The Bronze Axe

Chapter Fourteen

Blade was waked by a blaze of sun through an open porthole. Drusilla never did this all their conversation had been by candle or smelly lamp and now the buttery sun and the fresh smell of salt sea invaded the stuffy cabin like a tonic. Blade felt better than he had in days. His head was clear, his will had returned, and though he was weak and had some pain from his wound there was none of the deathly lethargy he had been prey to.

Sylvo, after opening another porthole, beamed at his master with that dreadful grimace Blade had come to recognize as a smile. The squint was there, as was the harelip, but Sylvo was gay in new clothing and had shaven the scraggy hairs from his chin.

He handed Blade an enormous wooden bowl steaming with some fragrant substance, and gave him a pewter spoon after polishing it on his sleeve.

"Brewed from the livers of wild hare, master. We went ashore for water yesterday the storm having broached most of our casks and I caught the creatures just that I might fashion a stew for you. Sup of it, master, and tell me what you think. Ar, I was a rare cook once on a time."

Blade tasted the stew. It was delicious and he suddenly found himself ravenous. Now that his mind was clear he could not recall the Dru ever feeding him, other than ship's biscuit and water.

Blade ladled the stew into his mouth, watching Sylvo as he did so. He had come to know the man well. Sylvo was excited, happy, and he was talking too much.

"You look marvelous well, master, considering you were so near to seeing Thunor in person. Ar, you'll never come closer to death. That was powerful poison on the dagger Oleg put into you. He was one of Redbeard's bastards and must have loved the man, for he surely tried to murder you."

Blade had a brief vision of a head floating in the wine tub, then dismissed it.

He scraped the last bit of stew into his mouth and sighed. "You are a good cook, rascal. I give you that. Now no more of this dithering how come you here, and where is the silver-haired Dru?"

Sylvo went to a corner and came back with the scarlet cloak Blade had won from Horsa. "See, master, how fine it is now. I have cleaned it, and furbished the gold work. Also the great bronze axe my hands ache from working on it though I could not bring it because my hands were full of the stew and your fresh clothing and "

Blade pushed himself up in the cot, feeling already stronger as the food nourished him and the sun and air dissipated the last lingering effects of the drug. He scowled mightily at Sylvo.

"I asked a question! Answer it or I am not too weak to climb from this bed and give you a blow you'll remember always. Where is the Dru who has been tending me?"

Sylvo's squint increased. He fell back a few steps, still holding the scarlet cloak and a pair of clean under-breeches, and rubbed his newly shaven chin with a finger. Blade knew he was searching for a lie.

Blade roared. "Well, man! Out with it and I want truth."

Sylvo avoided his eye. "The truth, master, is that I do not know. No one knows. The silver Dru has disappeared. She was not in her cabin this morning and her servant, a Dru of low order, came squalling to Captain Jarl in panic that her mistress had fallen overboard in the night. She would have Captain Jarl put back and search the sea."

Blade regarded him steadily. This time he could not be quite sure he thought Sylvo to be lying, but he could not be positive.

"So? Did Jarl put back?"

"Nay, master. He did not. He said it was useless a thing we all knew without being told and he ordered the ship to be well searched. We found nothing, master. The silver Dru is gone. Vanished. For which, and I am bold enough to say it now that she is gone and cannot hear me, we are all offering thanks to Thunor. I myself saw Captain Jarl smiling as he prayed and he does not even believe in Thunor. Ar, master, it is a fine thing that the Dru fell overboard. We are all happy about it."

Blade regarded his servant stonily. He was his own man again, and knowing what he did, he privately considered it just as well that the silver Dru was gone. Canace. Called Drusilla, leader of all the Drus. High Priestess with the golden sword of sacrifice. Lovely phantom of dreams, expert succuba clothed in velvet human flesh, who had planned so far and so well. Now all the dreams, and the flesh, were fathoms deep in the cold green of the Western Sea. Yes. It was just as well.

Yet Blade said: "She saved my life, Sylvo."

