by Fritz Leiber
The Mouser directed the younger Mingols in their setting of the chest between the lashed cases that narrowed the cabin and beneath the brass lamp that swung on a short chain from the low ceiling. Laying finger to compressed lips, he signed them to keep strict silence about the chest's midnight remove. Then he dismissed them with a curt wave. He rummaged about, found a small brass cup, filled it from a tiny keg of Fafhrd's bitter brandy, drank off half, and opened the chest.
The smuggled girl gazed up at him with a composure he told himself was creditable. She had courage, yes. He noted that she took three deep breaths, though, as if the chest had indeed been a bit stuffy. The silver glow of her pale skin and hair pleased him. He motioned her to sit up, and when she did so, set the cup against her lips, tilting it as she drank the other half. He unsheathed his dirk, inserted it carefully between her knees, and drawing it upward, cut the ribbon confining them. He turned, moved away aft, and settled himself on a low stool that stood before Fafhrd's wide bunk. Then with crooked forefinger he summoned her to him.
When she stood close before him, chin high, slender shoulders thrown back by virtue of the ribbons binding her arms, he eyed her significantly and formed the words, "What is your name?"
"Ississi," she responded in a lisping whisper that was like the ghosts of wavelets kissing the hull. She smiled.
2
On deck, Ourph had directed one of the younger Mingols to take the tiller, the other to heat him gahvey. He sheltered from the wind behind the false deck of the timber cargo, looking toward the cabin and shaking his head wonderingly. The rest of the crew snored in the forecastle's shadow. While on Rime Isle in her low-ceilinged yellow bedroom Cif woke with the thought that the Gray Mouser was in peril. As she tried to recollect her nightmare, moonlight creeping along the wall reminded her of the mer-ghost which had murdered Zwaaken and lured off Fafhrd from sister Afreyt for a space, and she wondered how Mouser would react to such a dangerous challenge.
3
Bright and early the next morning the Mouser threw on a short gray robe, belted it, and rapped sharply on the cabin's ceiling. Speaking in a somewhat hoarse whisper, he told the impassive Mingol thus summoned that he desired the instant presence of Master Mikkidu. He had cast a disguising drape across the transported chest that stood between the crowding casks that narrowed farther the none-too-wide cabin, and now sat behind it on the stool, as though it were a captain's flat desk. Behind him on the crosswise bunk that occupied the cabin's end Ississi reposed and either slept or shut-eyed waked, he knew not which, blanket-covered except for her streaming silver hair and unconfined save for the thick black ribbon tying one ankle securely to the bunk's foot beneath the blanket.
(I'm no egregious fool, he told himself, to think that one night's love brings loyalty.)
He nursed his throat with a cuplet of bitter brandy, gargled and slowly swallowed.
(And yet she'd make a good maid for Cif, I do believe, when I have done with disciplining her. Or perchance I'll pass her on to poor maimed and isle-locked Fafhrd.)
He impatiently finger-drummed the shrouded chest, wondering what could be keeping Mikkidu. A guilty conscience? Very likely!
Save for a glimmer of pale dawn filtering through the curtained hatchway and the two narrow side ports glazed with mica, which the lashed casks further obscured, the oil-replenished swaying lamp still provided the only light.
4
There was a flurry of running footsteps coming closer, and then Mikkidu simultaneously rapped at the hatchway and thrust tousle-pated head and distracted eyes between the curtains. The Mouser beckoned him in, saying in a soft brandy-smoothed voice, "Ah, Master Mikkidu, I'm glad your duties, which no doubt must be pressing, at last permit you to visit me, because I do believe I ordered that you come at once."
"Oh, Captain, sir," the latter replied rapidly, "there's a chest missing from the stowage forward. I saw that it was gone as soon as Trenchi wakened me and gave me your command. I only paused to rouse my mates and question them before I hurried here."
(Ah-ha, the Mouser thought, he knows about Ississi, I'm sure of it, he's much too agitated, he had a hand in smuggling her aboard. But he doesn't know what's happened to her now—suspects everything and everyone, no doubt—and seeks to clear himself with me of all suspicion by reporting to me the missing chest, the wretch!)
