“That’s a version of seven-card stud isn’t it?” Karl asked.
“I don’t know,” Judith said. “I’ve never played stud poker.”
“It’s easy,” Nancy told her. “You deal three cards to each player and four face down in the middle of the table. You try to make the best hand with the cards in your hand and the four on the table. You bet after the deal and then again after each card is turned. I’ll help you with the first hand, if you like.”
“And,” Mike continued, “it’s got the advantage that the outcome depends on the cards on the table more than the cards in your hand. That and your betting skill.”
They had no chips, and matchsticks were not a part of this world, but they appropriated a bowl of unshelled nuts from the sideboard by the port, ignoring the audible sniffs of the wizards.
Again Mike shuffled the cards and dealt.
“Three filberts.”
“I’ll see your filberts and raise you a brazil nut,” Judith said. She looked at the zebra-striped nut in her hand. “At least I think it’s a brazil nut.”
“What did we say, five pecans to a brazil nut?” asked Nancy, shoving into the pile of squirrel fodder.
“Ace,” Mike said, flipping the card. “Place your bets.”
They went around the table with everyone betting moderately. Mike reached out and flipped the second card.
“Ace again.”
Nancy made a strangled sound.
“What’s wrong?” her husband asked.
“Just keep going,” Nancy said, staring at the cards.
Again everyone bet and again Mike flipped a card.
“Another ace . . . wait a minute!”
There on the table face up were an ace of clubs and ace of diamonds. The last card was the ace of spades.
“What the hell . . .”
He pulled a card from his hand and threw it face up on the table. An ace of spades.
“That makes seven aces,” Nancy said, throwing down her and Judith’s hands.
“No, nine,” Karl said, adding his cards to the pile.
“Ten,” Mike said bitterly, adding another ace from his hand. “Come on guys, let’s go watch the sunset or something.”
Over in the corner Malus and Honorious watched them leave.
“What do you suppose that was all about?”
“Obviously a divination of some sort.” He shook his head. “I do not think they like the outcome.”
“I wonder what it portends?” said Agricolus coming over to join them.
“Nothing good, I warrant you,” said Juvian from his seat near the window. “I thought the Sparrow was bad with his strange magics and alien ways. Now we have near a score of them and they are all more fey than the Sparrow ever was.”
“And they left the table and chairs out of place,” Honorious snapped, ringing a silver bell to summon a servant to put them back. “Encroaching mushrooms. No manners at all.”
“It is a plague! A veritable plague,” Agricolus said.
Juvian, Malus and Honorious all nodded in glum agreement.
“Worse than that, perhaps,” said Petronus, a wizard with thinning hair and a pronounced widow’s peak, sitting apart from the others. “How much do we know of what these strangers do?”
“They have explained . . .” Agricolus started.
“Did you understand the explanation?”
“Well . . .”
“Just so. They labor endlessly in the very citadel of the North and foist us off with explanations none can understand. Meanwhile non-mortals everywhere prepare against us.”
“Do you think something is amiss?” asked Malus.
“And you do not? We stand on the brink of a war of extermination that is somehow bound up with the Sparrow and we let his cohorts work in our very midst doing things they will not explain.” He slapped his hand on his knee with a sharp crack. “If these strangers are so powerful, let them give us clear proof and reasonable explanations. As members of the Council of the North we should demand it of them.”
“That would be a task for the president of the Council,” Agricolus said.
“And I mean to talk to him about it. Now.” He rose and bowed to his fellows. “My Lords.” With that he swept out of the room.
“He does have a point,” Honorious said, lowering his voice as the servant came into the Day Room and started moving the furniture back. “They should not hide what they are doing from us.”