'In my country,' said Blade, 'in the far land from which I come, and of which I will tell you when the time is right, we have a sign between men and woman. A sign of trust and faith, of friendship and love. Do you in Sarma have such a sign?'
Zeena nodded. Without hesitation she grasped his half limp penis in a firm hand. 'We have such a sign,' she murmured. 'This is the sign. A woman touches a man so, and the man touches the woman so. It is the sign of all the things you mentioned. This is so in your land?'
Blade, being the man he was, handled it well enough. Her touch had made him instantly tumescent, ready for love, yet he only leaned down to kiss her.
'Not exactly,' he explained. 'This is what I meant. We do the other, as you do now, but we do this first. It is called kissing. Come, Zeena. Try it. If you do not like it you will not have to do it again.'
She held fast to his penis. At first she shied away, pulled back, tried to disengage her lips. Blade persisted gently, holding her, pressing his mouth on hers until she began to respond. Her mouth was soft and warm and moist. Very gradually, at his skillful urging, it opened and he felt her teeth and the tip of her tongue. She began to breathe faster, the air sobbing through her nostrils. She pressed the cold metal of her breastplates against his chest. At last, reluctantly, she released her grip on him. Her arms crept up and around his brawny neck. He held the kiss for a long, long time and then put her gently away from him. He smiled down into the gentian eyes.
'Kissing,' he said softly. 'That is called kissing. Do you like it?'
She nodded. 'It is very strange. I have never done it, or heard of it before, but I like it.' Her red mouth crinkled in a smile. 'But I like our way, too. I would not like to give it up. Can we not have both?'
Blade smiled and told her yes - they could certainly have both. They heard Pelops coming back and she moved away from Blade and put a finger to her lips.
'When he sleeps,' she whispered. Blade was relieved to find the idea of privacy was not unknown in Sarma.
Pelops flung three large turtles on the ground near the fire.
These were his strange shelled fish. But how to get to the edible meat? The flint knives were not equal to the iron-hard shells. Blade solved that by simply tearing the shells off with his hands. They ate well enough of turtle steaks roasted on the ends of sharpened sticks.
Zeena retired into the brush for a few minutes. Blade let her go. He did not think she would run away now.
Pelops regarded the big man over the fire. His gaze wavered, then came back to face Blade's stare. He was clearly trying to muster his courage. Blade waited.
'The Princess Zeena - ' Pelops began.
Blade nodded encouragement. 'Yes, Pelops? What of her?'
Pelops swallowed hard. 'She is a Princess, Blade. Daughter of Pphira serving her time as a cadet with the slave patrols so that she may one day learn to govern. All royal women must do this - learn the arts of war and administration, of justice, from the time they are little girls. I myself taught the Princess the art of eloquent speech by reciting day after day the famous speeches of past Queens.'
Blade yawned. 'You were well chosen for the task, Pelops. But what has this to do with me? And I warn you - no lectures! I am in no mood for them.'
'Nor I,' said Pelops. 'I am a coward, as you know, and much too frightened for lectures. But I must warn you - commoners are forbidden by law to marry royalty. The penalty for so doing is a terrible one - the commoner is hurled alive into the flaming jaws of Bek-Tor.'
Pelops made a hasty sign of the T and muttered something that Blade did not catch. He gulped hard and said, 'I saw you. I came quietly with the shelled fish at first. When I saw what you were doing I made noise.'
Blade regarded him with amusement. 'You are a brave little man, Pelops. And you are also something of a fool - I have no thought of marrying Zeena. Why do you think of this?'
'But I saw,' exclaimed Pelops. 'I saw you touching each other. That is marriage, Blade, and it is forbidden between you.'
Blade sighed. He got it now. Sex and marriage were one and the same thing to Pelops and, by extension, in all of Sarma.
He stood up, stretched tremendously, yawned, and patted Pelops on the head. 'Don't worry about it, my small friend.
Go to bed. And sleep - do not pry. Think of the future - your own future. What you do not see you cannot be witness to. You understand me?'
Pelops stroked the baby fuzz on his skull. 'I understand, sire. You command. I obey. But never forget that I warned you.'
'You warned me,' Blade said curtly. 'Goodnight.'
Pelops was already snoring in a corner of the lean-to when Zeena came back. She was dripping from a bath in the lake and she had found twigs and pinned her mass of golden hair high on her head. Blade tossed more brush on the fire and in the sudden flame-flare he examined her with lust and some lurking tenderness. The latter, he thought wryly, he must keep under control. Zeena was yet an unknown quality.
She came closer to him. Blade could smell the clean woman flesh. And something else - the faint musk odor of a woman aroused.
'Oh, Blade,' she whispered. 'I want you.'
She removed her breast plates and dropped them with a little clatter. The full white rounds, pink-brown tipped, blue veined and swollen now with her excitement, trembled like living marble as she moved to him. They spread and flattened against his chest as he took her in his arms. She put her mouth near to his. 'Kiss, Blade.'
They kissed, standing, for a long time. She was a fast learner and presently drew his tongue into her mouth. She
