The Second Book of Lankhmar

by Fritz Leiber

They appeared to relax their attention—a little, at any rate.

  She tapped three fingers against the ruby rondure of her lips as she yawned prettily. ‘My, that was a most lengthy and boring lecture,’ she commented. ‘Yet you endured it most commendably, dear Threesie,’ she addressed the dark-haired maid. ‘And you too, Foursie,’ she told the fair-haired one. She picked up from beside her a long emerald-headed pin and flourished it playfully. ‘There was not once the need for me to make use of this upon either of you,’ she said, laughing, ‘to recall to attention the wilful wandering mind and wake the lazy dreamer.’

  Both girls shaped their lips to appreciative smiles, while giving the pin most sour looks.

  Hisvet handed it to Foursie, who bore it somewhat gingerly across the room to a drawered chest topped with cosmetics and mirrors, and inserted it into a spherical black cushion that held jewel-headed others such, compassing all the hues of the rainbow.

  Meanwhile Hisvet addressed Threesie, whose eyes widened as she listened. ‘During my talk I twice got the distinct impression that we were being spied on by an evil intelligence, one of the criminous sort my father deals with, or one of our own enemies or a cast-off lover perchance.’ She searched her gaze around the walls, lingering somewhat overlong, the Mouser felt, in his direction.

  ‘I will meditate on it,’ she continued. ‘Dear Threesie, fetch me my silver-inlaid black opal figure of the world of Nehwon which I call the Opener of the Way.’

  Threesie nodded dutifully and went to the same chest Foursie had just visited, passing her midway.

  ‘Dear Foursie,’ Hisvet greeted the blonde, ‘fetch me a beaker of white wine. My throat has grown quite dry with all that stupid talking.’

  Foursie bowed her fair-thatched head and came to the low table set against the wall behind which the Mouser was embedded in earth invisible to him. He studied her appreciatively as she unstoppered the carafe he’d so disastrously snatched at and neatly filled a shining glass so tall and narrow it looked like a measuring tube. Her white uniform tunic was secured down the front with large circular jet buttons.

  Returning to her mistress, she went down on her knees without bending her slender body in any other way and proffered the refreshment.

  ‘Taste it first,’ Hisvet instructed.

  Getting this instruction, not uncommonly given servants by aristocrats, Foursie threw back her head and poured a short gush of the fluid between her parted lips without touching them to the glass, which she next held out to show its level was perceptibly decreased.

  Hisvet accepted it, saying, ‘That was well executed, Foursie. Next time don’t wait for instruction. And you might lick your lips and smile to show that you enjoyed.’

  Foursie bobbed her head.

  ‘Dear Demoiselle,’ Threesie called from where she knelt at the chest of drawers, ‘I cannot find the Opener.’

  ‘Have you searched carefully for it?’ Hisvet called back, her voice becoming slightly thin. ‘It is an oblate sphere big as two thumbs, inset with silver bounding the continents and flat diamonds for the cities and a larger amethyst and turquoise making the death and life poles.’

  ‘Dear Demoiselle, I know the Opener,’ Threesie called respectfully.

  Hisvet, who was looking at Foursie again, shrugged her shoulders, then set the narrow glass to her lips and downed its contents in three swallows. ‘That was refreshing.’ Again the lip pats.

  A rutching sound turned her attention back to Threesie. ‘No, do not open the other drawers,’ she directed. ‘It would not be there. Just search the top one thoroughly and find it. Set out the contents one by one on top of the chest if necessary.’

  ‘Yes, Demoiselle.’

  Hisvet caught Foursie’s eye again, rolled hers toward busy Threesie, sketched another shrug, and commented confidingly, ‘This could become a tiresome annoyance, you know, a true weariness. No, girl, don’t bob your head. That’s all right on Threesie, but it’s not your style. Incline it once, demurely.’

  ‘Yes, mistress.’ Her single nod was shy as a virgin princess’s.

  ‘How are you doing, Threesie?’

  The brunette turned to face them. Her reply was barely loud enough to cross the room. ‘Demoiselle, I must confess myself defeated.’

  After a rather long pause, Hisvet said reflectively, ‘That could be quite bothersome for you, Threesie, you know. As senior maid present, you would be wholly responsible for any deficiencies, disappearances, or thefts. Think about it.’

