[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

plain, dimly showing up the hunched forms of the tents around it. From over
nearer to the waterhole, the cattle stirred restlessly, and occasionally one
bawled loud and harsh. A half moon rode high in a sky filled with more stars
than Blade had ever seen before.
Page 36
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
How long he sat there he didn't know. In time he realized that the temperature
was dropping, and he thought of drifting back toward the warmth of the fire.
He started to rise. As he did so, he realized that someone was standing in
front of him, looking down at him.
He stood up, and found himself looking down at the figure. The face tilted
upward, and in the faint moonlight Blade saw two wide eyes shining up into
his. His jaw set hard. It was Princess Aumara.
The silence went on and on, those two eyes still gleaming upward. Finally
Blade heard a soft laugh, and
Aumara spoke. "What is it, Richard Blade of the English? Do you find my
company unpleasant?"
"No, Princess. Only surprising. Why are you wandering about outside your
tent?"
"Do the English keep their women locked up, like the Kandans?"
Blade was startled, and it showed in his voice. "No. Why do you ask?"
"If they do not, why are you surprised that I do not sit and stifle in my
tent? The air is so good and clean out here on the plain."
"It is. But aren't you afraid of being-bothered?" Blade could not think of a
more tactful word at the moment.
"Who would bother me?" asked Aumara. Not arrogantly, but simply asking a
question about a matter that she regarded as self-evident. "I am the First
Princess of Zunga. It is death to show disrespect to me.
And it would not even be necessary to wait for my father's guards and judgment
to bring that death." She reached up for the thong that held her robe together
at the waist, undid it, and did a little whirling step.
The robe lifted, showing a belt around her waist with two gleaming knives in
it. It also showed that she wore nothing else under her robe. Blade had a
fleeting glimpse of a trim waist and full round thighs
converging in a curly dark mass of hair in the center.
Blade jumped as if he had been stung. He had not exactly been afraid of this,
but he could see a hideous host of complications following in its wake. Aumara
noticed his reaction, and her eyes blazed into his again.
"Is there a problem, Richard Blade? Do you perhaps find me not desirable? No,
I see that is not the case, whatever you may say." She pointed down at Blade's
groin. He was entirely too aware that his manhood had risen. As usual it
obeyed no will but its own.
"My tongue will not lie to you, Princess. Why should it? You are a beautiful
woman. My mind and my manhood agree on that. But you are also a princess of
the Zungans. Suppose I took you, and did not please you? Dawn might find me
lying here stiff with one of your knives stuck in me. And suppose I
pleased you, but my pleasing you did not please your father? Then the dawn
might find me hanging downward from a pole, with the smoke of my burning guts
rising up around me. And there are important things I have to do in Zunga." He
very nearly added, "More important than servicing a randy princess,"
but realized that would be suicidally untactful. Instead he substituted,
"Things that will not be done if I
die."
"I like that, Blade," said Aumara. "I am not so vain that I rejoice in having
a man fling away all his plans and duties to take me. But I can assure you
there is no danger. I believe you will do your best, and no man can do any
more. If your best is not good enough for me, there simply will be no other
time. But if it is..." She left the sentence snidely unfinished. "And my
father will say nothing, even if he learns of what we have done. He does not
see fit to keep me in a cage, now that I am a grown woman. Even less will he
try to hold me back now that my last brother is dead and I will be joint ruler
of Zunga with a husband someday."
She reached up to undo the thongs at the neck of her robe, then shrugged the
robe to the ground. Nude except for the belt, she stood before him. Her skin
Page 37
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
was very smooth and its mahogany color had a slight sheen in the moonlight.
Blade stared. In spite of his surprise, he felt his erection rise and stiffen
still further.
"Here and now, Princess?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]