The Bronze Axe

by Jeffrey Lord

  She was not hysterical. One lie to Sylvo's credit. Blade, to put her at ease, motioned to a stool. She refused, saying she would stand. Her voice was flat and unmelodious and her eyes never left off searching Blade's.

  "You know who I am?"

  Her head inclined. "I know, Lord Blade."

  "Good. I want truth from you. This is understood?"

  "I have no reason to lie, Lord Blade."

  "We all have reason to lie at times," he said harshly,"but never mind that. Tell me, quickly and simply, of what befell your mistress the Dru called Drusilla. The silver-haired woman who cared for me. What do you know of this?"

  "Not much," said the woman. "And yet more than most." She squeezed her bony hands together and the tendons cracked.

  Blade frowned and left off pacing. "I do not want riddles."

  "I make none. I know more than most because I have not been asked until now. Only you ask, Lord Blade. For the others it is enough to believe that my mistress, the High Priestess, fell overboard. They have not dared ask."

  Blade tugged at his beard, black and curling now. "So I do ask. What have you to tell?"

  "The Drusilla did not fall overboard. One came and tapped at our door in the reaches of the night. I had just fallen to sleep, so the Drusilla answered. I woke then, but did not speak or stir, and I heard them whispering at the door. What words I did not hear, but I understood that the caller wanted the Drusilla to come on deck. There was great urgency to the whispering. So the Drusilla put on her robe and cowl and left the cabin. She did not return. And that is all I know, Lord Blade. Unless it be this bit more my mistress did not fall overboard. She was pushed overboard by the one who came to the door and whispered. Perhaps the Drusilla was slain first. Perhaps not. But she is dead. Murdered. This I know."

  Blade remembered the golden sword stabbing down at. the screaming, terror-crazed serving wench of Lycanto. A deed conspired by the Lady Alwyth? But what matter now

  A sudden pang struck Blade, an electric pain slashing at his head like a lightning bolt. He staggered and clung to the wall for a moment, bemused, dazed, his head buzzing with a thousand bees. For a micro-instant he saw words blazoned on his memory: He who lives by the sword dies by the sword!

  The old Dru was staring at Blade. "You are ill, Lord Blade?"

  It had gone. Blade rubbed his head and frowned. How strange. For a moment he had been nearly blind, with a tempest raging in his skull and his body light as feathers.

  "It is nothing," he told her gruffly. "A headache. I have been in darkness too long and perhaps the sun But back to our business. This one who came and whispered. You recognized the voice?"

  "No."

  "Was it man or woman certainly you could tell that."

  "I could not, Lord Blade. They spoke too low. I could not say, in truth, that it was a man or a woman."

  He considered her for a moment, scratching his chin. "You may go then. Do not speak of this to anyone. I will look into it in person."

  "And see the guilty punished, my Lord Blade? Man or woman?" There was no mistaking the doubt and mockery in that dry old voice.

  "That is my affair," he said, turning to stare out the port. "I said I will look into it. Go."

  She had been gone but a moment when there came another tapping at the door. Blade's mood was turning vile now and he had no wish for company at the moment. His "Enter" was cold and curt.

  It was the Princess Taleen, her nymph body robed against the sea air. She was wearing her auburn hair long again, as when he had first seen her and killed the mastiff, and the luxuriant tresses were held back by the same simple golden band. She was buskined and the robe, which was short, revealed dimpled knees. Sea and sun had imparted a fine bronze glow to her already magnificent skin.

  She bowed slightly and there was faint mockery in the deep brown eyes that were too limpid, too innocent. He did not trust her in this mood. It meant mischief. He recalled the way she had looked at him when he was in danger with all her love shining forth.

  "I have come to pay my respects," she said. "To the new ruler of the Sea Robbers. And to say that I am glad you are alive, Lord Blade. I prayed to Frigga for it."

  Blade's smile was tentative. This one had as many humors as a chameleon has colors.

  "Lord Blade? We are most formal today,"

  She bowed again. "As befits a mere maid with a great lord and warrior. Even though she is the daughter of a true king, and has known the great lord and warrior when he wore a scarecrow's breeches."

  Blade frowned at her, arms akimbo. "You have come to quarrel, Taleen. With me, who is just back from death. Why?"

  For a moment she did not answer. She went to the cot and began to make it, smoothing the coverlet and patting the sweat-stained pillow where he had tossed for so many dark hours. Blade studied that trim behind as she bent over the cot and felt much as he had that first night by the brook, when her girlish breasts had been practically thrust into his face. That this was lust, he acknowledged. Yet it was a kind of lust he had never known before lust with an oddly gentle strain.