  After another pause, she sighed and said, holding out the empty glass, ‘Foursie, fetch me the springy implement of correction.’

  The blonde inclined her head, took the glass, and walking somewhat more slowly, returned to the low table, set down the glass, refilled it, and reached across to seize the magically suspended white whip, which she lifted with a little twist and bore off with the glass, thereby solving a minor mystery for the Mouser. The whip had simply been hanging on a hook on the wall. But since the wall had been and was again invisible to him, so was the hook protruding from it.

  He felt a stirring of interest in the scene he spied on from his confining point of vantage, and was duly grateful to have his mind taken a little off his own troubles. He knew something of Hisvet’s ways and could guess the next developments, or at least speculate rewardingly. Dark-haired Threesie seemed well cast as the villain or culprit of this triangular piece. Leaning back against the chest of drawers and scowling, she looked a bird of ill omen in her uniform black tunic, though the large circular alabaster buttons going down the front added a comic note. Foursie did her kneeling trick a second time. Hisvet accepted the whip and replenished drink, saying graciously, ‘Thank you, my dear. I feel much better with these both by me. Well, Threesie?’

  ‘I am thinking, Demoiselle,’ that one said, ‘and it comes to me that when I entered this room Foursie was crouched where I stand now with the drawer open I have just searched thoroughly, and she was rummaging around in it. She pushed it shut at once, but may well have taken somewhat from it, I realize now, and hid about her person.’

  ‘Demoiselle, that’s not true!’ Foursie protested, turning pale. ‘The drawer was never open, nor I at it.’

  ‘She is a vicious little liar, dear mistress,’ Threesie shot back. ‘Mark how she blanches!’

  ‘Hush, girls,’ Hisvet reproved. ‘I have thought of a simple way to settle this most unseemly dispute. Threesie dear, had Foursie opportunity to hide the Opener elsewhere in the room after she took it, if she did? As I recall, I entered shortly after you did.’

  ‘No, mistress, she had not.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Hisvet said, smiling. ‘Threesie, come here. Foursie dear, strip off your tunic, so she may search you thoroughly.’

  ‘Demoiselle!’ the blonde uttered reproachfully. ‘You would not shame me so.’

  ‘No shame at all,’ Hisvet assured her ingenuously, lifting her silver eyebrows. ‘Why, child, suppose I were entertaining a lover, I might very well—probably would—have you and Threesie disrobe, so as not to embarrass him, or at all events make us both feel conspicuous. Or we might have the whim to ask one of you or both to join in our play under direction. Frix understood these things, as I hope Threesie does. Frix was incomparable. Not even Twosie comes close to matching her. But as you know, Frix managed to work out her term of service, discharge the geas my father set upon her. There’s never been another Onesie, and that’s why.’

  Both maids nodded agreement, though somewhat grimly in their two different styles. They’d each heard somewhat too much about the Incomparable Onesie.

  The Mouser was beginning to enjoy himself. Why, look, the piece was barely begun and Hisvet had managed to switch around the roles of the two other characters! He wished Fafhrd were here, he’d enjoy hearing Frix praised so. He’d been quite gone on the princess of Arilia, especially when she’d been Hisvet’s imperturbable slave-maid. Though the large loon wouldn’t appreciate being entombed, that was certain. Probably too big to survive by scav
enging air in any case. Which reminded him, he’d best keep in mind his own breathing. And not lose sight of the ever-present possibility of the intrusion into the scene of some third force from either the under- or overworld. Talk about having to watch two ways!

  In response to Hisvet’s, ‘And so, no nonsense, child. Strip, I said!’ Foursie had been arguing, ‘Have compassion, Demoiselle. To disrobe for a lover would be one thing. But to strip to be searched by a fellow servant is simply too humiliating. I couldn’t bear it!’

  Hisvet sprang up off the bed. ‘I’ve quite lost patience with you, you prudish little bitch. Who are you to say what you’ll bear—or bare, for that matter? Threesie, grip her arms! If she struggles, pinion them behind her.’

  The dark maid, who was already back of Foursie, seized and tightly held her elbows down at her sides, meanwhile smiling somewhat evilly at her mistress across the fair maid’s shoulder. Hisvet reached out a straight right arm, chucked the girl’s chin up until they were looking each other straight in the eye, and then proceeded very deliberately to unbutton the top black button.

