The Bronze Axe

Chapter Four

For all that day Richard Blade languished miserably in the hut. It was a small affair, blackened inside by smoke and with a floor of packed earth. A circular hole in the roof provided the only ventilation. His sword had been taken from him and a guard stationed at the door. This was a saucy rascal with sparse hair, a harelip, and a ferocious squint. He was wary of Blade, yet not unfriendly, and had told Blade that his name was Sylvo. He had been a slave, but was now a freeman. Blade had taken a liking to the man.

There were no furnishings, so Blade lay on the bare floor and itched. He was filthy and his black stubble was fast turning to a beard. He kept having visions of a warm tub overflowing with suds. The hut abounded with lice and he partially amused himself by tracking down the tiny gray beasts and cracking them with his nails.

Now, as a first star was visible in the roof hole, his wrath approached its limits. Either Taleen had forgotten him or she had been unable to prevail. Either way he was ignored, forgotten. All day he had been shut in while the din and confusion increased in the town. Blade could not see, but he could hear, and he read the sounds accurately.

King Lycanto was not going to fight today. More and more soldiers kept arriving. The chariots raced and men were trampled. There was a deal of dicing and drinking, and much drunken laughter and ribaldry, and sometimes the squealing laughter of camp followers. Blade, glowering to himself, thought that Lycanto ran anything but a tight camp. If this Getorix, Redbeard, kept any rein on his men at all they would have little trouble defeating such a rabble. Blade, who could accept discipline, and knew how to impose it, chafed as though the prime responsibility for such defeat would be his own. This both puzzled and amused him.

At first, after Cunobar's men had thrown him roughly into the hut, he had welcomed the chance to think quietly and without interruption. He knew that his memory was beginning to fail though with an effort he could yet summon back what was important and now in his confinement he tried to reason out what had happened to him. It was not easy, and he knew that there was much margin for error. Blade had always been a man of action, intelligent but not intellectual, and he surely was no scientist. So now he tried to look at matters in their simplest form.

The computer experiment had gone wildly wrong. Either the machine, or Lord Leighton, had made a whopping mistake. As a result Blade's brain had been addled, mixed up. It was not a happy thought, yet it must be faced.

Doctors used electric shock to cure. In his case a sort of reverse effect had been achieved. The shock had not driven him mad, in the usual sense, but it must have rearranged the entire molecular structure of his brain tissue.

His reading on the subject had been that of the usual layman scant. He did not really understand the complex structure of the human brain, and certainly he did not think in terms of neurons and nucleic acids and the synthesis of proteins. DNA was a blank page to him. Yet he knew enough to realize that the experts knew little more.

The brain was still an unexplored continent in which anything, if not likely, was certainly possible.

Blade concluded that his cerebral cortex had been so scrambled that he was enabled to perceive an entirely different world than he had known before. It Was a real world, as he was real, yet it existed in a different dimension. A dimension that his old brain, before Lord Leighton, had been unable to comprehend.

Now, cracking a very real louse with dirty nails, Blade became quite pleased with himself. Nearly smug. He did not know whether it had anything to do with time or space, though he doubted it. Dimension! There must lie the answer. For the moment he was content with it.

For one fact he was grateful. The computer shock had not affected his lower brain, that mass of spidery cells and nerve fibers just above the foramen magnum. He had inherited that lower brain from remote ancestors, as far back as the great lizards, and it was packed with instinctive guile and animal cunning. His convoluted and highly complex cerebral cortex might stand him in good stead, but it was his animal brain, with its lightning reflexes and will to survival, that would save him. If he was to be saved.

Nor had the shock altered his personality, Blade conceded with a little grin. He was still Richard Blade. Stubborn, combative, at times inconsistent, given to sudden rages and quick regretting. Restless and impatient of fools, A sensual man of vast sexual appetite. Loyal friend and deadly foe. Large of body and huge of spirit, capable of love and lust, of mercy and cruelty. Not a man molded to adorn a church, and yet no friend of the Devil.

