by Джеффри Лорд
«Woman?»
«Queen Roxala has a-wide-taste in pleasures, Blade.» The surgeon’s thin mouth hardened. «Once she caught me with a girl she had picked for her own. I got these.» He pointed at his scars. «I would have been castrated if the girl hadn’t persuaded the queen that she had seduced me. So Roxala had the girl tortured to death. Whips were the mildest part of it. Be careful, Blade. When the queen is well satisfied, it is easier for all of us.»
Blade nodded, keeping his face expressionless. He was beginning to dislike the Rulami nearly as much as he did the Kandans. He couldn’t hope to see the Zungans storm over the walls of this city. But if the Rulami ever sent an army south to try to overcome the Zungans, he would be very happy to see the bodies of its soldiers littering the plain all the way to the horizon.
The surgeon went out and the girls followed him. Not one of them even looked back at Blade. He was alone in the whole vast bath chamber, lying on the rug, looking up at the figures writhing across the ceiling.
He was not alone for long, though. The faint squeal, of a door opening was followed by the padding of bare feet approaching him across the rug. He looked up. He hardly needed to do so to know that Queen Roxala was standing there, looking down at him.
She wore a shimmering blue gown bordered with black and gold, with ruby buttons down the front. Blade could not help staring at the rubies. Some of them were the size of pigeon’s eggs.
Roxala misinterpreted the stare. «You want me, do you Blade? I could see that in the garden. I can see it now. Am I right?» There was a bantering note in her voice, but also an implied threat.
«You are a superlatively beautiful woman,» said Blade carefully. «How could I help but want you?» And in fact the thought of embracing the body he had seen half-revealed earlier that afternoon had certainly aroused him. Within seconds it had increased to the point where eyes less sharp than the queen’s would have seen it. Blade was glad for once that his reason did not control every part of his body. If it had, he would have been hard put to conjure up the response necessary for dealing with this lushly decadent queen.
«You obviously cannot help it,» said Roxala. She reached out a bare foot with gilded toenails and squeezed Blade’s stiffened organ with her long supple toes. «That is good for both me and you.» Her hands moved to the top button of her robe and undid it. «Would you like to see me dance for you, Blade?»
Blade was able to come up with what he hoped would be a tactful answer. «If it will display your beauty to yet a greater advantage, Your Majesty, then by all means dance.»
That seemed to please her. She smiled-Blade could almost call it a simper. It seemed horribly out of place, here and on the face of this woman, considering what he knew about her. He despaired of ever trying to make sense of Queen Roxala, and lay back on the rug, head propped on one arm to watch her dance.
She started off with a slow swaying of her hips that made the gown swirl and wave and throw off reflections. The rubies flashed fire. She bent forward, slowly, gracefully, until she was bent almost double, swaying her upper body as she did so. Blade could see the full breasts moving under the thin material of the gown. She bowed further, until her long black hair flowed down to the rug. Then she snapped upright and arched almost as far back as she had arched forward. As she curved backward, thrusting her breasts up at the ceiling, she unhooked another of the buttons. Then she swayed forward again.
This time as she bowed, she shrugged first one shoulder, then the other. The gown slipped down until it was held halfway up her arms. Her breasts were outlined against the gown, full, ripe, and now half-exposed.
She straightened up and began to move in a rapid circle, feet flicking in and out under the skirt of the gown. At the same time her hips went into action again. Not a circular motion this time, but a slow, infinitely sensual rocking back and forth. Inch by inch the gown slipped down. Now it was held only by the swell of her breasts. With thumb and forefinger she teased the third ruby out of its hook. The gown gave up the struggle entirely and slipped down onto the floor.
She waited as it flowed down into a blue pool around her feet, then stepped out of it. Now she was nude except for a golden girdle that rose to just below her breasts. The breasts themselves swayed free, ripe and full like summer melons, boldly tipped with nipples whose darkness was a startling contrast to the white skin with its net of fine blue veins.
