Snowclaw gave a sarcastic grunt. “Who dealt this mess?”
“You always complain,” Gene said. “Every hand. Which leads me to believe, you clever beast, that it’s some kind of psychological stratagem.”
“Some kind of what?” Snowclaw heaved a sigh. “Pass.”
“Don’t think you’re putting anything over on anyone.”
“Toad-fling,” Linda said disapprovingly. “How cruel to toss helpless toads.”
“Nonsense,” Gene said. “Your regulation flinging toad is bred for the job. They don’t mind a bit. In fact, they live to be flung. It fulfills their purpose in life.”
“The SPCA should hear about this,” Linda said. “I have half a mind to report it myself. Three spades.”
“What’s this toad-flingin’ stuff, anyway?” Deena was curious to learn. “I thought it was knights on horses runnin’ at each other with spears. Pass.”
“Lances,” Gene corrected. “Well, I heard they’ve de-emphasized the traditional combat angle. Now it’s mostly track-and-field. Sort of a medieval Olympics — though they do still hold the joust. And a contestant still stands a chance of getting his neck broken. Four no-trump.”
“Or hers,” Linda said. “They have a woman’s joust, too. Four no-trump, Gene? You sure are adventurous today. Remember, we’re vulnerable.”
“Too late,” Deena said. “No takin’ back bids.”
“Going for the slam?” Snowclaw speculated. “Need a little danger, eh?”
Gene let out a breath. “It’s been so damned boring around here lately. I crave excitement once in a while.”
Snowclaw said, “I’ve been getting a little antsy myself, now that you mention it. Pass.”
“Speaking of adventurism. Maybe you’re not playing possum.”
“What’s a possum?”
Snowclaw looked capable of handling any excitement that might come his way. A cross between a polar bear and a bipedal cat, he had fierce yellow eyes over a snoutful of wicked teeth. For all that, his disposition seemed amiable enough.
There were other castle Guests in the Gaming Hall. At one chess table, Cleve Dalton and Lord Peter Thaxton had locked horns in an especially desperate endgame. They sat unmoving, eyes on the board. In another corner, Melanie McDaniel — russet-haired and freckle-faced — strummed a guitar, singing some Scots ballad or another. She played well, but her alto voice squeaked in the upper registers. Nevertheless, five listeners sat around her in cross-legged appreciation.
““All this, our South, stinks of peace,”” Gene said.
Deena frowned suspiciously. “Are you quotin’ poetry again?” She cocked her head toward Linda. “He’s quotin’ poetry again.”
“Right, but I wrote it,” Gene said.
“Liar,” Linda said casually.
“Oh, all right. It was actually penned by one of the immortal bards. A laureate among poets.”
When no one obliged, Deena reluctantly asked, “Oh, yeah? Who?”
“Geraldo.”
“Get out.”
“No, really. It was during his Futurist period. Your call, Linda.”
“Five diamonds.”
“One ace is all you have?” Snowclaw was amused.
“’Cept for the one up my sleeve, you stinker.”
Snowclaw chuckled. “We’ll just let you guys hang yourselves.”
“Goin’ for the slam,” Deena said. “You’re right, Snowy. We gonna watch ’em twist slowly in the wind. I pass.”
“Gene, why don’t you go off somewhere,” Linda said, “and get yourself into something? Take Snowy, go exploring. Pick a world, any world. After all, the castle has a hundred forty-four thousand of them.”
Gene leaned back and scratched his left thigh, tugging at the stretchable material of his green tights. “Hell, we’ve done that. Just last week we hiked off into that aspect with the ruined temples in a sort of jungle setting. Know the one I mean?”
“I know of several,” Linda said.
“The ones that look vaguely like Angkor. Through the portal near the stairwell to the King’s Tower.”
“Oh, that one. Anything interesting?”
Gene shrugged. “Ruins. Jungle. Great for archaeologists. Otherwise, it was pretty boring, and the mosquitoes were as big as hang-gliders.”
“I’m still itching,” Snowy said.
“After we came out of there,” Gene went on, “we tried a few more aspects. But they were washouts, too. Maybe we’ve explored all the interesting ones.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Linda said.
“Maybe I just need a change.”
“Why don’t you go back home for a little vacation? How are your parents, by the way?”
“They’re in Florida for the winter.”
“Go there.”
“Don’t care for Florida in the winter. Or the summer.”
“Go to California. You haven’t been there since —” Linda realized too late she was treading sensitive ground.
“Since Vaya threw me over to be a biker moll,” Gene said.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”
“Oh, it’s all right. After all, she was a barbarian queen when I found her, [1] and after all attempts at civilizing, she reverted to type. I just hope she’s happy.”
“Do you think she’s still in southern California?”
“The club she joined is based in L.A., but she could be anywhere,” Gene said as he made a minute adjustment in the arrangement of his cards. “And who knows if she stayed with that particular fraternity of motorcycle aficionados.”
Deena asked, “When did you last hear from her?”
“I haven’t heard from her since that letter telling me she was dropping out of UCLA.”
“Maybe you should go look for her,” Linda said.
Gene scowled. “Whatever for? As I said, I hope she’s found happiness. As a tribal queen, she was used to being serviced by a cohort of husbands and male concubines. Mayhap a biker gang is just her cup of tea.”
“You sound just a little bitter,” Linda said.
“Do I? I’m not. Not at all.”
The binding continued, Gene calling with five no-trump, Linda telegraphing her two kings by Blackwood convention: “Six hearts.”
“Pass,” Deena said. “Your bid, Gene, honey. And just remember, there’s always another fish in the ocean.”
“I hate fish. Oh, what the bloody hell — seven no-trump.”
Linda rolled her eyes to the high-vaulted ceiling. “Gene, you shouldn’t have.”
Snowclaw chortled. “A grand slam! You’re never going to make it, good buddy.”
“Live dangerously, I say. What else have I got to occupy my time? Besides, it’s a verbal contract, and, as everyone knows —”
“Gene,” Linda said, “there’s no excuse for boredom. You live in Castle Perilous, which just happens to be the most interesting place in the entire universe — in the whole darn omniverse, or whatever you call the big thing that contains all the littler universes.”
“Multiverse.” Gene gave a tiny shrug. “Well, as the Bauhaus boys said, less is more … more or less.”
Snowclaw blinked. “Eh?”
“I never liked their movies,” Linda said.
“You should take up golf, Gene,” a new voice broke in.
The bridge players turned to regard lean, wiry Cleve Dalton, who was sitting back after making a move that had been prefaced by a good fifteen minutes of thought. Dalton had the face of a Yankee storekeeper and the manner of a high-end-billable-hour lawyer, though in his pre-Perilous life he’d been a literary agent.
Gene said, “But you guys gave it up.”
Dalton pointed to his opponent. “He did, not me.”
Deena asked, “You really swear off for good, Lord Peter?”
Lord Peter Thaxton looked up from the chess board. Dressed in a maroon smoking jacket with ascot, he was light-haired and distinguished-looking. Although he likely hadn’t seen forty yet, his face was the sort that might have looked middle-aged at twenty-five.