When they had finished he was allowed to see the results in a bronze mirror and could not repress a grimace of disgust at the finery he was wearing. Yet this was Queen Beata's game and he must play by her rules. By this time he had a shrewd idea of what the game would be, and he was determined to best her at it. In his past life he had been a sensual man, highly sexed, and hardly let a day pass without gratification. Now he was more than ready. He had had enough of blood and iron for the nonce, and of vixens like Lady Alwyth and malicious kittens like Taleen.
The maidens left and Blade strode the chambers alone, a hard smile on his face. He would give this cruel queen a bit more than she bargained for, and so might ensure his future. He knew, better than most men, what women are born knowing, that sex is a weapon.
There was movement behind the unicorn wall hanging. Blade, at his ease on one of the couches, regarded the hanging with equanimity. Let the bitch come. He was more than ready for her.
The hanging parted in the center and Queen Beata stepped forth. She wore a simple black robe that clung to her supple figure. The robe was girdled with a scarlet cord and though it was opaque it concealed nothing, clinging like oil to her breasts and buttocks and thighs. Her face was long and deathly pale, with a scarlet slash of mouth and a high arching nose, and her upswept hair, dark and tinged with silver, was so intricately coifed that Blade guessed at once that it was a wig.
There had been a dozen large candles in the room before; the maidens, on leaving, had taken all but one. In this tiny spear of unwavering light she approached him.
Blade stood up and bowed slightly, with a touch of insolence. Instinct told him that servility was not the ploy.
'Your Majesty, you are beautiful.'
It was, in a certain sense, the truth. She was not young— even in the dim candlelight he saw the finespun wrinkles around her mouth and the throat creases, and what the wig concealed he did not know— yet she had beauty. Or the relic of beauty. He was in no position, or mood, to make fine distinctions.
For a moment she regarded him without speaking. The almond shaped eyes, as shiny black as lacquer, glinted through narrowed lids that had been painted blue. She examined every inch of him before she spoke.
'You will approach me, Blade, on your knees. It is the custom here— all who seek my favor must tender to me that homage. Do so now.'
It occurred to Blade that he was not so much seeking her favors, as having them thrust on him, yet he complied. He slid off the couch and to his knees, with what grace he could muster, and sidled toward her.
Queen Beata's robe fell open. Blade, glancing up, saw that the body, if not the face, was young. Her breasts were firm pale goblets, her belly flat and unwrinkled, her hips trimly flowed into legs that were slim as any girl's. Her body scent was cloying, thick with woman smell and chypre.
'Good,' Beata said, her voice cold and mocking, yet excited. He wondered which pleased her the most— to kill a man and hang him on hooks, or to have him sexually. Both? 'You have made homage and so will live a little time. I will confess that I am glad of it, for you are a man such as I have never seen before this night. Come now, Blade, to the couch, and prove me that you are a man and not a phantom, not a tunic and breeches stuffed with muscles that are useless to a woman.'
At the couch she bade him lie just so. She adjusted his brawny limbed body to her exact liking. Then she disrobed him, lingering over each part of his nakedness with her lips and fingers. She was still wearing the black robe and when he reached for one of her breasts she slapped his hand aside.
'I decide, Blade, when it is time for that! You will obey. That is all I require of you. That you obey and be instantly ready when I have need of you.'
Blade, who at the moment was very much instantly ready, still thought it a tall order. Every man has his limitations. The situation might have been amusing, take away the grim reality. His life, and that of Sylvo, and possibly the Princess Taleen, hung on his ability to perform for the lady. He had an instant of panic during which he feared that the tension, the pressure of the moment, might in itself cause him to fail. He fought off the idea. It would be irony indeed to die of that.
The queen took the dominant position. She kept silent and would not let him speak. She kissed his mouth, avidly and wetly, her tongue sharp and probing, while her hands roamed over his big body. Her pleasure was at first tactile, she could not seem to have enough of his flesh; then her pleasure switched and became oral. She suckled him lightly, teasing and biting, then put that aside to straddle him and permit him to thrust himself into her. She moaned at last— the first amorous sound she had uttered— and fell into rhythm with him. Blade, watching her face contort— the mouth writhing and the eyes wild, the sinews taut and stringy in her throat— knew that this was an old woman. At the moment it did not matter.
She began to talk, the words gasping and jolting out of her straining mouth as she rode him down to climax.
'You-do-well-Blade! That is good. No! Keep you silent. Only I speak— Ah, sweet Frigga, you do well! Do not stop. Never stop until I command or you die on the morning. Many have pleased me this far, only to fail at last and so die of it. Ahhhhhh, Blade! Blade! Frigga take me if I am not beswooned of you!'
The queen, trembling and thrashing about, collapsed atop him and murmured: 'Ah, Blade, that was fine for first encounter. You did not spend?'
So tumultuous was his breathing that he could not speak and shook his head. He had been on the verge a dozen times and had fought it back. A fine pass, he thought bitterly, when a man's life depends on his ability to last.
Beata placed herself so her breasts were against his lips. 'Caress me, Blade. I will have more of you, and soon. Meantime, for such fine first service, I will grant you any small favor you may ask.'
At such close vantage, as she lay on him with eyes closed and face limned in candle ray, he saw how heavily she painted. The wig had slipped a bit, was askew a trifle, but he could not make out the color beneath it.
'I have given you large satisfaction,' he said boldly, 'yet you offer me only a small favor. Is this worthy of a great queen?'
The blue painted eyelids twitched. 'You are still too impudent, Blade, and still do not understand your position. Grant that you are a great stallion, with a bear bone such as I have never known, yet it gains you nothing special. You are alive, man! Alive! Yet you do not seem grateful.'
He must go very cannily now, but he thought boldness was still the ploy.