"Ar, master. I know that. We all do. We had given you to Thunor when she came forward, from the place Redbeard kept her hidden, and took command of matters pertaining to you. She bade Jarl do this, and Jarl do that, and Jarl did as he was told. We all did, for that matter. Because we were all in terror of her and of Dru magic. But that is all over now, master, and you are well. And she is dead well, gone at least, because some say that Drus do not die like other people."

Blade regarded him with a tolerant affection. He did like the man, thief and scrapegrace that he was, and he did not doubt his loyalty. That he had been afraid of the Dru was natural enough even Blade, in his drug haunted dreams, had been a little afraid of her. He thought for a moment of the things she had done to him, then put the thought away. He would not know that sweet sickness again. Just as well.

"When you speak of Jarl you will speak of him as Captain Jarl," he said sternly. "That is my wish. And now, rogue, pull up the stool yonder and tell me everything that has happened while I have been sick. Everything. Miss no detail. I would come up to date on matters."

Sylvo took huge pleasure in the telling, embroidering matters until Blade cursed him and swore he had missed his calling instead of a mangy cutpurse he should have been a lying skald, setting his wild tales to music on a lute.

"In detail," he groaned. "In detail, man, but not so much so! And stick to the proper time of things you leap ahead and dart back like a hare with hounds after it. Now begin again, from the time I fell unconscious until this moment."

When Sylvo had finished Blade fell into a deep study and stared for a long time out the open port.

Finally he said: "It has been ten days?"

"More like to twelve now, master. You have been very ill."

Blade started to speak, then only nodded. Yes. He had been very ill. Only he knew how ill. And only he would ever know of what transpired for he would never tell a living soul.

He turned on Sylvo again, warily because the rib that Redbeard had cracked still hurt, and asked the question that he must ask.

"The silver Dru fell overboard?"

Sylvo shrugged and rolled his eyes. "What else, master? And none so strange it happens often enough at sea, or so I am told. I am no seaman myself, not of deep water anyway, and I was dreadful sick for two days. It is my thought the the Dru came on deck for air the cabins are not fit for slaves and was swept overboard. Simple enough. But why question it, master. Let us be grateful and "

Blade silenced him with a hand. "You say the silver Dru had a servant? Another Dru of a lesser rank?"

Sylvo looked puzzled and scratched himself. "Ar, master. That is the truth of it. Why?"

"You have too many whys," Blade said curtly. "Leave off and go fetch me this other Dru, this servant. Unless, of course, you are afraid of her also?"

"I am afraid of her," Sylvo admitted, "but not so much as of the silver Dru. Her glance gave me a gallows feeling, I swear. But the Dru servant will know nothing, master. No use to talk to her. She saw nothing, heard nothing, and anyway she is in a screaming fit such as ordinary women get. I doubt you can make sense of her."

Blade stared at his man. Obviously Sylvo did not want him to talk to the servant.

"Go fetch her to me," Blade snapped. "And no more of your clack or, by Thunor, I will regain my strength on you. No stay and help me dress."

He decided on the instant. It was time to be up and doing. Sylvo put a fresh dressing on the wound, which was healing nicely, and helped Blade into clean clothes and a corselet, then combed his hair and beard. Blade badly wanted a bath, but there was no water to spare.

Sylvo clasped the scarlet cloak about Blade's big shoulders and stood back in admiration. "There, master. You are your old self again. Lord Blade. King of the Sea Raiders!"

"And shall be," Blade muttered, "until we come safe to Voth. Then no more. Now go fetch me that servant, Sylvo. And my bronze axe as well. I want it with me when I first appear on deck."

Sylvo lingered. "Ar, master. It would be as well. They are a surly lot of brutes, these raiders, and Captain Jarl is hard set to keep them under hand. They know there is no loot in Bourne, and they cry that Voth is too far and King Voth too strong they would turn back and loot Alb. Which is all right with me, for I am all in favor of "

"Blade, now steady on his feet, moved toward him and doubled up a great fist. "I gave you an order, man! Still you linger and defy me?" He raised his hand.

"Nay, master. I go." Sylvo backed hastily out of the door. "But I wish you would not do this for you will rue it unless I am more fool than I think."

Blade, left alone to ponder that enigmatic remark, had still no answer when Sylvo returned with the woman in question. He pushed her into the room and fled without a word.