"A chest? Which chest?" the Mouser meanwhile asked blandly. "What did it contain? Spices? Spicy things?"
"Fabrics for Lady Cif, I do believe," Mikkidu answered.
"Just fabrics for the Lady Cif and nothing else?" the Mouser inquired, eyeing him keenly. "Weren't there some other things? Something of yours, perhaps?"
"No, sir, nothing of mine," Mikkidu denied quickly.
"Are you sure of that?" the Mouser pressed. "Sometimes one will tuck something of one's own inside another's chest—for safekeeping, as it were, or perchance to smuggle it across a border."
"Nothing of mine at all," Mikkidu maintained. "Perhaps there were some fabrics also for the other lady ... and, well, just fabrics, sir and—oh, yes—some rolls of ribbon."
"Nothing but fabrics and ribbon?" the Mouser went on, prodding him. "No fabrics made into garments, eh?—such as a short silvery tunic of some lacy stuff, for instance?"
Mikkidu shook his head, his eyebrows rising.
"Well, well," the Mouser said smoothly, "what's happened to this chest, do you suppose? It must be still on the ship—unless someone has dropped it overboard. Or was it perhaps stolen back in 'Brulsk?"
"I'm sure it was safe aboard when we sailed," Mikkidu asserted. Then he frowned. "I think it was, that is." His brow cleared. "Its lashings lay beside it, loose on the deck!"
"Well, I'm glad you found something of it," the Mouser said. "Where on the ship do you suppose it can be? Think, man, where can it be?" For emphasis, he pounded the muffled chest he sat at.
Mikkidu shook his head helplessly. His gaze wandered about, past the Mouser.
(Oh-ho, the latter thought, does he begin to get a glimmering at last of what has happened to his smuggled girl? Whose plaything she is now? This might become rather amusing.)
He recalled his lieutenant's attention by asking, "What were your men able to tell you about the runaway chest?"
"Nothing, sir. They were as puzzled as I am. I'm sure they know nothing. I think."
"Hmm. What did the Mingols have to say about it?"
"They're on watch, sir. Besides, they answer only to Ourph—or yourself, of course, sir."
(You can trust a Mingol, the Mouser thought, at least where it's a matter of keeping silent.)
"What about Skor, then?" he asked. "Did Captain Fafhrd's man know anything about the chest's vanishment?"
Mikkidu's expression became a shade sulky. "Lieutenant Skor is not under my command," he said. "Besides that, he sleeps very soundly."
There was a thuddingly loud double knock at the hatchway.
"Come in," the Mouser called testily, "and next time don't try to pound the ship to pieces."
Fafhrd's chief lieutenant thrust bent head with receding reddish hair through the curtains and followed after. He had to bend both back and knees to keep from bumping his naked pate on the beams. (So Fafhrd too would have had to go about stooping when occupying his own cabin, the Mouser thought. Ah, the discomforts of size.)
Skor eyed the Mouser coolly and took note of Mikkidu's presence. He had trimmed his russet beard, which gave it a patchy appearance. Save for his broken nose, he rather resembled a Fafhrd five years younger.
"Well?" the Mouser said peremptorily.
"Your pardon, Captain Mouser," the other replied, "but you asked me to keep particular watch on the stowage of cargo, since I was the only one who had done any long voyaging on Seahawk before this faring, and knew her behavior in different weathers. So I believe that I should report to you that there is a chest of fabrics—you know the one, I think—missing from the fore steerside storage. Its lashings lie all about, both those which roped it shut an
d those which tied it securely in place."
(Ah-ha, the Mouser thought, he's guilty too and seeks to cover it by making swift report, however late. Never trust a bland expression. The lascivious villain!)
With his lips he said, "Ah yes, the missing chest—we were just speaking of it. When do you suppose it became so?—I mean missing. In 'Brulsk?"
Skor shook his head. "I saw to its lashing myself—and noted it still tied fast to the side as my eyes closed in sleep a league outside that port. I'm sure it's still on Seahawk."
(He admits it, the effrontrous rogue! the Mouser thought. I wonder he doesn't accuse Mikkidu of stealing it. Perhaps there's a little honor left 'mongst thieves and berserks.)
