Sylvo rolled his beady eyes. 'I have had vast experience with women, master. Their brain does not work like a man's. Simple things go best with them.'
Blade cuffed him toward the horses again. 'Get the things and spare me the advice. We must get started.'
Sylvo came back with a collection of oddments that brought reluctant thanks from Taleen. There was a wooden comb— she set about her tangled locks at once— and a polished bronze mirror and a sewing kit with bone needles and both wool and linen thread.
Blade pointed to her dress, where it limned the shapely thighs. 'A few stitches and you will have breeches. Your modesty will be preserved and you can ride. Hurry. I have a great yearning to find this Voth of Voth, your father, and be rid of you.'
She turned her back on him. 'You are as insolent as ever, I see. I also hope we come soon to Voth, so I can have you properly whipped. And your mangy servant with you.'
Blade grinned at her rigid back. She was no longer a sick girl. The genuine, the real Taleen, was back.
All that day they rode the misty fens with only an occasional glimpse of the sun. Sylvo rode point, for only he could take them safely through the treacherous bogs and quicksands, while Blade, the great bronze axe resting on the pommel, brought up the rear.
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 Blade followed him, Taleen having discreetly withdrawn behind a tall screen of reeds for reasons of her own.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.
