“Really?”
“Truly?”
She nodded solemnly at the two girls and went on, “I pretended to be angry with them, wanting barbarian girls when they had me, but that night I confessed to the captain how much I would enjoy teaching you with his aid the arts in which Hothand had instructed me and disciplining you when you turned balky, complaining I’d had no one to humiliate since becoming chief cabin-girl. He said he’d like to please me but that kidnapping you would be too risky. I kept on wheedling him, however, and he finally told me it would be another matter if I went ashore and lured you to come aboard secretly without telling anyone. I pretended to be terrified of setting foot on savage Rime Isle, but in the end I let him persuade me.
“So that’s how I was able to escape from Weasel and warn you, dear Lady Afreyt and Lady Cif,” Fingers concluded with a doubtful smile.
“You see?” the Mouser broke his enforced silence almost gleefully. “She planned the whole kidnapping herself! Or at least forced the Weasel’s captain to sharpen his plans. It’s the old saw, ‘A devious plot? Some woman wove it!’”
“But she only did it in order to—” Cif began furiously.
Afreyt said simultaneously, “Captain Mouser, with all respect, you are impossible!”
Cif rebegan, “She only employed the tricksy guile you would yourself in like situation.”
“That’s pure truth,” Fafhrd confirmed. “Guest Fingers, you are the Princess of Plotters. I never heard a braver tale.” Then, sotto voce to Afreyt, “I declare, Mouser gets more stubborn-cranky every day. He can’t have shaken the old-age curse. That would explain it.”
Mara piped up, “You wouldn’t really have enjoyed beating us, would you, Fingers?”
Klute: I bet she would. With a dogwhip! The pursuit hound’s.
Gale: No, she wouldn’t, she’d think of something worse, like putting boreworms up our noses.
May: Or in our ears!
Klute: Or maybe in our salad.
Gale: Or up our—
Afreyt: Children! That’s quite enough. Go and fetch out our dinners, all of you. Quickly. Fingers, please help them.
They trooped off excitedly, beginning to whisper as they reached the kitchen.
.7.
Afreyt said, “And while we’re eating our dinners, Mouser, I hope you won’t—”
But he interrupted, “Oh, I know well enough when you’re all against me. I’ll be wordless willingly. Let me tell you, it’s hard work being the voice of prudence and good sense when you’re all being noble and generous and riding your liberal hobby horses recklessly.”
Cif smiled with a shrug and one eye toward heaven. “Just the same, I’d feel better if you’d go a little further than just being quiet and—”
“Why not?” he demanded hugely with the ghost of a growl. “Break one, break all. Princess Fingers,” he called, “would your majesty please approach me?”
The girl put down the covered tray of hotcakes she’d just carried in and turned toward him with eyes lowered respectfully. “Yes, sir?”
He said, “My friends here tell me I should take your right hand.” She extended hers. He took it, saying, “Princess, I admire your courage and cunning, in which latter quality they tell me you resemble myself. Good guesting and all that!” and he squeezed. She hid a wince as she smiled up at him. He held on. “But hear this, royalty: no matter how clever you are, you’re not as clever as I am. And if, through you, any of these girls, or any of my other friends should come to harm, remember you will have me to answer to.”
She replied, “That’s a proviso I’ll accept and abide by most happily, sir,” and with a little bow she hurried back to the kitchen.
“Bring out four more settings,” Afreyt called after her. “I see Groniger coming in company from the headland. Who are those walk beside him, Fafhrd?”
“Skullick and Pshawri,” he told her, scanning the group moving down toward them out of the last sunset gleam, “come to make report to us of the day’s accomplishments. And old Ourph—these days the ancient Mingol often suns his old bones up there where he can scan both the harbor to the south and the sleepy Maelstrom to the east beyond.”
The last sun patch upon the headland darkened and the misty moon at once seemed to grow brighter above the four oncomers.
“They hurry on apace,” Cif commented. “Old Ourph as well, who commonly lags behind.”
Afreyt assured herself the girl’s task was done and extra places set. “Then fall to, all of you, with the Goddess’s blessing. Else we’ll never start feeding.”