  Foursie said, with as much dignity as she could muster, ‘I would have submitted to you, Demoiselle, without my arms held.’

  But Hisvet said only, very deliberately also, ‘You are a silly schoolgirl, Foursie dear, needing considerable teaching, which you’re going to get. You would submit to me? But not to my maid acting on my orders? To begin with, Threesie is not your equal fellow servant. She outranks you and is empowered to correct you in my absence.’

  As she spoke she went on undoing the buttons, taking her time and digging her knuckles and pressing the large buttons into the girl’s flesh edgewise as she did so. At the undoing of the third button the maid’s small, firm, pink-nippled breasts popped out. Hisvet continued, ‘But as it is, you’re getting your way, aren’t you, Foursie? I am disrobing you and not dear Threesie here, though she is witnessing. In fact, I’m “maiding” you, how’s that for topsy-turvy? You’re getting the deluxe treatment, one might say, though I strongly doubt you will get much pleasure from it.’

  She finished with the buttons, looked the girl up and down, lightly flicked her breasts with the back of her hand, and said with a cheery laugh, ‘There, that wasn’t so bad now, was it, dear? Threesie, finish.’

  Grinning, the dark maid slid the white tunic down Foursie’s arms and off them.

  ‘Why, you are blushing, Foursie,’ Hisvet observed, chuckling. ‘On Whore Street that’s a specialty, I’m told, and ups the price. Inspect the garment carefully,’ she warned Threesie. ‘Feel along each seam and hem. She may have pilfered something smaller than the Opener. And now, dear child, prepare yourself to be searched from head to toe by a maid who is your superior, whilst I direct and witness.’ Taking up the silver-handled whip of white snow-serpent hide from the bed and gesturing with it, she directed Foursie, ‘Lift out your arms a little from your sides. There, that’s enough. And stand so that your entire anatomy is more accessible. A little wider stance, please. Yes, that will do.’

  The Mouser noted that all the maid’s body hair had been shaven or plucked. So that practice, favoured by witless Glipkerio, the Scarecrow Overlord, was still followed in Lankhmar. A seemly and most attractive one, the Mouser thought.

  ‘There’s nothing hidden in the garment, Threesie? You’re sure? Well, toss it by the far wall and then you might begin by running your fingers through Foursie’s hair. Bend forward, child! Slowly and carefully, Threesie. I know her mop’s quite short, but you’d be shocked to learn how much a little hair can sometimes hide. And don’t forget the ears. We’re looking for tiny things.’

  Hisvet yawned and took a long swallow of wine. Foursie glared at her nearer tormentor. There is something peculiarly degrading about being handled by the ears, having them spread and bent this way and that. But Threesie, learning from her mistress, only smiled sweetly back.

  ‘And now the mouth,’ Hisvet directed. ‘Open wide, Foursie, as for the barber-surgeon. Feel in each cheek, Threesie. I don’t suppose Foursie’s been playing the little squirrel, but there’s no telling. And now…Surely you’re not at a loss, Threesie? Perhaps I should have expressed it, search her from top to bottom. You may lubricate your fingers with my pomade. But use it sparingly, its basis is the essential oil with which they anoint the Emperor of the East. Don’t agonize so, Foursie! Imagine it’s your lover exploring you, dexterously demonstrating his tender regard. Who is your lover, Foursie? You do have one, I trust? Come to recall, I’ve caught the fair page Hari looking at you in that certain way. I wonder what he’d think if he could see you as you’re presently occupied. Droll. I’ve half a mind to summon him. Well, that’s half done. And now, Threesie, her darker avenue of amatory bliss. Bend over, Foursie. Treat her gently, Threesie. Some of these matters appear to be quite new to our little girl, advanced subjects for our student, though I know that’s hard to credit. What Foursie, tears? Cheer up, child! You’re not proved guilty yet, in fact you’re well on the way to being cleared. Life has all sorts of surprises.’