Free of the gown, Roxala’s movements became freer-and wilder. She whirled and leaped and swayed. She cupped her breasts in her long-fingered hands and thrust them toward Blade. She knelt down and shook her whole upper body, making her breasts wiggle and her hair leap and flow about her shoulders. A thought passed through Blade’s mind, ludicrous but undeniable. Perhaps he should try to kidnap Roxala and get her back to Home Dimension. The project could be run for years on what the queen would earn as an erotic dancer. Then Roxala’s hands fluttered down to the hooks on the girdle and Blade’s attention snapped back to her.
One hook, two hooks-he could see the cleft of her buttocks now, and faint curls of dark hair in front. Three hooks-a quick wiggle of now bared hips, and the girdle slipped down to join the gown on the rag. Naked, flaunting all the magnificence of her body, she rose on tiptoe, raising her arms high over her head and arching her body. Then she flowed down in a single motion onto the floor and rolled over on her back.
«Come to me now, Blade. Come to me now,» she sighed. He did not need her urging. The long slow stripping and the wild erotic fury of her dance had him aroused more than he would have believed possible without physical contact. He did not even take time to rise to his feet, but rolled over and over, across the rug to her.
Her body was already wet with sweat from her dancing and as slippery to his touch as if it had been oiled. She moaned as his hands clamped down on her breasts. Blade sensed she wanted no gentleness, no tenderness, rather strength and fury. So his hands squeezed down hard on the full breasts she again thrust toward him. He was rewarded by feeling those startlingly dark nipples rise and stiffen under his hands, thrusting out into dark spears. It seemed impossible that they could be so long, so hard. He said so.
«Ah, but its how hard you are, how long you are, that’s important now,» she said in a half-gasp, half-moan. She reached for his erect phallus and grabbed it with the same vigor he had used on her. «Come on, Blade. Come-on!»
He obliged. He rolled toward her as she twisted on her side and rolled toward him. They met, they joined, he thrust deep into her already slick vagina. He felt her stiffen and saw her head roll back and her eyes roll up as he drove into her. Again he made no effort at gentleness or tenderness, again he hurled himself into the play with all his force. He made no effort to slow himself or hold himself or pace himself, and got away with it all. It was barely seconds before the queen’s body shuddered for the first time, enormously and terribly, breath rasping in her throat. It was not much longer before she peaked again. And then Blade’s furious vigor brought him to the peak also. His own hot fury spurting into her brought her to the third and most savage — climax. She collapsed beside him, limp and numb. But her arms-strong arms too-held him so tightly that even if he had wanted to, he could not withdraw from her.
They lay on the rug, silent, bodies locked together for a long time. Gradually their breathing slowed to normal, gradually the glazed animal look left Roxala’s eyes. She lifted herself up to look at Blade, her nipples brushing his now sweaty chest, and smiled.
«Blade, I think you are what a woman needs. Even a woman who is a queen. You will be staying with me.» It was not a question, not even an order. It was a flat statement, intended to have the force of natural law. And for Roxala, Blade realized that her will was just exactly that.
That was the first time they made love, but not the last. It was not even the last time that day, because Roxala drew Blade into four more bouts before the next dawn. Blade wasn’t sure if it was correct to call the queen insatiable, since she was eventually satiated. But no one could ev
er call her moderate in her pursuit of pleasure.
But Roxala was not a complete slave to her pleasures-far from it. Though the laws and customs of Rulam offered much freedom to women, it still took unusual force of character for Roxala to have held her own against King Kleptor for nearly twenty years. This was particularly true when one considered that King Kleptor was not in fact a weak character.
«He indeed is the one pushing for all-out war against Zunga,» said Roxala as they lay in her bed watching dawn break over the city. Blade managed to avoid any visible reaction. But the queen’s words were a considerable surprise to him. So Kleptor was actually pushing for the thing the Zungans most feared, an invasion in strength by Rulam’s ironclad soldiers?