Meanwhile the Mouser said, "Unless it has been dropped overboard—that is a distinct possibility, do you not think? Or mayhap we were boarded last night by soundless and invisible pirates while you both snored, who raped the chest away and nothing else. Or perchance a crafty and shipwise octopus, desirous of going richly clad and with arms skillful at tying and untying knots—"
He broke off when he noted that both tall Skor and short Mikkidu were peering wide-eyed beyond him. He turned on his stool. A little more of Ississi showed above the blanket—to wit, a small patch of pale forehead and one large green silver-lashed eye peering unwinking through her long silvery hair.
He turned back very deliberately and, after a sharp "Well?" to get their attention, asked in his blandest voice, "Whatever are you looking at so engrossedly?"
"Uh—nothing at all," Mikkidu stammered, while Skor only shifted gaze to look at the Mouser steadily.
"Nothing at all?" the Mouser questioned. "You don't perhaps see the chest somewhere in this cabin? Or perceive some clue to its present disposition?"
Mikkidu shook his head, while after a moment Skor shrugged, eyeing the Mouser strangely.
"Well, gentlemen," the Mouser said cheerily, "that sums it up. The chest must be aboard this ship, as you both say. So hunt for it! Scour Seahawk high and low—a chest that large can't be hid in a seaman's bag. And use your eyes, both of you!" He thumped the shrouded box once more for good measure. "And now—dismiss!"
(They both know all about it, I'll be bound. The deceiving dogs! the Mouser thought. And yet ... I am not altogether satisfied of that.)
5
When they were gone (after several hesitant, uncertain backward glances), the Mouser stepped back to the bunk and, planting his hands to either side of the girl, stared down at her green eye, supporting himself on stiff arms. She rocked her head up and down a little and to either side, and so worked her entire face free of the blanket and her eyes of the silken hair veiling them and stared up at him expectantly.
He put on an inquiring look and flirted his head toward the hatchway through which the men had departed, then directed the same look more particularly at her. It was strange, he mused, how he avoided speaking to her whenever he could except with pointings and gestured commands. Perhaps it was that the essence of power lay in getting your wishes gratified without ever having to speak them out, to put another through all his paces in utter silence, so that no god might overhear and know. Yes, that was part of it at least.
He formed with his lips and barely breathed the question, "How did you really come aboard Seahawk?"
Her eyes widened and after a while her peach-down lips began to move, but he had to turn his head and lower it until they moistly and silkily brushed his best ear as they enunciated, before he could clearly hear what she was saying—in the same Low Lankhmarese as he and Mikkidu and Skor had spoken, but with a delicious lisping accent that was all little hisses and gasps and warblings. He recalled how her scent had seemed all sex in the chest, but now infinitely flowery, dainty, and innocent.
"I was a princess and lived with the prince Mordroog, my brother, in a far country where it was always spring," she began. "There a watery influence filtered all harshness from the sun's beams, so that he shone no more bright than the silvery moon, and winter's rages and summer's droughts were tamed, and the roaring winds moderated to eternal balmy breezes, and even fire was cool—in that far country."
Every whore tells the same tale, the Mouser thought. They were all princesses before they took to the trade. Yet he listened on.
"We had golden treasure beyond all dreaming," she continued, "unicorns that flew and kittens that flowed were my pets, and we were served by nimble companies of silent servitors and guarded by soft-voiced monsters—great Slasher and vasty All-Gripper, and Deep Rusher, who was greatest of all.
"But then came ill times. One night while our guardians slept, our treasure was stolen away and our realm became lonely, farther off and more secret still. My brother and I went searching for our treasure and for allies, and in that search I was raped away by bold scoundrels and taken to vile, vile 'Brulsk, where I came to know all the evil there is under the hateful sun."
This too is a familiar part of each harlot's story, the Mouser told himself, the raping away, the loss of innocence, instruction in every vice. Yet he went on listening to her ticklesome whispering.
"But I knew that one day that one would come who would be king over me and carry me back to my realm and dwell with me in power and silvery glory, our treasures being restored. And then you came."
