“Certes t’would be insanity to assault the Guild direct, your wisdom’s perfect there,” the Mouser commented. “If you cannot break your most handsome girl of this mad notion, or coax her from it—and I can see she’s a fearless, self-willed one—then you must stoutly refuse e’en her least request in that direction.”
“Certes I must,” Fafhrd agreed, adding somewhat accusingly, “though I gather you told her you’d have willingly slit the throats of the two we struck senseless.”
“Courtesy merely, man! Would you have had me behave ungraciously to your girl? ‘Tis measure of the value I was already setting then on your goodwill. But only a woman’s man may cross her. As you must, in this instance.”
“Certes I must,” Fafhrd repeated with great emphasis and conviction. “I’d be an idiot taking on the Guild. Of course if they should catch me they’d kill me in any case for freelancing and highjacking. But wantonly to assault the Guild direct, kill one Guild-thief needlessly, only behave as if I might—lunacy entire!”
“You’d not only be a drunken, drooling idiot, you’d questionless be stinking in three nights at most from that emperor of diseases, Death. Malicious attacks on her person, blows directed at the organization, the Guild requites tenfold what she does other rule-breakings. All planned robberies and other thefts would be called off and the entire power of the Guild and its allies mobilized against you alone. I’d count your chances better to take on single-handed the host of the King of Kings rather than the Thieves’ Guild’s subtle minions. In view of your size, might, and wit you’re a squad perhaps, or even a company, but hardly an army. So, no least giving-in to Vlana in this one matter.”
“Agreed!” Fafhrd said loudly, shaking the Mouser’s iron-thewed hand in a near crusher grip.
“And now we should be getting back to the girls,” the Mouser said.
“After one more drink while we settle the score. Ho, boy!”
“Suits.” The Mouser dug into his pouch to pay, but Fafhrd protested vehemently. In the end they tossed coin for it, and Fafhrd won and with great satisfaction clinked out his silver smerduks on the stained and dinted counter also marked with an infinitude of mug circles, as if it had been once the desk of a mad geometer. They pushed themselves to their feet, the Mouser giving the rathole one last light kick for luck.
At this, Fafhrd’s thoughts looped back and he said, “Grant the beastie can’t paw-write, or talk by mouth or paw, it still could have followed us at distance, marked down your dwelling, and then returned to Thieves’ House to lead its masters down on us like a hound!”
“Now you’re speaking shrewd sense again,” the Mouser said. “Ho, boy, a bucket of small beer to go! On the instant!” Noting Fafhrd’s blank look, he explained, “I’ll spill it outside the Eel to kill our scent and all the way down the passageway. Yes, and splash it high on the walls too.”
Fafhrd nodded wisely. “I thought I’d drunk my way past the addled point.”
Vlana and Ivrian, deep in excited talk, both started at the pounding rush of footsteps up the stairs. Racing behemoths could hardly have made more noise. The creaking and groaning were prodigious and there were the crashes of two treads breaking, yet the pounding footsteps never faltered. The door flew open and their two men rushed in through a great mushroom top of night-smog which was neatly sliced off its black stem by the slam of the door.
“I told you we’d be back in a wink,” the Mouser cried gayly to Ivrian, while Fafhrd strode forward, unmindful of the creaking floor, crying, “Dearest heart, I’ve missed you sorely,” and caught up Vlana despite her voiced protests and pushings-off and kissed and hugged her soundly before setting her back on the couch again.
Oddly, it was Ivrian who appeared to be angry at Fafhrd then, rather than Vlana, who was smiling fondly if somewhat dazedly.
“Fafhrd, sir,” she said boldly, little fists set on her narrow hips, her tapered chin held high, her dark eyes blazing, “my beloved Vlana has been telling me about the unspeakably atrocious things the Thieves’ Guild did to her and to her dearest friends. Pardon my frank speaking to one I’ve only met, but I think it quite unmanly of you to refuse her the just revenge she desires and fully deserves. And that goes for you too, Mouse, who boasted to Vlana of what you would have done had you but known, who in like case did not scruple to slay my very own father—or reputed father—for his cruelties!”
