'Only a small man is satisfied with small things,' he said. 'I am not a small man and I do not accept small favors. I would have the life of my man, and the safety of the Lady Taleen.'
With her eyes closed she traced her fingers over his cheek. The nails were long and blue painted. 'You please me, Blade, you greatly please me. It may be that Frigga has sent me a true man at last. Yet how can I know? The test is over the long journey, not a single trip. And there is much you do not understand— were I not cruel and ruthless, and without pity in my heart, I could not rule here in Craghead. My people are so, and expect me to be so, and if I weaken I am done. I cannot grant what you ask me, Blade. Not in total. Yet there may be a chance if you are man enough.'
When he would have questioned her further she bade him be silent and closed his mouth with her own. She laved his body with her tongue and searched him inch by inch with her fingers. She bade him watch while she titillated herself and then sought his body for final pleasure. She demanded copulation in grotesque positions that Blade, for all his experience, had only guessed at heretofore. She suckled him to massive climax, swallowing his seed greedily, then produced a water clock from behind an arras and gave him a quarter hour to regain his readiness. Blade made it.
She doubled the scarlet girdle, whipped him lightly with it and at last permitted Blade to mount her, the first time he had been granted the dominant position.
Blade forgot his exhaustion and rammed into her like any wild beast in heat. For the better part of an hour he strove on her, while she uttered little screams and moans and begged for more, refusing to let him go. He knew her demented and himself in little different case. To probe her belly, to hurt her, to split her raw and bleeding, became his sole aim in life.
Her lithe young-old body was bathed in sweat. Blade hammered away. It was a sexual saturnalia he had not known before, and knew he would not know again, nor wanted to, but for the moment he was as much a senseless creature as she.
In a rare moment of sanity, looking into her contorted face, he saw that her teeth were false, cunningly contrived of some animal bone. Her wig fell away and her head was clipped and bare, with gray stubble showing.
In the end it was she who cried quits, as Blade had sworn she would. She arched high, screamed once in piercing crescendo, and went lax under him. She pushed him away.
'Go now, Blade. Go at once.' She kept her eyes closed. 'I will not look on you again now, for I am surfeit, and I know my own moods. If you were an ordinary man I would have you killed now. So go— quickly! Your wants will be seen to.'
Blade stood over her, fighting back nausea, his brawny legs trembling with weariness and something of self- disgust. Her wig had tumbled to the floor beside the couch and in the fading candle gleam she was a bald-pated hag with a painted skull for face.
And yet he dared. 'My man? And the Princess Taleen? Surely I have earned their safety this night.'
She turned her face from him, ready for sleep, and he heard her whisper.
'I cannot grant you that, Blade. My people must have a show. They want blood and entertainment. It is how I rule them. But you have earned the right to try. This very day you shall be given the opportunity to save them and yourself. This much I promise. Now go— before I forget how you have pleasured me and have you killed!'
There was movement behind the leather hangings and two of the maidens entered. One of them picked up the black robe and spread it over the sleeping Queen. Then, without looking at Blade directly, they conducted him to the door by which he had entered and turned him over to armed men.
He was not returned to the oubliette where Sylvo waited— if he still lived— but was taken to a large chamber hewn out of the living stone. He was given food and drink and there was a pile of skins in a corner for sleeping. The guards left him and he heard a great bar slotted into place.
One small barred window overlooked the battlements. Blade, weary to the marrow, stared through the bars and wondered what the day would bring. For day had come, gray, dank and misty, with the surf moaning like a lost soul in the fog below. Around him the castle was coming awake, with the familiar sounds of dawn and a great clanking of iron and bronze as the guard was changed.
He thought of Taleen, wondering where she was kept and how she fared. It was not likely she would come to harm— not if Beata planned to ransom her back to King Voth of the North— and yet there was no surety of this. Beata and Voth were brother and sister and there is no hatred so fierce and unrelenting as blood hate.
Blade's smile was faint as he turned from the window. He would not have harm come to Taleen. She was an irksome child— yet not so much child that she did not at times tempt his flesh— and he would be glad to see the last of her. Yet she figured large in his plans. In a way he was holding Taleen to ransom as much as was the queen— for through the princess, Blade meant to earn the good will of Voth and so come to some status and independence in this new world in which he must live. As live he would. As live he must! He vowed it fiercely. Then, being a practical man and having need of his strength for whatever new ordeal lay ahead that day, he threw his body atop the pile of skins and was fast asleep in a minute.
Chapter Nine
Before the slaughter Blade was given leave to speak briefly with Taleen and Sylvo. Both were tied to stakes in the great inner court of Craghead castle, where a madding and blood-thirsty throng of Queen Beata's subjects had assembled to see the fun. The Queen was generous on these days, and in these matters: long tables laden with viands were waiting, and there was an abundance of wine and beer for all. The day was dark and dank, with a cold sea mist sweeping in to cloak the castle and muffle sounds.
The sea fog did not succeed in muffling the ferocious snarls of the caged bears.
'Thunor save us now!' said Sylvo. It was the first time Blade had seen the man show real fear. Sylvo, trussed to his stake with cord, was spattered with the straw and dung of the oubliette, and his squint and harelip brought him little sympathy from the crowd. He had a criminal hangdog look— even Blade could not gainsay this— and so was cruelly baited. Even so, and despite his fear, the man was alert and bright of eye as he whispered to Blade.
'I know, master, that if Thunor saves us it must be with your aid. So listen you well— there is a chance if you can kill one of the bears quickly. At once. They eat each other, these beasts, and if you can strike one down the other may fall upon him and so give you time. And time, master, is what you must have. You see how the stakes are placed? This is not accident, master. The Queen Beata— may Thunor drive a spear through her evil heart— has given you a grievous choice, master.'
