'A rider came. A messenger from the Council of Five in Sarma. I forget his name, or never knew it, but he claimed to be sent by the priests to see if your twin lived.'
Kreed's fine hand. Checking him out. Did Kreed still live? Had he made it to shore? Blade did not know, or care. If Pphira had any sense she would get rid of the old priest one way or the other.
Blade put his arm about her. 'You and I,' he said softly, 'had better have a long talk. But first tell me truly - was not I, just now, better than my brother. Did I not pleasure you more?'
Canda frowned. 'It is very difficult to tell about such things, Captain.'
Blade supposed it was.
Chapter Eighteen
Matters did not fall out as Blade had foretold and feared. Fortune smiled, albeit falsely, and Blade did not cavil at what he took to be unexpected good luck. He counted his blessings and waited, and wondered, what the price would be.
The Princess Canda had been exactly right. In five days' trek the little party reached a large oasis where they were given food and clothing and drank their fill of a sparkling spring. In those last days the mountains did move closer; from a tent on the edge of the oasis Blade could see the pass through which a party of Moghs would come to greet them and escort them to El Kal.
Canda made herself available to Blade at night, but kept to herself and moved among the villagers during the day. These were a tall, loose jointed people with dark brown faces and dark eyes and inclined to gauntness. They were Moghs, Blade was informed, but of a lesser tribe and subservient to El Kal. The women went veiled and the men wore long loose robes of linen caught at the waist by sword belts, and wrapped their long hair in turbans. Blade, and indeed all the party, were treated with unfailing courtesy. Blade was stunned to learn that this was on the orders of the Vizier - Blade's double.
They recovered well from the trek and nearly ate the village bare. Pelops drank at the spring until he developed a paunch and was ill. Only Zeena languished.
Time and again Blade tried to speak with her. She would only stare at him with pain filled eyes, then suddenly cry out in terror for the slave Chephron. He alone could comfort her. She clung to him like a lost child and he would stroke her hair and croon her into silence.
On one such occasion the Princess Canda watched and, later, spoke to Blade.
'She will be mindless forever, that one. There is a place in El Kal for such as she - I will see that she is sent there and looked after.'
Blade stroked his black beard, new combed and washed, and answered, 'I would not like that. In a way she is my responsibility - under Sarmaian law I was married to her.'
The Princess snapped her fingers. 'Fie! You are not in Sarma now. Anyway they are only stupid barbarians. And would you have a woman like that - who was passed around among the pirates forty times a day?'
Blade, who now felt nothing but pity for Zeena, found himself angered at the callosity.
'I have been curious about that,' he said curtly. 'Zeena was used as a whore by the pirates. But what of you? You were as much prisoner as she. How were you left in peace and she debauched?'
Canda, now wearing a skirt and short bodice, glared at him over her veil. Blade glared back and waited. Canda was the first to look away.
'I am the daughter of El Kal,' she muttered. 'The pirates knew this by certain writings I had in my baggage. I promised them a great ransom and they did not harm me. Besides - Zeena was already aboard the pirate ship when I was taken. She was already ruined. This I cannot understand - if she is indeed a Princess of Sarma why did she not do as I did? Proclaim herself so and offer ransom? Then the pirates would have treated her as they did me.'
'You were fortunate,' Blade said shortly and turned away. Poor Zeena had not been so fortunate. Even had she told the pirates her identity, and had been believed and spared, Queen Pphira would have paid no ransom. It was one more daughter out of the way, one less poisoned cup to fear.
From what Canda told him Blade had been able to piece the events together. The princess had been on her way to visit in a land beyond Tyranna. A caravan of Moghs escorted her to the coast and a waiting ship. Meantime - there was no way of knowing exactly how long before - the pirates sighted and sank the galleass to which Zeena had been sent for punishment.
They next took the ship on which Canda sailed. When the great storm broke the pirates panicked and deserted the unireme, taking to small boats under the delusion that their ship was sinking. Leaving the women to their fate.
'I think they all drowned,' Canda said bitterly. 'I saw many of the little boats capsize. Two of the pirates swam back to the ship and some of the women beat them to death with boat hooks.'
While they waited for their escort Blade whiled away long hours in the shade of a tree near a spring. It was a lesser spring, near the edge of the village, and few came to disturb him. Here, after hours of pondering, Blade came to achieve a peace of mind. For the moment he put worry away. He was still puzzled by the actions of his doppelganger, still at a loss as to the man's motives in ordering them well treated. Blade had feared the Moghs would have orders to kill him on sight. This not being the case, the double must have other plans. Blade was like a counter puncher; he could only wait for his enemy to make the first move and then strike back.
He had been lolling beneath the tree for an hour when the pain struck him. The first in a long time. It daggered at his brain and skewered behind his eyes and Blade could not resist crying out. He rolled in the sand in sheer agony. The computer was reaching with a vengeance.
The pain subsided as quickly as it struck. Blade sighed and wiped sweat from his face. That one had been a bastard! He looked up to see Pelops regarding him with concern.
'You are ill, sire?'
Blade shook his head weakly. 'It is nothing. A headache for a moment. I am all right now.'
Pelops, brave in new clothing and well filled out with food and water, squatted beside Blade.
