mounded the ice and snow against the burning flesh.
The dwarf came back with a dung basket full of snow and Blade dumped it on the girl's flat belly. He tossed the basket back to Morpho. 'More!'
In a few minutes she was completely covered but for her face. Morpho sent the crone back to her corner while he and Blade squatted on the floor.
Blade studied the girl's face. It was so lovely, so tranquil, that for a moment a claw hooked at his heart and he thought she was dead. Then he saw the minuscule rise and fall of the snow covering her breast.
'She will not freeze?' asked Morpho.
'If we leave her too long like this, but we won't. And we must have heat in this wagon, Morpho. How can you do that?'
The dwarf snapped his fingers at the crone and gave a command. She brought forth a large bowl of wood into which an earthen sheath had been fitted. A crude brazier.
'When it is time,' the dwarf explained, 'I will have her start a fire of dung chips. There will be enough heat.'
'She must be well wrapped,' Blade warned. 'As many robes as you can find.'
'I will find enough.' Morpho sat staring at the bed and his eyes were tender now. 'She is all I have, Blade. All I care about in the world.'
Blade watched him. 'You have kept her well hidden.'
'Yes. I have lived in fear that the Khad would come to know of her. I know his perversity too well. Her blindness, and her sweetness, would have great appeal to him. And I would be powerless.'
'He will never learn from me,' Blade promised.
'I believe that, Blade, I, who have never trusted anyone, trust you. I do not understand it myself. But now three people know - you and me and the old woman yonder. To the other dung gatherers I pretend that Nantee is my niece. I have kept her always with the dung gatherers, wearing rags and with her face dirty, and she gathers and cures dung with the others. My Nantee who is as beautiful as any princess! It was the only way.'
Blade nearly asked the question then, nearly had the answer, but he let the moment slip away. Nantee moaned and he rose and went to her. She gazed up with sightless jade eyes and mumbled, 'My father? I am cold - so cold.'
Morpho came to comfort her and Blade pondered how soon to remove the ice and snow and warm her. Not for at least an hour.
While they waited the dwarf explained. 'Once, many years ago, we Mongs caught a party of Caths raiding into our territory. Several of them had women with them. We killed the men and took the women captive. The Khad was drinking much bross at the time and he thought it a joke to give me, his fool, one of the women. I pretended to be grateful, though at the time I did not want her. I had often seen the way our women looked at me, a stunted man, and I did not like it. But I took her. And I came to love her, as she did me.
'We had a child, Nantee. My wife died of the coughing sickness and I, knowing how lovely Nantee would become, hid the baby with the dung gatherers.'
'She was born blind?'
The dwarf nodded, 'Yes. She has never seen, except with her fingers. But with them she sees well enough. I have never known her to be wrong. She knew you were good, Blade!'
Richard Blade was, after all, an Englishman. Now he was embarrassed. He waved it away with a gesture and said bluntly, 'I do what I can, Morpho. It is not much. And I am as concerned as any of you to keep my head on my shoulders. And, now that we are together, this is a good time to talk of...'
Morpho leaned toward him, a finger to his lips, and nodded at the crone. 'Nothing of that, Blade.' He lowered his voice to a whisper. 'I trust her, but if she were tortured she would tell anything she has heard. I would not blame her. So nothing of that. The time will come.'
And yet Sadda has said that the dwarf was her man! That she could make Morpho do her bidding. How was that? Again Blade very nearly had it, and again he was distracted.
The girl called out loudly. 'My father! I am freezing. My father - my father!'
Both men went to the bedside. Blade felt her brow. It was as cold as marble. He nodded at the dwarf. 'Quickly now! Start your fire.' He began to scoop the ice and snow away from the slender body.
By the time he and Morpho had removed all the ice, the crone had a dung fire glowing in the brazier. Stinking sworls of blue smoke filled the little wagon and Blade fell to coughing. Morpho, more accustomed to it, sat waving the smoke away from Nantee's face. Slowly the wagon grew warm as the crone fed the fire more and more pony chips.
Blade heaped robes on the girl until she was nothing but a mound of horsehair, with only her face showing. She was sleeping again.
Time passed. Blade had not dreamed that a brazier could throw out such heat. He and the dwarf sat and waited, Morpho very quiet now, occasionally reaching to pat the pile of robes as if he were patting the child beneath them.
Blade saw it first. A trickle of sweat running down her forehead. He wiped it away and it came back immediately. He pushed a hand beneath the robes. She was soaked in sweat. He had broken the fever.
He stood up. 'She sweats,' he said. 'That means the fever has gone. Now keep her warm and feed her well. A little hot bross would do no harm. But just a little. And I must be gone.'
Morpho went with him to the door of the wagon. 'I thank you, Blade. I am your man from this hour. Ask what you will. I have your promise, and I know you will keep it, but I ask that you do not tell even Baber of this. He is also good, in his way, which is not yours, but he is a man and will speak under torture.'
'Not even Baber,' Blade assured him. 'Let me know how it is with Nantee, but do not approach me too boldly.
