Her loss of temper had restored his own. Blade gave her a sweet smile of tolerance.
"Wherefore am I so blind, then?"
Taleen picked up a stool. Blade, eyeing it, moved a step back.
"That I will not answer," she snapped. "If you cannot see it for yourself I will not tell you. But I am not blind! Do you think it any secret how you so near won that bitch Queen Beata over? Why you were given time, not slain at once, why you were permitted to fight bears instead of being flayed? And a false fight at that, with only that scummy servant of yours in real danger! I know, Blade, I know! Such things are not secret long. You must be a monster yourself to have gratified that red whore!"
Blade smiled at her. "That also I did for you, Taleen."
She hurled the stool at him. He ducked and it shattered against the wall.
At the door she hurled back a glance tipped with venom. "We left Beata in her cage, though Jarl spared the lives of her people yet alive. She was sniveling for mercy when last I saw her, crying to be killed and put out of pain. Jarl might have granted her this, but I said nay. I hope she still lives, Blade. And suffers. I wish you could have seen her, Blade. They had taken away her wig and her bald gray head was pitiful in the rain. Aye, she was a loathesome creature. I admit your taste was better with the silver Dru."
She was reminding Blade of things he did not want to remember, and he lost his temper for the second time.
"You speak of matters you know nothing about," he said coldly. "I had begun to doubt myself, but now I see that I have been right all along. You are a child! A willful and nasty child with the body of a woman. You need taming, and I know how it should be done, but I'll not be the one to do it. Now go, wench, before I lose all my temper and box your ears! A thing your father, king though he may be, has not done often enough. Get out!"
Halting in the door, she said: "I had always thought to have you whipped, Blade. Then I favored flaying, and I admit that hanging has entered my mind. But now I know what is best, and when we come to Voth I will see to it. There is a man, Blade, who wants me more than he wants his own life. He is to come for me. And I will go to him if he pleasures me by killing you first!"
The door almost left its leathern hinges as she slammed out. Blade, trying to get his own irrational rage under control it was strange how she brought out the worst in him went to the port and stared out at the sunlit water rippling past. The ship was heeled well over and running fast before a stiff breeze. From above came the boisterous shouts of the sea robbers and the chanting of the tillerman as he conned the ship.
"A man? What man? What in Thunor's hell was she talking about?"
Sylvo, just entering with the bronze axe, stared at Blade.
"A man, master? I do not take your meaning. What man?"
Blade seized Aesculp and swung her. And knew how weak he still was. It would be days before he could fight again.
Sylvo squinted at his master. "What man do you speak of? There was no one here when I entered, master, though I passed the Princess Taken as I came. By Thunor, she looked black as any tempest worse than the storm that so nearly sent us to Trit's kingdom. But a man, master? I "
"Leave off your chatter," Blade shouted. "And mind your affairs, not mine!"
He flung the bronze axe at the opposite wall, where it hung quivering for a moment, then fell to the floor with a crash. Blade looked at it with disgust.
"Think not of it, master. Your strength will come back fast, like the tide sweeping in. In a few days "
Blade turned on him so fierce a visage that Sylvo quailed and backed away with his hands raised to shield his head.
"You have a choice," Blade thundered. "Silence or a maimed ear."
Sylvo chose silence. Blade shattered it as he left the cabin, leaving the door hanging by one hinge.
Chapter Fifteen
And so Richard Blade came at last to the land of Voth, ruled by King Voth of the North, from the Imperial City of Voth.
The city lay pleasantly situated in a green valley, on the confluence of two wide rivers that twined down from surrounding mountains, and was sentineled by a high wall of stone and earth. All about were hill forts, cunningly placed, and before the great wall was a deep valley with a steep counterscarp, and bristling with chevaux-de-frise. There were new mass graves about, freshly dug, and a few corpses still rotted in the spikes in the vallum, evidence that another band of sea raiders had been to Voth and got more than they bargained for.
When Blade and Jarl landed in Bourne they found the town a smoking ruin full of stink. It had been well raped. Not a soul greeted them.
Jarl, after examining one of the few robber corpses, said: "This is the work of Fjordar, son of Thoth. Remember you drank from the skull of Thoth before strangling Getorix with his own beard."
Blade, holding a cloth over his nose against the stink, nodded. "They did a thorough bit of work here, by Thunor! To what end? A mere fishing village, with nothing worth looting."
Jarl, resplendent in purple cloak and gold tipped helmet which Blade had given him the right to wear ran a finger over his smooth chin. "Malice, nothing more. A few women slaves taken, perhaps. Fjordar is beast and madman by comparison Redbeard had great virtues and we are sworn enemies. He is sure to march to Voth, Lord Blade, and try his luck there. I would like to catch up with him."
Blade agreed immediately. "I think it wise, Jarl. There has been the smell of mutiny in the air of late, as palpable as this corpse stink. Your lads need a fight! Else they will fight among themselves and, in time, turn on us. It is best that we march at once."
Jarl regarded him steadily. "They are your men, Lord Blade. Not mine. You have the heritage of them from Redbeard I am but second in command."
"I know," said Blade, "and it is an inheritance I do not greatly care for. But we will speak of this again order the march to begin!"
He had not seen or spoken with Taleen again; she kept well out of sight. When Sylvo would have gossiped Blade bade him keep his ugly mouth shut. Sylvo, valuing his crooked bones, squinted and said nothing. He had never seen his master in such a dour mood.
It was three days march from Bourne to Voth and the trail they followed was plain, marked by hanged men and women, raped children, butchered cattle and smoldering villages. The complaints and grumbling among the men grew louder and more ominous. There was nothing left for them, they said. Not a slave, nor a woman, not even food that was fit for men. Fjordar was picking the bones clean as he went.
On the evening of the third day the next morning they would see Voth Blade called Jarl to his tent for conference. They had taken a straggler that day, one of Fjordar's men who was a coward and had deserted to loot. It took but little torture to make the man tell all he knew. Blade, watching until he was sickened, bade them end it by striking off the man's head. This brought him more dark looks and new muttering not only were they deprived of loot, but also of their pleasure.
Blade had drawn a crude map on an ox hide, based on the intelligence gasped out by the straggler when the hot pincers tore his flesh. He and Jarl studied it now as Blade pointed with a finger.
"If that fellow spoke truth," said Blade, "this Fjordar has hidden his ships in this cove, marked so, a few kils to the north of Bourne. If he is well beaten at Voth which you tell me is certain he should try to regain his ships by the most direct route. You agree?"
Jarl leaned close to study the map, and Blade noticed what he had never noted before an odor of chypre about the man. .
"I agree," said Jarl. He traced a path with his finger. "When he has had his fill of Voth, a city that had never been taken, nor its wall even breached, he will run for his ships leaving his dead and wounded behind, for such is his custom. I told you he is more fiend than man."