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«I am not surprised to learn this.»
«Are you also glad?»
«I would say that I am.»
That was as close to an open agreement as things like this ever got in Karan. For the moment Blade had a little peace of mind about Tera's future.
It was a week before he decided to mention his bargain to Tera. They were in the garden when he did so. Blade was sitting in a chair, sipping the last of the watered wine from breakfast, while she worked on the roses.
She listened to him, expressionless and silent until he had finished. Then she said only, «Did you need to make yourself Pardes' ally, even in secret?»
«He has already been an ally of ours in all but name for quite a while. He is the enemy of our enemy, or so they say.»
«True.» She gave a little snort of surprise and pain.
«What happened?»
«I pricked my thumb on a thorn.»
«You should really wear gloves for that work. The gardener does.»
«That gardener has no soul. He doesn't understand how good it feels to have the living plants against my skin. There was so little life up on the plateau, even when I thought I was among my people. Here there is so much-«
«Yes, and a lot of it reminds me of starving animals and poisonous snakes.»
«Some of it. But there is you, and that is much.» She laughed. «I just thought of something. I might be worried about what any other protector but Pardes would ask from me, if he did have to hide me. But there's one thing Pardes can't ask for-him or any other eunuch.»
Blade laughed also. «I never thought of that, but you're right. Poor Pardes-to have such a jewel as you resting in the palm of his hand, and he can't really grasp it!»
Blade returned to the house well after dawn the next morning, after a night spent with a particularly demanding Princess Amadora. She seemed to glory in thinking up new and improbable things for them to do. It had been sheer luck that Blade's strength hadn't finally failed him.
A strange carriage was standing outside the house as he approached. Three of the household guards were standing beside it, grim-faced and keeping a close watch on the coachman. One of them came over to Blade.
«What's going on, soldier?»
«My lord, it-it is bad news.»
«What-?» He broke off. There could be only one real answer to that question.
The soldier read Blade's expression and nodded. «The Lady Tera is sick. The doctor is with her now.»
«How sick?»
«The doctor has not said, my lord. He asked us to send you in as soon as you returned. Also, the gardener has disappeared.»
«The gardener? What-?» Blade cut himself off, realizing that he must be gaping like an idiot. He could ask questions after he saw the doctor-and Tera.
The doctor met him in the hall outside Tera's door, and drew him aside out into the garden. Blade recognized the man as one permitted to attend patients even in the Imperial Palace. That meant he was not only skilled in medicine, but equally skilled in keeping his mouth shut.
«Well?» said Blade.
The doctor could not keep from licking his lips and blinking several times.
«Doctor,» said Blade. «I ca
The doctor nodded. «The Lady Tera is going to die. She has been poisoned, and the signs of the poison are unmistakable. It is the venom of a particular kind of fish that lives under the coral reefs in the south. Once it has entered the blood stream, there is no antidote that anyone has ever been able to discover.» After a moment he added; «I think it was smeared on the rose bushes, by someone who knew the Lady Tera worked on them without gloves and would sooner or later prick herself.»
It was a little while before Blade could speak. He wanted to say something more intelligent than, «You're sure?» or «That can't be!»
Finally he managed to say, «Can I see her?»
The doctor looked at him with genuine compassion. «You can. But I–I ask you to remember her as she was, before the poison. This poison-it kills cruelly. I would like to burn alive anybody who uses it!»
Blade nodded grimly. «I may be able to give you that chance, doctor. But first-«He turned and headed for Tera's room.
Tera lay in bed, one arm red and swollen to three times its normal size. The hand was a mass of foul-smelling sores that dripped yellow matter into a basin. She writhed and tossed, screaming hoarsely from a raw throat as pains tore through her. Her face was flushed and burning from an impossibly high fever, and when she coughed, she coughed blood.
Somehow she had enough awareness left to recognize Blade, and reach out for him with her good hand. He took that hand, sat down on the rug beside the bed, and did not get up again until she died twelve hours later. By that time he knew what the doctor meant about remembering Tera as she had been. She was no longer a living and lovely girl, but the corpse of a woman who might have been a hundred years old. He continued to sit, holding the now stiff and lifeless hand, until the doctor and Zogades came in to lead him away and pour some wine into him.
Tera was dead, but she had died without feeling that he had betrayed her or stopped loving her. She had known that he loved her, as long as she was able to know anything.
Tera was dead, and now there was nothing and nobody to think about in this damned Dimension except himself. Now there was nothing to keep him from taking his sword and ramming a foot of it into Princess Amadora's stomach.
He knew that Amadora must have given some of the orders that led to Tera's tormented death. She would be the first to go. Count Iscaros had doubtless given other orders, and he would die next. Then there would be a reckoning with Descares. Perhaps the scar-faced warrior had given no orders. But it was hard to believe that his tongue had not wagged when it should have remained still. It must have been he who passed on the word of how much Blade cared for Tera and how much he was willing to do for her. Then Princess Amadora's jealousy and ambition would have done the rest.
If Blade had been thinking more clearly, he might have realized that his rage was exactly what Amadora and Iscaros had hoped to provoke. He would not have been surprised at the ambush that caught him on the road to her palace. Even though he was surprised, he still managed to lay about him well enough to leave nearly a dozen of the ambushers dead or hurt. But their numbers and their weighted nets eventually brought him down.
He was also surprised when they did not go ahead and kill him. But then as he lay on his back, his hands and feet bound, he saw Count Iscaros looking down at him. The count's face was split in a broad grin, and he almost glowed with the joy of a man who sees his enemy at his mercy and victory at hand.
Blade made a mental resolution that the first chance he had he would chop that grin right down the middle with a sword. That was all he had time to do before Iscaros stepped up and kicked him in the head.