“Well, you scored something for the balance sheet,” I said happily. I offered her the little box, which jingled appealingly. “Do you want to open it?”
The little box contained a hundred gold coins. “Oh!” Hermalaya said, her large brown eyes welling with tears. “She's so generous! I could just cry?”
“Don't do that, honey,” Massha said, offering a bright orange handkerchief to the girl. “This is just the begin-ning.”
We arrived back in my office in high spirits. I bowed the ladies out into the anteroom, where Bunny was seated at the desk, filing her nails. Guido and Nunzio, who was trying to get Gleep to sit up for a fried lizard leg, both stood up as we entered.
“Guess how we did?” I asked.
“Shh!” Bunny hissed. She tilted her head toward the other room. I heard voices inside. I raised an eyebrow. Bunny shook her head.
I shrugged and passed over the box of money, along with other gifts the Octarooble chiefs had heaped on us when we left. Bunny looked them over carefully. She opened our ledger to a new page with my name on it and dipped a pen in indelible ink, one that neither Aahz nor I could alter with any spell available anywhere in the Ba-zaar. She wrote the number 117. I felt a swell of pride. Guido took charge of the money, tucking the small box into the breast of his well-cut pin-striped coat.
“Nice job, Boss,” he said. He looked guilty for a mo-ment. '“I mean, Skeeve.”
“And there'll be more where that came from, too.. . Uh, has Aahz chalked up anything yet?” I asked in a quiet voice, trying not to sound eager.
Bunny frowned at me. “I don't think you need to know that. I'll tell you when it's all over.”
“You are coming home tonight to stay with me in Pos-siltum,” Massha told Hermalaya. “Skeeve and I both think it's better if you go somewhere with hot-and-cold-running guards. Queen Hemlock won't mind putting up one noble-woman, particularly one without an entourage who can make pastry.”
“Why, thank you kindly, but I'd rather be handy to Mis-ter Skeeve?” Hermalaya said, with an appealing look at me that made my chest swell. “I am relying on him as my pro-tector?”
“We really don't have any lodgings good enough for a princess, even one in exile,” I said. “That doesn't really matter,” Hermalaya said, raising hopeful eyes to me. “I'd just feel better if I...”
“Let's go see a couple of people here in the Bazaar to start,” Aahz was saying as he pushed the door aside to let
Tananda and his client step through. I was surprised to see that Aahz's client was another Swamp Fox, this time a male with curly black fur and glasses perched on his long nose.
My surprise was nothing compared with his. He halted in the doorway and gawked openly, then dipped into a deep and courtly bow.
“Why, princess,” the Fox said. “I must say I never ex-pected to see you here.” Hermalaya sprang to her feet. She balled up her fists.
“Well, I didn't think it mattered to you anymore where I was after you showed me my own border, you terrible man!”
“Border?” I asked. “Is this .. . your prime minister? The usurper?” The black-haired Swamp Fox was aghast. “Terrible? I don't mean to be terrible!”
“Well, that's just what you are,” Hermalaya declared, putting her long nose in the air. “How else do you want me to think of you?”
“Well, never as anything but respectful, ma'am. You've got to understand where I've been coming from....”
“Princess?” Aahz asked, his eyes narrowing. “No kid-ding! That's the little spendthrift herself?”
Hermalaya's eyes went wide with shock. “Spendthrift! Is that what you think of me! How dare you!” She recoiled with dignity. “How can you expect me to remain here for one more moment with that man! You're right, Miss Massha, I don't feel safe here any longer. Take me away! This minute, if you don't mind!”
“But, I. ..” Matfany began.
Massha gave us all a reproachful look and blinked out, with Hermalaya in tow. Aahz pushed the black-haired Swamp Fox toward the door.
“Wait for me outside,” he said. Tananda grabbed Matfany's arm and towed him away. Aahz turned around, the orange veins throbbing in his eyes with fury. Both of us rounded on Bunny.
“You knew,” I accused her. “You knew they knew each other. You knew you were setting us against each other head to head!”
Bunny tossed her head. “Of course I knew. I thought it was kind of poetic, having the two of you handle opposing sides of a sticky issue. She came in ahead of him by not more than a couple of minutes. She told me her problem, and I sent her in to see you, Skeeve. I had no idea the Swamp Fox behind her was her former prime minister, but once he told me what he was there for, I couldn't resist handing him over to you, Aahz. What are the odds that the two of them would arrive here on the same day at the same time, looking for help with the same problem? It's fate!” She blinked her long lashes at us.
“I don't believe in fate,” Aahz snarled. “Neither do I,” I growled.
“Tough,” Bunny said, folding her arms over her ample chest. “You both want to be president of M.Y.T.H., Inc. The agreement was that you have to take
