«Even from there, if I get there in the first place.»
Tera laughed, and the fear was gone from her voice as she spoke. «You will certainly not find that woman trying to keep you out. I think you might even be wise to go there. She is an enemy to both of us, I think. In her bed, you might learn much of what she is thinking.»
It was Blade's turn to laugh. «I might indeed. But what's got into you, Tera? Are you suddenly becoming fond of the games they play here in Karan?»
«I am fond of my own life and of yours,» said the girl flatly. «In Karan, I have come to see there are things one must do to live that are not needed in Scador.»
Scador was much on Blade's mind these days. With the Pass of Scador gaping open, the tribes were swarming down into the frontier lands of Karan, doing everything Blade had expected they would do. Thousands of farmers were driven from their homes, and scores of villages and small towns went up in flames. Improvised Scadori cavalry, mounted on captured horses, raided far and wide, sometimes reaching nearly halfway to Karanopolis itself. The Karani infantry tramped up and down the country, and the farmers themselves took up boar spears and hunting bows to defend their fields and families. But the tribesmen were here, there, and everywhere, as elusive and painful as a cloud of wasps.
It was soon clear that they were going to spend the winter in Karan. No invader of the Empire had done that in three hundred years. The Emperor called a special conference of his most trusted military advisers to discuss this crisis.
Once more Blade urged a bold course of action. They should do like the Scadori themselves. Every fighting man who could ride should climb on the back of any horse that would carry him, and all should ride to the Pass of Scador. Cut off from their homeland, the tribesmen might panic, retreat toward the pass, and be forced into a pitched battle. If they didn't retreat, a mounted force could burn their camps and defeat their roving bands one by one.
If Duke Pardes had been at the conference, he might have helped Blade. But the big eunuch was in bed at his country estate, injured in a fall from his horse. That was bad luck for everyone except Pardes' enemies and those generals who still couldn't make up their minds how to fight a war without the Guardians of the Coral Throne. Once more they banded together to vote down Blade, and once more Jores VII couldn't nerve himself to ignore their vote.
Blade was so furious that he was afraid he might burst out in a rage at the Emperor himself. To avoid that disaster, he left the Palace at once, stalking out into the windy darkness. Normally he would not have tried walking home, even in the Palace Quarter. But tonight he didn't care. He felt he would almost welcome a chance to fight off a few robbers, to work off his rage and frustration. Any robbers who met him in his present mood would regret it, if they lived long enough.
He was more than halfway home when a carriage with four horses and two outriders overtook him. As he stepped aside to let it pass, a woman stuck her head out the window and hailed him.
«Lord Blade! What has you walking here and alone, at this hour?»
It was Princess Amadora. Blade instinctively sized up the opposition, in case things came to a fight. The two outriders were both armed, but they were only two, and one of them was gray-haired. So were the two coachmen.
«My Lady Princess,» he replied. «You yourself travel thinly attended on your affairs. I might with reason be as curious as you are. Shall I be, or shall we both keep silence?»
The princess laughed. «Indeed, you play masterfully with words, and your judgement is sound. But at least climb into my carriage, and I can carry you some part of the way home. I am sure you can stand off any number of robbers, but what of rain?»
Indeed thunder was beginning to rumble in the west, and lightning flashes silhouetted the palace towers. A few cold drops were already spattering down on the dusty bricks of the road. Blade shrugged. Why not? The princess could not take him by surprise unless she was willing to try killing with her own hands. Everything Blade had heard of her suggested she preferred to use other people as her tools. Besides, he had found few chances to listen to the woman.
He climbed in and settled himself on the cushioned and brocaded seat behind her. The carriage moved off in the darkness. Blade relaxed as much as he could without moving his hand far from his sword hilt. The air in the carriage was heavy with Amadora's perfume. When he looked at her, it seemed that her eyes were glowing in the dark, like a cat's.
Moved by an impulse to test her, Blade reached out a hand and stroked her hair. She turned farther toward him, and he saw a flicker of white teeth in the darkness as she smiled. He half-expected her to speak, but she seemed to feel no need for words. One hand came up and stroked the side of his neck. The other took one of his own hands and lifted it to her lips. Her tongue flicked nimbly across the palm. Blade felt a warmth creeping into his groin. He could not have prevented it if he'd wanted to, and for the moment he didn't want to.
Amadora sighed, let go of his hand, and unfastened the brooch that held her cloak around her. It slid to the floor of the carriage, leaving her shoulders gleaming bare in the dim light from the carriage's lantern. A moment later she flowed up against Blade, and her lips were on his.
Amadora's kiss and Amadora's embrace would have aroused Blade if nothing else had. They would have aroused a stone statue. Every hour the princess had ever spent with any man had taught her something. Now she was using all those years of learning on Blade.
Her tongue was in his mouth, seeking out his tongue like some particularly nimble snake. Her hands fluttered up and down his body. The pattern might have seemed aimless, but to Blade her lightest and most random touch carried fire. He groaned and reached out for the princess. His hands stroked her throat and shoulders and crept across the upper slopes of her breasts. He stopped there for a moment, until he could be sure of not fumbling like a schoolboy. Then he began to slowly work the princess' brocade gown down off her shoulders. As it came, he bent his head forward and buried his lips in the scented valley between her breasts.
A moment later her own hands slipped inside his tunic and began to play on his bare skin. His own gasp echoed hers. The gown slipped down farther, and his lips closed on an exposed nipple. It was already jutting and hard as his lips began playing with it. His hand reached up to cup the other breast as it came free of the gown, and he caressed and stroked and plucked. Amadora's gasps turned to moans, and her own hands crept lower.
A sudden lurching of the carriage nearly broke Blade's grasp on the princess and threw him to the floor. They caught each other around the waists and held on, clasped together, until the lurching faded away. Amadora threw back her head and laughed long and exuberantly. She was half-hysterical with delight and passion.
Blade raised himself out of the seat until his head was bumping the roof of the carriage. His hands and Amadora's together struggled with the buckles and lacings of his trousers. Her hands tightened into claws as she hauled the trousers down, leaving Blade bare below the waist. Amadora's lips closed around his almost painful erection for a moment. Then she seemed to realize that Blade was already as prepared as any man could ever be. The last thing he needed was her lips working on him. Blade groaned with relief as those warm lips slipped away, and clutched at what was left of his self-control.