Kingdom Of Royth

CHAPTER 14

Things did not get too much worse immediately. After a night spent huddled in an empty warehouse at the local army camp, where they were fed, the prisoners began the march across the island. That took the better part of two days. After the wild crossing to the mainland, there followed seven more days of continuous marching before they reached High Royth, the capital.

It was on this march that things became grim. Some of the pirates died of exhaustion or exposure or collapsed and were finished off by the soldiers. Blade, however, kept stubbornly on, putting one foot in front of another with dogged determination. He also kept eyes and ears open, and as a result learned much.

Indhios' influence was still on the increase. He had been awarded the lordship of the Ayesh Islands (including the job of protecting them from pirate raids) barely three months ago. This latest plum was for divers and sundry services in increasing and ordering the revenues of the Kingdom. Judging from the state of the villages along the road, Blade suspected that Indhios' methods involved mainly bleeding the peasants and tradesmen white. Moreover, judging from the size of the escort and of the camps on Grand Ayesh, the money Indhios was bleeding off was going more to build his private army than to increase the royal revenue. The Chancellor was already far too strong for comfort and getting stronger every day.

In an odd way, the fact that Indhios' soldiers had arrested them as pirates was slightly reassuring. If they had simply been turned loose; it would have suggested that Indhios now felt himself able to openly befriend the pirates. The Chancellor apparently did not yet feel strong enough to abandon all pretense of being a loyal servant of the Crown. Blade wondered, however, whether after the pirates marched into High Royth, the next thing to happen might be an invitation for him to visit the Chancellor. From his extensive, if reluctantly acquired experience of intrigue, he wouldn't have been surprised.

However, nothing like that happened. On a gray, snowy day, the thirty-five ragged and bloody-footed survivors of Thunderbolt's crew limped in through the West Gate of High Royth, across the Central Bridge, and into the citadel. There Blade and Brora were separated from the rest of the crew and given the dubious privilege of a cell of their own.

Blade was now becoming something of a connoisseur of odd places of confinement, and except for the Official Secrets Act might have written a book called Strange Prisons I Have Known. The dungeon in Royth had nothing unusual about it, being dark, damp, miserably cold, and moderately infested with assorted insects. However, neither he nor Brora were chained, and the food, if barely edible, was at least regular.

Apart from the twice-daily food and water, the two men were left alone with the vermin and the dampness for nearly two weeks. The enforced leisure gave Blade ample opportunity to try to make his own plans.

He was settling down to his fifteenth night on the moldy straw when the rattling of keys being turned in the lock and the rusty squeal of the door being opened jerked him out of his doze. «Uh, Cap'n, some'un here to take you w' him,» grunted the guard. Behind the too-familiar figure of the guard, a small, slender figure in dark red was visible. Who was it? Not Alixa-she was much taller than that. Not Indhios-not if the Chancellor was as fat as described. Possibly a messenger, and if so, whose? Had Indhios finally decided to pay some attention to him? If so, he might be on his way to a dangerous interview. If Indhios got one inkling of his plans to carry on Khystros' work, the man would hardly balk at having him killed without delay.

He wrapped his blanket, his only garment since his sailor's clothes had fallen apart, around himself, and stepped through the door. The figure in red beckoned to him without a word. The hand that beckoned was small, but gloved, and gave no clue as to its owner's sex or age.

Whoever the person in red was, they had apparently done a remarkably thorough job of ordering, intimidating, or bribing the guards. None of them turned a hair at seeing the huge Blade striding down the corridors free of all restraints, his bare chest and wildly tangled hair and beard making him look even more formidable than usual.

Blade had no very good idea of the inner layout of the citadel, but he was surprised that his guide did not turn upward along any of the numerous stairways. Instead, they kept on through progressively lower and lower and darker and darker corridors, until Blade realized they must now be well outside the walls of the citadel. He saw racks of old armor lurking in shadowy alcoves, with vast festoons of cobwebs hanging from them, and rats scurrying red-eyed and nimble-footed around them.

The long prowl through underground passages finally ended when they came to what appeared to Blade as a blank wall. But the same small gloved hand now reached out and pushed firmly against the stone. With a faint rumble, an entire section of the wall pivoted around on a central spindle, opening on a narrow flight of stairs leading up into total darkness. Reluctantly, Blade followed his guide. Underground warrens put him in mind of Cayla and her nightmare shrines, and he began to wonder whether the guide might not be another of the Serpent Priestesses. But when they reached the end of the long stairs and stepped out through another pivoted door, it was into a circular room whose narrow slitted windows looked out on the rooftops and streets of High Royth from a height of nearly a hundred feet. This was some castle tower, and the castle of some high person in the Kingdom, judging from the richness of the furnishings. A great bed, with hangings and quilts in the same shade of red as his guide's robes, stood in the middle of the room. The floor was covered by carpets of the same color and the walls by heavy tapestries in which reds, oranges, and yellows dominated the patterns. Even the candles that hung in red copper lanterns from the walls were red and burned with a reddish light.

