Taleen, wearing the scarlet cloak against the chill, rode between them and for the most part in silence. Blade noticed that once she had taken the few stitches necessary to transform her tunic into breeches, she did not appear to mind disclosing her tanned legs nearly to the hip. Women were wayward creatures in any time, place or dimension!
Blade grew more uncomfortable as the day wore on. His buttocks had been well scorched and the chafing of the wooden saddle did not improve matters. During a halt to rest themselves and to blow the horses and let them drink the brackish water, Blade mentioned this discomfort to Sylvo.
The man laid a finger alongside his nose, blinked, then went to where his horse was drinking. Blade followed him, Taleen having discreetly withdrawn behind a tall screen of reeds for reasons of her own.
For the first time Blade paid close attention to the bulging saddlebags borne by Sylvo's horse. They were crude, of unworked hide, and so fully packed that they would not latch. Blade, who was wearing a new shirt and breeches, and a vest of light mail, all taken from Horsa's domicile, watched Sylvo as he rummaged in the saddle bags.
"You spent some time in Horsa's place, then? More than I. I had barely time to take what is on my back."
Sylvo kept digging into the saddle bags. "None so long, master. I am an experienced thief, you are not. Ar, that makes the difference. A man of my quality knows what to look for, and where to look for it. A gentleman would not know of such matters."
Blade stroked his chin, hiding a grin with a hand. "There was a dead man in the kitchen, with his throat well slit. As a gentleman I know nothing of it. Do you?"
Sylvo came up with a small parcel wrapped in oiled skin and tied with leather thongs. "I know of it, master. He was a kitchen knave, a servant, of no consequence. He disputed my right there."
"As well he might," Blade said dryly. "Considering that at the time I had not yet killed Horsa."
Sylvo avoided Blade's eye. He indicated the parcel. "Here is a wondrous soothing ointment, master. By your leave I will spread some on you. It has magic powers, or so I have heard, and was made by Ogarth the Dwarf, who also cast the great bronze axe for Horsa."
Blade was staring at the new purse on Sylvo's belt. It was bulging at the sides. He prodded the purse with a finger.
"You found other things as well? Smaller things, but of greater value, that fit easier into a purse?"
"Only some trinkets, master. Poor things they are, too. Horsa had the taste of a barbarian whore. Now, master, shall we apply this magic to your burns?"
Blade let it pass. Taken had reappeared and was standing by her horse, gazing disconsolately at the vast fens stretching northward. Blade and Sylvo vanished behind the reeds.
Blade, dropping his breeches, found a relatively dry spot and stretched on his belly. Sylvo rubbed a dark sweet-smelling ointment on the scorched flesh.
"Ar, master, you took a burning indeed. I could not have stood it I would have run, or begged for mercy."
"And found none."
"Ar, that is Thunor's truth."
"And if I am scorched," Blade said grimly, "it was not so bad as Horsa took." He thought of Horsa standing in the flames, burning alive and still fighting, and shook his head. "You did not see it, Sylvo, for you were too busy thieving, but that Horsa was a man!"
The servant did not answer and after a moment Blade glanced up at him. There was an odd, and thoughtful, expression on Sylvo's seamed and scapegrace face as he applied the ointment in even strokes.
Blade watched three ants dragging a dead fly toward a tiny mound.
Sylvo said: "Ar, master. Horsa was a man. Yet you slew him, so that you are a better man. And at times I wonder vastly at the nature of things "
Already Blade's pain was vanishing. He stifled a yawn, confessing himself still weary, yet knew there was no rest, safety or peace, until he had come to Voth and delivered the girl. There he might expect thanks, along with reward and rest, and a chance to puzzle out this new life of his.
So it was without much real interest that he said: "The nature of what things, man?"
Sylvo spread more ointment. "This thing, master. Putting ointment on your arse! It is a magnificent arse, I admit, and I admire it, but it's really only an arse after all. My own arse is skinny and ill favored, though prettier than my face, but it is as much an arse as yours in the end I do not pun, master.
"So why the difference, master, in our stations? In the nature of things, in true things that count, our arses are much similar. Then why are you master and I man? It is a matter I think on from time to time."
Blade smiled and cuffed him with a good-natured backhand. "Then think on your own time, man, when I have no use for you. Thunor forbid that I have found a philosopher instead of a man and companion at arms. If you voiced such thoughts around Sarum Vil I do not wonder they gave you a dog's name." He stood and pulled up his breeches. "Thank you, Sylvo. I will ride easier now."
"Master."
Blade turned back, slightly vexed. "What now? More philosophy?"
"No, master. This." Sylvo extended the bulging purse to Blade. "I am a liar, master."
Blade kept a straight face. "That I knew already. What else?"
"Look you in the purse, master. You will see. It was a great temptation. I have always been a poor man, and this time I thought to find my fortune. But you have been good to me and have treated me as a man and now I cannot lie to you. Take it all, master, and beat me afterward."
Blade tumbled out the contents of the purse. There were scores of coins, large and small, iron and bronze, and a small leather bag with a drawstring.
"More than twenty mancus," said Sylvo. He sounded pained. "Enough for three farms, and cattle and horses, and as many servants as I could beat. A wife also if I could find one to take me."
Blade emptied the contents of the leather bag into his broad palm. There were twenty matched black pearls, as shining dark as the Devil's heart. Blade extended his palm to let Sylvo see. Faint sunlight broke through just then and the pearls glowed in tenebrous splendor.
"What of these? How came Horsa by such wealth?"
But Sylvo was not impressed by the pearls. He shrugged.
"I know little of such things, though I have seen them before. They are found on the far shore of the Narrow Sea and it is said that the sea raiders value them over all other things. No doubt Horsa took them as loot from a dead enemy. Am I to be beaten, master?"
Blade tucked the little bag of pearls into the waistband of his breeches. The money he scooped back into the purse and tossed to Sylvo. "You will not be beaten. I do not beat honest men, though with you it is sometimes a near thing. The money is yours, the pearls mine. Now come I would reach the forest before the sun goes."
There was yet an hour of light when they left the fens and came into the forest once more. By that time Taleen's mood had changed, she being as mercurial as any weathercock, and during the last hour in the fens Blade rode at her side while they exchanged stories. Blade held back nothing, even to the bargain Lady Alwyth had sought to make with him.
Taleen's lustrous eyes sparked with anger, but her tone was grave. "So you have scorned her, Blade, and because of her face she will deem it worse than that as betrayal. She will not forgive. And she has long had a reputation for dark deeds. I pray Frigga that this Getorix routs Lycanto and puts all Albs to the sword, even though we be cousins. A sword in her heart is all that will quell the evil in Alwyth."
Her face flushed and she used words that might have made Sylvo blanch. "A fine fool she made of me! I admit it. I should have known not to match wiles with her, but I was weary and hungry and thirsty and off guard. She listened to all I said of you and I spoke well, Blade, and praised you too much, because of the danger. I made you out a great deal more than you are."