The woman stood quietly in the middle of the cabin, her work-worn hands clasped before her. She was thin and stoop shouldered, yet her eyes peered from the cowl at Blade with the bright alertness of a sparrow. Her robe was soiled. Blade guessed her to belong to the lowest, working order of the Drus.

She was not hysterical. One lie to Sylvo's credit. Blade, to put her at ease, motioned to a stool. She refused, saying she would stand. Her voice was flat and unmelodious and her eyes never left off searching Blade's.

"You know who I am?"

Her head inclined. "I know, Lord Blade."

"Good. I want truth from you. This is understood?"

"I have no reason to lie, Lord Blade."

"We all have reason to lie at times," he said harshly,"but never mind that. Tell me, quickly and simply, of what befell your mistress the Dru called Drusilla. The silver-haired woman who cared for me. What do you know of this?"

"Not much," said the woman. "And yet more than most." She squeezed her bony hands together and the tendons cracked.

Blade frowned and left off pacing. "I do not want riddles."

"I make none. I know more than most because I have not been asked until now. Only you ask, Lord Blade. For the others it is enough to believe that my mistress, the High Priestess, fell overboard. They have not dared ask."

Blade tugged at his beard, black and curling now. "So I do ask. What have you to tell?"

"The Drusilla did not fall overboard. One came and tapped at our door in the reaches of the night. I had just fallen to sleep, so the Drusilla answered. I woke then, but did not speak or stir, and I heard them whispering at the door. What words I did not hear, but I understood that the caller wanted the Drusilla to come on deck. There was great urgency to the whispering. So the Drusilla put on her robe and cowl and left the cabin. She did not return. And that is all I know, Lord Blade. Unless it be this bit more my mistress did not fall overboard. She was pushed overboard by the one who came to the door and whispered. Perhaps the Drusilla was slain first. Perhaps not. But she is dead. Murdered. This I know."

Blade remembered the golden sword stabbing down at. the screaming, terror-crazed serving wench of Lycanto. A deed conspired by the Lady Alwyth? But what matter now

A sudden pang struck Blade, an electric pain slashing at his head like a lightning bolt. He staggered and clung to the wall for a moment, bemused, dazed, his head buzzing with a thousand bees. For a micro-instant he saw words blazoned on his memory: He who lives by the sword dies by the sword!

The old Dru was staring at Blade. "You are ill, Lord Blade?"

It had gone. Blade rubbed his head and frowned. How strange. For a moment he had been nearly blind, with a tempest raging in his skull and his body light as feathers.

"It is nothing," he told her gruffly. "A headache. I have been in darkness too long and perhaps the sun But back to our business. This one who came and whispered. You recognized the voice?"

"No."

"Was it man or woman certainly you could tell that."

"I could not, Lord Blade. They spoke too low. I could not say, in truth, that it was a man or a woman."

He considered her for a moment, scratching his chin. "You may go then. Do not speak of this to anyone. I will look into it in person."

"And see the guilty punished, my Lord Blade? Man or woman?" There was no mistaking the doubt and mockery in that dry old voice.

"That is my affair," he said, turning to stare out the port. "I said I will look into it. Go."

She had been gone but a moment when there came another tapping at the door. Blade's mood was turning vile now and he had no wish for company at the moment. His "Enter" was cold and curt.

It was the Princess Taleen, her nymph body robed against the sea air. She was wearing her auburn hair long again, as when he had first seen her and killed the mastiff, and the luxuriant tresses were held back by the same simple golden band. She was buskined and the robe, which was short, revealed dimpled knees. Sea and sun had imparted a fine bronze glow to her already magnificent skin.

She bowed slightly and there was faint mockery in the deep brown eyes that were too limpid, too innocent. He did not trust her in this mood. It meant mischief. He recalled the way she had looked at him when he was in danger with all her love shining forth.

"I have come to pay my respects," she said. "To the new ruler of the Sea Robbers. And to say that I am glad you are alive, Lord Blade. I prayed to Frigga for it."

Blade's smile was tentative. This one had as many humors as a chameleon has colors.

"Lord Blade? We are most formal today,"

She bowed again. "As befits a mere maid with a great lord and warrior. Even though she is the daughter of a true king, and has known the great lord and warrior when he wore a scarecrow's breeches."