Having disposed of all the lice he had gone back to his musing when the door swung open and the man Sylvo came in. He was carrying a wooden trencher containing meat and black bread, and a horn of the foamy light beer that Blade had tasted earlier, complaining of thirst, and had found good.

Sylvo knew his business. He carried a short, razor edged spear and he gestured with it now. "Over in the corner, master, as before. I would not have you too close to me. By Thunor I think those arms of yours could throttle a bull!"

Blade obeyed, smiling at the man. Sylvo, though guarding him, treated Blade with a mixture of deference, awe and resolution.

Blade crossed his massive arms and stared at the man. "How much longer am I to be penned in this sty?"

Sylvo placed the trencher in the middle of the floor and retreated to the door. He seemed in a mood for talk, and Blade thought he smiled in return. With Sylvo it was hard to tell. Not only was his balding head misshapen the midwife had not been gentle in wrenching him from the womb but his terrible squint and harelip lent him a countenance that must have set infants to squalling whenever he passed.

Blade, bored and frustrated, wrathful and more nervous than he liked to admit to himself took a sudden notion to bait the man. He squatted by the trencher and, after a bite of bread and meat and a long quaff of the beer, pointed the mutton bone at Sylvo.

"Do you know, my man, that you are singularly unprepossessing?"

Sylvo's face creased. His eyes, what Blade could see of them behind the squint, were small, beady and black.

"Thank you kindly, master. It is not often that poor Sylvo hears kind words. Cuffs and kicks it is, usually. I thank you even though I know not the meaning of such high born words."

Blade choked back laughter with another mouthful of meat, and felt a moment's shame for his baiting of the man. The poor fellow was only doing his job.

He swallowed and said, "You do not answer my question. How much longer am I to be penned here?"

Sylvo scratched himself vigorously. He wore a loose linen tunic, falling free over baggy breeches cross-gaitered from the knee down. On his sparsely haired pate was the usual metal cap, set at a rakish angle. His feet were bare and filthy. A most unsoldierly oaf, Blade thought, yet noted that the beady little eyes never left him and the spear was always at the ready.

Sylvo found a louse in his armpit and killed it before he answered. "As to that, master, I can give no answer unless I lie. And though I am undoubtedly a bastard, and the son of a whore, and Thunor knows that I have more sins than virtues, I have never been a liar. Neither am I King Lycanto, and it is he alone that can answer your question. Content yourself, master. It is none so bad in here. Think of me. Of Sylvo. I am the one suffering."

Blade repressed a grin. "You suffer? How so?"

Sylvo threw out a hand and shrugged in disgust, yet the other hand kept the spear steady on Blade. "I have not been relieved, that is how. I have been forgotten. As usual. The beer is flowing as free as the tides, there are women to be had everywhere for the taking, and I have been stuck with the task of guarding you. Is that not suffering?"

Blade agreed that it was. And offered a solution. "That is easily put to rights. Why guard me so closely? I am alone, one man in an unfriendly camp. I cannot escape. What could I do? Where could I go? And who is to know if you leave your post for a little time? Go and get your share of the beer, Sylvo. Take time for a woman. I will be here when you come back."

The man's scrawny body began to shake. He rocked back and forth and from his malformed lips came a cackling sound that Blade recognized, with some difficulty, as laughter.

"Ar, master. You will be here right enough! And so will I watching you. My head is not pretty, I admit, but I have no wish to have it struck off and stuck on a pole."

Blade had not really expected the gambit to work. He was convinced there was more to Sylvo than met the eye,though that was horrendous enough. He changed the subject.

Scraping up meat crumbs with a bit of black bread, he said: "What of Getorix? The one they call Redbeard. I had thought that King Lycanto would march against him today."

Sylvo made an odd sound with his mouth. "So likewise had we all thought at least the common folk. But not so. Men are slow in arriving, those who have arrived are drunk, and there is more gambling and chariot racing than drilling. More wenching than spear sharpening. The captains quarrel among themselves and sulk when they are overruled. The king and his wife, Alwyth, have also quarreled she threw a pannikin at his head in plain view of all the men and in general the town is like a hen coop with a fox loose in it. Yet all may be well. We have word that Redbeard plans to land at Penvey, which is only a day's march to the south, and it is yet possible that we will be there to meet him."

