"Let me sit by you," he said, "and feel your sweet warmth as you play."

"Of course, Your Majesty." She put her fingers on his arm. "If I seem a little breathless… I've never before been alone with a king."

"Ah, and I'm not just any king," he murmured.

"I knew it," she whispered, "when I first laid eyes on you. You are a-king among kings, a-man among men."

He found his hands reaching, his arms slipping round her, his mouth moving to hers. They kissed.

"Oh, Your Majesty," she breathed, and they kissed again; his tongue caressed her lips, and they opened to him. He felt her hand rest on his thigh, and he fumbled at her vestlike girdle. She undid the laces and guided his hand inside it to her left breast, round, firm, hard-nippled. Her own hand slid up his thigh to his cod-piece. For half a minute they fondled one another, kissing, then he could wait no longer, for he was king, and accustomed not to courtship or seduction, but to having, taking. Dropping to his knees before the settee, he began to reach up her skirt, pawing amongst a confusion of petticoats, till she stayed his arm. "Your Highness," she murmured, "it's not necessary to muss my clothing. We need only remove it, mine and yours."

Gurtho often thought of himself as inexhaustible. It was, his father had told him once, a family trait. But even so… Lying back for the moment, he wondered fleetingly if he'd been bewitched. No, he told himself, this had not been sorcery. Not unless thighs and buttocks, fingers, tongue and lips, were the instruments of magic. I never imagined a woman like her, he thought. And had an insight of his own, something rare as summer snow: It's as if she knows what I'm feeling, and what to do next! Now that, he told himself, would be most worthwhile magic.

She purred in his ear. "Your Majesty seems tired."

He grunted. "Even a satyr must rest now and then. Briefly. Long enough to let the sweat dry a bit."

Her laughter was low and throaty. "Dry? We needn't wait for that," she said, and swinging astride his thighs, began to lick the sweat from his hairy chest.

26: Collecting Taxes

Macurdy turned in the saddle, glancing back at the Big Dipper wheeling inexorably through its nightly course, and remembered that night shift by the watchfires, at the abandoned squatter's farm in Oz. How long ago? Less than three months; it seemed longer. He'd been a runaway slave with just three friends backing him, one of them a bird that might weigh fifteen pounds. Now he was Captain Macurdy, with his own little army: some two hundred seventy rebel fighting men.

He grunted inwardly. Or would-be fighting men. Tonight he'd find out how good fifty of the more advanced were, how much they'd learned.

He didn't try to set the pace himself. As a Hero, he'd come to be a skilled rider, but he still lacked a sure feel for how hard and long one could push a good horse. So he'd appointed Tarlok route leader. Just now the man rode in front of him, with a pair of scouts out of sight ahead.

He scanned around, seeing the countryside by the light of a newly risen moon a bit less than half full. Dogs barked from sleeping farms, but farm dogs barked at everything that moved-cats, possums, skunks… No one's sleep would be seriously disturbed unless the tone became excited.

He expected to return a different way; a way with fewer hills to cross, easier for the pack string, which by then would be heavily loaded. And more importantly, a way that would lead their pursuit into Wollerda's ambush, for the purpose of this raid went beyond plunder.

Macurdy had planned the mission as carefully as he could, given his limitations of time and information, and still felt uncomfortable about it. His Kullvordi officers, on the other hand, were enthused. As he'd explained his thinking to them, they'd reacted as if he was a genius to have thought all those things through.

His basic problem was that he questioned whether his force was ready for something like this. Though he'd gone out of his way not to show it, because one of the pluses was their generally high level of confidence: They had the idea that any hillsman was worth three soldiers and six bailiff's men.

Despite his misgivings, here he was, his timing dictated by opportunity and need. To feed his growing company was a constant problem. Also, some sort of successful fighting action was necessary to keep up morale; to keep recruits coming in; and to prevent excessive desertions, because so far, many of his volunteers had shown limited tolerance for training in the absence of fighting. It was also desirable, though not yet urgent, to show Wollerda and his men that Macurdy's Company was capable of effective action.

And finally to suggest to the flatlanders that the king was in real trouble this time.

The opportunity was the timing of tax collection in the flatlands, and what it might mean to the problem of feeding his rebels. They ate no more as fighting men than they would at home, but at home they ate their own food-food they'd either helped to raise, or bought and paid for. But here… Chits or not, most of the farmers they took food from considered themselves more or less plundered.

Then someone had mentioned that the flatlanders were about finished with their wheat harvest, and maybe they ought to raid them.

Macurdy's lips had drawn into a thoughtful pucker. To plunder flatland farmers would kill the hope of rural support there, but he saw another way. He'd already heard how, in the flatlands, the bailiffs' tax squads went out with hired wagons and drovers within a few days after harvest, collecting the tax grain and tax cattle. And presumably as soon as that was done, the farmers would begin carting to market whatever surplus they had, beyond household needs and seed, and no doubt a reserve.

No, he'd announced, we're not going to plunder the farmers. We'll plunder the bailiffs instead. Which meant they'd be robbing the king, which would please the farmers (he hoped), and gain the rebels their passive approval at least. While plundering the concentrations in a bailiff's grain bins should be a lot handier than going from farm to farm. And perhaps safer, because they could strike, load up, and get back to the forest far more quickly.

Even his own staff, who were quite willing to plunder flatland farmers, saw the logic of it.

They'd been ready to do it cold. In fact, their concept of planning in general troubled Macurdy. Their attitude was no problem. We'll just go do it. Then he'd point out problems, and they'd say oh yes, and listen while he asked questions, paid attention to their answers, and came up with handlings, or what he hoped were handlings.

He had no doubt his Kullvordi were resourceful. The unforeseeable things that would inevitably come up, they'd probably handle better than most would. That was pretty much the way the hillsmen lived life. But the more things you foresaw and prepared for in advance, it seemed to him, the easier it would be to handle the rest of it.

Anyway they'd listened; even been impressed and enthused. Partly because he was going to let them fight at last, but even more because they had confidence in him, in his leadership. More confidence than he did. Not that he denigrated what he'd accomplished, from that decisive morning at the House of Heroes, to the confrontations with Slaney and Orthal. And in building and training his company since then. But to him, the challenges ahead seemed much greater. While to his rebels-he'd performed what they considered miracles, and they assumed he'd continue to.

He looked around at the platoon riding quietly through the night. Only occasionally had he heard a murmured exchange or comment. Beyond that was only the soft plod of hooves on dirt and the squeak of leather; they were doing a good job of keeping route security. He could sense no extreme tension, and he'd come to appreciate how sensitive he'd grown to other people's unexpressed emotions, since Varia and Arbel had worked with him. These guys are a lot more interested in fighting than Slaney's men were at the fallen timber, he told himself. Even with the cover of forest hours behind us, and a fight ahead that not all of us may live through.