The Knight and Knave of Swords

“Aye, Lady, there's a carving at her small shrine in the Rat's dockside temple. (Rats were also the first mariners, teaching man the art.) She is depicted nude with her hair in one braid long as her slender self and with eight dainty rat dugs; two centered in small high breasts, the next pair low on her rib cage, two flanking her cord scar, and two close to either side her maiden mound above the leg crease.'

“My, such a multiplicity of charms! One wonders whether to envy or despise.” Afreyt chuckled.

“Her cult's a very popular one, Lady,” the girl replied somewhat defensively as she scrubbed away. “She commands demons, it is believed, and has enjoyed the services of Queen Frixifrax of Arilia.'

Afreyt laughed. “Truth to tell, child, I would have been inclined to rate your whole rat tale nonsense, like half the stories fed us Rime Islers dwelling on the edge of things to awe and befool us, did it not fit so well with what Fafhrd has told me about his and Captain Mouser's greatest adventure (though there were more than one of those, to hear them talk) during the last days of Overlord Glipkerio's reign, when there was an incursion or eruption of armed rats into Lankhmar City, along with many other weird events, and involving the unscrupulous grain merchant Hisvin and his scandalous daughter Hisvet, both the rats’ allies and bearing the same names as the two saints in your own strange tale.'

“I am grateful your Ladyship believes at least partly in my truthful account,” Fingers replied a little huffily. “I may be overcredulous, Lady, but never a liar.'

Afreyt turned around smiling. “Don't be so formal and serious,” she chided merrily. “Give me the brush and turn your back.'

The girl complied, facing the two high horn windows to the outside, which were now whitening with the rising moon a day past full. Afreyt scraped the brush across a lump of green soap and set to work, saying, “During the twists and turns of that famous rat-man fracas in Lankhmar (it happed at least ten years ago — you'd have been still an infant at Tovilyis), the Gray Mouser had to pretend a great love for this Hisvet chit (so Fafhrd tells me), pursuing her through a series of magical size changes from Lankhmar Above down to Lankhmar Below and then back again. His true love then was a royal kitchen slave named Reetha, at least she was the one he ended up with. At that time Fafhrd's consort was the Ghoulish warrior-maid Kreeshkra — a walking skeleton because Ghouls’ flesh's invisible, their bones on view. Truly there are times when I don't know if I can believe half of the things Fafhrd says, while the Mouser's always a great liar — he boasts of it.'

“I was told Ghouls ate people,” Fingers observed, bracing her back against Afreyt's brisk scrubbing. “And much later I heard about the latter-day rat war in Lankhmar. Friska told me about it in Ilthmar, after we'd moved there from Tovilyis, when she was warning me against believing everything the rat priests told us.'

“Friska?” Afreyt questioned, pausing in her scrubbing.

“My mother's name when she was a slave in Quarmall before she escaped to Tovilyis, where I was born. She hasn't always used it afterward and I don't think I've mentioned it until now.'

“I see,” Afreyt said absently, as though lost in sudden thought.

“You've stopped doing my back,” the girl observed.

“Because it's done,” the other said. “It's pink all over. Tell me, child, did your mother Friska escape from Quarmall all by herself?'

“No, Lady, she had her friend Ivivis with her, whom I grew to calling aunt in Tovilyis,” Fingers explained, turning back so she faced the narrow gray door again, its outlines visible once more through the thinning steam. “They were smuggled out of Quarmall by their lovers, two mercenary warriors quitting the service of Quarmal and his two sons. The cavern world of Quarmall's no easy place to escape from, Lady, deep, secret, and mysterious. Fugitives are recaptured or die strangely. In the ports that rim the Inner Sea — Lankhmar, Ilthmar, Kvarch Nar, Ool Hrusp — it's deemed as fabulous a place as this Rime Isle.'

“What happened to the two mercenaries who were your mother's and aunt's lovers and worked their escape?” Afreyt inquired.

“Ivivis quarreled with hers, and upon reaching Tovilyis, enlisted in the Guild of Free Women. My mother was nearing her time (my time, it was) and elected to stay with her friend. Her lover (my father) left her money and swore to return some day, but of course never did.'