Sylvo yawned mightily, showing a few blackened teeth. "I hope so, master, for guarding my betters is not my idea of a soldier's work. There is no fun in it, and no profit." He glanced about the barren hut with disgust. "No loot, master. Not a scill's worth."

Blade came alert at the mention of Alwyth. He still had hopes for his plan of establishing an identity and a status though it would involve some canny lying and if Sylvo knew of Alwyth's doings he might also know something of Taleen. Who, he thought grumpily, was letting him down. He set about pumping the man as best he could.

Blade shook his head. "So the king and his queen quarrel in public? That is bad, Sylvo. Of what do they dispute?"

The man squinted at him and chuckled. "None of your affair, master, and yet I will tell you. It is common enough knowledge. The king is a great cock and likes his hens of late he has been topping a serving wench by name of Gweneth. All knew but the queen but now she has found out and the wench has disappeared. The king is sullen about it, and very full of beer else he would not have brought it into the open and he claims that Alwyth has done away with the girl. Or had it done, since the queen is not likely to soil her own hands with the murder of a servant."

Blade failed, for an instant, to guard his expression. And learned that the man Sylvo was indeed shrewd.

"You have an odd look to you, master. Could you know aught of this?"

Blade managed innocence. "I know of it? How? I am a stranger, as you well know. I have no friends in Sarum Vil, unless it be the Princess Taleen, for whom I did some small service. And she," he added gloomily, "has forgotten me."

For a moment the rude hut vanished and Blade was back in the glade of sacred oaks. That silver hair, the slim body, the lovely and demonic face as the golden sword slashed down. Who was she? Where had she gone? He did not know it at the time, but it was the beginning of a long haunting.

And it explained, or so he would have sworn, how the servant girl had come into the hands of the Drus.

At the mention of Taleen the guard's hideous face brightened. "Ar," he admitted, "there is a woman for you! Only a girl, I know, and no doubt virgin as the high born keep their daughters, but a woman none the less. The man who first cleaves that cunna will be a fortunate knave indeed. Ar, that he will."

Blade frowned at him, pretending anger. "I think you speak above yourself."

Sylvo laughed, not a bit abashed. "Ar, master, perhaps I do. But who is to know? You? Come now, master. You are a beggar with one pair of ragged breeches. I do not fear you. Though I admit that you are probably high born and could strangle me like a newborn babe, yet it serves you nothing. For a time I am master here and you are prisoner. Is that not the truth of it?"

Blade grinned and admitted that it was. And made a vow to teach Sylvo manners, if ever the opportunity arose.

"What of the Princess Taleen. Have you seen her?"

Sylvo was seeking for another louse in his armpit. "Only when the two of you first entered town. Since then she has kept to herself in the king's great house. You seem to have a great interest in the princess, master."

Blade watched the play of speculation across the ruined face. Bawdiness was second nature to the man. Then Sylvo shook his head so hard that his helmet nearly tumbled off.

"No! It is not possible. The princess is of the high blood and you "

There was a light tapping at the door. Sylvo, who had been squatting on his heels, leaped up and half faced the door, yet keeping the spear vigilant on Blade. The man grinned. "Ar, that will be my relief. About time, by Thunor! I shall have my share of the beer and women after all."

"Best answer it then," said Blade dryly, "and stop your cackling." As he spoke he glanced up at the roof hole. The stars had vanished and a coil of mist hung just over the aperture. The night had turned thick and gloomy.

Sylvo was whispering at the door. Frowning and squinting and mumbling. It was not his relief, then. Blade heard a woman's whisper and the rustle of feminine garments. He took a deep breath of relief. She had not forgotten him after all.

