The Pixilated Peeress (3 page)

             
"I let it be known tha
t I'd slay any man who sought to futter me against my will, if it meant stabbing him in his sleep. I beat off his first attempt, and for years I lived behind my castle walls, like a captive or cloistered nun. Last month the Duke returned and this time pre
vailed."

             
"Strange that a lady of your qualities and demesne did not find a hundred would-be spouses rattling her castle gates!"

             
"Oh, I've had offers aplenty, but none that suited," Yvette replied disdainfully. "My next husband must be, imprimus, of nob
le rank; secundus, a shrewd and met
tlesome man of affairs, able at running the county; and tertius, a poet who can ensorcel me with romantical fancies. And, it goes without saying, a strong-loined lover and a man who will heed my advice in county matters.
"

             
Thorolf whistled. "Even one of our pagan gods were hard-pressed to meet your requirements! Certes I could not, though I used to compose a few versicles. But one cannot live on poetry in Rhaetia, where merchants and bankers rule."

             
"You a poet? Ha, can
your horse play the lute? 'Twere no more credible. Pray give an ensample!"

             
"Let me think." While he pondered, the chirp of birds dwindled to silence with the fading of light. A cricket struck up its shrill song, while overhead an early flittermouse whir
red. At last Thorolf spoke:

-

"My lady, the mistress of Castle Contentious,

Is hunting a husband of standing pretentious;

But I, a plain wight of opinions sententious,

Am loath to embark on a lifetime dissentious!"

-

             
"Ouch!" he exclaimed as Yvette boxed his right ear. "What's that for?"

             
"Insolent malapert! You, a commoner, jesting that had I the absurdity to offer you my hand, you'd have the effrontery to reject my proposal! Had you voiced such a thought in my demesn
e
—
"

             
"But we are not in your demesne. And if you seek to treat me as one of your serfs, you may wend afoot for all I care."

             
Yvette subsided, though Thorolf caught a murmur that resembled the expletives of a fishmonger who found he had taken counterfeit
coins for his wares. As they rode on in silence, the soldier began to suspect that despite her notable virtues, the Countess was lacking in humor. He wondered what had happened to the knights in the old romances and the ladies fair who decked them with si
l
ken scarves and meekly awaited their return from adventures. Meekness was certainly not the style of Yvette of Grintz.

             
At last she spoke again, in normal tones: "Pray un
derstand, good my soldier, that I could never entertain a proposal of marriage from
one of your class. The fact that you have worked for wages debars you forever from alliance with one of noble blood."

             
Thorolf raised an eyebrow. "What is so demeaning about earning an honest living?"

             
"That you do so doth you credi
t; but a noble must de
vote all h
is strength to the welfare of those whom the Divine Pair have placed beneath his rule, leaving no time to toil for gain. He must strain at the practice of arms each day, whilst his lady spends her waking hours in the conduct of their establishmen
t. Knowst the tale of Count Helfram of Trongai?"

             
"What befell him?"

             
"As a result of untimely misfortunes, he found him
self unable to pay his servants to man the castle. In
deed, he could not even buy sufficient food to feed his family. So he donned a bogus beard, went to town, and persuaded the local taverner to hire him as bartender.

             
"All went well until one day a drunken customer, seeking a quarrel, remarked on the barke
ep's piggy eyes and other features that the fellow deemed obnoxious. Count Helfram, unused to insolence, slapped the man's face, whereupon the drunkard seized the false beard and tore it off.

             
"The other folk recognized their Count and rose as one to hurl
the drunkard into the street. But the tale took wings, until the King of Carinthia, hearing the rumor, ruled that Helfram had forfeited his rank, and the king appointed a new Count from another branch of the family. The last I heard, poor Helfram was sti
l
l tending bar at the tavern, whither people came from afar to gape at a nobleman toiling like a commoner."

             
"Then," said Thorolf cheerfully, "I count myself lucky to have no noble rank to lose. We must hasten, for the dragon wing of night o'erspreads the
earth, as saith the man in Helmanax's play."

             
He heeled his horse to stir the beast to further effort. After they had ridden in silence for a time, Yvette con
tinued:

             
"At all events, I would never marry a Rhaetian. You're an unromantic lot, whose only k
nights are those little tin figurines that pop out of your clocks to mark the hours. None could essay the doughty deeds of ro
mances."

             
Thorolf laughed. "Suppose a knight engaged in such deeds in this modern world! If he slew a dragon, he'd be arrested by
the game warden for hunting out of sea
son, as I believe once truly befell a Locanian knight in Pathenia, not long ago. If he snatched a maiden from an enchanter vile, the mage would hale him to law on charges of abduction. If he even sang a roundelay be
neath his true love's casement window, the song's com
poser would demand a royalty."

