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  Blade was mildly annoyed with Tressana for not moving him closer to her as soon as she’d made up her mind, instead of leaving him in the same building with Curim. It seemed thoughtless, although he couldn’t see that it put him in any great danger. By missing a few meals Blade managed to avoid eating food that Curim might have been able to get at with poison. This also gave him a lean and hungry look, which Tressana said she liked. As for any open moves, Blade intended to meet any challenge by chopping Curim to bits with the other man’s own steel sword.

  He was more worried for Jollya. It was even more likely now that she was in danger, if Curim thought he could hurt Blade by striking at her. He might even strike at her to hurt the queen, if he hated Tressana enough not to care anymore what happened to him. Blade was careful to be distant and even mildly hostile toward Jollya whenever they met, giving the general impression that they’d quarreled while he was Sikkurad’s guest. She seemed to understand and began to behave as if she in turn had a grudge against Blade for taking Lorma.

  Blade also took the precaution of warning the queen one night about what Curim might do to Jollya. He was as casual as possible about it, since his refusal to ask her favors still interested Tressana. He also didn’t want to arouse her suspicions.

  He wasn’t sure he was casual enough. Tressana rolled over in bed and ran her fingers down Blade’s torso to his groin. «Did Jollya spread her legs for you in her father’s house, Blade?» She held his penis gently but firmly.

  Blade shook his head. «I never asked, and neither did she. I don’t know why, and now it certainly doesn’t matter. What does matter is that if Curim does anything against Jollya, you may have to find new captains for both the Men’s and Women’s Guards. That might leave you unprotected, and the people around you in danger.» He could have added that it would also risk chaos in her army on the verge of a major war, but he wasn’t going to show that he knew anything about the war until the queen told him herself.

  Tressana laughed. «I love it when you pretend to be as cautious as Sikkurad of the Animals. It’s one of your best jokes.» She squeezed his penis, then started stroking it in a friendlier way.

  *

  Three days later Tressana sent Blade a steel sword of his own and an escort to bring him to her. Again the escort was commanded by Efroin of the Red Band. Along with the sword he brought a gilded helmet and a suit of armor with a chain-mail loin guard for Blade. Efroin laughed when he saw Blade pulling on the loin guard. «Is yours a royal treasure now?»

  «Ask Tressana.»

  «Thank you, I’d rather die in battle. It’s quicker and cleaner. I suspect yours is a royal treasure now, and Tressana always takes good care of the royal treasures.»

  «I’m not going to complain.»

  «Not if you’re wise.» Efroin slapped Blade on one leather-armored shoulder. «Blade, don’t throw yourself away on Tressana. You’re a fighting man, and I’d like to have you beside me sometime. Don’t lose your temper when Tressana loses interest.»

  «Like Curim?»

  «I wasn’t going to put it that way, but-yes. He’s put himself out of the running for anything except a weighted sack into the Adrim some night. Not that he’ll be much of a loss. You would be.»

  «Thank you.»

  Blade was glad to have Efroin’s praise. The Red Band commander seemed like a levelheaded, honest soldier. He’d be a good friend.

  Tressana surprised Blade that night by saying very much the same thing, after she’d summoned him to her bedchamber. She’d greeted him sweaty and smelling of rolghas after a visit to the stables, but eager as ever. They made love twice before Blade was able to suggest a bath. They bathed together in a sunken marble tub almost large enough to be called a swimming pool.

  «I’d better not ask too much of you,» she said once they were clean. She lay back on the edge of the tub and reached out to Blade, who was still in the water.

  «All I can give is yours,» he said politely.

  «I know, I know,» she said. «I don’t mean that.» She tugged at his hair vigorously enough to hurt. «I mean, I’ve seen you use other weapons besides the one you use on me. You’re good. You’re too good a fighting man not to be put to work.»

  «I could fight against the barbarians,» he said cautiously. He knew he might be on the edge of a big step forward, getting the information he wanted and gaining more freedom of movement. Eagerness could still spoil everything.