He was puzzled by what followed. Sylvo extended a hand through the narrowly cracked door, took something, then closed the door and turned to face Blade again. "By Thunor's liver," he said, "this matter grows in mystery." He tossed a coin in the air and caught it, then bit it with his snaggle teeth. "And I have come by a whole mancus.

Pure bronze. I, Sylvo, who have never seen aught but iron scills in my life. A mancus! With three of them I could buy a farm and cattle. A mancus! Me. Poor Sylvo."

Blade could not restrain his impatience. "That was the Princess Taleen, then? She gave you a note? A message for me?"

Sylvo bit the coin again, then slipped it into a purse on his belt, from which also hung a naked dirk. He squinted at Blade.

"Wrong, master. Ar, very wrong. Therein lies the danger which I have agreed to risk for a mancus. And great danger it is, by Thunor! Danger for both of us. So listen well, master, and make me a promise that you will never speak of this."

Blade lost his temper. He roared like a bull. "Stop your mumbling, you ugly lout, and speak clearly! Who was it, if not the Princess Taleen? And what is all this prattle of danger?"

Sylvo squinted and caressed a few scraggy hairs on his chin. "It is the Lady Alwyth, master. The queen. She would speak with you. She is waiting now until I have your promise of silence. I must have it. Ar, I am no fool. When two great stones play together it is always the kernel in the midst that is crushed."

"Have done with your cursed riddles," Blade shouted. "It is all the same, then. This lady brings me a message from the princess, that must be it. Admit her at once."

Sylvo was not to be hurried. His face was contorted in thought. "Not so fast, master. It is my head and I must think of it else who will? You are strange here, I am not. I know stories of the Lady Alwyth that you do not. It is a dour, murk night and she comes alone and without escort and seeks to buy silence. Such nights have a way of breeding dark deeds. And still a whole mancus to me!"

Blade controlled himself. He shrugged his big shoulders in feigned indifference. "Suit yourself. It is none of my affair and, as you say, it is your head. But I will give my oath not to speak of this and" slyly "you will have to give back the mancus if you do not admit the lady."

Blade turned his back, crossed his arms and gazed up through the roof at the roiling mist.

He heard Sylvo mutter. "Return the money? Not by the hairs on Thunor's head. I have your promise, master?"

"You have it."

Sylvo muttered again. "Then I will give you half the time it takes a water clock to empty. No more. I will be just outside, master, with my spear and dirk, so attempt no escape. If you do I will kill you and then try to lie my way out of it it would not be the first time. You swear this on Thunor's heart?"

Blade faced him and held up his right hand. "I swear it on Thunor's heart. Now admit the lady. And keep sharp watch. I do not wish to be interrupted. Nor, I think, will the lady."

"In that, master, we are all agreed." Sylvo opened the door and slipped out.

The single flambeau guttered and smoked in the sudden draft. It was secured to a beam by an iron sconce nothing more than a ring and it gave a dim red light and stank abominably of fish oil.

The Lady Alwyth. Lycanto's queen herself! Blade did not know what to make of it. Yet he took heart. Taleen must have spoken with the queen, had pleaded his cause with some success, or the lady would not be here. Yet why Alwyth and not the princess herself? Why all the secrecy, the furtive payment for silence? Blade shrugged. He would know soon enough. And anything was better than this stinking hut.

The door opened, then closed swiftly. At once Blade caught the scent of chypre. It was Taleen then, by some trick! No. This woman was far too short, too tiny, to be the princess. The heavily muffled figure that stood watching him was barely five feet tall. She wore a heavy cloak of fur, trimmed with a finer and more glossy fur that he thought was ermine, or possibly sea otter. Her dark blonde hair was caught up high and held with a single long golden pin. Her coronet was of gold and figured with dragons rampant. A white veil, secured to the coronet on either side, masked her face.

She spoke first. "You are Richard Blade? He who came to this place with the Princess Taleen?" Blade did not miss the tinge of spite as she spoke Taleen's name.

He bowed. "I am that Richard Blade, my lady." He waited. He was out of his depth, knew it, and so must let her take the lead.

