«But one does, Honorable Lady,» said Blade.

The lady shook her head and smiled. «Not tonight, Blade. Not tonight, not here, and not between us.»

Blade had barely recognized the suppressed desire in her voice when she stood up and came toward him. She moved with long free strides, not with the normal half-shuffle of noblewomen in Gaikon. As she moved, her hands went to the diamond-studded clasp that held together the sash of her robe. The sash dropped to the floor. The robe did not follow it, but it swung open and shut as Lady Oyasa covered the last few steps to Blade. He could see the flicker of slim, rounded, creamy brown limbs inside the robe.

Then Lady Oyasa was flowing up against him, her hands working on his own robe, working up under it. He was responding, and he knew it, and he knew that she knew it. She laughed and murmured, her lips pressed against his throat. «I thought you were no eunuch, Blade. Now I know. It would be a pity for someone like you not to be a man.»

It certainly would be, Blade thought. He knew that castration was one of the penalties for what he was about to do. But he was going to do it anyway. Lady Oyasa was right. There was a time for worrying about what was foolish and what wasn't, and a time for throwing caution to the winds. He reached down and wrapped his arms around Lady Oyasa, drawing her more tightly against him.

She was tall for a woman of Gaikon, tall and long-limbed. She could run her fingers through his hair without reaching, press her warm lips against his throat and run them up and down the side of his neck. She twisted from side to side as she did this, and bit by bit the robe crept wider and wider open. Then suddenly with a faint hiss of silk on soft skin it was gone, falling and spreading on the sleeping mat at her feet. Her whole exquisite body gleamed bare, the highlights shifting as she slowly turned about in front of Blade.

Then suddenly she knelt down and after a moment almost threw herself backward. «Oh, Blade,» she murmured. «Let it be now. Let it be now, and not a moment later. It is time for us. Kunkoi would have it so.» Slowly her legs spread apart, inch by inch, as she spoke. Meanwhile her hands cupped her small conical breasts, whose nipples were already solidly erect spots of darkness against the creamy brown skin.

If Blade hadn't already decided to answer Lady Oyasa's appeal, he would have decided at that moment. He was not a stone statue, and nothing else could have resisted the appeal of Lady Oyasa's naked body-and the naked desire in her eyes and voice. His hands worked swiftly, stripping off his own robe, then he lay down on the mat beside her.

His hands roamed up and down her body, while her hands did the same on his. She nuzzled his throat again, and nipped the tanned skin with small sharp white teeth. Desire swelled further in Blade, a desire to lose himself in this woman, to lock his arms around her. He had not felt such a total desire for a long time; he had wondered if it was perhaps something he had lost.

But it was not, and so he gave into it. He pulled Lady Oyasa over on top of him, and she settled down to take him into herself, deep and deeper, until they were locked together more tightly than Blade would have imagined possible. His arms bent her downward even farther, until her gorged and solid nipples brushed his chest. Her flesh was both cool and hot at the same time. Its feel against his own drove Blade's desire higher-higher and faster even than the tightness and wetness and warmth that were wrapped around him.

Lady Oyasa began grinding her hips down against Blade, twisting them around in a circle, rocking her body from side to side against his chest. She began to whimper, then to gasp in a rhythm that increased to match Blade's. Her long fingers arched themselves into claws and raked through his hair, digging into his scalp. But the pain did not penetrate Blade's mind. Nothing did, nothing could. He was becoming totally absorbed in this woman, in the act of love with her. No, not necessarily love, or even affection. Passion-raw, burning, and exhilarating enough in its own right.

Suddenly Lady Oyasa's fingers clamped down hard, her nails digging deep into Blade's scalp. He gasped with the sudden stabbing pain and his efforts to hold on. She opened her mouth wide and let out a howl of pure animal feeling, a howl that filled the hut. It was so loud Blade could imagine it escaping through the walls and being carried for miles through the forest outside. The lady thrashed and heaved and twisted as though an electric shock was passing through her, alternately jerking half upright and plastering herself harder than ever against Blade.

Then Blade himself groaned and let out a shout of relief and triumph as his own spasm came. It was his turn to lock his arms around Lady Oyasa, his turn to run his fingers through her hair, his turn to pull her hard against him as he jetted furiously up into her still-twisting body. For long minutes they stayed locked together in a common release, and if the hut had fallen in on them they would not have noticed it.

Eventually the explosion of passion faded away. Blade lay on the mat, one arm curled around Lady Oyasa, waiting for his breathing to return to normal, feeling his body as damp with sweat as it would have been after a battle. Even after he had the breath to do so, he did not feel like speaking.

Lady Oyasa broke the silence, propping herself up on one elbow and looking down at Blade with a soft smile on her face. Even now Blade could not help noticing that her breasts were so firm they did not sag or droop out of shape as she took this ungraceful pose. She ran the tip of one finger lightly across Blade's rib cage and said, «Well, Blade-what of folly now?»

Blade shrugged. «I think I will not try to judge folly for you, Lady. You seem to follow your own judgment and no one else's.»

«How well you know me,» she said with a laugh. «How much better than Lord Tsekuin. Yes, I do follow my own judgment. And look where it has led me. Now I will not have to submit to a widow's seclusion at twenty-one without ever having known real pleasure.»

«It may yet lead you farther than you wish to go,» said Blade, trying to keep his voice light.

«Perhaps,» she said. «But I have only one head to cut off. I have only one body they can torture, one back they can flog. I can lose only so much to Lord Tsekuin's whims.»

Blade had to admit that she was right. But he did not share her casualness about his «one head» or «one body.» What there was between them had been marvelous and might be so again. But he could hardly share Lady Oyasa's notion that it was worth so much.

Blade and Lady Oyasa met in the forest but three more times during the next three weeks. They might have done it more often if they had risked meeting in the castle itself. But that would have meant disarming too many booby traps and bribing too many guards and servants to keep eyes, ears, and mouths shut. Sooner or later word would have reached Lord Tsekuin.

Then there would have been less than no chance of mercy for them. Lord Tsekuin was in a foul mood these days. He walked about with a hand on the hilt of his sword and his eyes constantly roving about him, even in the castle. He looked like he expected six armed opponents to leap at him out of the walls or sprout up around him from the ground under his feet.

Meanwhile there was weapons practice. There was instruction in all the manners and skills of a dabuno, including the approved games such as Hu. Blade did not find time heavy on his hands.

Blade's swordsmanship steadily improved under Yezjaro's teaching. It improved to the point where Yezjaro admitted, «It might take me as much as ten minutes to kill you, Blade.» That was high praise from the deadly young instructor.