But Roxala was going on, too concerned with her own views of the situation to pay any attention to Blade’s reactions. «Yes, he is massing the beasts and the men and the wagons in his camp already. In another two or three months he will start south, as soon as the summer heat leaves the plains. He thinks that by conquering the Zungans he will obtain such glory that he will be able to move against me, remove me, execute me even.» She turned to him and flowed against his chest. «And it was Kleptor who ordered the efforts to capture you. The-whatever you call your Minister for War down in Zunga-the-«
«The On’ror?» Blade’s voice was flat and cold.
«Yes, that one.» She made no attempt to pronounce the name. «He and your priests sent word that if you were allowed to train the Zungans in your new fighting arts, it would become almost impossible to defeat them. So Rulami soldiers were wandering all over the Kandan forests looking for you.» She smiled. «I didn’t care much whether the Zungans learned to fly through the air on broomsticks and land on top of the royal palace. I still don’t. The important thing is, I have you. Here. With me. And no other woman can have you again.» Then they made love once more.
Fortunately Roxala had some affairs of her own to attend to, so Blade was left alone after breakfast. He badly needed both the breakfast, to fill his stomach, and the solitude, to set his thoughts in order.
Roxala was lusty, scheming, fiercely jealous, and feared nothing and no one, not even King Kleptor. She was a dangerous protectress, but would be an effective one as long as he satisfied her physical desires. And she was not ambitious for conquest. Kleptor was. And that made him the real enemy. Behind Roxala’s protection-from behind her skirts, as it were-Blade had a priceless opportunity to work against the man who dreamed of conquering Zunga. He wished he could also get word back to the Zungans of the On’ror’s treachery. That would give Afuno all the excuse he needed and ten times more besides to move against the Ulungas. But without Kleptor, there would be no one left to whom the On’ror could betray Zunga. The On’ror and his priestly allies would be left stranded and harmless. Kleptor had to be the main target for now.
Blade found the next two months maddeningly frustrating. He had complete freedom to move about within Roxala’s palace, and all the servants jumped to obey any order he gave. Or almost any. He could not leave the palace without the queen accompanying him, nor could he pay any attention to the woman slaves. He did not mind so much being confined to the palace most of the time. Certainly not after four black-masked men leaped out of the bushes in the courtyard one night while he walked there in search of fresh air. He was unarmed, but fortunately they only had knives, so he found it easy to kill two at once and hold off the others until the guards came up and finished the work. If Blade had doubted Kleptor’s hostility before, he did so no longer. Even the queen was surprised by the limits to which the king seemed prepared to go.
«I think he truly fears that you are a threat to his throne, not just to his possession of me,» Roxala said. «Before, the men I have taken were good, stout fellows, lusty and strong and inexhaustible. But what brains they had were between their legs, not between their ears. He knows that you are a different kind of man. You have all the talents of those who have come before you-«she grinned wickedly «-and many more besides. When Kleptor thinks of you, I’ll wager he has visions of you sitting on the throne of Rulam beside me and his own body staked out on an ants’ nest. That might happen. It might.»
So there was another thing for Blade to worry about. Was Queen Roxala suddenly going to start plotting to overthrow Kleptor? Not that Blade objected to overthrowing Kleptor-in fact it was the best thing that could happen for the Zungans. But he did not want to get any more involved in anything Roxala was planning than was absolutely necessary. He neither liked her nor trusted her.
He liked and trusted her even less after seeing what she did the one and only time he spoke to one of the slave girls. The poor girl made matters worse by replying. She even smiled at Blade as she did so. The next morning Roxala led Blade down into a deep cellar, where the girl was chained to a wall. She had Blade stand and watch while the girl was whipped until her back was pulped, raw, bloody flesh. Then the girl was turned around-and this time when the whip stopped she was dead.
But Roxala let herself go that way only a few times. Meanwhile, she taught Blade or had him taught an immense amount about living among the Rulami. He was initiated into the Caste of Warriors. Roxala took particular delight in making Horun one of the warriors whose role it was to stand up and bear witness to Blade’s skill as a fighter. He was taught the use of Rulami weapons, which he learned easily and well. He was taught to ride and manage the Ivory People. That he did not learn so easily, but he put so much effort into it that he also learned it well. When and if the time came for escape, he would find that escape far easier mounted on one of the great beasts, pounding along at seventy miles a day. He also studied all the maps of Rulami and Kandan territory he could get hold of. He told Roxala that he wanted to be able to play a part in the coming war with the Zungans worthy of his rank.