He could not penetrate the white veil, but knew that she was seeing very well. She eyed him up and down, making no effort to disguise the scrutiny that she might have given an animal, or a slave in the market place. Again he caught the waft of chypre. A perfume that only the well born could afford. Later he was to learn that the use of chypre was forbidden to all but a few, on pain of death.

Her voice was husky, sure and incisive, yet pitched nearly as low as a man's. She raised a white hand, on which rings sparkled, and pointed to the guttering torch. "Stand over there. I would see you better."

Blade did as he was bade. He did not like her tone. He had a premonition that, were he ever to see her face, he would not like it either. He moved into the light without speaking.

Again the long scrutiny. Blade, without seeming to, studied her as closely. Though she might be tiny, she filled the cloak well. He thought that she breathed harder now than when she entered, and the breasts beneath the cloak were full enough.

"Taleen spoke truth in one thing," she said at last. "You are a magnificent animal! Truly a brute of a man. Have you a head to go with it, Blade? Can you think? Or are you merely another bed warrior?"

Blade nearly scowled. Yet he kept his temper and bowed again, careful not to appear obsequious. "I have been known to think, my lady." Then, before he could bite it back, "As to being a bed warrior would you care to challenge me, my lady?"

One small foot, clad in a pale leather sandal, began to pat the earthen floor. Yet he thought she smiled behind the veil.

"You are a saucy rogue! Taleen spoke the truth again. Take down your breeches, Blade."

Complete poise, in any situation, is given to few men. Blade was one of that few. Yet even he hesitated for a moment. But only for a moment then he loosened his ragged scarecrow's breeches and stepped out of them. He prayed now that he would not begin to react to the scent of her and the nearness of her femaleness, and so make a further show of himself. This was all very infra dig, and he thought again that in doing as the Albians did one had to do some damned nutty things!

The woman moved closer to him. One of the jeweled hands moved and for a moment he thought she would touch him, but she contented herself by looking. She walked completely around him. There was no doubt that she breathed faster now. He began to guess, a little, at the secret. Nymphomania in Alb was much the same as nymphomania in London.

As she moved away she traced fingers lightly over the small of his back. Blade shivered. And, as he had feared, began to react.

Her laugh, muffled by the veil, was husky. "A veritable ox. Put on your breeches, Blade. Pleasure postponed is pleasure prolonged."

She stood watching as he pulled on his breeches and adjusted them. She was holding the fur cloak tightly about her.

"Taleen says you are a wizard, Blade. This is true?"

He played it straight and for all it was worth. For the moment he was lost, understanding nothing, yet he sensed that there was deadly purpose in this strange visitation. The smell of intrigue, and of danger, was as palpable in the hut as the stink of the wavering torch.

He bowed again, very slightly this time. "It is true, my lady. You are in need of a wizard?" He let the sarcasm ring clear.

She let it pass. Her hand moved again, a sparkling white moth in the dim light. "Yes, Blade. I need a wizard. But I also need a warrior. You are a fighter, or so Taleen tells me." Again a wisp of spite clung to the princess' name.

"I have killed my share of men." It was true. No need to mention that he had dealt in more sophisticated death, in another life, a different cosmic dimension. She would have named him madman, raving. And death was still death name it how you liked, purvey it as you would. Hot and bloody. Cold and final. The end result was the same.

For a moment there was silence in the hut. The torch sparked and stank. Dank mist sank through the roof hole and lay in ghostly strata near the ceiling. From somewhere in the town came a sudden roar of laughter and the chiming clash of swords. She watched him through the veil.

At last she spoke. "There is none to hear us, Blade. If trouble comes of this I will be believed, not you, and I will see that you are flayed alive, inch by inch. I will speak my heart, with no mincing of words, no lies, no Dru language of many meanings or sometimes none at all. You will listen, Blade, and you will heed well, and then you will forget that I have spoken so. It is action I require of you, not words. All this is understood?"

He inclined his head. This was indeed a night for mystery.

She moved a step closer. The sensual odor of chypre enveloped him.