It was clear to Fafhrd that while he and the Gray Mouser had idly boozed in the Eel, Vlana had been giving Ivrian a doubtless empurpled account of her grievances against the Guild and playing mercilessly on the naive girl’s bookish, romantic sympathies and high concept of knightly honor. It was also clear to him that Ivrian was more than a little drunk. A three-quarters empty flask of violet wine of far Kiraay sat on the low table next them.
Yet he could think of nothing to do but spread his big hands helplessly and bow his head, more than the low ceiling made necessary, under Ivrian’s glare, now reinforced by that of Vlana. After all, they were in the right. He had promised.
So it was the Mouser who first tried to rebut.
“Come now, pet,” he cried lightly as he danced about the room, silk-stuffing more cracks against the thickening night-smog and stirring up and feeding the fire in the stove, “and you too, beauteous Lady Vlana. For the past month Fafhrd has been hitting the Guild-thieves where it hurts them most—in their purses a-dangle between their legs. His highjackings of the loot of their robberies have been like so many fierce kicks in their groins. Hurts worse, believe me, than robbing them of life with a swift, near painless sword slash or thrust. And tonight I helped him in his worthy purpose—and will eagerly do so again. Come, drink we up all.” Under his handling, one of the new jugs came uncorked with a pop and he darted about brimming silver cups and mugs.
“A merchant’s revenge!” Ivrian retorted with scorn, not one whit appeased, but rather angered anew. “Ye both are at heart true and gentle knights, I know, despite all current backsliding. At the least you must bring Vlana the head of Krovas!”
“What would she do with it? What good would it be except to spot the carpets?” the Mouser plaintively inquired, while Fafhrd, gathering his wits at last and going down on one knee, said slowly, “Most respected Lady Ivrian, it is true I solemnly promised my beloved Vlana I would help her in her revenge, but that was while I was still in barbarous Cold Corner, where blood-feud is a commonplace, sanctioned by custom and accepted by all the clans and tribes and brotherhoods of the savage Northerners of the Cold Waste. In my naïveté I thought of Vlana’s revenge as being of that sort. But here in civilization’s midst, I discover all’s different and rules and customs turned upside-down. Yet—Lankhmar or Cold Corner—one must seem to observe rule and custom to survive. Here cash is all-powerful, the idol placed highest, whether one sweat, thieve, grind others down, or scheme for it. Here feud and revenge are outside all rules and punished worse than violent lunacy. Think, Lady Ivrian, if Mouse and I should bring Vlana the head of Krovas, she and I would have to flee Lankhmar on the instant, every man’s hand against us; while you infallibly would lose this fairyland Mouse has created for love of you and be forced to do likewise, be with him a beggar on the run for the rest of your natural lives.”
It was beautifully reasoned and put … and no good whatsoever. While Fafhrd spoke, Ivrian snatched up her new-filled cup and drained it. Now she stood up straight as a soldier, her pale face flushed, and said scathingly to Fafhrd kneeling before her, “You count the cost! You speak to me of things”—she waved at the many-hued splendor around her—”of mere property, however costly, when honor is at stake. You gave Vlana your word. Oh, is knighthood wholly dead? And that applies to you, too, Mouse, who swore you’d slit the miserable throats of two noisome Guild-thieves.”
“I didn’t swear to,” the Mouser objected feebly, downing a big drink. “I merely said I would have,” while Fafhrd could only shrug again and writhe inside and gulp a little easement from his silver mug. For Ivrian was speaking in the same guilt-showering tones and using the same unfair yet heart-cleaving womanly arguments as Mor his mother might have, or Mara, his deserted Snow Clan sweetheart and avowed wife, big-bellied by now with his child.
In a master stroke, Vlana tried gently to draw Ivrian down to her golden seat again. “Softly, dearest,” she pleaded. “You have spoken nobly for me and my cause, and believe me, I am most grateful. Your words revived in me great, fine feelings dead these many years. But of us here, only you are truly an aristocrat attuned to the highest proprieties. We other three are naught but thieves. Is it any wonder some of us put safety above honor and word-keeping, and most prudently avoid risking our lives? Yes, we are three thieves and I am outvoted. So please speak no more of honor and rash, dauntless bravery, but sit you down and—”