             
"A typical Rhaetian argument," retorted Yvette,
"mired in base practicality! A sorry world we live in!" After a pause she asked: "For what goal, pray, do you strive?"

             
Thorolf frowned thoughtfully. "To settle, once and for all, the authorship of the Tyrrhenian play,
Il
Bast-mento dai Pazzi,
doubtfully attributed to Goldinu."

             
"You would waste your life in thumbing dusty manu
scripts to settle some obscure pedantic dispute?"

             
Thorolf shrugged. "To me it's more fun than standing daily in the drill yard and bawling at my company: 'About
—
face! Forward
—
march! Hartmund, get in step!' "

             
"Either were better than turning brigand, I
ween," she said. "But this merely reinforces my point: that you are a typical stolid, avaricious, unromantic Rhaetian. As a noblewoman's consort, you'd be as out of place as a pig in a horse race."

             
"Avaricious?" Thorolf gave his most irritating chuckle.
"My sire complains that I be not mercenary enough. And whilst we're trading flatteries, as a wife you'd be as useful to a soldier as slippers to a serpent. I fear, my dear Countess, you'll search the wide world over without finding your notion of a suitab
l
e spouse."

             
Yvette sighed. "Whilst I loathe to concede a point, you may be right. Many I've seen with one or another of my qualifications, but never one who met all. Me-thought I'd found my mate in a handsome troubadour who boasted blue blood and showed a
promising grasp of county management; but he soon moved on."

             
"The scurvy lown!" said Thorolf suppressing a grin. He felt he understood the troubadour.

             
"Pray, treat all I've s
aid as secret. I should not have so confided in a stranger, and a commoner at that; but my sire did ever chide me on my runaway tongue."

             
"Your secrets are safe with me. And now good news." He pointed ahead. "Yonder lies Vulfilac's
smithy, around the bend
."

-

             
The mare picked up her ears, as if sensing the journey's end, and trotted smartly over the remaining distance. She drew up before a pair of doors that led into the forge.

             
Thorolf dismounted and lifted Yvette off. She stood disheveled, clutching T
horolf's cloak around herself and the coronet.

             
"Wait here," he said. "I would not startle Vulfilac by your unforewarned appearance."

             
Thorolf strode into the smithy, where the firelight danced to the beat of hammered metal, while sparks flew out the ope
n portal into the night like fugitive crimson fireflies. Inside the doors, a vestibule led to the smith's small dwelling, huddled against the much larger workplace.

             
"Aha, Sergeant Thorolf!" boomed the giant smith. "Glad to see you am I!" He continued to
pound a bar of red-hot iron, which he held on the anvil by tongs. Setting hammer and tongs aside, he called to the boy who was pumping the bellows: "Take a rest, son. We have a visitor."

             
"Two visitors," said Thorolf, embracing his gigantic friend despite
the smith's sooty face and forearms. Presently the two men came out and hastened toward Yvette. Thorolf said: "Countess, I present my trusted friend Vulfilac Smith. He has some clothes for you."

             
The smith bowed as Yvette smiled, saying: "Your health, go
odman! Where are these garments?"

             
"In my poor house, your Highness. Will ye step thither?"

             
In the smithy, they passed a great rack of tools: tongs, files, and hammers with heads of various shapes, round, pointed, and wedged.
Unlatching a small door, the smith led his guests into the common room of his dwell
ing. He unlocked an ancient armoire, mumbling:

             
"I've kept my goodwife's things for sentiment; but ye are welcome to any or all, my lady."

             
Smiling, Yvette approached th
e wardrobe and, still clutching her coronet beneath the cloak, began to rum
mage. Studying a bodice, she said:

             
"Methinks your late wife was fuller of breast than I."

             
"Aye, and taller, too, the gods preserve her soul.
"

             
"
Amen," said Yvette. "Had she ho
sen and shoon?
"

             
"
Aye." The smith opened drawers beneath the cup
boards.

             
"Splendid!" said Yvette, rummaging anew. "Good
man, your generosity shall be well repaid when I obtain the wherewithal. Meanwhile my thanks must suffice."

             
The smith gazed at the
little countess with the awe of one who beheld Rianna, the goddess of love. "If
—
if your Highness mind not our simple rustic fare
...
"

             
"You offer to dine us? Mind? I embrace your offer; hungry as I am, your simplest repast were a banquet. Now I beg your
leave, good people, to dress."

             
The men withdrew, the smith to the cookhouse, Tho
rolf to stable and feed his horse.