The leather curtain swung aside and a young woman entered. She too was a mixture. She wore baggy trousers and a shapeless tunic of leather, and her feet were bare. But she was freshly scrubbed, and her dark hair flowed clean and glossy down her back.
The Pethcine blood in her showed in the olive complexion, the black hair, the slight tilt to her eyes. But she had a massive, almost jutting nose, plump round cheeks tanned from many hours in the sun and the wind, and an even rounder bosom and hips that showed through her baggy garments. Around her hips was a rawhide belt, and from it hung a sheathed dagger. She moved with a sturdy grace, her stride long and free, her pose showing no sign of submission or fear.
She stopped as she saw Blade.
«So you are Mazda.» Her voice was low and respectful, but she did not sound at all awestruck at being in Mazda's presence.
«I am Mazda,» said Blade.
«Do you find me fit and pleasing for coi, Mazda?» Again her voice was respectful, but not submissive. She looked at Blade as she spoke, as if defying him to say that she was not fit and pleasing.
«I think you are both fit and pleasing,» said Blade. She certainly seemed to be. Blade had been longer than he liked without a woman, but he hadn't lowered his standards. He never did, unless there was a sword pointed at his throat or some equally persuasive argument in favor of bedding a woman he would normally have ignored.
Blade rose, went over to the woman, and took her in his arms. She was taller than he had realized, at least five feet six. After a moment's hesitation her own arms went around him, and her hands began stroking the small of his back.
«What is your name?»
«Chara,» she said softly. «My father was-«Blade bent down and kissed her before she could finish. For a moment her lips were taut under his, then flowered open, warm, wet, and clinging. Her arms tightened around him. He reached down and grasped her tightly by the hips, pulling her hard against him. He was erect now, and her eyes flickered open as she felt his maleness-Mazda's maleness-thrusting up against her.
«It is-I must-«she murmured, gently disentangling herself from him. She unbuckled her belt and let it slide to the floor. Then swiftly she reached down and drew her tunic over her head. She wore nothing under it. Her skin had a coppery glint to it in the faint lamplight, and her full breasts swayed gently as she moved. Her nipples were large and dark, and Blade could see that they had already sprouted into hard little points. He reached out and stroked those points with thumb and forefinger. Chara swallowed hard several times and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
Her fingers fumbled at the cords of her trousers. Eagerness was pushing her on, desire was distracting her and making her clumsy. Finally she snapped the last cord and hastily shoved her trousers down her hips. They wadded around her ankles; she stepped free and kicked them aside. Naked, open, her breath coming fast, she came toward Blade.
She knelt before him, highlights chasing each other up and down her broad straight back as it curved down. She unknotted Blade's loincloth and threw it aside. Then her head swooped down on his manhood like a falcon on its prey. Warm, wet lips closed around him, swallowed him up, began to slide up and down on him.
Blade gasped, arching his back, knotted his jaw and throat muscles. Chara was no expert at this, but she was enthusiastic. Her enthusiasm was doing everything that skill could have done.
He reached down and locked his hands in her hair, then raised her head. Those maddening lips slid up and away, and Chars raised half-glazed eyes to stare at him.
«Enough,» he said firmly. He let go of her hair and raised her to a standing position. She pressed against him. He could feel the triangle of fine, straight hair between her thighs already damp and rapidly getting damper.
He curled an arm around her, cupping one breast and stroking the nipple, then led her toward his sleeping couch. She seemed almost too eager to take him into herself to be willing to walk that far.
Eventually he lowered her onto the furs. Her body arched as she lay down, her eyes closed, and her hips thrust up and out toward him. He did not have far to go to slide into her.
She was warm and wet and ready, so ready that her body twisted and writhed almost at once. Blade let the spasm pass, then continued his own thrusts. He drove in faster, drove in deeper, locked his hands around her to pull himself all the way into her.
Again she bucked and thrashed and heaved back and forth, tightening her legs about his hips in a bone-cracking hold as ecstasy tore through her. Blade felt himself on the edge, kept on thrusting, felt himself reaching the edge, arched his body forward until his lips were brushing Chara's nipples. He went over the edge. Now it was his turn to heave and thrash and gasp as he poured himself, poured the seed of Mazda, into the woman who was so ready and willing to receive it.
A desire to relax struck Blade all over. His head sagged down to pillow itself between Chara's full breasts. He lay there for a moment, until he realized that his weight must be flattening the woman under him into the furs. Slowly he rolled off, and lay on his back beside her.
A moment later her eyes flickered open, and she sighed long and deeply. «Mazda,» she murmured. «I have taken into me the seed of Mazda.» For the first time there was a note of awe in her voice.
It passed quickly. She raised herself on one elbow and looked Blade up and down. «You are not as large as the tales I heard as a child made you out to be.»
«No doubt.» Blade laughed. «I imagine that I grew a bit every time my adventures were retold, until people began to think of me as ten feet tall.»
Chara nodded. «You did. When the lot fell on me to be the first one to come to your bed, I was frightened for a moment. You were a god in my mind, but also a monster. Then I realized that you could not have been a monster, for I had seen Zulekia, your Beloved, and she was as other women are. If she had not suffered, then I would not.»
«I don't think you suffered at all, Chara,» said Blade. «And neither did I.»
«No,» she said, smiling and resting her head on his chest. «No,» she repeated, sleepily, her eyes flickering several times and finally falling shut. «No,» she murmured, as her breathing grew regular and gentle.
After a while Blade reached down and pulled the furs over both of them. Then he too drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 14
Several days and several women later, Blade appeared before the Council of the People. It took time for King Rikard to summon the members of the council from far and wide across Tharn.
King Rikard also had to call out a good part of the army to guard the King's House from people who wanted to see and hear and touch Mazda. The people accepted being shut out. But few of them went home. Every house in the New City was crammed to the roof, while an improvised city of tents and lean-tos sprang up outside the walls to shelter those who could not be accommodated inside.
Anyara threw up her hands in disgust at the spectacle. «The herds will go untended and unmilked, the weeds unpulled, the babies unbathed, and the roofs unpatched all over Tharn as people wait for Mazda to perform miracles.»
«They're going to have to wait a long time,» said Blade. «As I have said-I must learn more, and then teach the people. Even then we may not know enough to fight the Looters.»
«We know this,» said the king. «It is still good that you have returned to Tharn.»
«It will be far better when people get used to your being among us and get back to work,» said Anyara, with a sour expression on her face.