Songs of the Dying Earth

drudge toiling ahead of him, carrying a pair of buckets full of something that steamed.

“Ho, there! What is it you carry?”

The drudge turned dull eyes to him. “Hot water from the kitchen boiler. My lord must have his bath.”

“Your lord? Do you mean the green bird?”

“Even he. My mistress requires it brought fresh every morning. I will be beaten if I deliver it late,” she added pointedly. Cugel looked in vain for a curve of flesh he might pinch or swat, and settled for wresting the buckets from the drudge’s hands.

“I will deliver the water today. Back to your dishpan!”

Muttering, the drudge left him. Cugel bore the water onward to the solarium, and shouldered his way through the doorway. At once, he spotted Dame Trunadora with the green bird on her shoulder, murmuring tender nonsense as she fed the creature sugared tapioca balls.

“Good morning, dear lady,” said Cugel, setting down the buckets. “See! I have brought fresh water for little Pippy’s bath.”

“On whose orders?” Dame Trunadora demanded.

“Why — that is to say — your lady sister requested that I see to the bird’s comfort in all respects. Therefore here am I, ready to serve in whatever manner you require.”

Dame Trunadora narrowed her yellow eyes. Impatiently, she gestured at a wide silver basin, set beside a tall silver pitcher on a tabletop of green serpentine. “Pour the water, then!”

Cugel brought forward the buckets and obeyed, humble and deferential as any slavey. “What am I to do next, madam?

“Prepare the bath, fool.” Dame Trunadora seized the pitcher herself, and poured forth a little chilled water perfumed with attar of flowers of ‘Ood. She cast in also a measure of rose petals. “Put your hand in the water! It should be of a mild and pleasant temperature, not so cool as to give my adorable a chill, but by no means so hot as to scald him.”

“Then I think perhaps you had better add more cold water,” said Cugel, resisting the urge to cram his burned fingers into his mouth.

The water’s temperature was adjusted to Dame Trunadora’s satisfaction; only then did she hand the green bird down to the rim of the silver basin. He hopped in readily and began to splash about at once, throwing water in all directions but more often than not managing to wet Cugel.

“Watch Pippy closely,” said Dame Trunadora. “Don’t let him get water up his sweet little nostrils.”

“Of course not, madam.”

Dame Trunadora went to a cabinet in the wall and opened it, disclosing therein a mask of Shandaloon, the god of the south wind worshipped by the people of Falgunto. She raised her hands before it and uttered an imploration, and straightaway warm air came gusting forth from the godmask’s open mouth. Cugel meanwhile kept his gaze steadfast on the green bird, whose wet feathers had shrunk in an appalling manner to the gray under- down, giving it the appearance of some unwholesome hybrid of bird and drowned rat. All the while, he meditated on how he might win over Dame Trunadora, since his person had failed to please her.

“Madam,” said Cugel at last, “I have a concern.”

“Regarding my tiny beloved?” Dame Trunadora turned at once, to see that all was well with the green bird.

“No, madam, a personal concern of mine own.”

“And why should it be mine?”

“I thought perhaps you might offer advice, since you know your sister well.” Cugel twisted his countenance to express, as far as he was able, that he was in the grip of acute chagrin while still possessed of a fundamental chivalric impulse.

“Whatever can you be babbling about, man? Vaissa is easily known; all vanity and self-indulgence,” said Dame Trunadora, with a sharp laugh. “And in her younger days, very well known by any handsome male who cared to apply to her.”

“That is the matter of my concern,” said Cugel, looking down as though abashed. A gout of bathwater hit his face, and he concealed a sidelong glare at the green bird with the hand that flicked the water away. “The lady is of reverend years. When she was beset, I rushed to her aid, as I would have rushed to the aid of my mother. She offered me employment in her service, as I thought, out of honest gratitude. But…”

“Well?”

Cugel bit his lip. “How shall I say it without giving offense? Last night, she made certain…overtures, of an indiscreet nature.”

Dame Trunadora looked him up and down. “What! To you?”

“Even I, madam.”

She began to laugh, heartily. “Now by all the gods, she has grown desperate!”

“Needless to say, I am at a loss,” Cugel went on, noticing that a certain glint of good temper, as of new- minted gold, had come into the old woman’s eyes. “I would not for the world disoblige the good lady in any honorable request — so far as flesh will perform to a man’s requirement, which it will not always do — but if nothing else, there is the lady’s good name to consider.”

Dame Trunadora whooped with merriment. “Her reputation was ruined years ago! There was a tavern in Kandive Court that was open ‘round the clock, the Princes’ Arms, and the youths at court took to calling it Vaissa’s Legs!”

“I fear they speak with even less respect now,” said Cugel, in nearly-believable sorrow.

“Oh, what do they say? Tell me!” cried Dame Trunadora. She arranged a plush towel on the table before the stream of warm air. “And bring my heart’s little master from his bath.”

The green bird was disinclined to leave the warm scented water, and Cugel sustained three minor and two considerable flesh wounds from its beak before managing to close his hands around the horrible-looking thing. Resisting the urge to dash its brains out, he brought it to the towel and set it down. “They say, madam, that Dame Vaissa is a pitiable old creature, who lost her beauty long since and now loses her wits.”

“Do they really?” Dame Trunadora smiled as she bent down to watch the green bird lolling about on the towel, beating its wings to dry them. “What else?”

“Why, they say her beauty was never noteworthy to begin with. Also, that so voracious and predatory she was, young men oftimes climbed from her chamber window to get away, and thought a broken leg a reasonable risk if only they might escape,” Cugel improvised. He wrapped his fingers in his jerkin, hoping the bleeding would stop.

“So they did,” said Dame Trunadora, holding out a sugar-stick to Pippy. The bird snapped it in half with its beak. “Such a clever poppet! They did, until I showed them the secret passage in the wine cellar, that leads down to the river. They’d offer to go downstairs to fetch a bottle of fine old Cobalt Mountain vintage, to make sweet dalliance the sweeter, and how they’d run once she’d let them out of her sight! Three hours later she’d still be panting in impatience, and they well on their way to East Almery, to take their chances with barbarian women.”

“Oh, dear,” said Cugel, unable to believe his luck. “With respect, madam, were I not indebted to your sister for a position here — and the chance to make Pippy’s delightful acquaintance — all this might cause Dame Vaissa to be lowered somewhat in my estimation.”

“Call her a dreadful old trollop, if you like,” said Dame Trunadora cheerfully. She eyed the bloodstains seeping through Cugel’s jerkin. “Did Pippy nip you? You’ll find a lavatory yonder, two doors down the corridor on the left. In the red chest in the corner are gauze and styptic.”

“You are as gracious and virtuous as your sister is, lamentably, not,” said Cugel. “But to return to the point, madam: what am I to do, should Dame Vaissa grow importunate again? I fear to refuse her, for I blush to admit I cannot afford to lose my position in your household, and yet the very thought—”

“Why, refuse her, man,” said Dame Trunadora, grinning through chapped and colorless lips. “Then I shall retain your services myself. That will annoy her to apoplexy.”

Over the next week, Cugel got very little sleep, studiously cultivating his acquaintance with Dame Trunadora by day and dancing attendance on Dame Vaissa by night. Though the latter beldam was, in truth, innocent of any