The Knight and Knave of Swords (2 page)

"See, you missed," Gale said, "all but the one that glanced off the rock."

"Yes. Well, that's enough shooting for me," he decided, and while she pulled up the arrows and carefully teased loose the last, he loosened the bow's tang from its wood socket, using the back of his knife blade as a pry, then unstrung the bow and hung it across his back by its loose string around his chest, then fitted a wrought-iron hook into the wrist-socket, wedging it tight by driving the head of the hook against the stone. He winced as he did that last, for his stump was still tender and the dozen last shots he'd made had tried it.

As they walked toward the low, mostly red-roofed homes of Salthaven, the setting sun on their backs, Fafhrd studied the gray standing stones and asked Gale, "What do you know about the old gods Rime Isle had?—before the Rime men got atheism."

"They were a pretty wild, lawless lot, Aunt Afreyt says—sort of like Captain Mouser's men before they became soldiers, or your berserks before you tamed them down." She went on with growing enthusiasm, "They certainly didn't believe in any Golden Arrow of Truth, or Golden Ruler of Prudence, or Little Gold Cup of Measured Hospitality—mighty liars, whores, murderers, and pirates, I guess, all of them."

Fafhrd nodded. "Maybe Cif's ghost was one of them," he said. A tall, slender woman came toward them from a violet-toned house. When Afreyt neared them she called to Gale, "So that's where you were. Your mother was wondering." She looked at Fafhrd. "How did the archery go?"

"Captain Fafhrd hit the target almost every time," Gale answered for him. "He even hit it shooting around corners! And I didn't help him a bit fitting his bow or anything."

Afreyt nodded.

Fafhrd shrugged.

"I told Fafhrd about Cif's ghost," Gale went on. "He thought it might be one of the old Rime goddesses—Rin the Moon-runner, one of those. Or the witch queen Skeldir."

Afreyt's narrow blond eyebrows arched. "You go along now, your mother wants you."

"Can I keep the target for you?" the girl asked Fafhrd.

He nodded, lifted his left elbow, and the big ball dropped down. Gale rolled it off ahead of her. The target-bag was smoky red with dye from the snowberry root, and the last rays of the sun setting behind them gave it an angry glare. Afreyt and Fafhrd each had the thought that Gale was rolling away the sun.

When she was gone he turned to Afreyt, asking, "What's this nonsense about Cif meeting a ghost?"

"You're getting skeptical as an Isler," she told him unsmiling. "Is something that robs a councilman of his wits and half his strength nonsense?"

"The ghost did that?" he asked as they began to walk slowly toward town.

She nodded. "When Gwaan pushed into the dark treasury past Cif, he was clutched and struck senseless for an hour's space—and has since not left his bed." Her long lips quirked. "Or else he stumbled in the churning shadows and struck his head 'gainst the wall—there's that possibility too, since he has lost his memory for the event."

"Tell me about it more circumstantially," Fafhrd requested.

"The council session had lasted well after dark, for the waning gibbous moon had just risen," she began. "Cif and I being in attendance as treasurer and scribe, Zwaaken and Gwaan called on Cif for an inventory of the ikons of the virtues—ever since the loss of the Gold Cube of Square Dealing (though in a good cause) they've fretted about them. Cif accordingly unlocked the door to the treasury and then hesitated on the threshold. Moon-light striking in through the small barred window (she told me later) left most of the treasure chamber still in the dark, and there was something unfamiliar about the arrangement of the things she saw that sounded a warning to us. Also, there was a faint noxious marshy scent—"

"What does that window look on?" Fafhrd asked.

"The sea. Gwaan pushed past her impatiently (and
most
discourteously), and then she swears there was a faint blue smoke like muted lightning and in that trice she seemed to see a silent skinny figure of silver fog embrace Gwaan hungrily. She got the impression, she said, of a weak ghost seeking to draw strength from the living. Gwaan gave a choking cry and pitched to the floor When torches were brought in (at Cif's behest) the chamber was otherwise empty, but the Gold Arrow of Truth had fallen from its shelf and lay beneath the window, the other ikons had been moved slightly from their places, as if they'd been feebly groped, while on the floor were narrow patches, like footprints, of stenchful black bottom muck."

