The Philosophical Strangler by Eric Flint

“But don’t despair,” he added, his double chin quivering. “Kenny the Beggar says he’ll buy you half a pint of bitters if you survive the Dragon.”

Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. It was so tiresome.

* * *

Not knowing what else to do, I spent the next few days sharing the library with Zulkeh. At my insistence, the Committee had left all their tomes behind so I could undertake a study of our new professional rules, regulations, guidelines, and code of ethics.

Hour by hour, I slogged my way through the books. It was just as bad as I feared.

Fatality rate: expected to be astronomical.

Casualty rate: all-encompassing, universal; a given.

Recompense: nil, save the voluntary “gift.”

Selection of clients: nil, save that preference goes to the poorest, least privileged, and most downtrodden. Those with only a pot to piss in must be serviced first. Do not accept the pot as a “gift.”

And so on and so forth.

“We’re going to starve,” I groaned. “If we live that long.”

* * *

But then—

But then—

I started noticing something. Didn’t think much of it, at first. Until, in book after book, a pattern began to emerge.

I started studying more intently. Then, earnestly. Then, feverishly. By the end of the second day, I had gone through each and every tome.

And found no exceptions! None! The principle was established! The rule as clear as day!

I was quivering with excitement. But I forced myself to think it over carefully, before I made the Fateful Decision.

Oh, for maybe ten seconds.

Screw it. Even if I’d lost everything else on account of Greyboar’s philosophical obsessions, I’d gained the one thing that mattered the most to me.

So it was with a light heart and a lift to my steps that I charged into Jenny and Angela’s sewing room. They left off their cheerful chattering and their sewing (well—mostly rending what had already been sewn) and looked up at me from their chairs.

Smiling like liquid sunshine.

“Well, and will you look at this?” chuckled Jenny.

“He actually doesn’t look like a barrel of pickles,” chortled Angela.

“Marry me,” I choked.

The smiles vanished from their faces. Jenny and Angela stared at me. Then at each other. Then, back at me.

Tears started to form in Jenny’s eyes. “Which one?” whispered Angela. “We thought you loved us both.”

I was probably hopping up and down with glee, by then. I don’t remember clearly.

“That’s it! That’s it! Both of you!”

I managed to bring myself under a semblance of control. “Well, not exactly that, since that would be polygamy or something and given the way you two are—well, you know, it’s like a three-way thing—so what happens is that I marry Jenny and you marry Angela and she marries me, and maybe we can do it back around again the other way just to make sure everything’s on the up and up.”

They were back to staring at me. Blank-faced.

Then Angela croaked: “That’d be illegal, Ignace.”

“Can’t be done,” added Jenny, very sadly.

By then I’m sure I was hopping up and down. “Bullshit! Doesn’t apply to us! Me and Greyboar are official Heroes! On this stuff—there’s no rules! We set our own!”

* * *

Jenny and Angela still didn’t believe me, so I more or less hauled them by the scruff of the neck into the library, jolted Zulkeh out of his scholarly trance, and put the matter before him.

“Well, of course!” he expostulated, stroking his beard fiercely. ” ‘Tis as plain as the nose in front of your face. All Heroes, by the nature of the trade, are profligates when it comes to matters of the heart. Cannot be held accountable to society’s rules. Nay—fie on it! What sort of wretched Hero would settle for such a timid boundary to his Vaulting Spirit?”

He gave Jenny and Angela a stern look. “As for the other—this trifle concerning sexual orientation—the matter is plainer still. My dear girls! The principle was established by the very founder of the Hero’s Trade himself. I refer, of course, to Gilgamesh Sfondrati-Piccolomini and his grotesque liaison with the man-beast Enkidu, in which homoerotica was intermingled with the most perverse aspects of sadomasochism and bondage. And whatever doubts might still have remained were surely dispelled by the great Achilles Laebmauntsforscynneweëld, in his unseemly hither-thither between the captive slave girl and comely Patroclus, in which—”