The Torian Pearls

Chapter 26

For the next few days, it didn't matter whether Queen Kayarna was jealous of Loya or not. Everyone was too busy burying the dead, caring for the wounded, collecting the loot from the Vodi camp, and getting the life of Tordas started up again. Kayarna worked as hard as anyone else. On horseback or in a litter, she made the rounds of her city and her allies' camps day and night, asking about a thousand and one things but never about Loya.

Blade knew, however, that the days of hard work would end sooner or later. Then Kayarna might have time, for jealousy. Before that time came, he wanted Loya safely out of Kayarna's reach.

As he put the situation to Loya and Fudan:

«I do not ask this freely, or with any pleasure. I would far rather have Loya with me for-for all the rest of my time in the world. But Queen Kayarna has a keen eye, and I am afraid a jealous heart. I do not think she will risk insulting the Kargoi by taking any steps against me because of my love for you.» He stroked Loya's cheek. «But you might be in great danger. We simply cannot trust Kayarna, at least not now.»

«So you would like it better if I went away, to the east perhaps?» said Loya.

Blade nodded. «There is a saying in England-'Out of sight, out of mind!' If you go off to the homeland of the Hauri for a few months or perhaps a year, Kayarna may forget about you during that time.»

«That might be wise in any case,» said Loya. She hesitated, then said quickly, «Blade, I think I will bear your child.»

Blade stepped around the table and embraced her. «Then you will go?»

«Yes, and not be angry with you for making me go, either,» she said with a shaky smile. «But I–I hope this will not be a parting forever. Will it be, Blade?»

«I-no, let's just say that I will do everything I can to make sure that it is not forever.»

«Yes,» said Fudan. «But will your best be good enough? If it is not, the Hauri will stand shamed by Queen Kayarna and by her lust for you, and much evil may come of this.»

«Fudan, I will not promise to do what may be impossible. Let me put it this way. At the moment Kayarrna is jealous. It would not be wise to trust her.

«But she is also a queen who has ruled wisely and well and fought bravely for her city and for her people against the Vodi. She will not want to throw away any portion of her victory or of the new alliance. When her desire for me has passed, I will tell her that Loya is highly honored among the Hauri. I will tell her that the Hauri will consider Loya shamed if the Torians do not do her honor. Therefore, if Kayarna wishes the Hauri to be friendly to Tor, she will see that Loya is honored in her city.»

«Yes, but will Kayarna's desire for you ever pass?» said Loya. More quietly she added, «I doubt if mine ever will.»

Blade laughed. «Oh, I think Kayarna will tire of me before long. She is a woman who has had many lovers because she needs them. One man will not rule her bed for long.»

«I hope not,» said Loya.

It was still some time before the Queen of Tor came for Richard Blade. Conscientious to the last, she refused to permit the palace to be repaired until the walls of the city were patched up and the grain warehouses restocked. Only then did she permit workmen to patch the holes in the palace's roof and walls, repair the furnaces under the baths, and sweep up the litter of smashed statuary, plaster dust, and broken tiles from all the floors. After that came Blade's summons to the palace and to the queen's bed. By that time Blade knew Loya was safely in the lands of the Hauri, where Kayarna could never find her even if she wanted to.

As far as Blade could tell, the queen couldn't have cared less. Her great desire was to have as much of Blade's company as the work they still both had to do allowed. He was with her in bed, in the baths, at meals in her private chambers, on long rides into the countryside beyond the devastated area around Tordas.

Blade began to wonder if her desire for him would fade. He began to hear her speak of Tor needing a king, and the more he heard of the idea the more uncertain he felt about it. Becoming king of Tor could make it much harder for him to assure Loya the honor she deserved or even the safety she needed. Kayarna would be more jealous of the other women of her crowned royal consort than of the other women of a mere lover.

On the other hand, if the king of Tor was the former High Baudz of the Kargoi, the alliance between the two peoples could hardly be firmer. Once again Blade was painfully aware of clashing responsibilities. At least Loya was still alive and sane, and he knew he would risk throne, sanity, and life to keep her that way. She might never have the honor that her qualities and her love for him had earned her, but she would not die.

Blight was falling over Tordas. From the window of the chamber in the north tower of the palace, Blade could look out over the city and the water beyond. The fires of the sunset colors were almost faded. Closer at hand, smaller lights burned on both the sea and the land. Torches burned where Hauri fishermen dragged their nets; more torches burned where masons worked late to repair some damaged building.

The rebuilding of Tordas would be an effort by all three of the peoples who'd fought the Vodi. The Torians were doing most of the work, but the Hauri were catching tons of fish to feed the city, while many Kargoi worked as tanners, carpenters, and butchers. The rebuilt city would be something that all three peoples could claim as their own.

In the last few days Blade had taught warriors of all three how to use the captured Vodi muskets and cannon. He'd also written down the formula for making gunpowder. Tomorrow he was supposed to go out into the countryside, to watch the testing of the first batch of Torian-made gunpowder. It would probably be a while before the Torians produced anything that would go bang rather than fizzzzzz, but they were well on the way. Long before anyone else human or nonhuman came against them, all three peoples would have gunpowder weapons and tactics for using them.

