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Blade's words seemed to settle the woman's mind. She smiled again. «I thank you, Richard Blade. What you have told me is most welcome. And what you may be able to do for us is even more welcome.» She turned to go.
«Wait a minute,» said Blade sharply. «I have told you a great deal about the English, and some things about myself. Who are you, that you can come into my room and ask me these questions?» He almost added, «And obviously expect an answer,» because her cool poise had irritated him almost to that point. Instead he added, «Are you a girl sent to find out if I am a strong spirit, like the girls in the temple mounds of Ayocan?»
The woman stopped dead in her tracks and turned around. To Blade's surprise she did not seem angry. In fact, she was smiling. Then she started to laugh. She laughed so long and so loudly that tears started streaming down her face, and she had to clasp her hands over her stomach. Eventually she had to sit down on the foot of the bed, her laughter finally subsiding into an occasional giggle.
At last she turned back toward Blade, wiped the tears from her eyes, and smiled again. «Richard Blade, English warrior, I think you are not entirely well yet. Otherwise I much doubt if you would have said such a thing.» She rose. «You will see me again when you are better. I am the Princess Mirasa, wife to Kenas, First Prince of Chiribu, heir to the Serpent Throne.» And she slipped out onto the balcony and was gone before Blade could get his tongue untangled enough to say anything.
He was certainly off to a fine social start in Chiribu, mistaking the Crown Princess for a harlot! Then he also laughed. He remembered what his drill sergeant had always said any time something went embarrassingly wrong during training. «There's worse things as 'appens in war, Mr. Blade!» Besides, the princess was almost certainly right. He was far from well yet, and the wisest thing to do for the moment was to relax and let the healing extract of the «tree of life» do its work on him.
He spent most of the next two days and nights sleeping for long periods and waking for short ones. No one came into the room during any of the waking periods. Gradually he felt the pain of his wounds fading away under the bandages and pads, and knew that the extract was doing its work. The room was cool from the arched doors that let in fresh air without letting in insects. He was not fed, but his water jug was never empty and his bed linen was always fresh.
On the third day an excessively solemn man with a white beard in vivid contrast to his red robes examined Blade from head to toe with tedious thoroughness. The examination made Blade feel like a prize steer being examined before being entered in a livestock competition, but it did assure him that he was recovering well. More than well in fact-the extract seemed to work even faster here than it had in the temple mound. Bringing a sample of it back to Home Dimension would be an epoch-making breakthrough in medicine.
It was two more days after that before anything else happened. During those two days Blade spent less and less time in bed. His wounds were almost healed, leaving behind them unblemished skin where normally there would have been scars. Blade now felt more in need of exercise than of bed rest, so he put himself through an increasingly vigorous program of calisthenics.
He was doing his exercises on the evening of the fifth day, when the tramp of approaching feet sounded on the balcony outside. Six brawny soldiers of King Hurakun's army strode into the room.
«Richard Blade. It is the wish of the Princess Mirasa that you attend di
«You will have no need of those.»
«Perhaps.»
«Do the English trust no one?»
«The English trust as readily as the next man. But no warrior of my people ever goes from his chamber without his weapons. To ask me to do that would be dishonor.» He hoped the word «dishonor» would get the message across — try to take my weapons, and I shall fight you.
Apparently there were brains behind the warrior's abrupt ma
The soldiers seemed to approve of the results, and quickly formed around Blade and led him out of the room. Down a short flight of stairs they went, and then through a lush garden. The odors from the masses of tropical flowers that spread across the ground and climbed up the stone walls and tree trunks were almost overpowering. Birds shot like brightly colored rockets through the treetops with screeches and twitterings. The garden was well guarded. Blade saw three different squads of soldiers as his own escort hustled him along the gravel paths among the trees and bushes.
Finally a silver-gray mass loomed through the trees ahead. «The Palace of the First Prince,» said the leader of the soldiers. They led Blade through a low-ceilinged entrance hall and up a dark stairway lit by the anemic glow of rush torches. At the top of the stairway they left him. «The chambers of the princess are beyond,» said the leader.
«What of the First Prince?» asked Blade. The leader said nothing, but the look on his face confirmed a suspicion that had been growing in Blade's mind for some time. Without fail, in every dimension, sooner or later he was called in to play stud to some highbom female with an urge she wanted satisfied. He was too much of a romantic to find that sort of thing entirely satisfactory-but he was also too much of a professional to let his inclinations stand in the way of doing what his job required. And if the road to success in this dimension led through Princess Mirasa's bed-well, he would take that road as far as it led.
The room he entered was all shimmering red and bronze — red tiles on the floor, red paint on the ceiling, bronze paneling on the walls. At a low wooden table in the middle of the room sat Princess Mirasa, in a flowing red gown. This one was also semitransparent-and this time Mirasa was not wearing anything under it. Blade had guessed at the grace and beauty of her body the day he first saw her. He was glad that his guess had been correct. Then he realized that he was indicating that gladness in a very direct way.
Fortunately the kilt was loose about his waist, and Mirasa did not notice his reaction to her. Instead her eyes roamed up and down his body like the hands of the surgeon, but not with a clinical air. Definitely not. They came to rest on his belt, with the sword and axe hanging from it. Her eyes widened.
«Did you think you would need those weapons tonight, Blade?»
Blade gri
Mirasa grimaced. «I told them to use your name, Blade, so that you would know that the message was from me. I am the only one in all the Garden of the Kings who knows it.
«Perhaps. But I could not be sure. Secrets have a way of leaking out.»
Mirasa looked at him with a new respect. «Indeed they do. And particularly in this garden, with the Second Prince's spies everywhere. You are wise to recognize the fact.»
«Warriors of the English have many occasions to deal with secrets, Princess.»