The Knight and Knave of Swords

“No, demoiselle,” the dark maid agreed reluctantly. “But Foursie's only a servant of the lowest rank, little better than a slave. It was natural to suspect her. Moreover, you yourself must have known—'

“I told you I only now remembered!” Hisvet reminded her in dangerous tones. She raised her voice. “Foursie!'

“Yes, demoiselle?” came the swift reply.

“Threesie is to be punished for bearing false witness against a fellow servant. Since you're the party who would have been injured, I think it's most appropriate that you administer the chastisement. Moreover, you are conveniently at hand and have my whip. Do you know how to use it?'

“I think I do, demoiselle,” Foursie answered evenly. “When I was a child down on the farm I used to ride a mule.'

“That's nice to know,” Hisvet called. “Wait for directions.'

As Threesie quite involuntarily started to move away, Hisvet rotated the fist grasping her tunic so that it tightened around Threesie's neck and Hisvet's knuckles dug into the maid's throat.

“Listen,” she hissed, “if you so much as move a step or flex your knees during what's coming, I'll have my father put a geas on you. And not a relatively nice and easy one like Frix. She merely had to serve me faithfully and cheerfully as slave until she'd thrice saved my life at risk of her own. Straighten those knees now!'

Threesie complied. She had seen old Hisvin send a berserk cook into mortal convulsions, so he died in his tracks with mouth exuding greenish foam, merely by staring at him fixedly.

Hisvet eased her grip on the top of Threesie's tunic. She scowled in thought. Then her face broke into a smile. She called, “Foursie, here's how. Time your blows to the splashes of the waterclock, one for one, nothing in between — don't let yourself get carried away. Start with the third plash after the next. I'll call the first of those so you get it right.'

Hisvet's hand on the neck of the black tunic became busy, undoing the three top big white buttons rapidly.

The waterclock plashed, sounding unnaturally loud. Hisvet called, “Ready!” Tension took hold.

Though pendant, the dark maid's breasts were quite as small and firm as the fair one's, with thicker nipples the rosy hue of fresh scrubbed copper. Hisvet fondled them.

“How many blows, demoiselle?” Threesie asked in a small, fearfully anxious voice. “In all?'

“Hush! I haven't decided yet. You're supposed to be enjoying this. And you really are, I can tell, for your nipples are hardening despite your terrors. And your aureoles are all goose bumps. You should indicate pleasure at my squeezings and finger-dancing across your tits by sighing and moaning.'

The waterclock plashed. “One!” Hisvet called, then ominously for Threesie's benefit, “You've started to bend your legs again,” and taking the hand away from the maid's bosom, reached out and gave each of her knees a firm shove.

In his retreat the Mouser spared a glance for the ripples spreading and reflecting in the clock's pool. A shiver of genuine fear surprised him at the thought that he seemed to be just too well placed for watching for it all to be a matter of chance. Had Hisvet arranged it so? Did she somehow know that he, or at least some spirit, was watching invisibly? Was it all to get him off guard?

No, he told himself, I'm starting to think too tricky. This was just one of those glorious guilty visions that, it was to be hoped, lightened the last moments of buried men less fortunate or resourceful than he. His eyes feasted on Foursie as the girl positioned herself to the far side of Threesie's quivering rear, measuring distances with her eyes and the white whip, her pink-nippled breasts jouncing a bit as she danced with excitement. She was flushed all over, and not with embarassment, he was sure.

Plash went the waterclock. “Two!” Hisvet called. She shifted her hand to the back of Threesie's neck, pulled down until the maid's blanched tight face was a hand's breadth above her own, said rapidly, “We're doing another kiss. It'll help you bear the pain and I want to feel you getting it, taste your reaction. Keep your knees straight,” and she pulled the maid's face down all the way and kissed her fiercely. Her free hand played with Threesie's maiden breasts.

The third plash was tailed with a narrow thwack and muffled squeal. Threesie bucked. And all for me, the little darlings, Mouser thought. Foursie's blue eyes flashed like a fury's in ecstasy. She was breathing hard. She drew back the white whip to begin another blow, remembered in time to wait.