There was a flurry of knocking and the narrow gray door opened and closed, admitting Gale, who peered around eagerly through the thinning steam.

“Has Uncle Fafhrd flown back down from the sky?” she demanded. “Why didn't you wake me? Those are his things outside, Aunty Afreyt!'

“Not yet,” that lady told her, “but there have been messages of sorts from him, or so it seems. After you two were sleeping, May brought me Fafhrd's belt, which she'd found hanging on a berry bush as though fallen from the sky. Her words, though she'd not heard your tale. I sent her and others hunting and went out myself, and there were soon discovered his two boots (one on a roof) and dirk and small-ax, which had split the council hall's weathercock.'

“He cast them down to lighten ship when he got above the fog.” Gale rushed to conclusions.

“That's the best guess I've heard,” Afreyt said, reaching the dipper to Gale, handle first. “Renew the steam,” she directed. “One cup.'

The girl obeyed. There was a gentler sizzling, and warm steam came billowing up around them again.

“Maybe he's waiting for tonight's fog,” the girl suggested. “I'm much more worried about Uncle Mouser.'

“The digging goes on and another clue's been unearthed — a sharpened iron tik (Lankhmar's least coin) such as the Gray One habitually carries on his person. So Cif told me when she was here early afternoon to bathe and change, while you two were still asleep. There'd been some difficulty about the air, but your aunt took care of it.'

“They'll find him,” Gale assured her.

“I share both your hopes for both the Captains,” Fingers put in, returning somewhat to formality.

“Fafhrd will be all right,” Gale asserted confidently. “You see, I think he needs the fog to buoy him up, at least until he gets started stroking well, and the fog will be back before dawn. He'll swim down then.'

“Gale thinks her uncle can do anything,” Afreyt explained, scrubbing her vigorously. “He's her hero.'

“He certainly is,” the girl maintained aggressively. “And because he's my uncle, there can't be anything between us to spoil it when I'm fully grown up.'

“Truly a hero has many lady loves: whores, innocents, princesses,” Fingers observed in tones that were both earnest and worldly wise. “That's one of the first things my mother told me.'

“Friska?” Afreyt checked.

“Friska,” Fingers confirmed, and then bethought herself of a compliment that would sustain the worldly mood which she enjoyed. “I must say, Lady, that I greatly admire the coolness and lack of jealousy with which you regard your lover's previous attachments. For Captain Fafhrd is surely a hero — I suspected as much when he began so swiftly and resolutely to dig for his friend and set the rest of us all helping. I became completely certain when he took off so blithely into the sky on his friend's service.'

“I don't know about all that,” Afreyt replied, eyeing Fingers somewhat dubiously, “especially my coolness toward love rivals of whatever age or condition. Though it's true Fafhrd's had an awful many sweethearts, to hear him talk (the Mouser the same), and not only from those classes you mention, but really weird ones like the Ghouless Kreeshkra and that wholly invisible snowmount Princess Hirriwi and (for Mouse) that eight-tit slinky Hisvet — everything from demonesses to mermaids and shimmersprites.” Warming to it, she continued, “But I think Cif and I are a match for them, at least in quality if not numbers. We've bedded gods ourselves — or at least arranged for their bedding,” she added correctively and a bit guiltily, remembering.

Listening to this recital, Gale seemed to get a bit uneasy, certainly wide-eyed. Fingers put an arm around her shoulders, saying, “So you see, little one, it is better to have one's hero a friend and uncle only, is it not?'

Afreyt couldn't resist saying, “Aren't you overdoing the wise old aunt a bit?” Then, recalling Fingers's circumstances, she dropped her smile, adding, “But I was forgetting… you know what.'

Fingers nodded gravely and fetched a sigh that she thought suitable for A Cabin-girl Against Her Will. Then she gave a squeal. Gale had yanked her hair.

“I don't know about Uncle Fafhrd,” the Rimish girl told her, making a face, “but I certainly want you as a friend and not an aunty!'

“And now it's time we stopped talking heroes and she-devils and got back to worrying about two real men,”