him, vanishing between one moment and the next, almost as silently as spirits. Bare feet pattered away across the stone, and a distant door slammed shut. There was a moment's silence, and another door opened, more softly and much closer. The sound of bare feet came again, this time moving fast and straight toward the couch.

Blade turned over, raised himself on one elbow, and smiled at Princess Tarassa as she emerged from the steam.

Surprise at finding him awaiting her so calmly flickered briefly across her face. Her voice showed none of it.

«Greetings, Prince Blade.»

«Greetings, Your Grace.»

«Have my servants pleased you?»

«They have pleased me in all the matters in which they were expected to please me. Your hospitality will live long in my memory.»

«That is as it should be, Blade. There is honor in hospitality. There is also pleasure.» She reached down and clasped Blade's right hand. Slowly she bent her head to kiss his palm, then ran her lips slowly up his arm. As she did so, her eyes flickered up and down his body. Blade could sense her glances as something almost tangible, like tiny feathers brushed across his skin. The arousal he'd kept down so thoroughly for so long began to flow through him. He could almost feel it beginning to steam gently, like the hot water in the great bath.

The princess' lips now crept up across Blade's shoulder to his throat. He could feel the healthy woman's warmth that seemed to flow out of her and around him. She wore no perfume, yet there was a sweetness in that warmth, a sweetness that both calmed Blade and excited him still more.

She still wore the blue silk robe, but her jewelry was gone and her feet were bare. Like the girls' gowns, the silk was now damp enough to cling to her body. It was not a body to arouse sudden, urgent, immediate passion. Its curves were too elegant for that. Yet there was an enormous grace in the princess as she bent over Blade, a grace that made him increasingly eager to strip aside the robe and see what lay beneath it.

His hands rose and encircled her long, fine neck as if he was going to strangle her. His fingers played lightly along the line of her jaw, then crept around and stroked the nape of her neck. They crept lower, found the hook that held the gown, and slipped it open. Tarassa shrugged her shoulders, and the gown slipped from her body and flowed down off the cushions onto the floor with a faint hiss.

Somehow that hiss was one of the most exciting sounds Blade had ever heard. After it died away he could see all of Tarassa's equally exciting body. Her olive skin was evenly tanned from head to foot. Her breasts held their subtle curves through every movement. Her flat belly seemed to flow down into superbly turned thighs with a neat triangle of dark hair nestling between them. Blade ran his hands down her spine to cup and stroke her firm buttocks. She gasped and lowered herself until her body was resting against his from head to toe, her hair flowing over his face and her lips still nuzzling the side of his neck.

She seemed to want to ride him, but this was not Blade's pleasure at the moment. For once, it mattered to him to take a woman the way he wanted her. She was a princess and the ruler of Parine's thousands of subjects, but here and now on this couch in her palace she would for once submit to the will of another.

Tarassa suddenly found herself being gripped by two arms with steel muscles. The long fingers of two large hands closed on her so gently that they could not have bruised, but so hard she hadn't a chance or a hope of escaping or moving except by Blade's will. He rose, and she rose with him. Then he was turning her over, lowering her onto her back on the cushions with enormous strength and determination and yet also an enormous gentleness. She felt herself in the grip of a will so powerful that it didn't need to show off, but merely proceeded straight to its goal. She was that goal, and the realization filled her with an excitement she had never known or even imagined possible.

Blade sensed that excitement in the woman he held and rejoiced in it. His own arousal was mounting with terrible force and terrible speed. A fight to wait while the woman under him rose to meet him would be a fight he was certain to lose. For once he would not have to wage that fight.

Blade thrust with enormous force and eagerness into the princess. He felt her match that force as her arms and legs clamped tightly around him, match the eagerness as her cries of delight echoed around the chamber. He pressed upon her, driving her body down as deeply into the cushions as he drove himself down into her.

Such fury and excitement could have only one ending. That ending came for both of them with a sudden force that was still more terrible than what had gone before. The princess screamed as if she were in deadly pain. Her body jerked and twisted under him; she would have writhed and heaved herself about desperately if Blade's weight had not been upon her.

Then Blade soared up to his own peak and passed it. He let out a great gasp instead of a cry and held to the princess like a drowning man holding onto a log. He heard her gasp in turn as his arms locked around her like steel bands and his legs thrashed wildly between hers, as if he were struggling to drive himself still deeper into her and pour out the last of his enormous desire and excitement. He would have controlled himself if he could have, but for the moment that was far beyond him. He was as helpless in the grip of his exploding desire as a child in the arms of its nurse.

The explosion came swiftly. It passed as swiftly. Blade found the strength to roll off the woman, and she found the strength to roll toward him so that they lay together, her breasts and thighs against his shoulders and buttocks. It was in that position that a quick, infinitely relieving sleep came over them.

The sleep lasted only an hour or so. Then they rose, bathed, and returned to the couch for a more leisurely, more tender joining.

