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 Not any woman, Lilah.
 And am I not any woman! I am the Queen  I have told you; my word is law. You flouted my wishes,
there in the windlass room of the corthdrome. Many men have died for less.
 Mayhap they have. I do not intend to die for that.
She drew in a breath and the gems about her body winked and flashed in the lamplight. Gracefully she
stretched out a white arm and lifted her goblet. The wine stained her lips for an instant, turning them
purple and cruel.
 I need a man like you, Dray Prescot. I can give you any thing you desire  as you have seen. Now
that the Ullars are forcing themselves on us, I need a fighting-man to lead my regiments. They are
well-disciplined, but they do not fight well. The barbarians scorn us.
 Men will fight if they believe in what they fight for.
 I believe in Hiclantung! And I believe in myself!
I nodded.
 Sit upon my throne alongside me, Dray! I implore you  and there could be a great sweetness
between us  more than you can imagine. She was breathing faster now, and her mouth opened with
the passions she felt. I  what did I think, then, when every fiber of my being shrieked to be off and
away in search of my Delia of the Blue Mountains?
 You honor me, Lilah. Indeed, you are beautiful.
Before I could go on she had thrown herself upon me, her arms were about my neck, and I could feel
the gems upon her person pressing into my flesh beneath the white robe I wore. Her mouth, all hot and
moist, sought mine. I recoiled.
 Dray! she moaned.  If I were a true queen I would have had you quartered for what you did! So bold,
so reckless, so impious  you defied me, the Queen of Hiclantung. And yet you live and I am prostrate
at your feet, imploring you 
 Please, Lilah! I managed to disengage, and she slumped to the floor on the gorgeous rugs and stared
up lustfully at me. She was breathing in great gasps now, her body convulsed with her own passions.
 Please, you are the Queen and a great one. You have wonderful deeds to accomplish for your city, and
I will help you  that I swear 
 You ?
 I must go to Umgar Stro s tower, Lilah. If I may not do that then I will not do anything else.
She jumped up, her eyes murderous upon me, and I knew that in an instant I might be struck down on
that carpet before her, my head rolling and spouting blood over her pretty jeweled naked feet.
She opened her mouth and a palace slave  a pretty girl with the gray slave breechclout edged in gold
lace, and a pair of enormous dark eyes that fairly danced in a goggling kind of amazement at the scene
within  put her curly head in at the door and started to say:  The Lady Thelda of Vallia  when she
was pushed aside and Thelda marched in.
The tableau held. It held, I confess, until despite all my lack of laughter I wanted to roar my mirth at
these two.
For these two were standing up very straight and erect, bosoms jutting, chins up, hands held quiveringly
at their sides, their eyes darting and flashing like rapiers crossing, so charged with emotion were these
two ladies  and over a hulking great brute of a man with an ugly face and shoulders wide enough to
have encompassed the pair of them  a man, moreover, who wanted nothing so much as to be rid of the
pair of them and wing into the night to seek his true love.
So much for the tantrums of beauty!
They did not fight, or spit, or scratch  and, indeed, it would have been an overmatched contest  but
the danger signals that flashed between them crackled with eloquent if silent rivalries.
Queen Lilah seemed perfectly to accept Thelda s arrival. I suppose she could, if she wished, have
tossed us both into some dank dungeon and had us tortured to death, licking her lips over us the while.
As it was, Lilah simply said with devastating regality:  Does this  woman  mean anything to you,
Dray?
The question differed entirely from that question of like meaning put to me by the Princess Natema on
her garden rooftop in the Opal Palace of the Esztercari hold in Zenicce. Then I had lied to save my
Delia s life. I did not need to lie now to save Thelda s. And yet  she did mean something to me,
although not what either she longed for or Lilah suspected.
 I have the highest respect for the Lady Thelda, I said, with crude formality. The image of the night sky
and a rushing wind and the tower of Umgar Stro reared into my mind s eye. I could not wait longer.  I
hold her in the same deep and cherished affection as I hold your esteemed and regal person, Lilah. No
more  and no less.
 Oh  Dray! The wail could have come from either woman.
 I must go.
I laid my hand on my sword hilt. An almost instinctive gesture, it brought a flush to Lilah s pallid
countenance. Such boorish behavior, clearly, was unknown in her civilized palace. Thelda started across
and took my arm. She glared haughtily upon the Queen.
 I am responsible for the safe-keeping of my Lord of Strombor, she said.  Now that his betrothed, the
Princess Majestrix of Vallia, is dead.
I would not let her say any more. I turned my wrist and took her hand in my own and crushed it, and
smiled at Lilah, the Queen, and said firmly but without rancor:  I am eternally in your debt, Lilah, for your
goodness to me and my friends. Now I must go to seek out this Umgar Stro and, if necessary, kill him. I
believe I am doing you a good favor, Lilah, in doing that, so do not hurt Thelda here or hinder me. I am a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]