"Taleen says you are a wizard, Blade. This is true?"
He played it straight and for all it was worth. For the moment he was lost, understanding nothing, yet he sensed that there was deadly purpose in this strange visitation. The smell of intrigue, and of danger, was as palpable in the hut as the stink of the wavering torch.
He bowed again, very slightly this time. "It is true, my lady. You are in need of a wizard?" He let the sarcasm ring clear.
She let it pass. Her hand moved again, a sparkling white moth in the dim light. "Yes, Blade. I need a wizard. But I also need a warrior. You are a fighter, or so Taleen tells me." Again a wisp of spite clung to the princess' name.
"I have killed my share of men." It was true. No need to mention that he had dealt in more sophisticated death, in another life, a different cosmic dimension. She would have named him madman, raving. And death was still death name it how you liked, purvey it as you would. Hot and bloody. Cold and final. The end result was the same.
For a moment there was silence in the hut. The torch sparked and stank. Dank mist sank through the roof hole and lay in ghostly strata near the ceiling. From somewhere in the town came a sudden roar of laughter and the chiming clash of swords. She watched him through the veil.
At last she spoke. "There is none to hear us, Blade. If trouble comes of this I will be believed, not you, and I will see that you are flayed alive, inch by inch. I will speak my heart, with no mincing of words, no lies, no Dru language of many meanings or sometimes none at all. You will listen, Blade, and you will heed well, and then you will forget that I have spoken so. It is action I require of you, not words. All this is understood?"
He inclined his head. This was indeed a night for mystery.
She moved a step closer. The sensual odor of chypre enveloped him.
"There is little time, Blade, so I will be as brief as may be and have you still understand me. Long ago, when I was but a maiden, the Drus prophesied to me that I would one day rule Alb. The old high priestess, long dead now, bespoke me in private and said that I would marry a king. Which I did. I was also told that one day a stranger would come his visage and manner were not foretold but he would be a warrior, in great repute with ladies, and through him I would come to rule Alb."
Blade was listening with great attention, every sense attuned. It was all mumbo-jumbo, no doubt a stock Dru prophecy designed to flatter, and yet here he was. With the Lady Alwyth, Queen of Alb.
She sensed his thought and from behind the veil came a spate of mirthless laughter. "I also doubted, even then when I was a callow virgin. The Drus are great liars and twist words as a smith twists iron. Yet I did not forget. And you are here, Blade. Who can gainsay it?"
Blade nodded in silence. Who indeed could gainsay it! Not he. Not since Lord Leighton and his infernal, and erratic, computer.
"I will ease your mind about the Princess Taleen, who I think is so much taken with you," she went on. The spite-fulness was back. "She came at once to me and, though we hate each other, tried to cozen me that I speak to the king and get you a place at the War Council. As brazen as any camp whore, she was. I listened, saying but little, and so learned much about you. Is it true, Blade, that she came on you sleeping naked in the forest?"
"It is true. I was carried by magic from my own land, where I am a wizard, and by a miscalculation I was unclothed."
He watched her narrowly, trying to judge reaction behind the veil.
"That is as may be," she said calmly. "I do not believe it, but it is of no moment. As soon as Taleen was empty of words I realized that my time had come, that perhaps the old Dru did not lie for profit and favor. I had a potion made and gave it to Taleen in broth. It stimulates the swooning sickness, and she lies so now."
Blade scowled. "You have harmed her? Or intend to?"
A quick negation of the white hand, jewels glinting. "I have not harmed her. She merely sleeps, and so being harmless will not be harmed. I am not fool enough to risk the wrath of her father, Voth of the North. And she is cousin to my husband, Lycanto. He is a fool, a drunkard and a weakling who seeks to dip his limp sword into every female he can find, yet an affront to his own. blood would rouse him. I play not that game. Instead I shall be sly and send Taleen back to her father, with ample escort, and so gain credit with Voth for saving her from the evil Beata."
"Which I did," growled Blade.
The white veil moved as she nodded. "Which you did. And for which I will be credited." She was yet closer to him, the scent of her stronger, her white hands fluttering near his nakedness.
"A small matter, Blade. Suffice that we get Taleen out of the way with no blame to us. Forget her. I have arranged that you sit on the War Council this night'."
He did not show his surprise. He nodded gravely. "To what purpose, my lady? I know my purpose, my reasons for asking Taleen to arrange this, but what purpose of yours that I sit on this Council?"
"For diverse reasons." She ticked them off on bejeweled fingers. "That you come to know Lycanto and his warriors, most especially his chiefs and captains, for it is with them that you must deal when he is dead."
A hard smile crooked the corner of Blade's firm mouth. "He is going to die, then?" His feigned surprise sounded nearly genuine.
Impatience now, for the first time. "Taleen said you were a fool in some things, yet not a fool in many. Be not a fool now! Why think you I am here, skulking like a thief in dark night? What manner of wizard are you that cannot see what is in my mind?"
He turned brusque. "You are right, my lady. I would be a poor wizard indeed if I could not read you. You wish me to slay Lycanto?"
A careless shrug. "Or have him slain. It is all one to me. I do not know how wizards do these things, but it would be better if the blame lies not on you."
His little bow was mocking. "And certainly not on you, eh, my lady?"
"Certainly not on me." She glanced around the rude hut with disdain. "I leave you soon, and when I go from this pigsty I leave all knowledge of what was spoken here. I will mind my wifely affairs and wait for news that Lycanto is dead. How you arrange it is nothing to me. Perhaps you cannot arrange it, and it is you who will be killed, and this too matters not to me. It will mean that you are a poor wizard and not the stranger prophesied to me by the old Dru. I have done all I can I have procured you a place at the Council, where for a little time you will sit as a peer and be listened to. There is danger, grave danger. For you. You will be tested, well tested, for if Lycanto is a fool most of his chiefs are not. But if you succeed, Blade, if you win, there will be reward enough."
"And this reward?"
"Great enough, Blade, for a man who now has nothing and who stands to win everything. Enough for a beggar who can die at the whim of any drunken man at arms and no penalty to pay, save it be a paltry few scills in murder tax. You will rule with me, Blade, if you prove the man for it. In bed as in battle, and the proving lies on you. You see I do not lie or give false promises. There is no need for such, with you."
He nodded. So be it. It was as much as he could hope for in the circumstances. He would play her game minute by minute, hour by hour, and at the same time play his own game. He must tread a prickly path, and no help for it.
He took a step toward her. They were very near now,and her scent was cloying and tantalizing in his nostrils. Taleen had aroused him and he had fought it back; the Lady Alwyth, with her doll's figure and scent, her veil and its aura of mystery, most of all the murder in her heart, aroused a cold and careless lust in him. She sought to use him as weapon. Very well, he would use her as receptacle to cool his lust. At once. Here. Now. Swiftly and brutally.
He reached for the veil. "I would see your face, my lady."