"There is little time, Blade, so I will be as brief as may be and have you still understand me. Long ago, when I was but a maiden, the Drus prophesied to me that I would one day rule Alb. The old high priestess, long dead now, bespoke me in private and said that I would marry a king. Which I did. I was also told that one day a stranger would come his visage and manner were not foretold but he would be a warrior, in great repute with ladies, and through him I would come to rule Alb."

Blade was listening with great attention, every sense attuned. It was all mumbo-jumbo, no doubt a stock Dru prophecy designed to flatter, and yet here he was. With the Lady Alwyth, Queen of Alb.

She sensed his thought and from behind the veil came a spate of mirthless laughter. "I also doubted, even then when I was a callow virgin. The Drus are great liars and twist words as a smith twists iron. Yet I did not forget. And you are here, Blade. Who can gainsay it?"

Blade nodded in silence. Who indeed could gainsay it! Not he. Not since Lord Leighton and his infernal, and erratic, computer.

"I will ease your mind about the Princess Taleen, who I think is so much taken with you," she went on. The spite-fulness was back. "She came at once to me and, though we hate each other, tried to cozen me that I speak to the king and get you a place at the War Council. As brazen as any camp whore, she was. I listened, saying but little, and so learned much about you. Is it true, Blade, that she came on you sleeping naked in the forest?"

"It is true. I was carried by magic from my own land, where I am a wizard, and by a miscalculation I was unclothed."

He watched her narrowly, trying to judge reaction behind the veil.

"That is as may be," she said calmly. "I do not believe it, but it is of no moment. As soon as Taleen was empty of words I realized that my time had come, that perhaps the old Dru did not lie for profit and favor. I had a potion made and gave it to Taleen in broth. It stimulates the swooning sickness, and she lies so now."

Blade scowled. "You have harmed her? Or intend to?"

A quick negation of the white hand, jewels glinting. "I have not harmed her. She merely sleeps, and so being harmless will not be harmed. I am not fool enough to risk the wrath of her father, Voth of the North. And she is cousin to my husband, Lycanto. He is a fool, a drunkard and a weakling who seeks to dip his limp sword into every female he can find, yet an affront to his own. blood would rouse him. I play not that game. Instead I shall be sly and send Taleen back to her father, with ample escort, and so gain credit with Voth for saving her from the evil Beata."

"Which I did," growled Blade.

The white veil moved as she nodded. "Which you did. And for which I will be credited." She was yet closer to him, the scent of her stronger, her white hands fluttering near his nakedness.

"A small matter, Blade. Suffice that we get Taleen out of the way with no blame to us. Forget her. I have arranged that you sit on the War Council this night'."

He did not show his surprise. He nodded gravely. "To what purpose, my lady? I know my purpose, my reasons for asking Taleen to arrange this, but what purpose of yours that I sit on this Council?"

"For diverse reasons." She ticked them off on bejeweled fingers. "That you come to know Lycanto and his warriors, most especially his chiefs and captains, for it is with them that you must deal when he is dead."

A hard smile crooked the corner of Blade's firm mouth. "He is going to die, then?" His feigned surprise sounded nearly genuine.

Impatience now, for the first time. "Taleen said you were a fool in some things, yet not a fool in many. Be not a fool now! Why think you I am here, skulking like a thief in dark night? What manner of wizard are you that cannot see what is in my mind?"

He turned brusque. "You are right, my lady. I would be a poor wizard indeed if I could not read you. You wish me to slay Lycanto?"

A careless shrug. "Or have him slain. It is all one to me. I do not know how wizards do these things, but it would be better if the blame lies not on you."

His little bow was mocking. "And certainly not on you, eh, my lady?"

"Certainly not on me." She glanced around the rude hut with disdain. "I leave you soon, and when I go from this pigsty I leave all knowledge of what was spoken here. I will mind my wifely affairs and wait for news that Lycanto is dead. How you arrange it is nothing to me. Perhaps you cannot arrange it, and it is you who will be killed, and this too matters not to me. It will mean that you are a poor wizard and not the stranger prophesied to me by the old Dru. I have done all I can I have procured you a place at the Council, where for a little time you will sit as a peer and be listened to. There is danger, grave danger. For you. You will be tested, well tested, for if Lycanto is a fool most of his chiefs are not. But if you succeed, Blade, if you win, there will be reward enough."