  «Hardly that, Blade. They are not really a problem anymore. Certainly they’re not worthy opponents for you. They have no notions of honor, for one thing, and you do. Besides, I’m not going to let you get that far from my bed yet, and I can’t go west myself.»

  Before Blade could think of a tactful way of asking why, she slid back into the water. «Pick me up and let’s try it here,» she commanded. «That way you won’t have to use up strength just holding me.»

  For that sort of thing Blade always had plenty of strength, even though he was no longer fresh out of Oxford. He sometimes wondered what he would have been able to do then with all the opportunities he had now.

  Tressana was no weakling, either, and she used her strength and endurance in other places than the bedchamber. She sometimes spent eight hours holding audiences and reading petitions, then inspected soldiers, visited the stables, attended a state banquet that went on until after midnight, and came home to make love. Tressana was a working monarch, one of the most demanding jobs in any Dimension, and Blade respected her for it.

  Blade usually went with the queen when she inspected the soldiers. There seemed to be more of them around every day, with rolghas, draft animals, wagons, and all the other gear for an army. The harnessmakers, armorers, and the fietchers-arrowmakers-seemed to be working all day and half the night. Both the Men’s and the Women’s Guards had many new recruits, and both Jollya and Curim were too busy training them to have much time for Blade.

  This was just as well. The busier Curim was, the safer everyone else was, and Blade had no information yet for Jollya. The war was coming soon and Tressana planned to use him in it, but until she raised the subject anything he said would look too much like prying. In a way he was almost back in the same situation he thought he’d left, waiting for someone else to make the first move. He did have to admit that Tressana’s bed was a more comfortable place to wait than the places where he’d waited before.

  It was nearly midnight, and one of Jaghd’s rare summer rains was falling outside as Blade and Tressana dismounted at the door of a building Blade had never seen before. That didn’t prove much, of course. He doubted if he’d seen more than half of the seventy-odd buildings on the palace grounds. But he found himself exceptionally alert as Tressana led him past guards almost too sleepy to present arms to their queen.

  He called her attention to this, wanting to break the silence and try to judge her mood from her reply. She smiled. «Oh, it won’t matter much longer. They’ll learn to stay awake, from harder teachers than I could ever be.»

  Blade doubted that the Elstani could come up with anything worse than the tortures Tressana could order when the mood was on her, and he was sure that she would see to it that the sleepy guards were brutally awakened. But he nodded politely and followed her into the building. She seemed to be excited herself, as if she were anticipating something more than enthusiastic lovemaking.

  Blade followed the queen to the other side of the building, through a narrow door, and down a winding flight of stairs. After a few yards the stairs were cut out of the living rock, not even whitewashed. Tressana looked exotic and out of place here. She wore flared silk trousers, jeweled boots, a snug blue bodice that left her slim waist bare, a purple turban with an ornament of diamonds, and the Queen’s Jewels of Jaghd.

  These were Elstani jewels, the color of rubies but harder, set in a necklace of heavy gold links, wide bracelets, and two massive earrings. Blade knew how heavy the gold was. Once Tressana made love to him wearing nothing but the Queen’s Jewels, and it was three days be
fore the bruises from the bracelets and necklace healed.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a whitewashed room. On its far wall was a large map, and under it a wooden table and a chest. Blade looked at the map, and saw that it showed all the known lands of this Dimension. Then he saw a thick red line running from Jaghd to Elstan through the forest of Binaark. A second line ran up the Adrim, but Blade didn’t pay much attention to that. He knew where he was now. This was Tressana’s War Room.

  «So it’s war against Elstan,» he said mildly. «Forgive me for sounding like an idiot, but how are you getting through the forest of Binaark?» If she was willing to bring him here, she’d hardly hold back any secrets, including possibly the one he wanted to know. Blade was taut with anticipation by now, but hoped he was concealing it better than the queen.

