«Curim. This was your work, wasn't it?»
It was the captain's turn to go pale. Tressana raised her hand, and five of the guardswomen turned their rolghas and lowered their lances. Blade stood quietly, his hands at his sides. In spite of his rage, he knew that a single wrong word or movement could set off a bloody fight. He might die in it, and even if he didn't Tressana could be killed. Then there would be chaos in Jaghd.
«Well?» Tressana's voice cut like a whip. Curim swallowed, then nodded. The queen laughed. Blade had seldom heard such unpleasant laughter. Then she smiled, without warmth. «Curim, I do not know what you thought to accomplish by this. I will not ask, either. I will simply give you a choice. Slay the archer now with your own hands or lay down your post as captain of the Men's Guard.»
Curim never had a chance to obey or refuse. The archer let out an animal roar and with desperate strength tore himself free of the men holding him. He hurled himself at Curim. Blade was in the man's path and acted almost by reflex. He reached into his own belt, drew the dead guardsman's dagger, then thrust upward at the archer. The man's leather armor deflected the point upward, but only from his heart into his throat. Blade jerked the dagger free and the archer staggered a few more steps, then fell and lay still. Blade wiped the dagger on the dead man's breeches, then raised it hilt-first in salute to Tressana.
«Your Grace, this was a more fitting end for the archer. I killed him with his comrade's dagger. Now his comrade can rest easy, although he himself was not blameless in this affair.»
Blade's words set all the guards murmuring and whispering, except for Curim. He stood, trying not to look at either Blade or the queen, until Tressana spoke again.
«So be it. I will say that justice has been done, and will say no more of this. Curim, you still have your place, but it would be best if you kept out of my sight until I say otherwise.»
«But-«
«You will obey.» Tressana made a pointed gesture at the guardswomen all around. Some of them now had their bows in their hands. Curim growled something which it was probably well nobody understood, mounted his rolgha, and rode off. When he was out of sight Tressana dismounted, held on to her stirrup for a moment, then turned to Blade.
«Blade of England, why did you take it upon yourself to deal out First Justice to the archer?»
«I did not take it upon myself, Your Grace. It was thrust upon me by the fool himself.» He pointed at the dead man.
«You could have stepped aside and let him slay Curim.»
«Then I would have been guilty of Curim's death.»
«This worries you, after Curim sought your life by treachery?»
«If I let him die, his men would want my blood, and there are many of them. Why should I make more enemies than necessary?»
«Blade, I could still almost believe that you lied about not being of Elstan. They have a way of fighting without weapons much like yours. But to defeat three of our guardsmen-well, even if you are not of England, you are certainly of no land under any sun which has ever shone on Jaghd or Elstan.» She laughed again and rested one hand lightly on Blade's shoulder. She had to reach up rather a long way to do so.
At this point one of the guards collapsed on the grass, overcome by the heat. The doctor hurried forward to help him, and behind the doctor came Sikkurad. He also looked as if he would like to faint, but his voice was steady.
«Your Grace, the gods have shown us that Blade is not of Elstan, and that Curim is-«
«Never mind Curim, Keeper. You are claiming your reward for proposing this test of Blade?»
«Yes.» Blade noticed that unlike Curim, Sikkurad was able to meet the queen's eyes. «I would ask Blade to take guest-right in my house, while you find a place for him.»
«Such a warrior should be a guest among warriors, not in the house of a Keeper.»
«He should also be at a safe distance from Curim, at least for a month or so.»
«That also is true. But-«Blade half expected her to say, «But you will obey.» Instead it was the queen who looked away, and the Keeper who looked at Blade.
«Will you accept my house and all within it for a month, Lord Blade?»
«I will.»
«Good.» He hurried off, to help the doctor with the sun-stricken soldier. The queen's back was still turned to Blade, and he risked a quick look at Jollya. She seemed to feel his stare and turned slightly to look back at him. Unmistakably, she winked. Blade smiled, and resisted the temptation to laugh.
He might have rejected Tressana's friendship or even made an enemy of her by accepting Sikkurad's hospitality.
On the other hand, he suspected that he would learn more, and be in less danger, in the Keeper's house. Sikkurad could certainly answer most of his remaining questions about this Dimension, and the Keeper's guards seemed to be honorable men even if Curim, their captain, was not.
He also looked forward to seeing more of Jollya.
Chapter 9
Neither Sikkurad nor his daughter turned out to have as much time for Blade as he'd hoped. Sikkurad's duties as Keeper of the Animals forced him to travel all over Jaghd, although he hated riding and groaned aloud at the thought of a day in the saddle. As for Jollya, rumor said that the queen was finding all sorts of new errands for her, to keep her away from her father's house and thus away from Blade.
Blade had plenty of time to listen to this rumor, and to all the others going around. He had nothing to do, in fact, but eat four meals a day, run, swim, exercise, and get back the rest of his strength. After a week of this he was becoming irritable from sheer boredom. He would cheerfully have taken one of the servant girls to bed, or gone into Sikkurad's library of books, scrolls, and parchments to start learning about Jaghd on his own. Unfortunately the servant girls were curiously reluctant to approach him, although he heard admiring comments about him when they thought he wasn't listening. The library was simply forbidden territory, guarded by six or eight of Sikkurad's household fighters who were as deaf as fence-posts to all Blade's arguments.
Without the rumors, Blade might have started feeling that he was simply in another, more comfortable, prison. Instead he was able to put the rumors together into a picture of how things were going in Jaghd. He could have done a better job if he'd known a little more about the history of this Dimension, but he could be sure of one thing: Jaghd was getting ready for war against Elstan.
There could be no other explanation for all the tales of rolghas and draft animals being gathered, metal hoarded for weapons, new soldiers recruited and trained, hard bread and salt meat piled up high in the storehouses. If half these tales were true, the war might even break out while Blade was still in this Dimension.
That explained why everyone was so ready to see spies under every bush and behind every door. It didn't explain how the army of Jaghd was supposed to get over the mountains that lay between it and Elstan. Blade had seen just enough of the mountains to agree that they were completely impassable to any large body of men. The only other ways to invade Elstan were by boat up the Adrim River, or through the forest of Binaark itself.
The Adrim was navigable only two months of the year, and in those two months the Jaghdi and the Elstani did all their trading. The rest of the year it was either too shallow, too fast, or jammed with ice which flowed down from the river's source in the mountains. An army coming up the Adrim would find the Elstani ready for it. After a month or two it would be completely cut off from its homeland, trapped by the water level, the currents or the ice. The army would have no supply source and the Elstani would only have to hold out for that month and a little longer, then round up the starving survivors of Jaghd's fighting men. The fact that the Jaghdi were all cavalry and that their rolghas ate ten or fifteen pounds of meat a day made matters even worse.