"And this reward?"

"Great enough, Blade, for a man who now has nothing and who stands to win everything. Enough for a beggar who can die at the whim of any drunken man at arms and no penalty to pay, save it be a paltry few scills in murder tax. You will rule with me, Blade, if you prove the man for it. In bed as in battle, and the proving lies on you. You see I do not lie or give false promises. There is no need for such, with you."

He nodded. So be it. It was as much as he could hope for in the circumstances. He would play her game minute by minute, hour by hour, and at the same time play his own game. He must tread a prickly path, and no help for it.

He took a step toward her. They were very near now,and her scent was cloying and tantalizing in his nostrils. Taleen had aroused him and he had fought it back; the Lady Alwyth, with her doll's figure and scent, her veil and its aura of mystery, most of all the murder in her heart, aroused a cold and careless lust in him. She sought to use him as weapon. Very well, he would use her as receptacle to cool his lust. At once. Here. Now. Swiftly and brutally.

He reached for the veil. "I would see your face, my lady."

Blade was accustomed to success in these matters, yet not greatly surprised when, with a single lithe movement, she eluded his grasp and stepped away. Her hands went to where the veil was secured to the golden coronet. Her question was filled with mockery.

"You are sure, Blade! Quite sure that you would see my face? I warn you it is a thing to think on."

So aroused was he now that he gave no thought to anything but the taking of her, as swiftly and fiercely as possible. He moved toward her and again she skipped away, still mocking him.

She was laughing. "I am half beautiful, Blade. Riddle me that. And say again that you wish to see my face. For then I will show it, which will cool you instantly and cheat me of that monster." She was gazing at the front of his thin breeches where the physical manifestation of his lust was plainly writ.

He did not, in that tumescent moment, give a damn what lurked behind the veil. The words, unthought on, came automatically from his lips and it was not until later that he realized the implication. He was more than merely in Alb now. He was Albian!

He leaped at her. "I would see," he said hoarsely. "By Thunor, I will see! And I will have you. Here and now."

She halted him with a hand against his massive chest. Her fingers curled in his dark chest hair.

"Then see, Blade." She whisked away the veil.

Blade could not repress his exclamation. He took a step back and stared. He had seen sights to turn the stomach before, but never anything like this. It was horror. Horror made double by contrast.

The Lady Alwyth was a female Janus, two faced, the schism explicit in exact middle from forehead to chin. One half-face was lovely of skin and contour, the nose high arched and patrician, chin firm, eye blue and sparkling, brow pale and unlined.

The single blue eye watched him. In a tone of mockery and venom she said, "How think you now, Blade? Do you cool?"

The other half of her face was no face at all. Where flesh had been there was now a raw red cicatrix, the fiberous tissue drawn into spiderwebbing scars that reached below her chin and around to her ear. The eye was still there, an eye that glared milky white and ulcerous beneath the maimed lid.

Blade took a deep breath. He was still in rut, but she had been right. The true urge was gone. Instinct warned that he tread as carefully as ever in his life. For his life. A wrong move now and she would see him dead, nor care that it wrecked all her plans.

Lady Alwyth turned so that only her unscathed profile was visible. She was lovely so, and Blade felt pity. And as pity is the death of love, or lust, so he felt himself begin to droop as desire fled.

She raised a hand to touch the side of her face away from him. "A gift from my King husband. Long ago, at childhood play. I was a maiden captured by sea robbers, and tortured by them. Then something I do not now remember something drew the other children away and left Lycanto alone with me. But recently I had quarreled with him and spat in his face. We had a fire against the cold that day and he took a brand but you have seen it. Lycanto's revenge. He was eight years then, I but six."

