Jeffrey Lord - The Bronze Axe

Sylvo dribbled water over him. "There was a small knife in his back, master. I know nothing more on it."

Blade repressed a smile and tried to look grim. "You are a great rascal, man, and will end on a gallows yet. And serve you right."

"No doubt," said Sylvo cheerily. "No doubt, master." Then he looked glum. "Already I doubt my wisdom in taking the kyrie she is a marvelous cook and wondrous in bed, but I cannot beat her. I tried and she near killed me with one blow!"

Blade let out a bellow of laughter. "A fit punishment. It will teach you not to use your knife so freely."

Sylvo looked abashed, but nonetheless pleased with himself. He bent to retrieve a washing cloth that Blade had dropped from the tub. Something shiny and metallic slipped from his waistband and tumbled to the floor. It lay there, glimmering in sunlight that came aslant through an open window.

A golden medallion on a fine gold chain, with an intaglio crescent moon caught in a net of oak leaves.

Blade stepped from the tub, naked and dripping, and picked up the medallion. He held it by the chain on a finger and stared hard at Sylvo. "How came you by this?"

Sylvo, after taking a few hasty steps back, halted and met his eye squarely. "I found it, master. May Thunor strike me if I did not find it!"

"Where did you find it?" Blade, though frowning and black of visage, did not think Sylvo was lying. He thought that the truth, when he heard it, would be about as he had expected.

"On the deck, master. Where the silver Dru dropped it in the fight with nay, master, do not make me tell it! It is over now and this serves no purpose. I have tried to keep it from you."

"I know," said Blade. "And a pitiful try, too. Any dolt could have guessed it. So I will tell you! There was a scuffle and the silver Dru dropped it when she was pushed overboard. That is right?"

"Yes, master. I could not sleep in my swine pen. I was on deck and they did not see me. But I saw and listened and later, when it was over, I thought I had as much right to the trinket as any."

Blade hurled the medallion at him. It was a talisman of a time he wanted to forget, of things that sickened him when he thought back on them. Not the things themselves, but the manner in which he had craved and been slave to them. His mind had been as sick as his body.

"You are right," he told Sylvo. "It is yours. So long as I never see it again. If I do I will destroy it. Now leave me. You have quarters down the corridor. Go to them and wait until I call for you."

And now Sylvo, seeing that his gossip was anticipated, and dying to tell, gave his master a sly glance. "You do not order me to tell you who pushed the silver Dru, master?"

Blade jerked a thumb at the door. "I know who pushed her. It was Princess Taleen. Get out!"

"Ar, master, that it was. A most terrible struggle it was, too. I thought "

A step and a baleful glare. "Out!"

When the man had gone Blade paced the chamber restlessly. He had known all along, in his heart, that it was Taleen. No one else would have dared touch a Dru, much less a High Priestess. But Taleen, when the mood was on her, would dare anything.

To ease his mind of her he tried to think of King Voth. Word had been sent that Voth would give Blade an audience that evening. An audience at which and the message had been precisely worded Blade could expect thanks and reward for restoring Taleen to the paternal arms.

Blade sought to conjure what King Voth might be like. From what Taleen had said, now and again, and from other sources, Blade pictured an Arthurian figure cast in heroic mold. A veritable porphyrogene. Well, he would soon know. As for the thanks, and reward, they did not matter so much any more. The pains in his head had become more frequent, as bit by bit his memory of former life flowed back. Blade had a premonition that his stay in Voth would not be long. It also occurred to him that Lord Leighton, in trying to recapture him, might only succeed in killing him.

Hard on the thought came another blinding pain. This one was worse by far than any of the preceding Blade cried aloud and clutched at his head in agony. There was a dagger in his brain. He staggered to the huge bed in a corner and collapsed into a roaring darkness.

He was awakened by a soft tapping at the door. He noted that it was dark he had been unconscious for hours, then? and with even more surprise he realized that he was still in Voth.

He went to the door, feeling his way across the unfamiliar chamber. "Who knocks?"

"It is Taleen, Blade. Let me in quickly." She was whispering.

She slipped through the door like a wraith in white. She carried a candle and in the dim light he saw the shimmer of her body under the single garment she wore, a pale linen kirtle that ended well above her knees and barely covered her breasts.

Blade closed the door, barred it, and turned to face her.

"There is little profit, Princess, in coming to whisper at my door. I am not a Dru and this is not a ship. Or perhaps you thought to push me out the window?"

The moon, sheltering behind high flying scud, now chose to show its face. Lambent bars of silver radiance spread athwart the floor. Taleen blew out her candle and came to Blade. Her eyes were wide and wild, her auburn hair all tousled, and she was as bright as the moonlight. She fell to her knees before him and clutched his legs.

"Scold me, Blade. Beat me! I have come to abase myself to you. I am evil and it is true that I killed the silver Dru. I was jealous, Blade. Murderous in jealousy. Love me, Blade! Or if you cannot, if you yet deem me a child and not for loving, then let me love you. I plead with you, Blade. Let me stay. Love me. I have asked Frigga for help and she gave it not only saying that I must come to you and say these things. Do you understand me, Blade? I speak nothing but truth now I have been sick with love of you since that first day!"

Saying not a word, Blade raised her to her feet and kissed her. And knew how wrong he had been. This was no child. Her mouth was moist and hot, yet her tongue somehow innocent in its fumbling. Here was lack of experience, but great desire, a combination that set Blade's loins to raging.

Nor was there any reticence about Taleen, she now having declared herself. She kissed him back furiously, then she turned him to full moonlight and broke off the kiss to glance down.

She had been pale, but now was scarlet as she said: "Ah, Blade! You are monstrous big. I begin to feel afraid. I am virgin, Blade. Will it hurt me much?"

He led her toward the bed. "It will hurt, Taleen. But not for long, and in the end you will enjoy the hurting. And I will go as gentle as I can."

But once on the bed she held him off yet awhile. Blade explored and lavished kisses on her breasts, finding them swollen and warm and hard-tipped and fitting perfectly, encupped in his big hands,He sought to be tender, yet he wanted her terribly by this time and, when still she held him off and cried that she was afraid, he pressed her down and opened her slim legs by main strength and thrust softly into her. Gently at first, then the animal in him took over and he stabbed her to the core and did not hear her moans. Moans that changed gradually to sobs and then to a wild laughter and crying out as she came up to him and entwined about him and bit at him in frenzy. As Blade was himself spending he felt her final convulsive shudder and knew that for the first time in her short life the Princess Taleen had come at a man's urging.

For a long time they lay wrapped in moonlight, gossamer tendrils ensilvering their naked flesh, whilst each made his separate way back from the small death. Taleen, her legs all entwined in his, sighed at last and said most unsteadily: "So that is what it is like, Lord Blade! Thank Frigga I know at last and that it is you who have taught me. What fools young girls are! They jibber and jabber and prate wise of what they know not. But I see the why of it now making love is not a thing one can guess of. It cannot be known without the doing."