  Tressana explained her war plans as she moved about the room, unwinding her turban, taking off her bracelets and necklace, finally undoing her bodice and sitting on the table bare to the waist. Her nipples were taut, but Blade wasn’t sure if this was sexual excitement or the chill of the underground room.

  The Jaghdi would strike at Elstan with two armies. One would march through the forest of Binaark, under the protection of amulets filled with the synthetic scent which would defeat the killer plants. That army would be mostly cavalry, with only enough men on foot to clear trails and protect the camps. The second army would sail up the Adrim, just as the Elstani would expect. That army would be mostly infantry.

  «The Keepers will send their guards, and the cities and towns will send their watchmen,» Tressana said. «That will keep any rebellions behind me from growing strong.»

  «Will these men fight?» asked Blade.

  «Oh, well enough. But they won’t have much to do. The rolgha riders will do most of the work.»

  In the valleys between the forest of Binaark and the Adrim lay what little there was of Elstan’s farmland, and several of its richest mines. The valleys offered few obstacles to a well-trained rolgha. If the Jaghdi cavalry swept along them all the way to the Adrim, the Elstani would shortly be starving and weaponless. Their army defending the river would be taken in the rear and destroyed. The Jaghdi coming up the Adrim would have no supply problems because even if they were cut off, they could either be supplied by the Jaghdi cavalry or march home through Binaark.

  «The war may be over within a month of the time our first rolgha sticks his nose out of the forest,» said Tressana gleefully. «In fact, I suspect half the Elstani will die of surprise before a weapon touches them. It’s never been any secret that they call the forest a gift from the gods, to keep them from having to become warriors. Well, we of Jaghd are going to show them that the gods can take back gifts from people unworthy to use them.» Blade didn’t like the shrillness he heard in Tressana’s voice as she said this.

  The queen slid off the table and came toward him. The desire in her eyes was plain, but so was the bloodlust. For a moment Blade had the sick feeling that if he had to look longer into those eyes he’d fail at the crucial moment. To play for time he caressed Tressana’s throat and breasts, then stopped as she put her hands on the waistband of her trousers. He let go of her, went to the map, and ran his finger along the valleys between the Adrim and the forest.

  «Are you sure it’s safe to send all your cavalry just riding straight for the river?» he said, frowning in what he hoped was a convincingly anxious manner. «The Elstani could do a lot of damage even if they only rolled rocks down the hillsides.»

  Tressana hooted with laughter, then looked apologetic. «No, I wasn’t laughing at you, Blade. You show you’ve got a good head for war. It’s just that we’ve known about that problem for years, and also what to do about it.»

  She joined Blade at the map and he lifted her so she could reach a spot on the map with her finger. «Here, there’s an ideal place for a camp. High cliffs at our back, and a river on the other three sides with only one ford. There’s room for twenty thousand rolghas and we won’t even need to tether them! We’ll camp there, send out the riders, and bring in all the prisoners we can.»

  «And then?» Blade had a sudden cold feeling that he knew. The bloodlust in Tressana’s eyes was growing stronger, not weaker.

  «For every man of ours they kill, we’ll kill one of theirs. Send them to the killer plants, feed them to the rolghas, burn them-we’ll think of other ways. All except the Masters. They stay alive until they’ve told us everything they know. Anybody who kills one of them before that answers to me.»

  She wriggled out of his arms, sat on the table again, and jerked off the trousers. Then she lay back, legs apart. «Now, Blade, now!» A shudder went through her, as if she were already close to her climax from thinking about the destruction of Elstan.

  Blade suppressed a groan, took off his trousers, and did his duty. He actually managed to do it twice. By the time Tressana took him a third time, she was shrieking and laughing and crying out in triumph as if their lovemaking were actually causing Elstan to crumble before her eyes. Blade’s movements became a little mechanical, but fortunately Tressana was too far gone to notice.