  The Mouser smiled cynically from his weird invisible prison. Around Hisvet surprises were invariably disastrous, he knew from experience. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, so far as his limited circumstances permitted. He thought of how all of his greatest loves and infatuations had been for short and slim girls like these. Lilyblack came to mind, back when he’d bravoed and racketeered for Pulg and Fafhrd had found god in Issek. Reetha, who’d been Glipkerio’s silver-chained maid. Ivivis of Quarmall, supple as a snake. Innocent, tragic Ivrian, his first love, whose princess-dreams he’d fed. Cif, of course. The night-filly Ivmiss Ovartamortes. That made seven, counting Hisvet. And there was one other, an eighth, whose name and identity evaded him, who was also a maid by profession and particularly delectable because somehow forbidden. Who had she been? What was her name? If he could recall one more detail he’d remember all. Maddening! Of course, he’d had all manner of larger women, but this elusive memory involved all smaller than himself, his special pantheon of little darlings. You’d think a man in his grave (and that was truly his situation, face it) would be able to concentrate his mind upon one subject, but no, even here there were details to distract you, self-responsibilities that had to be taken care of, as keeping up an even rhythm of shallow breathing, pushing back intrusive dirt off of his lips, keeping constant watch before and behind—it occurred to him that Foursie too must be telling herself that last thing, though much good it would do her—which reminded him to return to the enjoyment of the three-girl comedy which destiny had provided for his secret viewing.

  Hisvet was saying, ‘Now, Foursie, go to the far wall and stand facing it while I hear Threesie’s report and confer with her. And stop blubbering, girl! Use your discarded tunic to wipe the tears and snot off your face.’

  Hisvet led Threesie back to the foot of the bed, set her empty glass on the low table, and said in a voice that Mouser could barely hear, despite the advantages of nearness and occult audition, ‘I take it, Threesie, you didn’t find the Opener or anything else?’

  ‘No, dear Demoiselle, I did not,’ the dark maid replied, and then went on in a voice that was more like a stage whisper, ‘I’m certain she’s swallowed it. I suggest she be given a strong emetic, and if that fails, a powerful cathartic. Or both together, to save time.’

  Foursie too heard that, the Mouser judged by the way her shoulders drew together as she faced the wall.

  Hisvet shook her head and said in the same low tones as before, ‘No, that won’t be necessary, I think, though it could be amusing under other circumstances. Now it suits my design to have her think she’s been completely cleared of any suspicion of theft.’ She faced around and changed to her most ringing silver voice, ‘Congratulations, Foursie, you’ll be glad to hear that your fellow maid has given you a clean bill of health. Isn’t that wonderful? And now come here at once. No, don’t try to put on your tunic. Leave that soiled rag. You need a lot more practice in serving naked, which you oug
ht to be able to do every bit as efficiently, coolly, and nicely without the reassurance of a frock. And perhaps practice in other activities one generally carries out best in one’s skin. Beginning now.’

  The Lankhmar Demoiselle in the violet wrap yawned again and stretched. ‘That wretched session has quite wearied me. Foursie, you may begin your nude apprenticeship (that’s a joke, girl) by fetching me a fat pillow from the head of the bed.’

  When Foursie came around with her plump lemon-hued burden, her eyes asking a question, Hisvet indicated with her whip the bottom corner of the bed, and when the fair maid had placed the pillow there, gave her the whip, saying, ‘Hold this for me,’ and stretched herself out with her head on the pillow. But after murmuring, ‘Ah, that’s better,’ and wriggling her toes, she lifted up on an elbow, looked toward Threesie, and pointed with her other hand down at the carpet by the foot of the bed, saying, ‘Threesie, come here. I want to show you something privately.’

  When the dark maid came eagerly, all agog for more secrets, Hisvet laid her silver-tressed head back again upon the pillow, whose hue contrasted nicely with her violet wrap, and said, ‘Lean down, so your head is close to mine. I want this to be quite private. Foursie, stand clear.’

  But when Threesie stooped down, her lips working with high excitement, Hisvet began at once to criticize. ‘No, don’t bend your knees! I did not bid you crouch over me like an animal. Keep your legs straight.’

  By bending her waist more, pushing her buttocks back, and also throwing her arms out behind her, the dark maid managed to comply with her instructions without overbalancing. Her and her mistress’s faces were upside down to each other.

  ‘But, Demoiselle,’ Threesie pointed out humbly, ‘when I bend over like this in this short tunic, I expose myself behind. Especially with your rule against undergarments.’

  Hisvet smiled up at her. ‘That’s very true,’ she observed, ‘and I designed them partly with that in mind, so that when told to pick up something from the floor, for instance, a maid would stoop gracefully, as in a curtsey, keeping her head and shoulders erect. It’s far more seemly and civilized.’