"And that was all?" Fafhrd asked as the pause lengthened. When she'd mentioned the thin silvery fog figure, he'd been reminded of someone or something he'd seen lately, but then in his mind a black curtain fell on that particular recollection-flash.

Afreyt nodded. "All that matters, I guess. Gwaan came to after an hour, but remembered nothing, and they've put him to bed, where he stays. Cif and Groniger have set special watch on all the Rimic gold tonight."

Suddenly Fafhrd felt bored with the whole business of Cif's ghost. His mind didn't want to move in that direction. "Those councilmen of yours, all they ever worry about is gold—they're misers all!" he burst out at Afreyt.

"That's true enough," she agreed with him—which annoyed Fafhrd for some reason. "They still criticize Cif for giving the Cube to the Mouser along with the other moneys in her charge, and talk still of impeaching her and confiscating her farm—and maybe mine."

"Ah, the ingrates! And Groniger's one of the worst—he's already dunning me for last week's rent on the men's dormitory, barely two days overdue."

Afreyt nodded. "He also complains your berserks caused a disturbance last week at the Sea Wrack tavern."

"Oh he does, does he?" Fafhrd commented, quieting down.

"How are the Mouser's men behaving?" she asked.

"Pshawri keeps 'em in line well enough," he told her. "Not that they don't need my supervision while the Gray One's away."

"
Seahawk
will have returned before the gales, I'm sure of that," she said quietly.

"Yes," Fafhrd said.

They had come opposite her house and now she went inside with a smiled farewell. She did not invite him to dinner, which was somehow annoying, although he would have refused; and although she had glanced once or twice toward his stump, she had not asked how it fared—which was tactful, but also somehow annoying.

Yet the irritation was momentary, for her mention of the Sea Wrack had started his mind off in a new direction which fully occupied it as he walked a little more rapidly. The past few days he had been feeling out of sorts with almost everyone around him, weary of his left-hand problems, and perversely lonely for Lankhmar with its wizards and criminous folks, its smokes (so different from this bracing northern sea air) and sleazy grandeurs. The night before last he'd wandered into the Sea Wrack, Salthaven's chief tavern since the Salt Herring had burned, and discovered a certain comfort in observing the passing scene there while sipping a pint or two of black ale.

Although called the Wrack and Ruin by its habitues (he'd learned as he was leaving), it had seemed a quiet and restful place. Certainly no disturbances, least of all by his berserks (that had been last week, he reminded himself—if it had really ever happened), and he had found pleasure in watching the slow-moving servers and listening to the yarning fishers and sailors, two low-voiced whores (a wonder in itself), and a sprinkling of eccentrics and puzzlers, such as a fat man sunk in mute misery, a skinny graybeard who peppered his ale, and a very slender silent woman in bone-gray touched with silver who sat alone at a back table and had the most tranquil (and not unhandsome) face imaginable. At first he'd thought her another whore, but no one had approached her table, none (save himself) had seemed to take any notice of her, and she hadn't even been drinking, so far as he could recall.

Last night he'd returned and found much the same crowd (and the same pleasant relief from his own boredom), and tonight he found himself looking forward to visiting the place again—after he'd been to the harbor and scanned south and east away for
Seahawk.

At that moment Rill came around the next corner and hailed him cheerily, waving a hand that showed a red scar across the palm—memento of an injury that had created a bond between herself and Fafhrd. The dark-haired whore-turned-fisherwoman was neatly and soberly clad—a sign that she was not at the moment engaged in either of her trades.

They chatted together, at ease with each other. She told him about today's catch of cod and asked after the Mouser (when now expected) and his and Fafhrd's men and how Fafhrd's stump was holding up (she was the one person he could talk to about that) and about his general health and how he was sleeping.

"If badly," she said, "Mother Grum has useful herbs—or I might be of help."

As she said that last, she chuckled, gave him an inquiring sidewise smile, and tugged his hook with her scarred forefinger, permanently crooked by the same deep burn that had left a red track across her palm. Fafhrd smiled back gratefully, shaking his head.

At that moment Pshawri came up with Skullick behind him to report on the day's work and other doings, and after a moment Rill went off. Some of Fafhrd's men had found employment on the new building going up where the Salt Herring had stood, a couple had worked on
Flotsam,
while the remainder had been cod-fishing with those men of the Mouser's who were not on
Seahawk.