  Chapter 13

  The first thing Blade did when he and the queen returned to her rooms was to make love again. The bloodlust was out of Tressana now, and she was warm and tender, falling asleep peacefully afterward. Blade wished he could remember her like this, when she looked hardly more than twenty, innocent and lovely. Unfortunately he couldn’t leave the Elstani at her mercy, and that meant bringing in the Keepers no matter what they might want to do to her. He’d do his best to save her life and perhaps her throne after that, but no more.

  So the second thing he did was go back to his own rooms at the other end of the building and wake up Lorma. The queen didn’t expect him to stay with her after she fell asleep. He crouched in the darkness, using the moonlight to scratch a coded message on Lorma’s collar. Then he buckled it around her neck, told her, «Find Jollya,» and watched her scramble out the window and drop to the ground as quietly as a ghost.

  The third thing Blade did was to fall into bed and go to sleep.

  Lorma was back the next morning, with the mark on her collar that showed Jollya had read Blade’s message but that indicated nothing else. Blade didn’t worry. Most of what would happen from now on was in the hands of the Keepers. It was back to waiting for him, unless he and Jollya were lucky enough to be able to talk privately sometime soon.

  Within a few days Blade was less happy about the waiting. Planning for the war was out in the open now, and Tressana had picked Blade for one of the most demanding jobs.

  With fifty picked cavalry, he was to move into the western fringes of the forest of Binaark. All his men and animals would have scent amulets to protect them from the killer plants. They would find the best way of hacking a trail for rolghas and wagons through the forest. When the rest of the army came up, they would teach what they’d learned to the trail-cutting parties on foot, and also guard them at their work. Blade, not Curim, would have the honor of being the first man in Jaghd to take the scent amulets to war.

  «It will probably make you enemies,» said Tressana. «It’s certain that every fighting man of rank in Jaghd except Curim had hoped I would choose him. Also, it will take you out of my bed and even out of my reach for a time. But there is a time for taking pleasure and a time for thinking of the work to be done.»

  Blade agreed. He only wished Tressana would realized that her desire to enslave the Elstani and slaughter the Masters was a foolish pleasure. If she would just change her mind on that!

  He was glad he was going to be in action and well up toward the front. He wasn’t so happy about leaving well before the rest of the army. He’d be a long way from the capital, where things might happen very quickly. He’d be in no position to help Jollya, and it wasn’t much consolation that he’d hardly be able to help the girl even if he stayed. For at least the fiftieth time since he left Oxford, Richard Blade would have cheerfully sold his soul for a week or two of being abl
e to be in two places at once.

  At least he didn’t have the job of picking the fifty men, since he didn’t know the Men’s Guard that well. He had plenty of time to watch Jaghd’s army gathering. There would be about nine thousand men in the cavalry force going through the forest. Six thousand infantry would be going up the Adrim. This didn’t seem like much to conquer a land the size of Elstan quickly. It seemed even less when you realized that except for the queen’s and the Keepers’ guards none of the army were «regular» soldiers. Many of them were brave and skilled enough to be formidable in a fight, but they had no permanent organization, little discipline, and not much experience of operating together. They would have been no more than a well-armed mob without the determination of Queen Tressana, the respect they gave a few leaders such as Efroin of the Red Band, and the hope of victory and loot. A man who hoped to have his share of Elstan’s wealth in metal, jewels, and slaves might put up with a good deal.

  Jaghd’s weaknesses weren’t going to be enough to save Elstan. True, the Elstani had plenty of weapons, many of them better ones than Jaghd’s, but they also had a habit of using those weapons only to settle personal quarrels. They had no enemies on their frontiers, and hadn’t had anything deserving the name «war» in centuries. The Elstani were also split up into hundreds of villages and a few farms, and only a handful would follow any one leader. The Masters would probably be obeyed if they all got together and started giving orders, but they’d never done that. The Jaghdi hadn’t invaded before, either, and perhaps this new crisis would produce a new reaction among the Elstani, but Blade refused to be optimistic. The Jaghdi were bound to be triumphant, and then Queen Tressana could proceed to destroy the Elstani and their Masters. The Keepers of the Jaghdi were going to have to do most of whatever was done to stop Tressana.