Khad Tambur stood up, painfully, swaying, his inclined back thrusting him forward nearly parallel with the floor. Blade doubted that he felt pain now. He was swimming in bross.
The Khad made a sign and trumpets called from the orchestra. Silence now, but for whispering and coughing and drunken chuckles. The Khad pointed to Rahstum.
"I give you greetings, my Captain. And I give you all my thanks. And your men, and mine, I also thank. This day you taught the Caths a lesson they will never forget. I regret your grave wound. What say the surgeons?"
The Captain, raising himself a trifle on the pallet, held his bandaged stub aloft for all to see.
"The surgeons, great Khad, are angry because they could not cut it off themselves. They curse the Cath that did it, thus robbing them of practice - which they sorely need."
A great roar of laughter went up. The Khad smiled, his eye glittering and rolling.
When the laughter died Rahstum said: "It was only a hand, gracious One. A small thing to offer my Khad."
That was Blade's cue. Rahstum had judged perfectly how the scene would fall out, even to the Khad's words and his own reply. Blade moved toward the dais. The people stepped aside for him and the whispering began.
Blade came into the open space, floored with rugs, and approached the two thrones. The music had stopped. Sadda's eyes were soft as she watched him draw near. She raised a hand in greeting.
Blade bowed first to the Khad, then to Sadda, then straightened and faced the Scourge of the Universe.
"My thanks, great One, for allowing me to be here. It is splendid, but not as great as your splendor, gracious Lord;.
I respected the Caths before as soldiers, but no more. Today I learned. You are the Scourge of the Universe!"
The Khad leaned toward him. His face twitched and his eye seemed to spin and flash. Blade sensed that he had not even heard the cloying flattery. The Khad was fighting for self-control.
But when the great one spoke his voice was low, harsh, with a neutrality that must have cost him dear. At first he spoke for Blade's ear alone.
"You were fortunate today, Sir Blade. Most fortunate. Twice. Or was it three times?"
Blade gave him back stare for stare. "Twice, Lord. Only twice." He saw it now. The Khad was going to bide his time. Play out the farce and settle with Blade at a better time.
The Khad gnawed at his lip with bad teeth. "I thank you as I thank the others, Sir Blade. But I will do more than thank in mere words - you are Sir Blade once more, so cast off that golden collar."
At last. Blade unfastened the collar and flung it away from him. One of the black eunuchs pounced on it.
The Khad held up a hand for silence. This time he waited until the crowd obeyed. Then: "We have seen how Sir Blade fought today. We have seen his valor in our cause. We have also noted his luck." The eye glinted at Blade and the thin mouth smiled.
"We Mongs know the value of luck, of good fortune. This man has it. So I permit his marriage to my sister, in due time and with great ceremony, and I make him an officer of mine. Of mine! Responsible solely to me. As my officer he shall have whatever he desires - of my treasure, anything. And he shall sit on this dais, beside my sister, and be consort to her even before they are married. You have heard me."
Two blacks came running forward with another throne. It was put down beside Sadda and the Khad motioned to Blade.
"You see, Sir Blade, how I keep my word."
There was a roar of approval from the gathering. For the first time Blade knew just how popular he was at the moment. It would not last, but for the moment he had status. He had displayed that day the two things that Mongs worshiped above all else - courage and fighting ability.
Blade took his seat beside Sadda to a buzz of excited approval. She thanked her brother, then leaned to put a hand on Blade's. Her eyes were bright with excitement and anticipation.
"Soon now. Remember what you must do," she whispered.
The Khad waved a hand at the dwarf. "A melon, fool. All this ceremony dries my throat and makes me hungry." He took a huge quaff of brass from a bowl beside him.
Blade watched the dwarf. How? How was it going to be done?
A black slave came and whispered something into the Khad's ear. He nodded and waved the slave away.
Morpho selected a plump melon from the snow-filled box. He whipped a knife from his belt and carefully sliced it. With a little bow he extended half of it to the Khad.
In the past Blade had noted that the Khad did not always question his food. At times, especially when he was drinking heavily, he would forget, or did not bother, so secure did he deem himself.
Blade was so tense his muscles ached. Sadda was looking at him rather strangely.
The Khad raised the melon to his mouth, then hesitated. A sly look flitted over his ravaged face and he rolled his eye at the little man. He half laughed as he said, "You taste first, fool. Do I not pay you to taste? So taste!"
Morpho held up the half melon in his hand. The crowd was watching now, once more silent.
The half melon in Morpho's hand spoke in a tiny voice: "Eat me, fool. Eat me. So the Khad can eat my brother. Such nonsense!"
The melon laughed squeakily. "I was whole when I came. My skin was not broken. Everyone saw you cut me. Does the Khad fear a wizard, then, who can poison a melon without breaking the skin? What nonsense. Eat me. Eat me!"
The dwarf took a huge bite out of the melon. The crowd roared with laughter in which the Khad joined. He sank his teeth into his slice of melon, chewed and swallowed.
Blade felt the sweat creeping out on his forehead. Morpho had said it would take a little time.
Sadda leaned to him, her hand on his knee. "What is it, my Blade? You look so strange."
The Khad took another bite of melon, swallowed it, and stood up. He raised a hand and the gathering fell silent once more.
"I have more news," said the Khad. "Concerning myself. I, your ruler,, am also to be married soon. I have at last found the moon of my desire. My heart is smitten after all these years."
He clapped his hands sharply. "Bring in the bride of Khad Tambur. Bring her who will soon share the throne of the Ruler of the World."
The crowd sighed and hushed. The Khad smiled in triumph at having so surprised and caught them off guard. He raised his bowl of bross and drank, his eyes feral over the rim. Of all things in the world they had not expected this.
Only Sadda was not surprised. Blade saw that and also saw the flutter of malice and hate and anticipation in her eyes. Her gaze eluded his and followed the blacks. She formed the words with her red lips. "Soon now. Be ready."
The blacks came back. Between them, led by one of them, was a slim little figure, a girl. A child-girl. She was richly arrayed, her dark hair piled and caught on her head with scarlet combs. She was beautiful. Blade's heart stopped beating. Too late now, but he understood.
The girl stumbled and one of the black slaves caught her. She peered around, her eyes blank, and she raised a hand and said, her voice chiming in the dead silence:
"My father? Are you here, my father? I do not like this place. I am afraid, my father." Nantee.
Chapter Seventeen
The dwarf uttered a cry of rage and anguish and rushed at Sadda.
Blade was frozen and moved too late. Sadda half turned on the throne, wide-eyed in shock and surprise, as Morpho buried his knife under her left breast. She screamed once then, and stared down in disbelief at the hilt protruding from that golden flesh.
She fell slowly forward onto the rugs before the dais.
The next moment, while shock and horror held the crowd, the Khad fell beside his sister. He gasped and clawed at his throat as terrible convulsions racked his body.
Blade came to life. The blacks were the first to leap at Morpho. Blade flung the throne at them and they went down in a heap. Blade drew his sword as he bellowed at the dwarf.
"Behind me - behind me!"
Rahstum had whipped a sword from under the covers of his pallet and was brandishing it and roaring at the top of his voice.
"To me! To Rahstum! Obey your orders - to me, to me!"
It was whirling, sweating, screaming, fighting pandemonium. Some of the Khad's men tried to fight and were cut down. Two of them rushed at the dwarf, sheltering behind Blade, and he killed one and badly wounded another.