Also, this would be Blade's first chance to talk to a Doimari slave. From experience in many Dimensions he knew that slaves could be good sources of information on their masters' strengths and weaknesses. It was not only what they said, it was also what they didn't say.
«Send her in, Nungor. I thank you.»
There were two girls, neither more than seventeen, both dressed only in dirty gray shifts. One was thin, almost gaunt, while the other was positively plump. There was also a boy who couldn't have been more than fifteen, wearing only a loincloth and clearly frightened half out of his wits. The moment Nungor closed the door, the boy scurried across the room to the corner farthest from Blade and cowered there, baring his teeth like a cornered rat.
Blade tried to soothe him. «Do not worry. I am not a lover of men. Even if I was, you are too young for me, by the Law of England.»
«England is a city with-?» began the slim girl. The other one struck her sharply across the mouth.
«You talk only when the man says you can, little fool! Didn't your Initiation teach you anything?»
The slim girl knelt at Blade's feet, eyes on the floor. «You may beat me before you take your pleasure with me, Master.»
«No doubt I may,» said Blade dryly. «But I do not choose to. I will always forgive one mistake.» He pulled off his shirt. «Now-into the bed with you.» He felt no real desire for these two poor creatures, but if he didn't take them Nungor might get suspicious, and the girls would surely be punished. He could hardly let them suffer for his scruples. The slim girl pulled her shift over her head and started toward the bed. As she did, Blade saw her back.
«Good God!»
She stopped as if he'd struck her, quivering all over. He stared at her. In spite of her thinness, she was quite lovely, with the taut, spare curves of a girl who's just turned into a woman-except for her back. From just below her shoulder blades to the base of her spine, her back was a ridged mess of criss-crossing scars. She must have been flogged half to death and would certainly carry scars like that to the end of her life.
«That was your Initiation-the flogging?» asked Blade gently. In spite of his tone the girl seemed too frightened to speak, so her companion spoke for her.
«Yes. She and the boy there were made slaves when their parents refused to pay their taxes. She was unruly and disobedient, so she was Initiated by the whip. The boy was even worse, so he was Initiated with the knife.»
Blade decided not to ask what «Initiation with the knife» meant. He didn't really need to know. He did know that he would have to be more careful than ever, if «Initiation» for Kareena meant being flogged like this. He doubted if either her mind or her body could survive the experience.
«You have not been Initiated?» he asked the second girl. «I?» She looked insulted. «Only a fool sells herself into slavery, then says what she should not. I found an easier life in Feragga's house than I could ever have outside.» She pulled her shift over her head and raised her arms over her head. «Have I not done well?»
She certainly looked well-fed, almost complacent, although the other girl would have been much more attractive without the scars and her fear. Blade sat down on the windowsill, pulled off his boots, and began undoing his trousers.
As his silver loinguard came into sight, both girls stared. The scarred girl was the bolder of the two. She reached out a finger and touched the metal, then jerked her hand back as if the loinguard was red-hot.
«You may speak,» Blade said. They were both obviously dying of curiosity.
«Is-do you have-your power in that?» said the plump girl. «Do you-keep it on?»
Blade laughed. «No. My power is where it is in any other man.» He unhooked the loinguard, took it off, and held it up in front of the girls so they could see it more clearly. «You see. It is only a thing of Oltec, to protect me in battle, so that I will not lose the place where my power stays.»
«Ah,» they said almost in unison. Then also in unison they reached out and started stroking Blade's thighs and penis. This led to the inevitable conclusion, although Blade could never use the term «making love» when he spoke of what he did in the bed with the two slave girls. He'd had much more pleasant erotic experiences with women he'd seduced as part of an assignment. At least the two girls seemed happy enough, probably at knowing they would not be punished for failing to please him.
When he'd finished with the girls, Blade walked over to the boy still cowering in the corner. «If you wish either of the girls, and she consents, I will let you have her. I will even go into one of the other rooms and leave you alone.»
The boy stared at Blade as if he'd grown a second head, then burst into tears and curled up almost in the fetal position. In the process his loincloth slipped. Blade had a strong stomach, and he'd seen more ghastly sights than any other six men he knew put together. He still had to swallow and close his eyes for a moment at the sight of the boy's groin. It was nothing but a mass of scar tissue. He'd been castrated, so crudely and brutally that it was a miracle he was still alive.
Blade sighed. There was nothing to say to the boy and nothing to say even to himself except what he'd already said a number of times: Doimar had to be stopped.
He helped the boy to his feet, then called the guards. The two girls were supporting the boy between them as the guards led all three of them out. Blade stood with his face firmly turned to the window until he heard the door close behind him. He did not want anyone who might inform Feragga or Nungor to see the look on his face.
The sun was close to the horizon now. Most of Doimar's towers still had part of their metal facing, and these reflected the reddish sunset over the rest of the city. It looked almost as if the entire city had been dipped in blood. Blade thought this was a highly appropriate color for Doimar.
Chapter 15
Blade soon learned there were two factions in Doimar's army. One was led by the Seekers. These rule-of-thumb scientists and engineers had rediscovered most of the military Oltec. Their faction included the men and women trained to operate the waldoes, and certain others with rare technical skills.
The second faction was led by the older officers, who'd learned warfare before Feragga became ruler of Doimar.
They had the support of the infantry, who would fight with nothing but rifles, grenades, and some mortars.
The infantry faction should have won by sheer weight of numbers. Doimar's infantry counted at least seven thousand men and women, while the Seekers could call on the support of no more than five or six hundred. However, even the infantrymen usually admitted that the waldoes would be nearly indispensable in the war against the other cities of the Land. They resented this fact, but they didn't deny it. By the time Blade reached Doimar, the two factions had signed an uneasy truce. This didn't keep either one from seeking to gain whatever advantage it could over the other, by fair means or foul.
It helped keep the peace that Feragga and Nungor both tried to be impartial, at least in public. Both learned swordsmanship, became experts with rifles, and could handle grenades and mortars. Both also knew how to operate the waldoes and put them through their paces. But it was still no secret that Feragga's sympathies lay with the Seekers, and Nungor's lay with the infantry.
None of this surprised Blade at all. In any army, those who do their fighting with machinery seldom get along with those who expose their own bodies to the enemy's weapons. The machine operators think the infantrymen are stupid. The infantrymen think the machine operators are cowards. In Doimar matters were even worse than usual. Blade had learned that the waldoes were operated by some sort of remote control, and thus the waldo operators would be many miles from the battlefield, doing their work with all the comforts of home around them. The infantry would be out in front, hungry, cold, thirsty, stinking, and dying in the mud like the infantry of every army in every Dimension throughout history. Blade was quite sure that each side in the feud would try to win him over. When this happened, he was almost as sure he could get some advantage from it.