He would not wait until then to tell Kayarna about the Menel, though. He would send a message tomorrow to Paor, who was keeping the Menel diary in a locked box in his wagon in the Kargoi camp outside the city. Fudan and Loya were keeping the other Menel souvenirs in the little seaside but by the cove.

Blade wondered how Loya was. In the two months since he'd seen her, her pregnancy would have advanced considerably. Would it be a son or a daughter? It didn't matter much to Blade, and it probably didn't matter much to the Hauri. They were too sensible to treat the child as much more than a symbol, and a girl would do as well for that as a boy. But Loya would probably want a son, to raise as a warrior, a fisherman, a sailor, and an explorer. For her sake he could hope the child would be a boy.

He also hoped he would be able to bring Loya out of the forest again before the child was born. Kayarna hadn't said a word about her rival since Blade moved into the palace-but then, Blade hadn't said a word about Loya either. Perhaps it was time to find some way of subtly raising the question?

Before Blade could think further on this point, he heard a familiar set of swift, light footsteps behind him. He was about to turn around when Kayarna's voice spoke.

«No, Blade. Stand where you are. Do not turn around. I have something for you.»

Her tone was light, almost joking, but a wise man obeyed Kayarna Deda of Tor even when she spoke jokingly. Blade did as he was told, conscious of her warm soft breathing behind him and also of the open window in front of him. It was a long way to the ground, and Kayarna had a rough taste in practical jokes.

He heard the sound of rippling cloth, then something heavy settled down on his head, with cool metal pressing against his forehead and temples. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder.

«Turn around, Blade, and look in the mirror.»

Blade turned around. He saw Kayarna standing beside him in a long red skirt and jeweled sandals, her hair piled high and caught up with a gold circlet, the nipples of her bare breasts lightly rouged. Then he saw himself in the bronze mirror that hung on the wall.

On his head rose a conical crown a foot high, the frame white gold but with the gold almost completely invisible under layer after layer of black pearls. There were hundreds of them, perhaps more than a thousand, all perfect, all carefully graded and carefully placed. The large ones at the base of the crown were the size of grapes, the ones at the very top were hardly larger than grains of sand. Blade moved his head slightly, and the light played across the black surface of pearls.

It was like wearing a crown of luminous darkness.

«You are already the king of my lovers,» said Kayarna with a smile, running her hand down Blade's arm. «By the Pearl Crown you are King-By-Marriage in all of Tor, not just in my bed. You will have the place beside me as long as you live. That place needs filling, and there is no one else so worthy. Nor will there be.»

«You flatter me,» said Blade. «I can hardly refuse. Yet what becomes of the Kargoi now?»

«You yourself have said that the man Paor is worthy to be High Baudz. Indeed he seems wise and brave. So let him be chosen to rule the Kargoi, and they will have no further need of you.»

It struck Blade that he might have just been given the perfect opportunity to raise the question of the Hauri and of Loyas safety and position. Before he could say a word, Kayarna smiled again.

«To the King-By-Marriage, all but the queen must kneel. Even she may kneel if she chooses.»

In a single flowing motion Kayarna knelt on the floor before Blade. With one hand she raised his kilt, with the other she drew aside the loinguard under it. Her mouth with its warm, superbly skilled, mobile lips closed on Blade's manhood.

He stood like a rock as she stroked and licked and sucked, trying to keep his back straight and his breathing even. It was a game they played sometimes, seeing how long and how silently each could endure the other's best and most skilled efforts to arouse. It was a delightful game, one in which there was never a loser-only winners.

Blade's silence drove Kayarna to put her hands to work along with her lips. Blade clenched both his teeth and his fists and kept quiet. But his back was beginning to arch involuntarily, almost as if he were being gripped by two powerful hands and bent backward. His body was fighting its own fight with Kayarna's lips.

Blade groaned out loud. As if the groan was a signal, pain roared in his head like the winds of a hurricane sweeping in off the sea. His ears were filled with thunder and before his eyes the world vanished in a red fog of pain. Lord Leighton's computer was gripping his brain, and he was on his way back to Home Dimension.

Wild thoughts of Loya, of the Menel diary, of a dozen other things left undone or unfinished flashed through his mind. He groaned again, as much in frustration as in pain or pleasure. Kayarna heard that groan and was certain that Blade's resistance was about to crumble. Her lips closed on him again.

Then there was nothing for Blade but the pain in his head and the other pain in his groin that was also flaming ecstasy. The world faded around him, but before it did, Kayarna's lips had done their work. As the sensation of those lips on him faded, Blade's body jerked and twisted in a shuddering climax. It jerked and twisted again as the pain spread from his head downward into every nerve fiber. Then it seemed to lie still and quiet, as darkness swallowed him up and he fell down into it, away from Kayarna, away from Tor, away into infinity.