Ah, now the personal appeal, the Mouser thought. Very familiar indeed. Still, let's hear her out. I like her tongue in my ear. It's like being a flower and having a bee suck your nectar.
"I went to your ship each day and stared at you. I could do naught else at all, however I tried. And you would never look at me for long, and yet I knew that our paths lay together. I knew you were a masterful man and that you'd visit upon me rigors and inflictions besides which those I'd suffered in dreadful 'Brulsk would be nothing, and yet I could not turn aside for an instant, or take my eyes away from you and your dark ship. And when it was clear you would not notice me, or act upon your true feelings, or any of your men provide a means for me to follow you, I stole aboard unseen while they were all stowing and lashing and you were commanding them."
(Lies, lies, all lies, the Mouser thought—and continued to listen.)
"I managed to conceal myself by moving about amongst the cargo. But when at last you'd sailed from harbor and your men slept, I grew cold, the deck was hard, I suffered keenly. And yet I dared not seek your cabin yet, or otherwise disclose myself, for fear you would put back to 'Brulsk to put me off. So I gradually freed of its lashings a chest of fabrics I'd marked, working and working like a mouse or shrew—the knots were hard, but my fingers are clever and nimble, and strong whenever the need is—until I could creep inside and slumber warm and soft. And then you came for me, and here I am."
The Mouser turned his head and looked down into her large green eyes, across which golden gleams moved rhythmically with the lamp's measured swinging. Then he briefly pressed a finger across her soft lips and drew down the blanket until her ribbon-fettered ankle was revealed and he admired her beautiful small body. It was well, he told himself, for a man to have always a beautiful young woman close by him—like a beautiful cat, yes, a young cat, independent but with kitten ways still. It was well when such a one talked, speaking lies much as any cat would ('Twas crystal clear she must have had help getting aboard—Skor and Mikkidu both, likely enough), but best not to talk to her too much, and wisest to keep her well bound. You could trust folk when they were secured—indeed, trussed!—and not otherwise, no, not at all. And that was the essence of power—binding all others, binding all else! Keeping his eyes hypnotically upon hers, he reached across her for the loose hanks of black ribbon. It would be well to fetter her three other limbs to foot and head of bunk, not tightly, yet not so loosely that she could reach either wrist with other hand or with her pearly teeth—so he could take a turn on deck, confident that she'd be here when he returned.
6
On Rime Isle Cif, strolling alone across the heath beyond Salthaven, plucked from the slender pouch at her girdle a small male figure o
f sewn cloth stuffed with lint. He was tall as her hand was long and his waist was constricted by a plain gold ring which would have fitted one of her fingers—and that was a measure of the figure's other dimensions. He was dressed in a gray tunic and gray, gray-hooded cloak. She regarded his featureless linen face and for a space she meditated the mystery of woven cloth—one set of threads or lines tying or at least restraining another such set, with a uniquely protective pervious surface the result. Then some odd hint of expression in the faintly brown, blank linen face suggested to her that the Gray Mouser might be in need of more golden protection than the ring afforded, and thrusting the doll feet-first back into her pouch, she strode back toward Salthaven, the council hall, and the recently ghost-raped treasury. The north wind coming unevenly rippled the heather.
7
His throat burning from the last swallow of bitter brandy he'd taken, the Mouser slipped through the hatchway curtains and stole silently on deck. His purpose was to check on his crew (surprise 'em if need be!) and see if they were all properly occupied with sailorly duties (tied to their tasks, as it were!), including the fool's search for the missing chest he'd sent them on in partial punishment for smuggling Ississi aboard. (She was secure below, the minx, he'd seen to that!)
The wind had freshened a little and Seahawk leaned to steerside a bit farther as she dashed ahead, lead-weighted keel balancing the straining sail. The Mingol steersman leaned on the tiller while his mate and old Ourph scanned with sailorly prudence the southwest for signs of approaching squalls. At this rate they might reach Rime Isle in three more days instead of four. The Mouser felt uneasy at that, rather than pleased. He looked over the steerside apprehensively, but the rushing white water was still safely below the oarholes, each of which had a belaying pin laid across it, around which the ropes lashing down the middle tier of the midship cargo had been passed. This reminder of the security of the ship unaccountably did not please him either.