Roxala was almost skeptical. «But were you not aiding the Zungans to develop new ways of fighting us?»
«I was. But I see things rather differently now. This is a great city and a mighty people. The Zungans are a bunch of black savages living in huts.» Never mind that Afuno was a better and wiser leader than any Blade had seen in Rulam or Kanda, or that Princes Aumara was worth ten of this lust-driven and sadistic queen. Blade knew he had to fill Roxala’s ears with what she wanted to hear. And what she wanted to hear was what all the Rulami believed-that the Zungans were worthless black savages, fit only to be stamped out under the feet of Rulam’s soldiers and made slaves.
For all her sophistication in intrigue, Roxala took Blade’s remarks at face value. She was too prejudiced and vain to do otherwise. She grinned and said, «In that case, have you thought of teaching our soldiers how to cope with those new methods of fighting you taught the Zungans? That would certainly convince King Kleptor that you were to be trusted.»
Blade looked sharply at Roxala. «Do you really want me to help Kleptor’s dreams and schemes?»
Roxala laughed and shook her head. «No, I suppose when all is said and done, I don’t. But I do know what I want you to do now, with me.»
They did it and afterward while Roxala went off to let her women bathe her, Blade lay in the bed and let out a long sigh of relief. That could have been a nasty one. The Zungans would have little enough chance against the Rulami army as it was. If their enemies knew and could meet the new fighting style their chances would shrink away almost to nothing. He would have done his best to get out of helping the Rulami, but it might have been hard to think up a good excuse if Roxala had insisted.
Blade’s luck and quick wits kept him out of trouble for the rest of the two months, while he made love to the queen, practiced with his weapons, and sharpened his skills as a rider of the Ivory People. As long as Roxala was getting enough loving, she was willing to think of politics and war only at intervals, although she thought dangerously well at those times. If it came to the crunch, Roxala looked like she’d be a treacherous but probably competent ally. And from his experience, Blade much preferred treacherous allies to incompetent ones. The latter
were totally unpredictable, most likely to open their mouths when they should keep them shut.
At the end of the two months, word came up from the south that a Zungan army was marching north into Rulami territory! It was now just south of the main forest belt, with one wing thrown out to mask Kanda. The Kandans had retreated into their city, and the Rulami patrols in the area had already been swept up or forced to retreat into the forest.
Blade could not keep a straight face when the news came. Fortunately, he was able to pass off his amazement as surprise at the Zungans’ folly. «How can they think of doing anything against the army of Rulam, fighting on its home territory? If they are defeated, they will never get home, and the whole of Zunga will lie open to its enemies.» He was entirely sincere in that attitude and those words. What had possessed King Afuno?
The queen shrugged. They were lying in bed after a bout of love, and she was reluctant at such times to discuss politics and war. «I don’t know. They say the Ulungas had omens, and the-the On’ror-interpreted the omens as telling the Zungans to march north.»
Blade felt slightly sick inside. That was just what the Ulungas and the On’ror would do if they wanted to ensure the defeat of the Zungan army. No doubt they had realized how their schemes for restricting the training in the new fighting had been outflanked They had realized that the Zungans might soon become invincible and their own position become precarious. So, once again, they had chosen to doom the Zungan people rather than risk their status. Under the covers, Blade’s fists clenched. He wished he had the On’ror there before him, He would drive his fists into the man’s face until there was nothing but splintered bone and mashed flesh.
That was only the first news. Over the next few days more poured in, and then more. Kanda was under siege, its armies finding it safer not to take to the field. The Zungans had no method of scaling the walls, but they held the city’s fields and the shores of the lake where its fishermen drew their nets. It had food for less than a month within its walls. If the Zungan army was not driven away soon, it would be the end for Kanda.