Blade was hoping for a chance to bathe and put on clean clothes. This lush little palace was making him very much aware of the amount of dirt and salt encrusted on his clothes and body.
Instead, the two soldiers stepped up to Blade and Dzhai and helped them dismount. Then they barked orders to the servants, who led the rest of the party aside. Finally they bowed respectfully to Blade and Dzhai.
«Honorable Prince Blade, Honorable Captain Dzhai. It is the Princess Tarassa's wish to see you at once. It is our wish that you come with us into her presence.» Blade put a hand on his sword, ready to draw it and present it to the man hilt-first. The man shook his head. «No, it is not needful for you to disarm. What you bear will aid Her Grace in passing her judgment upon you, and no harm will come to her in any case.»
The last statement was made as boldly as if the man had said that water runs downhill or the sun rises in the east. Tarassa's personal guards seemed to be sublimely confident that they had the measure of any possible opponent. Blade suspected they might be right. He nodded, let his hands fall by his sides, and followed the soldier off toward the palace.
The inside of the palace matched the outside. Blade stepped across the threshold, and his scarred and salt-stained boots sank inches deep in a thick rug. The floor around the rug was inlaid wood in half a dozen different colors. The walls showed swirling mosaic designs of fish and waves where they weren't covered with flowing silk hangings. Somewhere in the palace water trickled gently over stones. Somewhere else someone played skillfully on a flute. In a third place someone was burning incense that gently floated out on the currents of air through the whole palace. Along with the incense, Blade smelled fresh flowers and the lemony tang of waxed wood.
Princess Tarassa might be ruler of a land that stayed free only behind a grim face of forts and garrisons and cannon muzzles, yet here in this little palace she had created for herself a refuge from which all grimness was banished, a refuge where she and those she admitted could forget about the real world. This refuge told Blade a good deal about Tarassa that he hadn't guessed before and made him want to learn more.
The warm, heavily scented air made it hard to concentrate. Blade found his mind wandering to consider what might lie in the other rooms of the palace, beyond the doors he noticed opening off on three sides of this chamber.
His mind wandered so far that he did not notice the plain, whitewashed wooden chair in an alcove on one side of the chamber. Nor did he see a tall, graceful figure slip in through one of the doors and sit down in the chair until Dzhai coughed gently and elbowed him in the ribs.
Then Blade did not need the soldier's signal to go down on one knee. Princess Tarassa compelled that respect by nature; she would have compelled it at any time and in any place.
The princess rose from her chair and came toward Blade and Dzhai. She stood more than six feet tall, and her figure was that of a Home Dimension high-fashion model-sparely fleshed but beautifully molded. Her olive skin and great black eyes needed no makeup, nor did her dark hair need a hairdresser. It seemed to float about her head like the foam on the top of a wave.
She wore a long, flowing robe of dark blue silk, belted in with sealskin. On her head was a golden circlet, at her throat a necklace of silver and coral beads, and on her long-toed feet she wore leather sandals bleached such a dazzling white that they seemed to glow. She carried no scepter or other sign of office, and she carried no weapons either.
She hardly needed them. Blade sensed watchers behind the screens that closed off two of the three doors, as well as above the ceiling. The princess might not flaunt her guards to terrorize her visitors as Kul-Nam did, but she kept them just as ready. Let anyone in this chamber make a single suspicious move and his blood would be soaking into the rug before he could take two more breaths.
The princess stopped about ten feet from Blade, looked him up and down, did the same for Dzhai, then laughed. It was not a mocking or cruel laugh. It was rich with life and also with satisfaction.
«Yes, gentlemen, my guards watch and wait,» the princess said. «But they will not move without my bidding. We of Parine do not treat strangers as enemies until they have done us some wrong. You have done us none, as yet. In fact, you passed the test my officers set you and your crew.»
Dzhai couldn't keep from gaping, then bursting out, «A test!»
The princess nodded. «Yes. It was their plan to find out how well you, the leaders, could control both your tempers and your men. They discovered that you are both wise and strong. The wise and the strong are not always our friends, but they are seldom our enemies.»
Blade smiled thinly. «If we are going to exchange praise, may I then praise your officers for their acting skill-and for their courage? They were not altogether safe, playing the game they did with my men. The men of Kukon have endured much and their patience has worn as ragged as their clothes.»
«So one might gather,» said the princess. «You also deserve praise for the game you and Luun played on my officers. They could not be sure whether you were foolish enough to think you could escape, mad enough to fight against certain death, or possessed of some secret weapon that would get you safely out of the harbor. They are still not sure.»
«And you, Your Grace?» said Blade politely. «You seem to know more than they.»
Tarassa nodded. «There are those who serve me who know ships well. They have watched Kukon and sent me word. You have no secret weapon. Furthermore, your ship is so badly battered and short of stores that she could not reach another port even if by some chance she survived a battle with the guns of Parine.»
Dzhai started to explode again, but Blade clamped a hand on his shoulder. Dzhai's mouth hung open for a moment; then he snapped it shut and sputtered down into silence.
Blade nodded. «I had not thought there were many in Parine who knew ships well.»
«You have heard the truth. Yet we have enough ships so that we also have some men who know them. Have they not spoken truly about your galley?»
Blade made his face and voice deliberately expressionless. «What your people have said agrees with what I have heard from those of my men whose business it is to tell me such things.»
«Then you have heard the truth, and my people have seen it,» said the princess briskly. «Your people must be skilled; otherwise your ship would not have come through the great battle off Nongai and the storm you faced on your way to Parine. If they are skilled, they told you the truth about your ship. Therefore-«She spread her slim hands in an eloquent gesture, as if to ask whether she needed to continue.
Relief and admiration for Princess Tarassa's skill and wit overcame Blade. He threw back his head and let out a great, whooping roar of laughter that echoed around the chamber. The soldier looked slightly scandalized. Dzhai seemed to be wondering if Blade had gone mad. Princess Tarassa smiled, then joined in the laughter.
Blade caught his breath. «Your Grace, you are served by people worthy of you, and they have a ruler worthy of them. I am glad to be in Parine, and I do not believe that we of Kukon shall be treated as enemies.»
«You shall not,» said the princess. «Now that we have settled that point, I shall ask you to tell me of yourself and your ship. Be brief.
«When you have finished, I shall send Captain Dzhai back to the ship. I shall also send orders that all supplies and repairs your ship may need are to be provided at my expense.»
«You are generous,» said Blade. «But what about the crew?»
«Yes, they have been long at sea, have they not? I shall also send a sum of money for each man and permit them to come ashore. They may do all that which is lawful. Those who violate the laws of Parine will be dealt with, of course, but those who do not have nothing to fear.»