Sylvo, a little distance off, regarded his handiwork with something akin to awe. "Did I not tell you, master? She is the sickest lady I have ever had privilege to watch in all my years of sinning."
Taleen, regal even in her agony, raised her head to stare at the man. "Who is this ugly cheater of hangmen? How dare he speak so? Do you allow such insolence, Blade? Teach him manners, or I shall " And she went into another paroxysm of retching.
"Make the horses ready," Blade ordered. "We had best quit this place as soon as the lady can ride."
Sylvo looked uneasy. "Darkness would serve us best, master."
Blade frowned at him. "Do as I say! I think it safe. If there was pursuit it was short and half-hearted. Lycanto and his Albs still have Redbeard to worry over that will take precedence over us. You can take us northward through these marshes?"
"Ar, master, that I can. I know the fens as I know my own hand. Some twenty kils north of here we strike into the forest again."
Blade nodded, well pleased. "Good. Lycanto must march east, or south, to meet Redbeard. He can spare no men to seek us. It may be that the lady will see her father again after all."
He turned again to Taleen, who was clinging weakly to a stunted marsh tree and looking a trifle less pale.
"You heard? We are heading north toward Voth. Are you fit to ride?"
Her brown eyes snapped at him. She was fast recovering. "I heard, Blade. I was poisoned, not deafened! But how can I ride?" She gazed down at her short linen tunic, the same she had worn when they met. It was rumpled now, and not very clean, but that was not the problem. Blade, when he heard what the problem was, had trouble restraining a curse.
"My kirtle is too short," she complained. "If I stride a horse I will show everything to that low-born fellow of yours, I cannot ride, Blade."
He glared, but kept his voice low. "You will ride, Taleen! I vow that. And hear another thing, and mark it we both owe much to that low-born fellow. I will have no more of this talk his name is Sylvo and you will address him so. He knows his place and he will keep it. See that you do and keep a civil tongue in that pretty head. You are a princess, I know, but I rule here and now, and shall do so until I give you into your father's hands. This is well understood?"
Her chin was up and her brown eyes dangerous, yet he thought her on the verge of tears. She was, as the dead Horsa had said, only a maid after all.
Sylvo, whose ears were as long as his nose, had missed nothing of this. Now he called Blade aside and whispered to him. Blade grinned and clapped him on the back.
"I hope your Thunor forgives you for thieving, man. I do. Fetch the things at once and my thanks. I would not have thought of it."
Sylvo rolled his beady eyes. "I have had vast experience with women, master. Their brain does not work like a man's. Simple things go best with them."
Blade cuffed him toward the horses again. "Get the things and spare me the advice. We must get started."
Sylvo came back with a collection of oddments that brought reluctant thanks from Taleen. There was a wooden comb she set about her tangled locks at once and a polished bronze mirror and a sewing kit with bone needles and both wool and linen thread.
Blade pointed to her dress, where it limned the shapely thighs. "A few stitches and you will have breeches. Your modesty will be preserved and you can ride. Hurry. I have a great yearning to find this Voth of Voth, your father, and be rid of you."
She turned her back on him. "You are as insolent as ever, I see. I also hope we come soon to Voth, so I can have you properly whipped. And your mangy servant with you."
Blade grinned at her rigid back. She was no longer a sick girl. The genuine, the real Taleen, was back.
All that day they rode the misty fens with only an occasional glimpse of the sun. Sylvo rode point, for only he could take them safely through the treacherous bogs and quicksands, while Blade, the great bronze axe resting on the pommel, brought up the rear.
Taleen, wearing the scarlet cloak against the chill, rode between them and for the most part in silence. Blade noticed that once she had taken the few stitches necessary to transform her tunic into breeches, she did not appear to mind disclosing her tanned legs nearly to the hip. Women were wayward creatures in any time, place or dimension!
Blade grew more uncomfortable as the day wore on. His buttocks had been well scorched and the chafing of the wooden saddle did not improve matters. During a halt to rest themselves and to blow the horses and let them drink the brackish water, Blade mentioned this discomfort to Sylvo.
The man laid a finger alongside his nose, blinked, then went to where his horse was drinking. Blade followed him, Taleen having discreetly withdrawn behind a tall screen of reeds for reasons of her own.
For the first time Blade paid close attention to the bulging saddlebags borne by Sylvo's horse. They were crude, of unworked hide, and so fully packed that they would not latch. Blade, who was wearing a new shirt and breeches, and a vest of light mail, all taken from Horsa's domicile, watched Sylvo as he rummaged in the saddle bags.
"You spent some time in Horsa's place, then? More than I. I had barely time to take what is on my back."
Sylvo kept digging into the saddle bags. "None so long, master. I am an experienced thief, you are not. Ar, that makes the difference. A man of my quality knows what to look for, and where to look for it. A gentleman would not know of such matters."
Blade stroked his chin, hiding a grin with a hand. "There was a dead man in the kitchen, with his throat well slit. As a gentleman I know nothing of it. Do you?"
Sylvo came up with a small parcel wrapped in oiled skin and tied with leather thongs. "I know of it, master. He was a kitchen knave, a servant, of no consequence. He disputed my right there."
"As well he might," Blade said dryly. "Considering that at the time I had not yet killed Horsa."
Sylvo avoided Blade's eye. He indicated the parcel. "Here is a wondrous soothing ointment, master. By your leave I will spread some on you. It has magic powers, or so I have heard, and was made by Ogarth the Dwarf, who also cast the great bronze axe for Horsa."
Blade was staring at the new purse on Sylvo's belt. It was bulging at the sides. He prodded the purse with a finger.
"You found other things as well? Smaller things, but of greater value, that fit easier into a purse?"
"Only some trinkets, master. Poor things they are, too. Horsa had the taste of a barbarian whore. Now, master, shall we apply this magic to your burns?"
Blade let it pass. Taken had reappeared and was standing by her horse, gazing disconsolately at the vast fens stretching northward. Blade and Sylvo vanished behind the reeds.
Blade, dropping his breeches, found a relatively dry spot and stretched on his belly. Sylvo rubbed a dark sweet-smelling ointment on the scorched flesh.
"Ar, master, you took a burning indeed. I could not have stood it I would have run, or begged for mercy."
"And found none."
"Ar, that is Thunor's truth."
"And if I am scorched," Blade said grimly, "it was not so bad as Horsa took." He thought of Horsa standing in the flames, burning alive and still fighting, and shook his head. "You did not see it, Sylvo, for you were too busy thieving, but that Horsa was a man!"
The servant did not answer and after a moment Blade glanced up at him. There was an odd, and thoughtful, expression on Sylvo's seamed and scapegrace face as he applied the ointment in even strokes.