Blade frowned at her, arms akimbo. "You have come to quarrel, Taleen. With me, who is just back from death. Why?"

For a moment she did not answer. She went to the cot and began to make it, smoothing the coverlet and patting the sweat-stained pillow where he had tossed for so many dark hours. Blade studied that trim behind as she bent over the cot and felt much as he had that first night by the brook, when her girlish breasts had been practically thrust into his face. That this was lust, he acknowledged. Yet it was a kind of lust he had never known before lust with an oddly gentle strain.

"I do not come to quarrel," she said. She bustled around the tiny cabin, straightening and tidying. "I come to explain."

"Explain what, Princess?"

"Why I did not come before, to tend you in your sickness. I tried. The silver Dru would not permit it. Only once she spoke to me to warn me away from you. I was frightened, Blade. I admit it. I, princess of Voth, did not have courage to go against her."

Blade smiled. When she called him Blade things were nearly back to normal.

"So was Jarl frightened," he said. "And I account him no coward. And all the others, from what I hear. So what of all this? She is dead and I live. Forget the rest. It is over."

He watched her narrowly.

Taleen made much of tossing a handful of litter out the port. "Yes," she agreed. "That is over. We will forget it. Tomorrow we come to Bourne and then it is only four days march to Voth. Which brings about another matter, Blade."

"Speak then." He still watched her closely, but knew now that it would not avail him. For one so young she schooled her features well. They would not betray her if there was aught to betray.

She faced him at last, full in the rays of the sun slanting through the port, crimsoning beneath the golden patina of her skin. Her flashing eyes belied the blush.

"I lied to Redbeard when I said we were betrothed! I said it because I thought it might aid us you. That he would then leave us alone. I did not know that he that he wanted me for himself."

"Any man would want you," Blade said softly. "You are very lovely, Taleen. And very young, with very much to learn. I will be glad when we come at last to Voth and you are again safe and happy in the life you knew before. As for what you said to Redbeard I thank you. I know you tried to help me. And all ended well."

Her smile was no real smile. There was a vixen in it. "I am glad you understand me, Blade. I would not have you think I would throw myself at a man, or in any manner force myself on a man. I have had suitors aplenty, thank you, without asking a stranger in scarecrow's breeches to marry me!"

Blade struggled to keep his temper. This could be an exasperating child.

He folded his arms over his massive chest and regarded her coldly. "It seems to me that you make a great deal of those breeches. Yet I "

She did not let him finish. "And it seems to me that, at least once in ten days, you might have sent for me! Or even for that gallows bird servant of yours. We were afraid. We knew nothing of your state. I nigh to perished of anxi "

She halted abruptly and turned so that he might not see her eyes. "Now I begin to see that you were never in great peril of death! Not with a High Priestess to tend you. Did you tell her, Blade, that you killed one of her sisters that night in the wood?"

Taleen glared at him, her words dripping with spite.

"I did not tell her," he replied. "She told me. Which requires a question, Taleen. Did you tell her about that night and what we saw?"

Her brown eyes widened in honest amazement. "Me tell her? You must think I am a fool as well as a child, Blade, and I am neither! I told her nothing. I said I spoke but once with her. That is the truth, I swear it on Frigga, and I told her nothing."

"And yet she knew," mused Blade.

Taleen was eyeing him with new speculation. Very softly she said: "She knew? And you live yet. I think I begin to understand, Blade. Matters I had not dreamed on, because Drus are sworn celibate. But yet ha! I do understand."

"You understand nothing," he shouted harshly. She had taunted him into loss of temper and he was helpless to resist it. He took subterfuge in the weakest of excuses, and knowing it so, lost his temper even more.

"You'd best go," he told her, "My thanks for coming to inquire of my health. But I confess to feeling a bit faint just now and I would rest. If you see Jarl send him to me, please, and likewise that rascally man of mine."

"You are well consorted," she told him bitterly. "You and that squinting knave. Ay, you go well together. Like master, like man it is well said."

A sharp pain began to materialize again in Blade's head, then vanished abruptly.

