Lex opened the door, they stepped into one of the ship’s corridors and were immediately enveloped in the scent of carpets. When he’d first got the ship it had been covered in mirrors and marble? even the floors? which hadn’t made for a very cosy feel. So Lex had had carpets put into all the rooms he was able to use. It had cost him a pretty penny, of course, for the corridors alone required several huge rolls of carpet. But Lex had sold some of the treasures he’d found on the ship to raise the money. Lucius pointed out that Lex could have spent the money on improving and modernising the farm, not to mention replacing the barn that had been burnt down. Lex resisted this particular line of thought most strenuously at first for the very idea of spending his ill-gotten gains on a barn of all things was quite sickening. And it was hardly his fault that the rabbit had headed straight for it, damn the thing… But, in the end, he gave Lucius some money for a new barn just to stop him from going on and on and on about it. You let one fire-breathing bunny loose and no one ever lets you forget it…
But the corridors, kitchen and bridge were now all carpeted. And Lex was very pleased with the result. He had even rolled around on the new carpets a bit when they’d first been put in? after vacuuming them first, obviously, so that he wouldn’t get all those little bits of fluff sticking to his clothes and hair.
They found a room down below to put Rusty in. Then Lex gave Jesse the tour? showing him the kitchen and the bridge and the room where he would sleep. Lex was planning on sleeping on the bridge as he’d done in the last Game. It was the only room in the ship that had windows, the other rooms all being rather dark, claustrophobic little boxes. As one of the biggest rooms, not to mention the fact that it was the highest, Lex felt the observation deck had rather a nice status-symbol feel to it and saw it as his due to sleep there. It, too, was now carpeted, with a grand four-poster bed and a wardrobe and a little coolbox with some food in it in case he fancied a midnight snack, and a couple of big, squishy armchairs. It was the perfect set-up.
Jesse’s room, on the other hand, was a small, sparse place with white marble walls and just a mattress and a blanket on the floor.
‘They’re new,’ Lex said, a little defensively. ‘The room isn’t big enough for a proper bed. And at least it has a carpet.’
‘Don’t matter anyhow,’ Jesse said. ‘I’ll sleep down below with Rusty.’
Lex shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’
When they went up to the bridge there was a white griffin the size of a small horse lying on Lex’s four-poster bed. Half eagle, half lion, it was sprawled there looking rather pleased with itself.
‘That’s Silvi. One of the griffins I told you about. She’s the friendliest. You can probably stroke her without her taking your hand off. But be careful around the other two.’
‘She’s not as big as I would’ve thought,’ Jesse said, nevertheless looking impressed for the first time since boarding the ship. ‘Baby, is she?’
‘Three months,’ Lex replied. ‘Her brothers are much bigger? they’re almost full grown already. They’re probably out on deck. Come on, Silvi.’
The griffin jumped off the bed, loped over to Lex and stayed by his side as they went out to the open deck. The other two griffins were indeed there and were much larger than their sister, coming up to Lex’s shoulder. They were both lounging contentedly in the sun, although they lifted their heads when Lex and Jesse came on to the deck.
‘The grey one is Lukah,’ Lex said, pointing. ‘And the black one is Monty. Watch out for him; he’s really bad tempered and he doesn’t much like anyone but me. They’ll probably get used to you in the end but for now don’t touch any of them except Silvi.’
The only other people who had met the griffins were Lucius? who’d practically cringed in terror whenever one of them came near him? and Zachary, whom the griffins had all taken an instant dislike to, quite possibly because Lex had turned the man into a ferret during the course of the last Game. The griffins seemed to be able to smell it on him still, even now. It made a pleasant change to show them to Jesse when the cowboy was quite obviously as impressed by them as he should be.
They had been up on deck for only a few minutes when Lady Luck appeared beside them.
‘This is-’ Lex began, intending to introduce Jesse.
But the cowboy, it seemed, needed no one to do the introductions.
‘The Goddess of Good Fortune, of course,’ he said, sweeping off his hat with a flourish and giving a gallant bow. ‘My Lady, I would recognise your beauty anywhere.’
‘Dear me, how sweet you are,’ Lady Luck fluttered girlishly. ‘Lex, who is this charming-’
‘Jesse Layton, ma’am. At your service,’ the cowboy said, straightening up and actually taking one of the Goddess’s gloved hands to press a kiss to the back of it.
Lex was quite, quite horrified. How had he not foreseen this? Lady Luck loved scoundrels and rogues and rotters and rascals. Lex himself was, of course, all of those things but so, clearly, was Jesse. And whilst Lex was usually glad of his honest face? for it made scams so much easier when you looked like a gutless twerp? he had to admit that, on occasion, the scarred, stubbled, rugged look would come in handy, too.
‘Oh, good choice, Lex,’ Lady Luck gushed. ‘I like this one much better than that lawyer.’
‘Yes, I’m sure he’ll do just fine,’ Lex said, practically slapping Jesse’s hand out of the Goddess’s and giving him rather an evil look as he did it.
He did not mind double-crossing Lady Luck and, indeed, he had done it before, but he was not favourably inclined towards being double-crossed himself and a God could only have one player. Lex didn’t like the way the Goddess was looking at Jesse? not one bit.
‘Is there something you want particularly or have you just dropped by to get in the way?’ Lex snapped.
‘Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning,’ the Goddess huffed and Lex cursed himself for being bad tempered when Jesse, drat him, was being so pleasant.
‘I just thought you’d like to know,’ Lady Luck said coolly, ‘that I have it on good authority that Kala is planning to use Jeremiah East as her player.’
‘Jeremiah… East?’
‘That’s right,’ the Goddess said with a smile. ‘The grandson of the famous Carey East himself.’
CHAPTER THREE
This was the first occasion in a long while that the Game had been announced ahead of time. Since the last Game, and Lex’s spectacular victory, interest seemed to have increased in the players themselves and it was now a little bit about hero-worshipping as well as about the gambling. There was even to be a feast, two nights before the Game was due to start, when the Gods would officially name their players.
Lex was quite beside himself with excitement to hear that Kala, Goddess of the Stars, was going to be using Jeremiah East, the grandson of the great adventurer about whom he? and, indeed, the rest of the world? had heard so many stories, most of which had been written by Lex’s own grandfather, Alistair Trent, as Carey East’s Chronicler.
Lex was not the only one who had found out about Jeremiah ahead of time. Word had got around that the young nobleman was coming to the Wither City and it was not all that hard to put two and two together. Carey East and Alistair Trent had been a famous pair in their time and already the newspapers were making a big to-do about the possibility of their grandsons being pitched together in a thrilling Game of wits and derring-do.
Jeremiah’s ship arrived in the Wither City the next day. Quite a little crowd had turned out to welcome him and people lined the harbour, stuffed in like sardines around the closed-up stalls of the midnight markets. Lex had considered watching the proceedings from the deck of his own ship so as not to get jostled and shoved by the masses but decided against it for the simple reason that he just couldn’t wait to meet Jeremiah. So he went down to the docks and Jesse went with him to see what all the fuss was about.