If not, there was always Mythor. If Kloret was telling the truth, the people there might be glad to hide a man who needed to stay away from the rulers of Gohar. But was Kloret telling the truth?
The other people allowed to see Blade during his thirty days in the villa didn't help him answer that question. They mentioned Mythor freely, but only when it was a question of trade or history. The question of a rebellion might not just be Kloret's imagination, but it very well could be another state secret to be kept from Blade.
After a while, talking with the people who had a «security clearance» became amusing, and then boring. Blade's position as a man who could carry news back to the future helped keep him safe. It also helped make sure that most of the people who came to see him wanted to make sure the English Historians knew their names, deeds, and virtues. They didn't seem to care whether they'd held any important position or done anything noteworthy. All they wanted was Blade on their side, and some of them weren't particularly subtle. While under the Emperor's protection, Blade could not easily be threatened. So people tried bribery.
Blade found himself being offered women and girls, men and boys, gold and silver, jewels, spices, wine, drugs, and every other imaginable form of wealth or pleasure. He began to feel like a politician surrounded by all the special-interest groups in the world at once. At times he thought of taking up one or two of the more outrageous offers, just to see if the people would deliver. More often, he began to wonder if he'd made the right choice in calling himself a man from the future. Being dragged into Gohar's religious politics might have been easier and perhaps even safer.
Prince Harkrat visited twice. Those visits were a positive relief to Blade, even though his shoulders and back were bruised and aching afterward from the prince's bear hugs and bear slaps. The prince was happy to talk to Blade as one warrior to another without worrying about what the English would know of him a thousand years from now.
The first time, they talked of nothing but women, wine, and war. Blade gave an edited description of warfare in the twentieth century, and explained that he couldn't tell anymore without breaking the Historians' laws.
«Of course, of course,» said Harkrat cheerfully. «Don't worry about that. We're a long way from knowing the magic needed for those chariots without horses and those ships without rowers or sails. If it isn't known in Gohar it isn't known anywhere in our time. So even if we could build the chariots and ships, we wouldn't need them. Don't worry, Blade. Your English secrets are safe, and you'll have my word on that if anyone argues.»
On the prince's second visit, the talk was more formal, because Harkrat brought his wife Elyana.
«Only one wife, you understand,» Harkrat said. He seemed slightly ashamed, as if Blade might question his virility for not having the six wives Goharan law permitted him. «My father insisted.»
Thrayket was wise. Given free rein, someone as full-blooded as Harkrat might sow enough children across Gohar to hopelessly confuse the succession and breed civil war.
Elyana was tall for a Goharan woman, nearly reaching her husband's shoulder. She was dark, with a plump, almost plain face but a truly magnificent figure draped to advantage in a heavily embroidered robe of silk-like tissue with a pearl-studded belt and sandals. She was also obviously intelligent and alert, with a quick, even sharp tongue-and not held back from using it by her husband. This was something of a surprise to Blade, since even among the highest nobility Goharan women were given little freedom and less education.
Elyana began the conversation with a question about books in Blade's England, and kept things moving after that. Within a few minutes, Harkrat was leaning back in his chair, trying not to look too obviously bored. He had the easily recognizable expression of the husband who knows little and cares less about what his wife is discussing.
With a fine sense of tact and timing, Elyana changed the topic just as her husband showed signs of real impatience. Now both prince and princess talked of the feast they'd give for Blade when the thirty days came to an end.
«Don't know what my father's thinking,» Harkrat said. «I never have, I probably never will. He doesn't talk much. But we'll have the feast no matter what he does. Either we'll welcome you among us, or send you back to England in a good mood. That's all I'm going to do to get on your good side, in spite of what all those other damned fools are offering.»
«You've heard some of the things I've been offered?»
«Of course. I'd have to be deaf not to, considering how some of them have talked, and cursed you for being-whatever you are.»
«Perhaps he's just incorruptible,» said Elyana, smiling.
Harkrat rumbled with laughter. «He's not human if he is.»
«You may be right, but I could hope you're wrong,» she said. «And who knows? Things may be so arranged in England that an honest man can rise high.» She didn't smile as she said this, and both Blade and her husband noticed it. There was a moment's silence, then Harkrat put an affectionate arm around his wife.
«Lovely one, I believe in a lot of things, including-«Here he listed several parts of Elyana's body, so that she blushed and feebly tried to pull away from him. «But not even HemiGohar can make a world where honest men can prosper in a palace. So I'll go on believing that Blade's got something hidden in his boot. I do believe that it's nothing dangerous to us, though. Fair enough?»
«Oh, I agree with you,» said Elyana. Her smile was back, but only Blade noticed that it was pasted on like a fashion model's. Then prince and princess rose, and Elyana held out a hand to Blade. As etiquette required, he kissed his fingertips, then pressed them to the palm of her hand.
«Until we meet again.»
Chapter 8
The next time Blade met Harkrat and Elyana, it was at the banquet held to celebrate the end of his thirty days in seclusion. It also celebrated his welcome to Gohar.
«Naturally you will obey the same laws as any other noble of Gohar,» said the Emperor, when he'd finished giving Blade the news. «Otherwise you may go where you wish, see what you wish, and ask any questions of any man, woman, or child.» He smiled thinly. «I do not promise that you will always get answers, though. The people of Gohar will honor a Historian from the future, but they will not let him into their bedchambers or baths.»
«I doubt if I'll need to go there,» said Blade. «Your Radiance has given me permission to do practically everything necessary.»
Thrayket appeared unmoved by the praise. «Thank me if you must,» he said sourly. «But don't forget to thank my son, and above all thank my son's wife.»
«Elyana?»
«Of course. My son has only one wife, as I'm sure he's told you more times than there are fingers on both our hands! At times I think I would have done better to let him take the lawful six. Elyana is worth two or three ordinary women, but half the time she forgets that she's a woman at all. Ah well,» with a long sigh. «I'll not burden or bore you with tales of an old man's family troubles.»
Blade was quite sure that hearing the secrets of the Imperial family would be neither a burden nor a bore. He was equally sure that it was something he could hardly ask. He stood in silence as Thrayket struggled to his feet and departed.
Was it just his imagination, or did Thrayket look and sound weaker than he had thirty days ago?