Blade obeyed, smiling at the man. Sylvo, though guarding him, treated Blade with a mixture of deference, awe and resolution.
Blade crossed his massive arms and stared at the man. "How much longer am I to be penned in this sty?"
Sylvo placed the trencher in the middle of the floor and retreated to the door. He seemed in a mood for talk, and Blade thought he smiled in return. With Sylvo it was hard to tell. Not only was his balding head misshapen the midwife had not been gentle in wrenching him from the womb but his terrible squint and harelip lent him a countenance that must have set infants to squalling whenever he passed.
Blade, bored and frustrated, wrathful and more nervous than he liked to admit to himself took a sudden notion to bait the man. He squatted by the trencher and, after a bite of bread and meat and a long quaff of the beer, pointed the mutton bone at Sylvo.
"Do you know, my man, that you are singularly unprepossessing?"
Sylvo's face creased. His eyes, what Blade could see of them behind the squint, were small, beady and black.
"Thank you kindly, master. It is not often that poor Sylvo hears kind words. Cuffs and kicks it is, usually. I thank you even though I know not the meaning of such high born words."
Blade choked back laughter with another mouthful of meat, and felt a moment's shame for his baiting of the man. The poor fellow was only doing his job.
He swallowed and said, "You do not answer my question. How much longer am I to be penned here?"
Sylvo scratched himself vigorously. He wore a loose linen tunic, falling free over baggy breeches cross-gaitered from the knee down. On his sparsely haired pate was the usual metal cap, set at a rakish angle. His feet were bare and filthy. A most unsoldierly oaf, Blade thought, yet noted that the beady little eyes never left him and the spear was always at the ready.
Sylvo found a louse in his armpit and killed it before he answered. "As to that, master, I can give no answer unless I lie. And though I am undoubtedly a bastard, and the son of a whore, and Thunor knows that I have more sins than virtues, I have never been a liar. Neither am I King Lycanto, and it is he alone that can answer your question. Content yourself, master. It is none so bad in here. Think of me. Of Sylvo. I am the one suffering."
Blade repressed a grin. "You suffer? How so?"
Sylvo threw out a hand and shrugged in disgust, yet the other hand kept the spear steady on Blade. "I have not been relieved, that is how. I have been forgotten. As usual. The beer is flowing as free as the tides, there are women to be had everywhere for the taking, and I have been stuck with the task of guarding you. Is that not suffering?"
Blade agreed that it was. And offered a solution. "That is easily put to rights. Why guard me so closely? I am alone, one man in an unfriendly camp. I cannot escape. What could I do? Where could I go? And who is to know if you leave your post for a little time? Go and get your share of the beer, Sylvo. Take time for a woman. I will be here when you come back."
The man's scrawny body began to shake. He rocked back and forth and from his malformed lips came a cackling sound that Blade recognized, with some difficulty, as laughter.
"Ar, master. You will be here right enough! And so will I watching you. My head is not pretty, I admit, but I have no wish to have it struck off and stuck on a pole."
Blade had not really expected the gambit to work. He was convinced there was more to Sylvo than met the eye,though that was horrendous enough. He changed the subject.
Scraping up meat crumbs with a bit of black bread, he said: "What of Getorix? The one they call Redbeard. I had thought that King Lycanto would march against him today."
Sylvo made an odd sound with his mouth. "So likewise had we all thought at least the common folk. But not so. Men are slow in arriving, those who have arrived are drunk, and there is more gambling and chariot racing than drilling. More wenching than spear sharpening. The captains quarrel among themselves and sulk when they are overruled. The king and his wife, Alwyth, have also quarreled she threw a pannikin at his head in plain view of all the men and in general the town is like a hen coop with a fox loose in it. Yet all may be well. We have word that Redbeard plans to land at Penvey, which is only a day's march to the south, and it is yet possible that we will be there to meet him."
Sylvo yawned mightily, showing a few blackened teeth. "I hope so, master, for guarding my betters is not my idea of a soldier's work. There is no fun in it, and no profit." He glanced about the barren hut with disgust. "No loot, master. Not a scill's worth."
Blade came alert at the mention of Alwyth. He still had hopes for his plan of establishing an identity and a status though it would involve some canny lying and if Sylvo knew of Alwyth's doings he might also know something of Taleen. Who, he thought grumpily, was letting him down. He set about pumping the man as best he could.
Blade shook his head. "So the king and his queen quarrel in public? That is bad, Sylvo. Of what do they dispute?"
The man squinted at him and chuckled. "None of your affair, master, and yet I will tell you. It is common enough knowledge. The king is a great cock and likes his hens of late he has been topping a serving wench by name of Gweneth. All knew but the queen but now she has found out and the wench has disappeared. The king is sullen about it, and very full of beer else he would not have brought it into the open and he claims that Alwyth has done away with the girl. Or had it done, since the queen is not likely to soil her own hands with the murder of a servant."
Blade failed, for an instant, to guard his expression. And learned that the man Sylvo was indeed shrewd.
"You have an odd look to you, master. Could you know aught of this?"
Blade managed innocence. "I know of it? How? I am a stranger, as you well know. I have no friends in Sarum Vil, unless it be the Princess Taleen, for whom I did some small service. And she," he added gloomily, "has forgotten me."
For a moment the rude hut vanished and Blade was back in the glade of sacred oaks. That silver hair, the slim body, the lovely and demonic face as the golden sword slashed down. Who was she? Where had she gone? He did not know it at the time, but it was the beginning of a long haunting.
And it explained, or so he would have sworn, how the servant girl had come into the hands of the Drus.
At the mention of Taleen the guard's hideous face brightened. "Ar," he admitted, "there is a woman for you! Only a girl, I know, and no doubt virgin as the high born keep their daughters, but a woman none the less. The man who first cleaves that cunna will be a fortunate knave indeed. Ar, that he will."
Blade frowned at him, pretending anger. "I think you speak above yourself."
Sylvo laughed, not a bit abashed. "Ar, master, perhaps I do. But who is to know? You? Come now, master. You are a beggar with one pair of ragged breeches. I do not fear you. Though I admit that you are probably high born and could strangle me like a newborn babe, yet it serves you nothing. For a time I am master here and you are prisoner. Is that not the truth of it?"
Blade grinned and admitted that it was. And made a vow to teach Sylvo manners, if ever the opportunity arose.
"What of the Princess Taleen. Have you seen her?"
Sylvo was seeking for another louse in his armpit. "Only when the two of you first entered town. Since then she has kept to herself in the king's great house. You seem to have a great interest in the princess, master."
Blade watched the play of speculation across the ruined face. Bawdiness was second nature to the man. Then Sylvo shook his head so hard that his helmet nearly tumbled off.
"No! It is not possible. The princess is of the high blood and you "
There was a light tapping at the door. Sylvo, who had been squatting on his heels, leaped up and half faced the door, yet keeping the spear vigilant on Blade. The man grinned. "Ar, that will be my relief. About time, by Thunor! I shall have my share of the beer and women after all."