They spent the rest of the day and all of that night in the bath chamber, sleeping, bathing, making love, eating and drinking from the silver platters and cups brought in every few hours, and talking. As Princess Tarassa had promised, Blade had ample opportunity to tell of his adventures in detail. Whenever the princess thought his interest in storytelling was fading, she would draw him to the couch. Somehow he always rose from there ready to continue telling his tale and answering her questions as fast as she threw them at him.

It was obvious that Tarassa was not just gratifying her personal curiosity. In this chamber she was a woman, indulging in all the pleasures she was capable of enjoying and giving all that she was capable of giving. Yet she was still the ruler of Parine, ruler of a small and lonely land whose safety depended heavily on learning all that could be learned about those who might become its enemies. Blade had seen more of the inner workings of the Empire of Saram than anyone who had come her way in many years. Because of this, she would have spent hours or days in his company if he had been foul-mouthed and ugly, or even seventy years old, diseased, half blind, and impotent. That she was able to find so much pleasure in doing her duty was an extra gift.

Often she made reference to things that Blade did not understand without immediately explaining them to him.

«Would you say that His Magnificence Kul-Nam is mad?»

Blade sipped wine and nibbled on a rough sandwich of flat, dark bread and goat's-milk cheese while he searched for the right words.

«I would say that he is not entirely sane at the moment. He is likely to become less and less sane as time goes by, but how rapidly I do not know.»

«Does his present madness affect his ability to rule?»

«It seems to be making him dangerously sensitive to anything that seems to threaten his dignity, let alone his power. It has already led to some unjust and unwise moves. Remember that rebellious town?»

She nodded. «But he is not yet unfit to rule?»

«Ask a question I can answer,» he said, slapping her playfully on the rear. Then he went on, soberly. «He is not the best ruler that Saram might have. But so far he is not so bad that civil war, chaos, and the onslaught of the Steppemen would be preferable. If it were left up to me, I would probably grit my teeth, hold my nose, and do what I could to keep Kul-Nam alive and on his throne until there was someone better to put in his place.»

Tarassa nodded. «You sound very much like Count Durouman.»

«Who is Count Durouman?»

«Oh, a nobleman who commands a squadron in the Royal Fleet of Nullar. He was a friend of my husband's, and I have taken his counsel on several occasions.»

Blade was absolutely certain that Tarassa had told him the truth about Count Durouman. He was just as certain that she had not told him the whole truth. He made a mental note of the name, for some occasion when he could catch Tarassa off her guard.

Blade found no such occasion that night, and after a while he gave up listening and waiting. No matter what pleasures Princess Tarassa might allow herself, the statesman and the ruler were always there along with the woman.

Eventually they fell asleep in each other's arms. When they awoke it was dawn. Blade knew that, because sometime during the night a panel had been opened in the ceiling of the chamber. Pale pink dawn light and a cool, scented breeze crept in.

Tarassa was sitting beside him, propped up on a stack of pillows, still entirely naked. She had a carved board across her knees and a piece of parchment spread on it. She was writing on the parchment with quick, bold strokes, dipping her pen in a silver inkpot held out to her by a kneeling servant girl.

Finally she folded up the parchment, shoved it under her pillow, and dismissed the girl. Then she turned to Blade, who was watching with an expression carefully intended to show a polite lack of curiosity.

«That was a letter to Prince Durouman.»

«I thought he was a count.»

«Indeed, he is that, among the nobility of the Kingdom of Nullar. But he is by right a prince, for he is the true heir to the throne of Saram.»

«He is of the house that Kul-Nam's grandfather overthrew?»

«Yes. He is the great-grandson of the emperor who perished. The kings of Nullar have been good to the exiles over the past century, for they have no great love for the usurpers of Saram. At the same time, they have been cautious. They have given the exiles titles and honor, wealth and positions of trust. They have never been willing to aid them in an attempt to return to their rightful place upon the throne of the Empire.»

«That is not unwise of them. The attempt might fail, with nothing to show for it but another war with the Empire.»

«That is true. Or rather, it has been true. What you have told me and what I have heard from others suggests that times are different now. As Kul-Nam grows more and more bloodthirsty in gripping his power, he will put more and more people in fear of him. In the end he will weaken that which he seeks to strengthen.»

«So you think it is time for Prince Durouman to strike?»

«It is time for him to know all that I have learned and to consider what he should do. I will ask for your help in speaking to him.»

«You think he is so much better than Kul-Nam that it is worth a civil war to place him on the throne of Saram?»

«I do. I would ask you to take my word for it, but you are not a man to do that.»

«I am not. I gather you have summoned him here?»

«Yes. I do not know when he will come, for he must come alone and secretly. He is negotiating a marriage with the king's daughter, Princess Varra, and he will be careful to do nothing to endanger it. But he will come, sooner or later.»

«That is good,» said Blade. He reached out a hand and stroked her hair, then her cheek. «We have time for ourselves, then.»

«We do,» she said with a smile. Her own hand reached out and stroked Blade intimately. Her other hand moved under the pillow and drew out the letter, then placed it on the floor beside the couch.

«So that it won't get wrinkled,» she said, and turned to him.