Pshawri made his report in a jaunty yet detailed and dutiful manner that reminded Fafhrd of the Mouser (he'd picked up some of his captain's mannerisms), which both irritated and amused Fafhrd. For that matter all the Mouser's thieves, being wiry and at least as short as he, reminded Fafhrd of his comrade. A pack of Mousers—ridiculous!

He stopped Pshawri's report with a "Content you, you've done well. You too, Skullick. But see that your mates stay out of the Wrack and Ruin. Here, take these." He gave the young berserk his bow and quiver. "No, I'll be supping out. Leave me, now."

And so he continued on alone toward the Sea Wrack and the docks under the bright twilight, called here the violet hour. After a bit he realized with faint surprise and a shade of self-contempt why he was hurrying and why he had avoided Afreyt's bed and turned down Rill's comradely invitation—he was looking forward to another evening of watching and spinning dreams about the silent slender woman in bone-white and silver at the Wrack and Ruin, the woman with the so-distant eyes and tranquil, not unhandsome face. Lord, what romantical fools men were, to overpass the known and good in order to strain and stretch after the mysterious merely unknown. Were dreams simply better than reality? Had fancy always more style? But even as he philosophized fleetingly of dreams, he was wending ever deeper into this violet-tinged one.

Familiar voices raised in vehemence pulled him partially out of it. Down the side lane he was crossing he saw Cif and Groniger talking excitedly together. He would have stolen onward unseen, returning entirely to his waking dream, but they spotted him.

"Captain Fafhrd, have you heard the ill news?" the grizzle-haired harbor master called as he approached with long strides. "The treasury's been looted of its gold-things, and Zwaaken who was guarding them struck dead!"

The small russet-clad woman with golden glints in her dark brown hair who came hurrying along with him amplified, "It happened no longer ago than sunset. We were close by in the council hall, ready to share the guard duty after dark (you've heard of last night's apparition?) when there came a cry from the vault and a blue flash from the cracks around the door. Zwaaken's face was frozen in a grimace and his clothes smoked ... all the ikons were gone."

It was strange, but Fafhrd barely took in what Cif was saying. Instead he was thinking of how even
she
was beginning to remind him of the Mouser and to behave like the Gray One. They said that people long in love began to resemble each other. Could that apply so soon?

"Yes, now it's not just the Gold Cube of Square Dealing we lack," Groniger put in. "All, all gone."

His bringing in that roused Fafhrd again a little and nettled him. Altogether, in fact, he strangely found himself more irritated than interested or concerned by the news, though of course he would have liked to help Cif, who was the Mouser's darling.

"I've heard of your ghost," he told her. "All the rest is news. Is there any particular way in which I can help you now?"

They looked at him rather strangely. He realized his remark had been a somewhat cold one, so although he was most eager to get by himself again, he added, "You can call on my men for help if you need it in your search for the thieves. They're at their dormitory."

"On which you owe me rent," Groniger put in automatically. Fafhrd graciously ignored that. "Well," he said, "I wish you good luck in your hunt. Gold is valuable stuff." And with a little bow he turned and continued on his way. When he'd gone some distance he heard their voices again, but could no longer make out what they were saying—which meant their words happily weren't for him.

He reached the harbor while the violet light was still bright across the sky and realized with a throb of pleasure that that was one reason he had been in such a hurry and impatient of all else. The few folk about moved or stood quietly, unmindful of his coming. The air was still. He crossed to the dock's verge and scanned searchingly south and southeast to where violet sky met unruffled gray sea in a long horizon line, with never a cloud or smudge of haze between.

No sign of a sail or hint of a hull, not one. Mouser and
Seahawk
remained somewhere in the seaworld beyond.

But there was still time for sign or hint to appear before light failed. His dreamy gaze wandered to things closer. East rose the smooth salt cliffs, gray in the twilight. Between them and the low headland to the west, the harbor was empty. Off in that direction, to the right,
Flotsam
was moored close in, while to the left, nearer, was a light wooden pier that would be taken up when the winter gales arrived and to which a few ship's boats and other small harbor craft were moored. Among these was
Flotsam
's small sailing dory, in which Fafhrd was in the habit of going out alone—more training in making do with a hook for a left hand—and also a narrow, mastless, shallow craft, little more than a shaped plank, that was new to him.