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Sweat trickled down the back of Blade's stalwart neck. She came to him and took his big hand in her tiny one and led him to the divan. She wore very little, just a vestige of white bra over her small, virginal breasts and the miniest mini-skirt Blade had ever seen. The skirt barely sufficed to cover her and Blade would not let himself look at the slim golden legs beneath the skirt. They were long, perfection in form, and in exactly the right proportion to the compact little torso above them. He could almost have spa
If it was perfume he had never known any like it. Indeed he did not think it was perfume — it was the clean and uncloyed scent of a well-scrubbed child, a girlchild just hovering on the brink of womanhood. Her tender flesh glowed at him, emanating a warmth and a fragrance and, yes, a golden color that made his face redden and his own flesh sticky with sweat. Richard Blade was finding out things about himself — things that he did not really want to know. Was he really this much a lecher? For honesty bade him admit that he was sexually excited, but this fragile and lovely child had aroused him almost beyond bearing. Yet bear it he must. At least until after the marriage. Beyond that he did not dare to think.
Mitgu pulled him down beside her on the divan. She took one of his hands in both of hers and laid it on her bare leg. Electricity seared through the big man and he made a final effort. He sat bolt upright, took his hand back and put on a most solemn visage.
«We will speak of marriage later, Princess. Plenty of time for that. I came to inform you about my plans and to know if they meet with your approval.»
A formality, but one he deemed necessary. This girl was now the nominal ruler of the Jedds and, though he meant to go through with his plans in any case, it would be easier with her cooperation. He told her of his plan to burn the city and trek to the north.
She was watching him closely. Her eyes, sloe dark and in startling contrast to the golden head with its boyishly cut hair, were tip-tilted at the outer corners and when she smiled with her mouth her eyes smiled too. They smiled now at his attempt to be formal. She squeezed his arm and laughed at him, gold and silver notes that tinkled through the great gloomy chamber.
«You are afraid of me,» she crowed. She clapped her hands in glee. «You are like all the captains, except that you do not go down on bended knee. But you are like them all the same — you think I am a little girl who must be given sweets and humored.» She moved away from Blade and twisted lithely on the divan to face him. Blade was permitted to gaze for an instant between those girlish golden thighs, to explore a silken, coppery cavern where lurked a fuzzy golden shadow. Mitgu wore nothing at all beneath the brief skirt. His heart thudding, his breathing strained, Blade tore his glance away from that virginal target. He felt dizzy and his head spun. Sweat drenched him. He did not understand this — never had he suffered such an onslaught of unbridled animal lust. And for a child of ten! He stood up, conscious only that he must get out of this place before he lost control.
Mitgu clapped her hands again, unmindful of his torment, and laughed at the big man towering over her.
Suddenly she sobered, frowned and extended her hand to him again. «I am sorry, Sire. And I did not speak true — you are not at all like the others. But I would have you know that I am not a child, not a little girl. I am a woman.»
Blade, having got well away from the divan and the temptations there, paced a few steps back and forth and then faced her again.
«Are you, then? A woman?» Blade had won his battle now and felt calmer. His look, still in self-defense, had a hint of coldness and mockery in it.
«If this is so,» he continued, «and you are indeed a woman and no child, then you will understand that I am a man and you will know what is in my mind.»
The sloe eyes narrowed at him for a moment and she laughed again. With one supple movement she twitched off the tiny bra and flung it aside. She gazed down at her breasts, then up at Blade.
«See, then. Are these the breasts of a little girl, a child?»
To Blade, of Home Division, they were indeed the breasts of a child, of a tender and unsullied girl verging on womanhood, and therein lay his greater agony. Her breasts were small and plump and perfect rounds of flesh unspoiled by fondling. Coppery mounds as soft as the flesh of i
Mitgu put her little hands under her breasts and cupped them and lifted as if to offer them to Blade. She caught her breath and with a half sigh, half gasp, repeated, «Are these the breasts of a child?»
Blade stood tall, his shadow etched by the tapers and falling across that golden little body. As he could cover her, then and there, if he wished it.
Mitgu trailed her fingertips across her nipples, then extended her arms to Blade. «Would you kiss me, Sire? And so find out how much child I am?»
He had taken a step toward her when the door was flung open and the lady-in-waiting entered. Mitgu squealed and disappeared behind the divan. Blade, feeling like a man who has seen the axe begin to fall and then been reprieved, yet turned on the woman with a scowl. An order was an order!
«I was not to be disturbed—»
The woman bowed low and her voice quavered as she nervously fingered her chain of office. «I know, Sire, but there is one who insists. He would not be turned away. He is a cornet, sent by Gath himself, and he has news of the greatest import. He threatened to kick in the door and enter unless I—»
«Enough,» Blade said gruffly. He brushed past her without a backward glance. But he thought he heard a subdued giggle from behind the divan and his face grew hot. That had been a near thing. But one thing he knew — in future, if he had a future in Jedd, he would treat Mitgu as a woman. She was right. She was no child.
The young Jedd waiting for him in an anteroom was one of Gath's sublieutenants. Blade recognized him vaguely and spotted the polished iron cornet around the man's throat. The little iron half-moon was engraved with a large G. This was one of Gath's men, right enough.
As Blade strode toward him, the young officer saluted with his short sword, then touched the blade to his chest armor over his heart. «I am Sesi, Sire Blade, sent to you by the Captain Gath on an affair of the utmost importance. The Captain is busy elsewhere and could not attend you in person.»
Blade crossed his arms on his chest and nodded. Smiled encouragement. «Then out with it, Sesi. What is this great news?»
The cornet, a stripling with a few chin whiskers and very light gray eyes, met Blade's glance for a moment and then looked away. He stared hard at the floor in concentration. Here, Blade thought, was no great intellect. This Sesi would never be a captain.
«I am to give you this message word for word,» the young officer said. «It comes from the Captain Gath as given to him by another. But first I am to tell you that the message was delivered by a fat man.»
Mok. Mok the drunkard! Blade stepped close to the cornet and scowled at him. «The message, then? Get on with it, man.»
Sesi would not be hurried. Evading Blade's eye, staring at the floor and the walls, he labored through it.
«Gath bade me speak thus — a fat man came to the house of Nizra, the Wise One, looking for Sire Blade. I, Gath, halted him and took his message instead. The fat man said: 'The girl Ooma, of whom Blade knows, is in danger and has great need of him. Ooma begs that Blade come at once to her.' «