Blade stooped and pulled away the cowl, curious to see what manner of men these Drus were.
The head was long and closely shaven, the stubble showing gray. I have killed an old man, thought Blade. Regrettable, but not cause for too much concern. The man had attacked him. The golden dagger was shining now at Blade's feet and he saw that only the hilt and flange were of gold the point and cutting edge were of bronze and would have killed him easily enough.
Old man? Something about the dead face gave Blade pause. He did not pick up the dagger, but instead reached to rip open the front of the white robe, where a scarlet circle was emblazoned over the heart. Inside the circle, still visible through the blood, was an emblem of an oak tree worked in golden thread.
The cloth came away in his hand. Blade stared down at the withered breasts. An old woman!
Behind him Taleen said: "Frigga protect us now. You have killed her. You have murdered a Dru! We will both be cursed forever after we are killed and eaten."
Blade did not allow either his face or voice to betray the slight nausea he felt. He did not like killing women even old women who were trying to kill him.
His tone sharp, he said: "Stop talking nonsense, princess. Nothing is going to happen to you. I wish it had not happened, but it has and we must make the best of it.
Why did you not warn me that some of the Drus were women I would have been more careful." He stroked his black stubbled chin and stared at the body. "Not that it would have made a lot of difference that I can see. She did try to kill me. What would you have me do wear that trinket in my heart?" He kicked the golden dagger to one side.
Taleen did not look at him, nor at the corpse. But she picked up the dagger and wiped it clean on a clump of grass. "I need a weapon now. So that when we are taken I can kill myself before the torture begins."
She tugged at his hand. "Come, Blade. If we run for our lives now, at once, there may still be a chance. Only hurry! There will be other sentries about."
Blade shook her hand away. He gazed moodily at the corpse, brooding. His jaw was set. J would have recognized the look, and have accepted it with resignation.
Blade gazed toward the fire and the chanting. "I have come this far, Princess Taleen. I will go on. I must know about these Drus and their Mysteries. And you have not yet answered my question how many of them are women?"
"All of them," said Taleen quietly. "I did not mention it because I did not think it was important. You are not only a stranger, Blade, you are strange. How did I know that you would be fool enough to spy on the Drus? No one else in all of Alb is that much of a fool but then I keep forgetting that you are not of Alb."
Blade ignored that. "You say all the Drus are women? No men at all? It is an order of priestesses then?"
Not, then, so formidable after all. He should be able to handle a gaggle of women, probably all of them elderly, who ran about in white robes and chanted weird songs. And yet he glanced at the golden dagger now tucked into Taleen's girdle. The old crone had come at him in a very businesslike manner.
The girl, cajoling now, said, "You are very interested in the Drus, Blade. I will tell you all about them if only you will come away with me. Now. While there is yet time. For me, at least. You will never be safe now. You have killed a Dru. They never forget and they will look for you always. You are going to have to trust me a great deal, Blade."
Taleen did not try to conceal the malice in her tones. She gave him a sly smile. "I said before that I would have you whipped, Blade. I did not really mean it. But now I have your very life in my power and I do mean that. One word from me and you are a dead man."
Blade did not look at her. He plunged the sword into the earth to clean it. Only then did he glance from the sword to Taleen and back at the sword again.
She narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin high. "Do not try to frighten me, Blade. It will not work. I know you well enough already to know that you will not kill me."
His grin mocked her. "Yes, I admit it. You know me that well. But you forget something you are also involved. You are here now. Who will believe it was not all your idea, your doing, this spying and the killing of a Dru? I am a very credible liar when I want to be."
Taleen glared at him, then fell into a pout. She muttered something he did not understand and again signed across her breasts with her right hand. "Frigga save me from the Drus and you. I begin to wish I had never met you."
It was a sentiment that Blade was beginning to share. Yet he needed her, badly needed her, as a guide and mentor in this strange land of Alb curse Lord Leighton and his confounded computer but he was beginning to see the Princess Taleen for what she was. Beautiful, desirable, and absolutely not to be trusted. A wild child, capricious as the wind, a lovely little barbarian Princess whose only guide was her own wilfulness. Blade had spoken boldly just now, had blunted her spleen for the moment, but he knew that he must watch her constantly from this moment on. She was unpredictable.
So he scowled at her and spoke more harshly than he felt. She was not to blame for what she was.
"I go to have a look at these Drus," he said. "Come with me or stay. It is all one to me."
He began to move cautiously toward the red eye of the fire. He did not look back. Presently he heard her stumble over a root and mutter something to Frigga that was more a curse than a prayer. When he sank to his belly in a thicket, with the fire and the chanting and dancing Drus in plain view, she was beside him. Strangely enough, once the thing was done, she whispered, her soft mouth close against his ear, and again he caught the wanton scent of chypre so oddly out of place.
"You see the one who stands aside, who does not dance or sing, she who carries the great golden sword?"
Blade nodded. There were perhaps fifty of the robed and cowled Drus, their faces hidden in shadow, dancing slowly about the huge fire. They were all clapping hands and singing as they went through the convolutions of the dance, an antic movement that yet was somehow measured, stately; the natural merriment of the swirling tropes being smothered by the weight and gravity of matters yet to come.
The Dru pointed out by Taleen stood well off to one side. She was thin and straight as a birch, her face hidden by a cowl, her hands crossed over the hilt of a golden sword so long that, with its point in the earth, the hilt came to the scarlet cord that girdled her waist.
Taleen whispered again. "That is Nubis, the High Priestess. My cousin Lycanto is terrified of her. So am I. So would you be if you were not a fool. Look yonder, Blade, in the shadows beyond the dancers and then tell me if I am a liar."
Blade looked and did not like what he saw. A naked young girl, bound and gagged, lay on a crude hurdle to which leathern pulling straps were attached.
The big man, straining to see, made out a glimmer of white as the girl rolled her eyes at the dancers criss-crossing around the fire. Blade knew stark terror when he saw it, and he was seeing it now. She was not a pretty girl, and she was fat and dumpy, her too large breasts already broken and sagging. Her legs were fat, her ankles thick and peasant was written all over the dull white nakedness of her. Blade, watching her strain against her bonds, moving a little on the hurdle, all the while rolling her eyes in fear, felt a tinge of pity. It was not a familiar emotion and was probably misplaced. He did not really believe in Taleen's wild stories.
The chanting stopped suddenly. The dancers broke ranks and began to scurry about in apparent confusion, but after a moment Blade saw that a pattern was emerging. Until now he had been feeling the night chill; now sweat began to bead and roll on his forehead.
The Drus were well disciplined. They worked fast and in perfect harmony. Forked sticks were driven into the earth on either side of the fire and a long pointed spit of bronze was laid over the fiercely glowing coals. One of the Drus, carrying heavy bags of charcoal, began to bank and build the fire into an even bed of white hot flame.