Hisvet let up Threesie's head to breathe. “Lovely,” she told her. “Your scream came down my throat. It tasted like divine spice.” Then, “Excellent, Foursie,” she called. “Stay on your toes, girl.'

Threesie cried, “Hesset help me,” invoking the Lankhmar moon goddess. “Make her stop, demoiselle, I'll do anything.'

Hisvet said, “Hush, girl. Hesset give you courage,” and pulled down her head again, stifling her cries against her waiting lips. Her other hand pressed back on the maid's knees.

The three sounds were much the same. Threesie's buck was more of a caper. The Mouser was surprised by his arousal, felt a flicker of shame, recalled in time to breathe shallowly, et cetera.

The moment Hisvet let up Threesie's head to take a breath, the maid pleaded, “Make her stop, she'll kill me,” then couldn't contain indignation. “Demoiselle, you knew she hadn't stolen the jewel. You led me on.'

Hisvet's hand, busy with her breasts, seized up flesh and skin midway between them as though her thumb and forefinger knuckle were pinchers, squeezed, twisted, rubbed together, and jerked down all at once. Threesie squealed. “Silence, you stupid slut,” her mistress hissed. “You enjoyed making her suffer, now you're paying. You little fool! Don't you realize a maid who falsely betrays her fellow maid would just as readily betray her mistress? I expect real loyalty from my maids. Foursie, lay on hard.” And she pulled the maid's face against hers just as the drop plashed and the third blow fell. This time when Hisvet released her head, there were no instant words, tears spurted down instead. Hisvet shook them off, dipped her free hand again in her wide pocket.

And this time the Mouser was surprised by his impulse to shut his eyes. But nasty fascination and the urgent messages from his stiffening member were too strong.

Hisvet lectured, “One other thing I expect of my maid: love, when the whim is on me. That's the chief reason she must always keep herself clean and attractive.” She mopped Threesie's face with a large kerchief, then held it to her nose. “Blow,” she commanded. “And then swallow hard. I don't want you blubbering snot on me.'

Threesie obeyed, but then the injustice of it all overwhelmed her. “But it isn't fair,” she bleated woefully. “It's not fair at all.'

Those words and tones had a strange and unexpected effect upon the earth-embraced Mouser. They recalled to him the name that had eluded him of the eighth little darling. A score and two or three years slipped away and he was lolling dishabille on the wide couch in the private dining chamber of the Silver Eel tavern in Lankhmar, and Ivlis's maid Freg was pacing back and forth before him in her delicious young slim nakedness, and then she had stopped by him and turned toward him, tears spurting from her eyes, and bleated woefully those identical same trite words.

He knew the circumstances all right, knew them by heart.

Barely a fortnight had passed since the fairly satisfactory ending of the affair of Omphal's jewel-crusted skull and other vengeful brown bones from the forgotten burial crypt in the great house of the Thieves Guild. The gems salvaged had been adequate, especially when there was added thereto the person of Ivlis, a lean, shifty, fox-faced glorious redhead. He'd had her the second night after, though that hadn't been easy, and it was more or less understood between Fafhrd and him that Freg was the Northerner's booty. But then the big oaf had delayed making his move, dawdled over nailing down his conquest, seemed hardly grateful at all to the Mouser for having taken on the more difficult seduction, leaving his comrade the juicier, tenderer prey, to be had for no more exertion than pushing back onto the bed (nine times out of ten the big man was incomprehensibly slower than he about such matters), so that after two or three more nights and nothing more forward, and feeling impatient and feckless and at war with all Nehwon — and with Fafhrd too, for the nonce — and opportunity presenting, he'd yielded to temptation and bedded the silly chit, which hadn't been all that easy either. And then on their third or fourth assignation she turned stormy and accused him of getting her drunk and forcing her the first time and claimed to have been deeply in love with Fafhrd and he with her, she knew, only they'd been moving slowly so as to savor fully their romance before declaring and enjoying it, and the Mouser had cut in with his nasty lust and wily ways and managed to root a child in her, she was certain of that, and so spoiled everything. And although he was still deeply