For a moment Blade was so absorbed in trying to guess the nature of the room's occupant from the clues offered by its furnishings that he paid no attention to the other person with him. In that moment, the small figure in red stepped up to him and deftly whipped the blanket away.

Blade was only startled, for he was twice the size of the other. If it came to a fight, he had nothing to fear, even in his weakened condition. However, he thought it was time to ask a few questions.

«Who are you?»

The laugh that escaped from behind the red veil was unmistakably feminine, and Blade relaxed somewhat. The voice replied with a question of its own. «Can't you think of a more original question, oh great and wise pirate Captain?»

«I can't think of any I want answered as badly,» he replied shortly.

«Ah, well,» she said, and drew her gloves off, then lifted her hands-fine, delicate ones, Blade noted-to the veil and hood and pulled both away.

The face that looked out at him was marvelously beautiful and delicately wrought. Everything seemed sculptured from a material so fragile that to touch it or even breathe on it would make it crumple. The hair that framed the face was glossy and intensely brown, with a reddish tinge that might have been its own, or given it by the light in the room. And the large eyes that were roving over Blade's body held an expression that he knew extremely well. He hoped that nothing more was involved here than simple lust. That he felt perfectly willing and able to gratify. He viewed with much less enthusiasm the idea of involvement in more plots, particularly those of the Serpent Priestesses.

The lady clearly had her mind on other things than answering Blade's questions and at once set out to make sure that his mind would not be on asking any. She knelt before him, her mouth open and her mobile lips already moving in hungry anticipation, and set to work on him. It did not take long to fully arouse him, for it was a skilled mouth as well as a mobile one. With only minor pauses in her work, the lady unfastened the clasp of her cloak, then her robe. Both slipped to the floor. Under them she wore a filmy red gown, and under that Blade could see the outlines of her body. It matched her face in its exquisite delicacy.

He reached out his hands and pressed both of them into her mass of dark brown hair. The gesture made her look up. «Yes, you are becoming impatient, great Captain. And you are great.» She made an explicit gesture in the appropriate direction. «Come, then.» She led him over to the bed and motioned him to lie back on the quilts. Then quickly she jerked the red gown over her head and mounted him.

Her body was as perfect as he had anticipated, with small, brown-nippled breasts whose slight sag suggested that she was perhaps not as young as he had believed. But there was not an ounce of excess fat in all her delicate and graceful curves as she writhed and wriggled and drove herself down on him again and again. It seemed that they would go on until their bodies melted and ran together like ice cream on a hot day, but at last Blade felt the end of his control approaching. He fought to hold back as long as possible, but in the end he spurted furiously into her, and his spasm touched off hers.

She lay atop him for a long time after collapsing, her eyes closed and her furious breathing gradually subsiding to normal. Then her eyes opened and she grinned-an impish grin that at once took Blade back to the notion of her as a girl barely out of her teens.

«I,» she said, «am the Countess Indhios. But the name for you to use is Larina.»

It was a while before Blade felt he could safely reply to that remark. Then he said, «The Count has a most beautiful and accomplished lady.»

She grimaced. «The pretty speeches are for before, not after. And for us, not at all. If I thought you needed them, you would still be in the dungeon.»

Blade kept silent. This was another decisive, almost dictatorial woman. She was like Cayla in that way; he hoped it was only in that way. Then, swiftly, in the same soft voice, she demolished his previous hopes that here at least were no plots.

She knew of her husband's plans to betray Royth to the pirates. He did not completely trust her, but on the other hand, he was too vain to pass up the chance of having someone to boast to. He would kill her in a moment if he suspected betrayal, but so far he suspected nothing.

Why was she betraying his plans? King Pelthros was a widower and childless. Now that Grand Duke Khystros was dead, there was no heir the King really trusted. He might well contemplate re-marrying a younger woman, who could bear him children, particularly if that woman had rendered some signal service to the Kingdom.

«Such as revealing Indhios' plans?»

«Indeed.»

«Causing Indhios' prompt execution, and leaving you a young widow.»

«Exactly.»

«But-«She took his «but» for disapproval, and snapped:

«I have no love for Indhios. There is nothing between us but our two children. And how much trouble it was to get him to my bed often enough for those, I could take ten nights telling you. He married me for my dowry, then repaid my father for his generosity by levying such taxes on his lands that he is now ground down to the level of his own peasants. Indhios' lusts are for power and gold, not the clean lusts of men for women.»