"Yet it was I who saved you from Queen Beata's dogs and men," he reminded her now. "I who came for you when you had been dragged by Lady Alwyth. I who fought bears for you at Beata's court, and later put you behind me and killed three brave men for you. I who fought and killed Redbeard for you, and like to died of a poisoned dirk, all that I might bring you safe once again to your father in Voth "

"Lies! Liar!" she screamed. "Liar liar! You fought to save your own life as well, and that you might bring me to Voth, as you say so piously, but only to seek and establish favor with my father. You have always meant to trade me, Blade, for favor and substance with my father, the King. Oh, you are brave enough! But you are also a great schemer and a liar and as blind as the furred mice that flutter in twilight. You claim you are a wizard! You say you are Prince of London wherever that is and I admit you command well and can go grave and sage of mien when it pleases you. Yet I say you are a fool and blind into the bargain. Blind blind "

Her loss of temper had restored his own. Blade gave her a sweet smile of tolerance.

"Wherefore am I so blind, then?"

Taleen picked up a stool. Blade, eyeing it, moved a step back.

"That I will not answer," she snapped. "If you cannot see it for yourself I will not tell you. But I am not blind! Do you think it any secret how you so near won that bitch Queen Beata over? Why you were given time, not slain at once, why you were permitted to fight bears instead of being flayed? And a false fight at that, with only that scummy servant of yours in real danger! I know, Blade, I know! Such things are not secret long. You must be a monster yourself to have gratified that red whore!"

Blade smiled at her. "That also I did for you, Taleen."

She hurled the stool at him. He ducked and it shattered against the wall.

At the door she hurled back a glance tipped with venom. "We left Beata in her cage, though Jarl spared the lives of her people yet alive. She was sniveling for mercy when last I saw her, crying to be killed and put out of pain. Jarl might have granted her this, but I said nay. I hope she still lives, Blade. And suffers. I wish you could have seen her, Blade. They had taken away her wig and her bald gray head was pitiful in the rain. Aye, she was a loathesome creature. I admit your taste was better with the silver Dru."

She was reminding Blade of things he did not want to remember, and he lost his temper for the second time.

"You speak of matters you know nothing about," he said coldly. "I had begun to doubt myself, but now I see that I have been right all along. You are a child! A willful and nasty child with the body of a woman. You need taming, and I know how it should be done, but I'll not be the one to do it. Now go, wench, before I lose all my temper and box your ears! A thing your father, king though he may be, has not done often enough. Get out!"

Halting in the door, she said: "I had always thought to have you whipped, Blade. Then I favored flaying, and I admit that hanging has entered my mind. But now I know what is best, and when we come to Voth I will see to it. There is a man, Blade, who wants me more than he wants his own life. He is to come for me. And I will go to him if he pleasures me by killing you first!"

The door almost left its leathern hinges as she slammed out. Blade, trying to get his own irrational rage under control it was strange how she brought out the worst in him went to the port and stared out at the sunlit water rippling past. The ship was heeled well over and running fast before a stiff breeze. From above came the boisterous shouts of the sea robbers and the chanting of the tillerman as he conned the ship.

"A man? What man? What in Thunor's hell was she talking about?"

Sylvo, just entering with the bronze axe, stared at Blade.

"A man, master? I do not take your meaning. What man?"

Blade seized Aesculp and swung her. And knew how weak he still was. It would be days before he could fight again.

Sylvo squinted at his master. "What man do you speak of? There was no one here when I entered, master, though I passed the Princess Taken as I came. By Thunor, she looked black as any tempest worse than the storm that so nearly sent us to Trit's kingdom. But a man, master? I "

"Leave off your chatter," Blade shouted. "And mind your affairs, not mine!"

He flung the bronze axe at the opposite wall, where it hung quivering for a moment, then fell to the floor with a crash. Blade looked at it with disgust.

"Think not of it, master. Your strength will come back fast, like the tide sweeping in. In a few days "

Blade turned on him so fierce a visage that Sylvo quailed and backed away with his hands raised to shield his head.

"You have a choice," Blade thundered. "Silence or a maimed ear."

Sylvo chose silence. Blade shattered it as he left the cabin, leaving the door hanging by one hinge.