He understood, then, the hate that welled in her like poison in a cup. Understood her spite for the beautiful Taleen.

He could not feign ardor now, and was too wise to try. To show his pity, or revulsion, was death. In a cold, matter-of-fact voice he said, "It is true that half your beauty is ruined, my lady. But only half. You are fortunate in that, for how many women are beautiful in any fashion?"

"Too many," she said darkly. "A truth that does not please me." He knew she spoke of the Princess Taleen and in the same moment knew she lied when she spoke of returning Taleen unharmed to her father. She would find a way to destroy Taleen.

She turned full face to him again. That blighted milky orb glinted in the gloom. The torch was burning low and the smoke was thickening.

Her husky voice was silken smooth, she spider wise, as she looked at him. "You still desire me, Blade? And I warn you nothing but truth."

He met her good eye without flinching. "I am a man, my lady. I desire you."

"You will do my bidding, then? Find a clever way of killing Lycanto, so no blame attaches to us?"

"I will." He intended it as a lie, but how to be sure? He might very well have to carry it out.

"Then see another part of your prize." She threw open the fur cloak. Beneath it she was naked.

Her minikin body was as flawless as her face was imperfect. She was built in absolute proportion, on a miniscule scale, with a blonde's pale cream skin. Her firm pointed breasts were painted blue and tipped with scarlet. (Blade had already noted that some of the warriors painted themselves, and did not yet know that only married women could do likewise.)

The Lady Alwyth stood on tiptoe and preened for him. Her waist was tiny, and his big hands would have fitted well around it, but when he sought to embrace her he was again ready she moved away like a wraith. Blade did not pursue, but stood glowering, calling himself a simpleton and yet raging to get into her.

She stood wide legged now, her head thrown back and her beautiful half-face turned to him. She caressed her blue painted breasts with her jeweled fingers and watched him with narrowed eyes. As he gazed more intently he saw that her lush small body was marked blue in other parts there was a sort of runic tatooing under each breast.

Her words were barely audible. "You desire me now, Blade?"

His lower brain in command, Blade said fiercely, "I desire you, my lady. Here and now."

She laughed and closed the fur cloak. "That is good. Desire me enough, Blade, do as I have spoken, and you shall have me. And doubt me not I am a prize worth having."

She was gone, so swiftly that Blade, nearly ill with un-appeased lust, his loins aching, stared at the shadows as though she might be hidden there. Her scent lingered in the hut, and but for that he might have thought it all a dream, a fantasy wrought by some potion in his beer.

It was the man Sylvo who brought him back to harsh reality. He entered and pointed his spear at Blade, his lunatic face creased in a leer.

"You have friends above the salt, master. By Thunor you have! The word comes that you are wanted at the king's great house. Gossip has it that you sit at the War Council, though this I do not believe. More likely they mean to have some sport with you before you are hanged or skinned."

Sylvo, bursting with this news, and his wits a bit fuddled by it, for once grew careless. The spear point drooped.

Blade moved like a great serpent. Before the man could breathe again he had him in a full nelson, crunching the misshapen face down into the scrawny chest. Sylvo groaned and dropped his spear. He fumbled for the dirk at his belt and Blade, loosing one hand, nearly broke the man's wrist with a downward slash.

"Now," Blade said softly, "now, Sylvo, who rules in this hut?"

"You, master! You rule." Sylvo was choking, yet he tried to kick back at Blade.

Blade, wide straddled, lifted the man as easily as he might a babe in arms. He turned the man and changed his grip, his left hand about the scrawny neck. Sylvo's tongue lolled and began to turn color, and his eyes popped even as they begged.

Blade drew back his mighty right fist. "I would teach you manners, my man. This is a lesson, nothing more. In future you will know how to speak to your betters."

He deliberately muffled the blow, for he did not wish to maim or kill, yet it was a buffet that might have floored a largish horse. Sylvo went sprawling across the floor to end up against a wall, his little eyes glazed.

Blade prodded him with a foot and grinned. "Get up, man! Escort me to the house of Lycanto."