Wizard Of Rentoro

«Yes,» said Serana. «You can give us one of your private rooms.»

«One room?»

«Yes.»

«Together?»

«Yes.» Serana's voice now had a bite to it. «Haymi, you ask too many questions. Go have the room prepared, and also a hot bath and as much food as you can find. We've come a long way, we're soaked to the skin, and we're hungry enough to roast you in your own hearth if we don't get fed and quickly!»

«Certainly, my lady. It shall all be done. At once.» Haymi backed away, nearly tripped over his own heels, and vanished out the door.

Blade shook his head. It looked as if he might have to go on giving orders in Morina after all. At least he'd have to until the people here realized what was happening and started thinking for themselves. He hoped the other six leaders of the rebels wouldn't be thrown into such confusion, but he wasn't going to hope for too much. He pulled up a chair beside Serana and sat with his arm around her until a boy came down to tell them their baths were ready.

Bathed and with a meal of beef, bread, and wine inside him, Blade began to feel more like a human being. He sat on the great chest at the foot of the bed in their room and raised his cup.

«To a free Rentoro.»

Serana smiled and reached over to clink her cup against his then drank. «Now, Blade,» she said, «you are coming to bed.» It was a command, not a question or even a polite request.

Blade stood up. «I thought you'd be fit for nothing but sleep, after this night.»

«Perhaps I once thought so too, but now I find that I don't. Blade, do you remember how much we hoped to some day share a bed without having to deceive the Wizard? Do you think I didn't hope for that as much as you?» She slid off the bed and came toward him, unknotting the sash of her chamber robe as she came. The golden flowered silk slipped to the floor and she reached him wearing nothing but perfume and her golden hair.

Then her perfumed beauty was pressing against Blade, and her lips were on his as if they wanted to suck out his life. He could feel her trembling with desire, feel his own desire rising to match hers, as she led him toward the bed.

Chapter 19

Blade explained the Wizard's secrets and his own campaign plan three times the next day.

The first time he explained it to Haymi Razence and the other six leaders of the rebels against the Wizard in Morina. The second time he explained it to the four leaders of the rebels' strong-arm guards and assassins, who would be sent against the Wizard's spies and agents in the city.

Both times he had to go slowly, since he faced men who could hardly believe what they were hearing. Both times he was interrupted at almost every other sentence by a cry of surprise or some confused question. Both times he gradually saw belief awakening on drawn faces, then hope, then joy. He listened to wild cheering and was pounded on the back until he was sure he'd be black and blue. One of the assassins, a man as tough-looking as any Wolf leader, broke down and sobbed like a child.

Blade wasn't surprised. The Wizard had a peculiar method for dealing with opponents in the larger cities. He did not try to kill them off the moment they appeared. Instead he used the view-balls and his spies to keep watch on them. When they seemed about to become dangerous, he sent in the Wolves. Sometimes he struck only at the guilty men, sometimes at their families or friends as well. Sometimes he would even take a man's wife or child and leave the man himself.

Even when a group of rebels showed no signs of becoming dangerous, the Wizard would sooner or later strike it down. There was no way of predicting when this would happen. It seemed to be guided entirely by the Wizard's whims. In Morina the Wizard struck more often, because of the city's history. The Wizard's enemies there had been virtually destroyed five times in the last forty years.

So every leader Blade spoke to was a man under a sort of suspended death sentence-a sentence the Wizard might impose at any time. None of them could go to bed at night certain they would live to see another dawn. Now Blade had offered them hope.

The third time Blade explained the Wizard's secrets and the campaign against him, he had an audience of only one man. That man, however, was Count Drago Bossir, and he was worth ten ordinary Morinans.

«We must win him over, Blade,» said Serana. «If my brother himself were to come over to our cause, he could hardly do more for it.»

«I will do my best,» replied Blade. «But it seems to me that Count Drago must be half converted already, or he would not have taken the risk of coming here.»

«Do not for one moment let him know you think that,» said Serana urgently. «Then he will be as stubborn as an old mule, just out of pride.»

It seemed to Blade that the count had good reason to be both proud and stubborn-if only because he was still alive at eighty. He'd survived more of the history of the Wizard's rule than anyone else alive in Morina.

He'd been only two when Morina rose in its last great rebellion against the Wizard and the last great battle against the Wolves was fought outside its walls. His father and one uncle died in the battle, another uncle was burned alive, and his mother was carried off to be a plaything for the Wolves. He himself survived only by the Wolves' carelessness.

He survived, and over the next seventy years suffered from the Wizard's tyra

In spite of his years and his sufferings, the count looked no more than sixty. He held himself as straight as a lance, and there was still more gray than white in his pointed beard and flowing hair. His voice was low, but not from weakness. It was the quiet voice of a man who knows he has only a certain amount of strength left, and will not waste a bit of it.

Count Drago listened calmly as Blade explained the Wizard and the coming war against him. When he'd finished, the count's head sank down on his chest and there was a long silence. Blade wondered if the old man was falling asleep, then noticed that the gray eyes under the bushy brows were bright and wet. He was silent, until suddenly the count's head snapped up and those eyes fixed themselves on Blade.

«I will be with you, on one condition,» he said.

Blade and Serana spoke almost together. «What is that?»

«The Bossirs are a family as old as the Zotairs. Perhaps the Lady Serana did not tell you this, Blade, but it is true.» Serana nodded reluctantly. «We are also as worthy to rule Morina. More worthy, considering how Duke Efrim has played pimp to the Wizard these past five years.» Serana frowned, but nodded again.

«I have endured much, for longer than either of you has been alive,» the count went on. «All my dead, you know of them. All the shame, perhaps you do not know. I am alive myself, only because I have pretended all those dead were nothing to me. No one has heard me speak a word against the Wizard, until now. I have lived for the last sixty years by imitating a rabbit.»

Blade found it hard to imagine a less appropriate comparison. The count reminded him far more of an old wolf, grown gray but far from toothless. If this old wolf did bite, the Wizard and the Wizard's friends were going to feel his teeth.

«You have lived sixty years as a rabbit,» said Serana briskly. «Now you wish to end your life as a man. How can we help you?»