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weapons belt and handed it to the matron, who hung it over the wooden stand.
Piece by piece, they stripped him until he stood naked on the edge of the
bath.
The matron pulled a weighted cord at one end of the wooden stand, a long,
bronze pipe swung down out of the ceiling, and steaming hot water gushed out
of the pipe into the bath. in a few minutes the tub was filled.
The first few minutes in the tub were sheer delight for Blade. He could not
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have found more pleasure in taking any or even all four of the girls to the
couch. He could feel the dirt and sweat and salt floating off his skin and the
strain and aches dissolving out of his bones. He felt that he could gladly
stay in the steaming tub for a week.
After a while he began to hope that the girls would peel off their gowns and
join him in the tub. The chamber was now full of steam, and the dampness made
their gowns cling enticingly. None of them did so, however. Instead, they
scuttled around the edge of the tub, putting sponges, brushes, soap, and
powdered coral within Blade's reach. Apparently there were some uses he was
not supposed to make of them. Well, he was a guest, his hostess had made the
rules-and besides, there was the matron standing by with her knife to enforce
them.
Blade soaped himself thoroughly, brushed every inch of his skin, then rinsed.
He did this three times before he felt clean enough to climb out of the tub.
Then he lay down on the couch and waited for whatever was to happen next.
Blade's muscles were warmly relaxed, but his mind was still cool and alert.
Baths were good places for murders that could be made to look like accidents.
And if they didn't care about making death look
accidental, there was the matron's knife and the scrapers and razors the girls
were now picking up.
The girls went over every inch of Blade's body with the scrapers, with the
powdered coral, with a cool, lightly scented oil, and with their strong,
skilled fingers. Their touch was warm and firm, but so entirely impersonal
that they might have been kneading bread dough.
Then the women left him, vanishing between one moment and the next, almost as
silently as spirits. Bare feet pattered away across the stone, and a distant
door slammed shut. There was a moment's silence, and another door opened, more
softly and much closer. The sound of bare feet came again, this time moving
fast and straight toward the couch.
Blade turned over, raised himself on one elbow, and smiled at Princess Tarassa
as she emerged from the steam.
Surprise at finding him awaiting her so calmly flickered briefly across her
face. Her voice showed none of it.
"Greetings, Prince Blade."
"Greetings, Your Grace."
"Have my servants pleased you?"
"They have pleased me in all the matters in which they were expected to please
me. Your hospitality will live long in my memory."
"That is as it should be, Blade. There is honor in hospitality. There is also
pleasure." She reached down and clasped Blade's right hand. Slowly she bent
her head to kiss his palm, then ran her lips slowly up his arm. As she did so,
her eyes flickered up and down his body. Blade could sense her glances as
something almost tangible, like tiny feathers brushed across his skin. The
arousal he'd kept down so thoroughly for so long began to flow through him. He
could almost feel it beginning to steam gently, like the hot water in the
great bath.
The princess' lips now crept up across Blade's shoulder to his throat. He
could feel the healthy woman's warmth that seemed to flow out of her and
around him. She wore no perfume, yet there was a sweetness in that warmth, a
sweetness that both calmed Blade and excited him still more.
She still wore the blue silk robe, but her jewelry was gone and her feet were
bare. Like the girls' gowns, the silk was now damp enough to cling to her
body. It was not a body to arouse sudden, urgent, immediate passion. Its
curves were too elegant for that. Yet there was an enormous grace in the
princess as she bent over Blade, a grace that made him increasingly eager to
strip aside the robe and see what lay beneath it.
His hands rose and encircled her long, fine neck as if he was going to
strangle her. His fingers played lightly along the line of her jaw, then crept
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around and stroked the nape of her neck. They crept lower, found the hook that
held the gown, and slipped it open. Tarassa shrugged her shoulders, and the
gown slipped from her body and flowed down off the cushions onto the floor
with a faint hiss.
Somehow that hiss was one of the most exciting sounds Blade had ever heard.
After it died away he could see all of Tarassa's equally exciting body. Her
olive skin was evenly tanned from head to foot. Her breasts held their subtle
curves through every movement. Her flat belly seemed to flow down into
superbly turned thighs with a neat triangle of dark hair nestling between
them. Blade ran his hands down her spine to cup and stroke her firm buttocks.
She gasped and lowered herself until her body was resting against his from
head to toe, her hair flowing over his face and her lips still nuzzling the
side of his neck.
She seemed to want to ride him, but this was not Blade's pleasure at the
moment. For once, it mattered to him to take a woman the way he wanted her.
She was a princess and the ruler of Parine's thousands of subjects, but here
and now on this couch in her palace she would for once submit to the will of
another.
Tarassa suddenly found herself being gripped by two arms with steel muscles.
The long fingers of two large hands closed on her so gently that they could
not have bruised, but so hard she hadn't a chance or a hope of escaping or
moving except by Blade's will. He rose, and she rose with him. Then he was
turning her over, lowering her onto her back on the cushions with enormous
strength and determination and yet also an enormous gentleness. She felt
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