She would not become an enemy here in Kano. That was his answer and his decision, for better or for worse.
Blade reached toward the wine jug, to refill his cup and Katerina's. He was interrupted by a soft thud and a gentle snore. He looked to see that Katerina's head had sagged forward onto the table. Her hair was trailing over the remains of a chicken. He sprang up, ready to shout for help, then she snored again. Blade laughed. Katerina was sound asleep, and nothing more.
That was hardly surprising. It was high time they both got some sleep. He bent down, lifted Katerina gently, and carried her off toward the bed.
The sign on the door to his chamber said that Jormin was Meditating. Inside the chamber the Second Consecrated sat on the ceremonial rug, in the correct posture, his eyes closed. Anyone seeing him would have called him a model of devoutness, assuming his inner vision to be fixed upon the gods and their wisdom.
Actually, his inner vision was fixed upon the blond woman who had come to Kano with the man Tyan called Champion of the Gods. He saw her as he wanted her, sprawled naked on the floor of his cell, bruises and welts dark on her pale flesh, doing his bidding, begging and whimpering for the chance to do his bidding.
He would cheerfully have gone into the Mouth of the Gods afterward if he could have made that vision a reality, even once.
Fortunately, there was no need to pay such a price. Others would pay it for him. Others-the people of Kano. If he could deliver the city to Dahrad Bin Saffar and the Raufi, surely-surely they would deliver the woman to him. The woman, and at least some of the power he had always dreamed of wielding.
It would stay a dream now, unless he struck hard and soon. How Tyan had managed this travesty, this «Champion of the Gods» spectacular, Jormin did not know or care. He did know that the First Consecrated had made his position utterly secure by it. Perhaps Tyan could even cast down the Second Consecrated. It was some three hundred years since that had happened, but a First Consecrated who could claim to have the gods in his pocket could do much. Jormin trembled, with fear as well as with desire for the blond woman.
He could not yield up Kano singlehanded, of course. He would need the help of the Jade Masters, and doubtless they would demand a share in the rule of Kano after the Raufi came. They wouldn't demand the woman, however. Anything else they could have, and perhaps in time he could find ways of easing them out of even that.
The Jade Masters would not give him that help unless he asked. Even in the asking there was some risk. Tyan's spies were everywhere, and what Tyan's spies did not see, Mirdon's might catch. Yet the alternative was to abandon all hope of the woman, and to sit quietly until Tyan chose to strike him down.
He would not do that, not when he could so easily avoid it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The coming of the Champion of the Gods touched off three days of hysteria in Kano. It was all Mirdon and the other commanders could do to keep the walls patrolled and the troops disciplined.
Eventually the uproar died down. The people of Kano awoke with monumental hangovers, to realize that the Raufi still had their city under siege. The Champion of the Gods had come, but the Raufi had not gone.
«In fact, we're almost worse off than before,» Mirdon said to Blade one evening as they stood on the outer wall. The campfires of the Raufi gleamed ominously in the darkness only two miles away. «All the food that got eaten up in the celebrations these past few days is food we'll miss before long. The Raufi aren't going to lift the siege simply because you've come, and as long as they stay here we're cut off.»
Either someone had told Mirdon Blade's secret, or the man had guessed it himself. But he knew how important keeping that secret was for Kano, and he held his tongue. He spoke to Blade as one experienced soldier to another. That put both of them at ease. Blade quickly found himself both liking and respecting Mirdon.
«Besides,» Mirdon went on, «everyone is going to think each Kanoan is now worth ten of the Raufi, because the gods are on our side. I know that isn't true, you know that isn't true, but do the people, the common soldiers, know it? They don't. That means before long they'll be clamoring to be led out against the Raufi. If we listen to that clamor, they'll be butchered and the Raufi can walk in over the bodies. If we don't yield, they'll start clamoring for my head at least, and sooner or later for yours and Tyan's. Then we'll have civil war in Kano, and the Raufi will be certain to find someone willing to let them through the gates.»
Mirdon looked along the walls, with their cannon-armed towers and their helmeted musketeers. «If the Raufi would make an attack on the walls now, we could butcher them. We've got all the men and guns and powder we need. Everyone will fight like tigers with the Champion's eye on them. Their inexperience won't matter. All they'll have to do is stand or die, and they can and will do that.
«But if Dahrad Bin Saffar has half the brains he must have to have done all that he's done, he won't order an attack. The Raufi will sit out there and wait. They can wait longer than we can, and eventually they'll win.»
Mirdon sighed and turned back to Blade with a bitter smile on his long face. «Champion, I don't hold this against you. You've done much and you'll do more, and I'm sure in the end you'll die gallantly with us. But one miracle isn't enough. We'll need another one to save Kano.»
Blade spent a good part of his time during the next few days wandering around Kano, inspecting the fighters. He discovered that Mirdon was quite right. With enough food and ammunition, the city could hold out for any length of time. Unfortunately, it would be out of both within a month or two.
Those who knew this were carefully keeping quiet. Everyone else seemed cheerfully confident that the coming of the Champion meant certain victory, although nobody seemed very clear about how that victory was to come about.
Blade was able to do a few useful things. He started regular firing practice and inspection of weapons among the musketeers. He organized mobile reserves of cavalry, infantry riding in carts, and horse-drawn artillery. He did a good many other things that would improve the odds if the Raufi attacked the city's walls. What he couldn't do was anything that would make the Raufi launch their attack. That, as Mirdon said, would take a miracle.
While Blade was at work as a general, Katerina was working even harder on her «intelligence» assignment-watching Jormin and finding out what he might be up to. Either she was having no luck, or she was being very closemouthed about what she was learning. She would vanish for the better part of a day, then return, obviously exhausted, but unwilling, to say anything about where she'd been or what she'd done.
Blade wasn't worried about betrayal now. What bothered him was that something was making Katerina violate one of the first principles of intelligence work: pass on what you learn as fast as you learn it. If she vanished now, whatever she might have learned about Jormin would vanish with her.
The thought of her vanishing and dying unpleasantly made him uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable about that made him feel even worse. He could not afford to care as much about Katerina's safety as he was doing, or to let her mean as much to him as she had come to. If he went much farther down that road, she would see what was happening to him. Then, if she was still a clearheaded professional, she would find some way to take advantage of what Blade felt. He would not yet call what he felt «love.» But by any name it was not what he should be feeling, and it had him more and more worried as the days went by.