They had sampled the pickled and spiced and nibbled garden-fresh radishes and were chomping roast lamb and sweet mint conserves by the time the four striders drew nigh. Simultaneously the cloud ceiling swiftly went lemon pale with reflected light from the setting or set sun, like a soft sustained trumpet peal of welcome. Their faces showed sudden clear in the afterglow, as if they’d all unmasked.
Groniger said laconically, “Weasel left harbor. Dappled sky to the north presages a wind to speed her on her way. And there’s news of a rather greater interest,” he added, glancing down toward bent and wrinkle-visaged Ourph.
When that one didn’t speak at once, or anyone immediately ask, “What is it?” Pshawri launched out with, “Before Weasel got off, Captain Mouser, I traded deer pelts and a sable for seven pine planks, two slabs of oak, and peppercorn Cook wanted. We harvested the field of ear-corn and whitewashed the barn. Gilgy seems healed of his sunstroke.”
“The wood was seasoned?” Mouser asked testily. Pshawri nodded. “Then next time say so. I like conciseness, but not at the expense of precision.”
Skullick took up. “Skor had us careen Seahawk, Captain Fafhrd, it being Satyrs’ lowest tide, what with moon’s full tomorrow night, and we finished copper-sheathing her steerside. There was a wildfowl hunt. I took Kringle fishing. We caught naught.”
“Enough,” Fafhrd said, waving him silent. “What’s this news of import, Ourph?”
Afreyt arose, saying, “It can wait on courtesy. Gentlemen, join us. There are places set.”
The three others nodded thanks and moved to the well to rinse up, but the ancient Mingol held his ground, bending on Fafhrd a gaze black as his long-skirted tunic and saying portentously, “Captain, as I did take my watch upon the headland, in midafternoon, the sun being halfway descended to the west, I looked toward the great Maelstrom that for this year and half year, this last six seasons, has been still as mountain lake, unnaturally so, and I saw it ‘gin to stir and keep on stirring, slowly, slowly, slowly, as though the sea were thick as witch’s brew.”
To everyone’s surprise, the Mouser cried out a long loud “What?” rising to his feet and glaring direly. “What’s that you say, you dismal dodderer? You black spider of ill omen! You dried-up skeleton!”
“No, Mouser, he speaks true,” Groniger reproved him, returning to take his place prepared next to the women. “I saw it with my own eyes! The currents have come right again at last and Rime Isle’s whirlpool is spinning sluggishly. With any luck—and help of northern storm that’s gathering—she’ll spin ashore the rest of the Mingol wrecks for us to salvage, along with other ships have sunken since. Cheer up, friend.”
The Mouser glowered at him. “You calculating miser greedy for gray driftwood gain! No, there are things sea-buried there I would not have fished up again. Hark ye, old Ourph! Ere the ‘pool ‘gan spin, saw ye any ill-doers sniffing about? I smell wizard’s work.”
“No wizards, Captain Mou, no one at all,” the ancient Mingol averred. “Pshawri and Skullick—” he waved toward the two taking places farther down the table “—took Kringle there earlier and anchored for a while. They will confirm my statement.”
“What?” Again that low-shrieking, long-drawn-out accusatory word sped from the Mouser’s lips as he swung glaring toward the two Ourph had mentioned. “You took out Kringle? Meddled in the Maelstrom?”
“What matter?” Skullick retorted boldly. “I told you we went fishing. We anchored for a while. And Pshawri did one dive.” Old Ourph nodded. “Nothing at all.”
“Fafhrd can deal with you,” the Mouser told him dismissingly. Then, focusing on his own man, “What mischief were you up to, Pshawri? What were you diving for? What did you hope to find? Plunging in Maelstrom’s midst without my order or permission? What did you bring up with you from the dive?”
Flushing darkly, “Captain, you do me wrong,” Pshawri replied, looking him straight in the eye. “Skullick can answer for me. He was there.”
“He brought up nothing,” Skullick said flatly. “And whatever he might have brought up, I’m sure he would have saved to give to you.”
“I do not believe you,” the Mouser said. “You’re insubordinate, both of you. With you, Lieutenant Pshawri, I can deal. For the rest of this moon you are demoted to common seaman. At new moon I will reconsider your case. Until then the matter is closed. I wish to hear no more of it.”