Sylvo was already busy. He went to the horses and came back with a small bronze pot. Without looking at Blade he said, 'When I was sure you were winning, master, I made a swift trip to Horsa's house to collect a few things. It was not thieving, as Thunor knows, because I knew it would soon belong to you. And as your man I had right to it.'
'I know,' Blade said dryly. 'In the few minutes I spent in the house I could see it had been looted. More of that later. What of this posset?'
Sylvo dipped water into the pot and added a small quantity of mud. Into this he shredded some rotting leaves and sprinkled them with a brown powder that he produced from a fine new purse on his belt. Then he began to search the ground and rank foliage about them, dirk in hand. Blade watched with the faint beginnings of nausea.
'Aha,' cried Sylvo. He jabbed with his dirk at the ground and came up with a toad wriggling on the point. He tossed it into the pot and cut it to shreds. To this he added a few worms, well slashed, and then stirred the whole vigorously.
Sylvo grinned at Blade. 'I am famous for this posset, master. In all of Alb none can make worse. I swear it would make a horse empty itself.'
'I have a good mind,' Blade said, 'to try it on you first.'
He thought Sylvo paled beneath the grime that caked him. 'Nay, master! Do not waste it. There is not much, and anyway I am not the one who lies dying of the swooning sickness. Come, master, hold the lady's mouth open while I pour it down her.'
Blade wiped sweat from her again, then cradled her head in his lap as Sylvo tipped the pot. Taleen choked, strangled, swallowed and then choked again.
'A moment,' Blade commanded. 'Let her breathe.'
Sylvo objected, frowning. 'She must have it all, master, to make her sicker. Hold her up a bit, so it goes easier down her gullet.'
They got the last drop of the horrible concoction down Taleen's throat. She had been pale before, now her complexion grew more livid and was tinged with green. She rolled over suddenly and began to retch.
Sylvo leaped back. 'It works, master! I told you it would. In a moment now there will be such a puking as you have never seen.'
It was true. Blade held her while she vomited, with great moans and many cries for death, her slim body twisting and writhing in his arms. When at last she opened her eyes it was to stare at him in wonderment and fear.
'You? Blade! How are you come here, and I? What is this— '
He stood her upright and let her hang limp over his arm while he pressed her belly gently. 'You have been sick, Taken. Now you are going to be well— that's it! Throw it all up. Everything. Get it all out of you.'
She dangled, her arms hanging, her hair about her face, in a great torture of gasping and retching. 'I die, Blade! Let me do so, then. Frigga take me this minute! I am sick to my death! Frigga curse you, Blade, if you do not let me die this instant.'
Sylvo, a little distance off, regarded his handiwork with something akin to awe. 'Did I not tell you, master? She is the sickest lady I have ever had privilege to watch in all my years of sinning.'
Taleen, regal even in her agony, raised her head to stare at the man. 'Who is this ugly cheater of hangmen? How dare he speak so? Do you allow such insolence, Blade? Teach him manners, or I shall— ' And she went into another paroxysm of retching.
'Make the horses ready,' Blade ordered. 'We had best quit this place as soon as the lady can ride.'
Sylvo looked uneasy. 'Darkness would serve us best, master.'
Blade frowned at him. 'Do as I say! I think it safe. If there was pursuit it was short and half-hearted. Lycanto and his Albs still have Redbeard to worry over— that will take precedence over us. You can take us northward through these marshes?'
'Ar, master, that I can. I know the fens as I know my own hand. Some twenty kils north of here we strike into the forest again.'
Blade nodded, well pleased. 'Good. Lycanto must march east, or south, to meet Redbeard. He can spare no men to seek us. It may be that the lady will see her father again after all.'
He turned again to Taleen, who was clinging weakly to a stunted marsh tree and looking a trifle less pale.
'You heard? We are heading north toward Voth. Are you fit to ride?'
Her brown eyes snapped at him. She was fast recovering. 'I heard, Blade. I was poisoned, not deafened! But how can I ride?' She gazed down at her short linen tunic, the same she had worn when they met. It was rumpled now, and not very clean, but that was not the problem. Blade, when he heard what the problem was, had trouble restraining a curse.
'My kirtle is too short,' she complained. 'If I stride a horse I will show everything to that low-born fellow of yours, I cannot ride, Blade.'
He glared, but kept his voice low. 'You will ride, Taleen! I vow that. And hear another thing, and mark it— we both owe much to that low-born fellow. I will have no more of this talk— his name is Sylvo and you will address him so. He knows his place and he will keep it. See that you do— and keep a civil tongue in that pretty head. You are a princess, I know, but I rule here and now, and shall do so until I give you into your father's hands. This is well understood?'
Her chin was up and her brown eyes dangerous, yet he thought her on the verge of tears. She was, as the dead Horsa had said, only a maid after all.
Sylvo, whose ears were as long as his nose, had missed nothing of this. Now he called Blade aside and whispered to him. Blade grinned and clapped him on the back.
'I hope your Thunor forgives you for thieving, man. I do. Fetch the things at once— and my thanks. I would not have thought of it.'