  "I do not come to quarrel," she said. She bustled around the tiny cabin, straightening and tidying. "I come to explain."

  "Explain what, Princess?"

  "Why I did not come before, to tend you in your sickness. I tried. The silver Dru would not permit it. Only once she spoke to me to warn me away from you. I was frightened, Blade. I admit it. I, princess of Voth, did not have courage to go against her."

  Blade smiled. When she called him Blade things were nearly back to normal.

  "So was Jarl frightened," he said. "And I account him no coward. And all the others, from what I hear. So what of all this? She is dead and I live. Forget the rest. It is over."

  He watched her narrowly.

  Taleen made much of tossing a handful of litter out the port. "Yes," she agreed. "That is over. We will forget it. Tomorrow we come to Bourne and then it is only four days march to Voth. Which brings about another matter, Blade."

  "Speak then." He still watched her closely, but knew now that it would not avail him. For one so young she schooled her features well. They would not betray her if there was aught to betray.

  She faced him at last, full in the rays of the sun slanting through the port, crimsoning beneath the golden patina of her skin. Her flashing eyes belied the blush.

  "I lied to Redbeard when I said we were betrothed! I said it because I thought it might aid us you. That he would then leave us alone. I did not know that he that he wanted me for himself."

  "Any man would want you," Blade said softly. "You are very lovely, Taleen. And very young, with very much to learn. I will be glad when we come at last to Voth and you are again safe and happy in the life you knew before. As for what you said to Redbeard I thank you. I know you tried to help me. And all ended well."

  Her smile was no real smile. There was a vixen in it. "I am glad you understand me, Blade. I would not have you think I would throw myself at a man, or in any manner force myself on a man. I have had suitors aplenty, thank you, without asking a stranger in scarecrow's breeches to marry me!"

  Blade struggled to keep his temper. This could be an exasperating child.

  He folded his arms over his massive chest and regarded her coldly. "It seems to me that you make a great deal of those breeches. Yet I "

  She did not let him finish. "And it seems to me that, at least once in ten days, you might have sent for me! Or even for that gallows bird servant of yours. We were afraid. We knew nothing of your state. I nigh to perished of anxi "

  She halted abruptly and turned so that he might not see her eyes. "Now I begin to see that you were never in great peril of death! Not with a High Priestess to tend you. Did you tell her, Blade, that you killed one of her sisters that night in the wood?"

  Taleen glared at him, her words dripping with spite.

  "I did not tell her," he replied. "She told me. Which requires a question, Taleen. Did you tell her about that night and what we saw?"
>
  Her brown eyes widened in honest amazement. "Me tell her? You must think I am a fool as well as a child, Blade, and I am neither! I told her nothing. I said I spoke but once with her. That is the truth, I swear it on Frigga, and I told her nothing."

  "And yet she knew," mused Blade.

  Taleen was eyeing him with new speculation. Very softly she said: "She knew? And you live yet. I think I begin to understand, Blade. Matters I had not dreamed on, because Drus are sworn celibate. But yet ha! I do understand."

  "You understand nothing," he shouted harshly. She had taunted him into loss of temper and he was helpless to resist it. He took subterfuge in the weakest of excuses, and knowing it so, lost his temper even more.

  "You'd best go," he told her, "My thanks for coming to inquire of my health. But I confess to feeling a bit faint just now and I would rest. If you see Jarl send him to me, please, and likewise that rascally man of mine."

  "You are well consorted," she told him bitterly. "You and that squinting knave. Ay, you go well together. Like master, like man it is well said."

  A sharp pain began to materialize again in Blade's head, then vanished abruptly.

  "Yet it was I who saved you from Queen Beata's dogs and men," he reminded her now. "I who came for you when you had been dragged by Lady Alwyth. I who fought bears for you at Beata's court, and later put you behind me and killed three brave men for you. I who fought and killed Redbeard for you, and like to died of a poisoned dirk, all that I might bring you safe once again to your father in Voth "

  "Lies! Liar!" she screamed. "Liar liar! You fought to save your own life as well, and that you might bring me to Voth, as you say so piously, but only to seek and establish favor with my father. You have always meant to trade me, Blade, for favor and substance with my father, the King. Oh, you are brave enough! But you are also a great schemer and a liar and as blind as the furred mice that flutter in twilight. You claim you are a wizard! You say you are Prince of London wherever that is and I admit you command well and can go grave and sage of mien when it pleases you. Yet I say you are a fool and blind into the bargain. Blind blind "

  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 h
ad 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."

  Blade, in the feeble light of a smoking fish oil lamp, drew a small cross on the map near the Western Sea, using a Dru's dye and brush that Jarl had somehow come by.