Blade smiled and told her yes - they could certainly have both. They heard Pelops coming back and she moved away from Blade and put a finger to her lips.
"When he sleeps," she whispered. Blade was relieved to find the idea of privacy was not unknown in Sarma.
Pelops flung three large turtles on the ground near the fire.
These were his strange shelled fish. But how to get to the edible meat? The flint knives were not equal to the iron-hard shells. Blade solved that by simply tearing the shells off with his hands. They ate well enough of turtle steaks roasted on the ends of sharpened sticks.
Zeena retired into the brush for a few minutes. Blade let her go. He did not think she would run away now.
Pelops regarded the big man over the fire. His gaze wavered, then came back to face Blade's stare. He was clearly trying to muster his courage. Blade waited.
"The Princess Zeena - " Pelops began.
Blade nodded encouragement. "Yes, Pelops? What of her?"
Pelops swallowed hard. "She is a Princess, Blade. Daughter of Pphira serving her time as a cadet with the slave patrols so that she may one day learn to govern. All royal women must do this - learn the arts of war and administration, of justice, from the time they are little girls. I myself taught the Princess the art of eloquent speech by reciting day after day the famous speeches of past Queens."
Blade yawned. "You were well chosen for the task, Pelops. But what has this to do with me? And I warn you - no lectures! I am in no mood for them."
"Nor I," said Pelops. "I am a coward, as you know, and much too frightened for lectures. But I must warn you - commoners are forbidden by law to marry royalty. The penalty for so doing is a terrible one - the commoner is hurled alive into the flaming jaws of Bek-Tor."
Pelops made a hasty sign of the T and muttered something that Blade did not catch. He gulped hard and said, "I saw you. I came quietly with the shelled fish at first. When I saw what you were doing I made noise."
Blade regarded him with amusement. "You are a brave little man, Pelops. And you are also something of a fool - I have no thought of marrying Zeena. Why do you think of this?"
"But I saw," exclaimed Pelops. "I saw you touching each other. That is marriage, Blade, and it is forbidden between you."
Blade sighed. He got it now. Sex and marriage were one and the same thing to Pelops and, by extension, in all of Sarma.
He stood up, stretched tremendously, yawned, and patted Pelops on the head. "Don't worry about it, my small friend.
Go to bed. And sleep - do not pry. Think of the future - your own future. What you do not see you cannot be witness to. You understand me?"
Pelops stroked the baby fuzz on his skull. "I understand, sire. You command. I obey. But never forget that I warned you."
"You warned me," Blade said curtly. "Goodnight."
Pelops was already snoring in a corner of the lean-to when Zeena came back. She was dripping from a bath in the lake and she had found twigs and pinned her mass of golden hair high on her head. Blade tossed more brush on the fire and in the sudden flame-flare he examined her with lust and some lurking tenderness. The latter, he thought wryly, he must keep under control. Zeena was yet an unknown quality.
She came closer to him. Blade could smell the clean woman flesh. And something else - the faint musk odor of a woman aroused.
"Oh, Blade," she whispered. "I want you."
She removed her breast plates and dropped them with a little clatter. The full white rounds, pink-brown tipped, blue veined and swollen now with her excitement, trembled like living marble as she moved to him. They spread and flattened against his chest as he took her in his arms. She put her mouth near to his. "Kiss, Blade."
They kissed, standing, for a long time. She was a fast learner and presently drew his tongue into her mouth. She began to manipulate him. Blade kissed and sucked her breasts and' let his hands roam over her body, the small waist, hard firm nates, the long legs, and back.
But when at last he took her to the ground, gently, and tried to take command she would have none of it. She squirmed agilely, with surprising strength, and rolled atop him.
"You do not know," she whispered. "In Sarma it is done so - I am a woman. You are only a man. You must obey me in these things, Blade."
For the moment he humored her. He was aroused and having trouble with his breathing and wanted only to get on with it. Yet she delayed.
Blade lay supine, waiting, his enormous lingam a tower up-thrust. Zeena regarded it, her violet eyes narrowed. She touched it and bent swiftly to kiss, then retreated and made the sign of the T. She stared at the dark sky, then down at earth and scratched a symbol in the dirt. She began to mutter, a prayer or litany of sorts, most of which Blade could decipher although she slurred words and spoke softly.
"I offer myself, Bek-Tor! Two bodied God, God of two, God of good and evil, of sky and earth. I immolate. I marry. I shed my virgin blood and so stain this man with it that never can it be washed clean."
Blade blinked. Virgin? He had not counted on this.
Zeena came to stand wide legged over Blade. She stared down at him with eyes slightly glazed now. Slowly she began to lower herself. Lower - lower -
Blade ached, wanted, desired, demanded. His fingers arched and clawed at the earth. At the moment he was more stallion than man, more beast than human, and knew it and did not care. A sound came out of him that he had never heard before.
Lower. Zeena reached down and found him and guided him to that sinking pink orifice. Flesh touched. Blade fought back the urge to lurch upward and penetrate her. Do it her way. For now.
She raised both hands to the sky. Blade put his hands on her breasts.
Zeena cried out, shrill and sharp, "I marry, Bek-Tor. I marry!"
She let her weight fall on Blade. She pushed down with all her might. Her face twisted in agony and ecstasy and she screamed once. Blade felt the warm stain of blood as it trickled down his thighs.
As his senses fled, as he began to thrust into her, as the slick maddening friction began slowly to build, Blade had a last clear thought.
He was sure as hell married. Married in Sarma, to a Princess of the Royal Blood. What might come of it?
Chapter Eight
In the next week Richard Blade learned much. Enough to stay alive and to see his schemes prosper. He threaded a maze of danger and walked adroitly amid gin and pitfall; he coaxed and cajoled and demanded and threatened. He survived.
It was not without irony, and this he admitted to himself, that his survival was largely due to his phallic prowess. Blade, so magnificently conditioned in body and brain, so painstakingly educated and nurtured through his formative years - and now the end product of Lord Leighton's computer and millions of pounds - now depended almost solely on his ability as a cocksman. There must surely be a moral in the predicament somewhere. He made a firm decision to think it out when he got back to Home Dimension. If ever.
It had been very simple. After the first love making, after Zeena broke her hymen on him, Blade had taken over. To be more exact he had turned her over. When at first she resisted he used force and told her, "I am the man. In my land it is done this way. And this, Zeena, is the way it is going to be!"
And so it was. Zeena soon lost her look of bewilderment, forgot for the moment that women ruled in Sarma, and began to slide under him at every opportunity. Even Blade, as robust as he was, would have welcomed a respite. He was careful not to let Zeena see this.
He developed his plan, revealed it to both Zeena and Pelops and took their acquiescence as a matter of course. If he had learned anything from his excursions into Dimension X it was that he must always be in command. He must stay on top of the situation, think and plan ahead, and hold his mistakes to a minimum.