That was the Countess' grand design. As for Blade's specific part in it, she needed a man with a martial reputation and a position at Court that enabled him to move about freely. She needed a combined spy and bravo, and if he were also a fit and proper bedmate, so much the better. Before Blade had any time to wonder how he, an imprisoned pirate Captain, was going to attain such a position at Court, she swept on to the next detail of her plan.

«A most ancient law of the Kingdom of Royth declares that any man, whatever his blood or birth, who comes before the Court and challenges the King's Champion may meet him in equal combat to the death. If victorious, he shall then swear oath of fealty to the King and become in his turn King's Champion. Centuries ago, the King's Champion had many duties that often called upon his martial prowess, so it was needful to select only the best fighters to serve the Kings so. But now, the King's Champion is more for show than for service, like a suit of gilded armor set with jewels. But he still stands high at Court, has access to the King, and may move about freely.» Blade nodded. He could see what was coming.

«I have heard much of your prowess with weapons and would be much astonished if you could not spit Baron Maltravos, the Champion of the moment, like a cook spitting a goose. Then you will be King's Champion, to watch over King Pelthros-and those about him. You shall seek out those details of his schemes which Indhios will not reveal even to me when boasting in his cups. You shall bring them to me, and then when the time is ripe we shall lay all we have both learned before Pelthros and bring Indhios' schemes crashing about his head. Pelthros is a slow man to reach a decision, preferring too much his crafts to the business of a king. But the royal house of Royth has yet to breed an utter fool. Pelthros will see what is thrust in front of his nose.»

«Will Indhios let me challenge and fight the Champion?»

«Pelthros will enforce the ancient law if you can safely make your way into the Court. Indhios can do nothing then. But he will kill you if he can reach you before you reach the Court. He knows of your plans to carry on Khystros' work.»

That was no great surprise to Blade. It was certainly the most reasonable explanation of his confinement in the dungeon. «How did Indhios find out?»

«Alixa.»

Blade sat up violently, but Larina pressed a hand to his chest. «No, it is not what you think. She did not betray you. Indhios took her under his 'protection.' Then he gave her wine mixed with herbs that make a person unable to lie. She answered his questions because she had no will to do otherwise.»

It seemed to Blade that the countess was indifferent to his relationship with Alixa, but then why should she be jealous? She was aiming far higher. She could find use for Blade as a bed partner, to be sure, but her plans would not be affected by this one way or another.

Again, Blade faced making a major decision in a few seconds. And again, he decided to acquiesce. If there was a better way out of the dungeons of Royth than through the countess' plans, he had not heard of it. Nor would it be wise to wait around in hope that one might turn up. If Indhios was on his trail, he was in deadly danger while locked in the citadel. The same guards that had been bribed to let the countess through to release him might also be bribed to let Indhios or one of his assassins through to kill him. And there were other useful things that could come from joining the countess.

«What about my crew?»

«You wish to protect them from the King's justice?»

Blade's voice would have risen to a shout if he had let it. «Damn you, they are my men! They forswore their oaths to the Brotherhood of Neral to follow me here, and more than half their shipmates are drowned or dead on the road because of me. If you won't help me take them out of their dungeon, then at least let me go back to mine!»

Larina drew back and raised herself on one elbow to look at him. «You are a strange man, Blahyd. Almost like one of the ancient heroes. They too would die rather than betray their followers. Yes, I think you will draw much attention as King's Champion if you speak then as you speak now.»

Blade would not be turned from his subject by fuzzily worded flattery. «My crew's pardon. Or find somebody else to help you climb over your husband's body to the throne of Royth!» For a moment, he wondered if he had gone too far. She might now suspect that he would be too independent to be a good ally and take him at his word.

Then she nodded. «I will let certain people know that your crew genuinely wishes to be admitted to pardon. That will at least put off their trial and execution, which otherwise Indhios would not delay. But you can do the most for them yourself by becoming the new King's Champion. When you stand forth above Baron Maltravos' body, King Pelthros will grant almost any request you may ask of him. Only-you must win!»

Then she turned to him, and her skilled hands and lips began their work once more. Before his arousal put an end to his thinking; it occurred to Blade that there were now no less than five different plots all focusing on the Kingdom of Royth. There was Indhios' scheme. There was that of the Council of Captains and the Neralers generally. There was Cayla's monstrous notion of a revival of the Serpent Cult. There was the ambitious and ruthless little countess. Each of these four would cheerfully sell any or all of the others to the devil to get them out of the way. And there was his own comparatively simple plan, to save Royth from the pirates. But was this decadent and ancient land worth the effort? And even if it was worth the effort, would he live long enough to carry his efforts through?