an ear, or a nose, and many were without one arm. One had no left leg and made do with a crude crutch. Blade, missing nothing, saw that little love was lost between the two groups. Sadda's men were all young and handsome and laughed a lot. The stockade guards were Khad Tambur's men, worn out in battle.
He was shoved rudely into the stockade and the gate closed behind him. Blade shrugged and looked about him. At least he was not in chains. He shifted the wooden collar on his neck, easing it as best he could and went to explore. The stockade did not seem very well populated.
Two sides of the stockade were lined with small roofed carrels, narrow and deep and with the roof so low that a man must stoop to enter. As Blade stared around him a voice said, 'Come talk to me, Sir Blade. I cannot come to you.'
The voice was deep and gruff, with a coarse tinge of humor in it. Blade, startled, glanced about for the source.
It came from a carrel to his left, near a corner of the stockade. Blade stalked to the alcove and stooped to peer in. A man lay in the dirty straw. Both legs were missing just above the knees. He raised himself on heavily muscled arms to grin at Blade. 'Welcome, Sir Blade. I invite you to share my palace.' He balanced himself dexterously on one arm as he waved a hand around the little sty.
'All my servants have run off and there is no food nor drink. I hope you can forgive, for I am ordinarily an hospitable man.'
Blade squatted in the entrance. 'You know my name. How is that?'
The legless man laughed and let himself fall into the straw. 'No magic, Sir Blade. Everyone in Cath and Mongland knows your name by now. We heard of you even before you were taken prisoner. And when you stood up to Sadda and the knife, your fame grew. That is bad, of course, for you will have to pay for it in the end.'
Instinct told Blade to like and trust this legless man, at least to some degree, and there was something contagious about the coarse humor. Blade chuckled wryly as he made himself comfortable in the dirty straw.
'For a famous man,' Blade said, 'I am not as well fed and lodged as I would like.'
The legless man laughed again and raised himself to a sitting position. 'Be thankful, Sir Blade. You are alive. That is a miracle in itself. And I hear that you have caught Sadda's eye and that will lead to more good fortune, at least for a time - if you are man enough in bed!'
Blade scratched at his tangle of beard, which was one great itch, and considered this strange prisonmate. There was something familiar about the hawkish face, the tone of skin, and after a moment he recognized it. This man looked vaguely like Rahstum, the Captain! One thing was certain - he was no Mong.
The cripple had been subjecting Blade to the same intense scrutiny. His eyes, like those of Rahstum, were a pale gray. Suddenly he extended a hand to Blade. 'I am called Baber. As you have guessed I am not a Mong. I am of the Cauca tribe. And you are thinking that I look like Rahstum, the Captain?' Blade admitted it.
'That is because Rahstum is also a Cauca. Believe me or not, Sir Blade, but we were once soldiers together and I his commander. Who would think it to see me now.'
Blade, who had been lonely in his wagon cage, welcomed this new companionship. He set out to learn all he could, especially about his own probable fate.
Baber, laughing coarsely, pointed at the wooden collar around Blade's neck and said, 'You will exchange that for a golden one if you are humble and careful and submit yourself. And make no great mistakes. That is why you have been moved from your cage to this place, to serve your apprenticeship, and so that your spirit may be broken. I have been prisoner for many years and I have seen it happen a dozen times. Sadda must always have a new favorite to replace the old. You will be the new one someday. When she has humiliated you enough.'
Blade frowned. 'I am not very good at being humble. I had my chance at that and just between us, Baber, I was in a sweat of fright. But I did not think it good policy to grovel or show fear. I gambled with the knife and I won. So I am still alive. Must I be humble now?'
Baber, who had a tonsure of baldness and was gray at the temples, squinted at Blade. In a serious tone he said: 'I know. I know all of it. News travels fast among the Mongs. But you were not a slave then, Sir Blade, and also what you did once cannot always be done again. There is a limit to Sadda's patience. What little wisdom I have tells me that it is better to stay alive as long as possible. Let me tell you a story that is known to my tribe, the Cauca.'
In the old times, Baber said, there was a certain wizard who fell out of favor with the king. All of his prophecies turned out to be false and the king ordered the wizard's head to be struck off. The wizard begged a year of grace in which he promised to teach the king's dog to talk. The king was intrigued, though skeptical, granted the time with the proviso that if the wizard failed to teach the dog to talk he would be boiled in oil instead of merely beheaded.
A friend of the wizard asked him why he had made such a bargain.
'Because a year of life is precious,' the wizard replied. 'Anything may happen. I might die a natural and painless death. The king may die. And I might even teach the dog to talk in a year.'
Baber laughed and rolled over in the straw. 'So you see, Sir Blade, that it might be well to play the humble part for a time. Stay alive! Anything can happen.'
That was true. Blade knew that the Khad had sent a messenger to Pukka, in the south of Cath, to demand a great ransom for him. He had no notion of what Lali could do, or would do, about this. All he knew was that Lali had agreed to safe conduct for the messenger and had provided him with an escort. It would be two or three months before the man could return - with news that no one in Pukka had ever heard of Blade! He did not like to think of that. The Khad would certainly snatch him back from Sadda and have him executed in the cruelest possible manner.
Baber had been watching Blade with a peculiar glint in his eyes. Now, in a near whisper, he said: 'You see the wisdom? Be humble and play the fool if you must. Stay alive and wait. I do not say that I know, because I would be a liar, but I can guess at changes that are coming. There is hate and bad blood between Sadda and the Khad. When they were younger they were lovers, so breaking a taboo of their black god, Obi. And now that they are no longer lovers, they are haters. But they share power and at the moment neither can rule without the other. They are fearful and uneasy and all the Mongs know this and feel it. A stone thrown into a pond disturbs the bottom as well as the surface. There is unrest among the Mongs, and dissatisfaction, but the Tamburs have ruled them for a thousand years and no one yet has courage to go against them. And this war, these endless wars against the great wall, sorely try the patience of the ordinary people. Thousands of the best Mong warriors die every month because the Khad is a madman and thinks he must have the great cannon of Cath. So heed a poor legless fool who was once a warrior, Sir Blade and...'
