'Good idea,' she agreed.
The sailor had finally recovered consciousness, but he was in no condition to resume the fight. ''We'll let you go,' Fanchon told him; 'if you tell us how to tame that dog. We don't want to have to kill it, you see.'
'Who, Jennifer?' the man asked dazedly. 'Just speak her name, pat her on the head, and feed her.' He lay back. 'I think my collarbone's broke.'
Fanchon looked at Bink. 'Can't make him swim, then. Trent may be a monster, but we aren't.' She turned back to the sailor. 'If you will give your word not to interfere with us in any way, we'll help you recover as well as we can. Deal?'
The sailor didn't hesitate. 'I can't interfere with you. I can't get up. Deal.'
This bothered Bink. He and Fanchon sounded just like Trent, offering better terms to a captive enemy in return for his cooperation. Were they any different from the Evil Magician?
Fanchon checked the sailor's body around the shoulders. 'Yow!' he cried.
'I'm no doctor,' she said, 'but I think you're right. You have a broken bone. Are there any pillows aboard?'
'Listen,' the sailor said as she worked on him. He was obviously trying to divert his attention from the pain. 'Trent's no monster. You called him that, but you're wrong. He's a good leader.'
'He's promised you all the spoils of Xanth?' Fanchon asked, with an edge to her voice.
'No, just farms or jobs for all of us,' he said.
'No killing, no rapine, no loot?' Her disbelief was evident.
'None of that. This ain't the old days, you know? We just protect him and keep order in the territory we occupy, and he'll give us small land grants where nobody's settled yet. He says Xanth's underpopulated. And there'll be-he'll encourage the local gals to marry us, so we can have families. If there aren't enough, he'll bring in gals from the real world. And meanwhile, he'll transform some smart animals into gals. I thought that was a joke, but after what I hear about those cocks-' He grimaced. 'I mean those basks-' He shook his head and grimaced again, in pain.
'Keep your head still,' Fanchon told him, too late. 'It's true about the cockatrice and basilisk; we were them. But animal brides-'
'Oh, it wouldn't be so bad, miss. Just temporary, until real gals arrived. If she looks like a gal and feels like a gal, I wouldn't blame her for being a bitch before. I mean, some gals are bitches-'
'What's a bitch?' Bink asked.
'A bitch? You don't know that?' The sailor grimaced again; either he was in considerable pain or it was a natural expression. 'A female dog. Like Jennifer. Hell, if Jennifer had human form-'
'Enough,' Fanchon muttered.
'Well, anyway, we'll get homesteads and settle in. And our kids will be magic. I tell you, it's that last that recruited me. I don't believe in magic, understand-or I didn't then-but I remember the fairy tales from when I was a little tyke, about the princess and the frog, and the mountain of glass, and the three wishes-well, look, I was a metalworker for a crooked shop, know what I mean? And I really wanted out of the rat race.'
Bink shook his head silently. He understood only part of what the sailor was saying, but it did not make Mundania look very good. Stores that were built off balance, crooked? Rats that raced? Bink would want to get out of that culture, too.
'A chance to have a decent life in the country,' the sailor continued, and there was no question about his dedication to his vision. 'Owning my own land, making good things grow, you know? And my kids knowing magic, real magic-I guess I still don't really believe that part, but even if it's a lie, you know, it's sure nice to think about.'
'But to invade a foreign land, to take what doesn't belong to you-' Fanchon said. She broke off, evidently certain that it was pointless to debate that sort of thing with a sailor. 'He'll betray you the moment he doesn't need you. He's an Evil Magician, exiled from Xanth.'
'You mean he really can do magic?' the man asked with happy disbelief. 'I figured all this stuff was sleight of hand, you know, when I really thought about it. I mean, I believed some of the time, but-'
'He sure as hell can do magic,' Bink put in, becoming acclimatized to the sailor's language. 'We told you how he changed us-'
'Never mind about that,' Fanchon said.
'Well, he's still a good leader,' the sailor insisted. 'He told us how he was kicked out twenty years ago because he tried to be King, and how he lost his magic, and married a gal from here and had a little boy-'
'Trent has a family in Mundania?' Bink asked, amazed.
'We don't call our country that,' the sailor said. 'But yes-he had a family. Until this mystery bug went around-some kind of flu, I think, or maybe food poisoning-and they both got it and died. He said science hadn't been able to save them, but magic could have, so he was going back to magicland. Xanth, you call it. But they'd kill him if he just walked in alone, even if he got by the thing he called a Shield. So he needed an army- oooh!' Fanchon had finished her work and heaved his shoulder up onto a pillow.
So they had the sailor as comfortable as was feasible, his shoulder bound up in stray cloths. Bink would have liked to hear more of the man's unique viewpoint. But time had passed, and it was apparent that the other ship was gaining on them. They traced its progress by its sail, which moved laterally, back and forth, zigzagging against the wind-and with each pass it was closer. They had been wrong about the capabilities of ships in adverse wind. How much else were they wrong about?
Bink went into the cabin. He was feeling a bit seasick now, but he held it down. 'Jennifer,' he said hesitantly, proffering some of the dog food they had found. The small spotted monster wagged her tail. Just like
