"Screw you," Clever Rolf said. It was not courage, or even defiance--more on the order of having nothing left to lose.
The wizard laughed. "Such spirit! Anyone would think you had the means with which to back up your insolence. Unfortunately for you, we both know that is not the case, do we not? No, I fear you must continue to savor your richly deserved punishment yet a while longer. For your pluck, though, I shall grant you a boon."
"Save it," Clever Rolf said.
"No, no, I insist--and who are you to say me nay?" Mebodes chuckled, a sound that made Clever Rolf want to hide. "Here is my boon: I grant it to you to know your end. You shall recognize the envenomed fly that bears your doom by its eyes, which shall be golden as my own, to remind me of you in your final moments."
The wizard stalked away, lifting his trousers to keep the muck in Argentan's dirt streets from soiling them.
Clever Rolf did not bother following him. All he had to be thankful for was that it was early, and no one had seen him cringing. His head hung; he muttered hopeless curses under his breath as he tramped past the Blue Fox.
An apple tree stood outside the tavern, its fragrant blossoms opening as the sun began to climb in the sky. Bees happily buzzed round the flowers. Or they did until Clever Rolf came by--then the buzz turned furious. As though they were so many hawks, they dove on the scribe.
He shrieked when the first one stung him. Ice ran up his back as he heard the rising, angry drone. Without conscious thought, he jumped through the Blue Fox's doorway.
The hour being so early--for everyone save Clever Rolf and, worse luck for him, the bees--the tavern was almost deserted. One old soak sat blearily at a table, nursing the mug of thin, sour beer to which Herul staked him every day until he cadged enough coins for a stronger fare. And Herul himself, an immensely fat man--fatter than Clever Rolf--with a black beard that reached what had once been his waist, but now might be called his equator, stood by the fire, stirring a pot of porridge. It was thick, strong stuff, and bubbled merrily as Herul dragged his long-handled spoon through it.
"Get out from there, Rolf, you whoreson!" he roared as Clever Rolf dove behind the bar. Save for a yip as a bee stung him on the forehead, the scribe did not answer. He grabbed a dipper, plunged it into the cask of mead that sat between red wine and porter, and sloshed a great sticky puddle of fermented honey over the polished top of the bar.
Herul roared again, louder this time. "Out, out, you dizzard, you loon, you crackbrained jobbernowl, and never come back! I'll make my own reckonings of profit from now on--you, you're a dead loss."
"Oh, put a cork in it, suet-chops," Clever Rolf said with dignity. His stings throbbed, but he was not getting any more of them. Next to the perfume of mead, Mebodes' magic was magic no more. The bees droned down to the puddle one by one. A couple flew away, weaving slightly from the potent brew. The rest stayed to gorge themselves. Clever Rolf crushed them all with a big skillet, then set to work digging the stings out of his flesh.
Herul bore down on him, fist clenched on the long-handled spoon. He realized he was brandishing it like a club, slowly lowered it. His eyes went back and forth from Clever Rolf to the smashed bees.
"Here." The scribe dropped a coin on the bar next to the puddle. "This should cover a dipper of mead. I always thought it was vile stuff, but it came in handy today." Leaving Herul and his solitary customer staring after him, he strolled out of the Blue Fox.
Though one eye was puffed shut, he was whistling as he reached the baron's keep. The half-victory his quick wits had won him gave him back his hope; maybe he could find some way to save his hide (however punctured) from Mebodes after all.
He did not, unfortunately, have any idea of what that way might be.
Bardulf was brusquely sympathetic to his lumps and bumps. "I got stung myself, a couple of years ago," the baron remarked. "Bees are nasty things."
"Yes, sir," Clever Rolf said. He hurried up the spiral stair to the castle's record room. Dust puffed under his feet as he made his way to the accounts--but for him, few people came here.
The parchment account-scrolls smelled of old dust. As a scribe, Clever Rolf found the odor as comfortable as the old shoes he wore. It was doubly welcome today: no risk that musty smell would draw any stinging bees, he thought. He bent above the scroll, frowning when he saw how much the baron had spent for horse leeching.
A silverfish scuttled over the parchment. One day, Clever Rolf thought, all of Bardulf's records would be bug turds, and a good thing, too. But this insect moved with malignant purpose. It darted onto Clever Rolf's hand, then scurried up his arm inside the sleeve of his tunic.
The scribe gave a stifled scream and swatted frantically. The silverfish might have been dipped in liquid fire. It drew a line of agony behind it everywhere it ran. Clever Rolf sprang up from the table, ripped the tunic off over his head. The silverfish was in the matted hair on his belly. Sobbing, he knocked it to the floor and stepped on it. Wherever it had touched him, his skin was an angry red. The pain remained fresh when he went home that evening.
He faced supper with a certain amount of dread, but Mebodes did not disturb his meal. But when he and Viviane went to bed, a horde of ants emerged from the mattress ticking and crawled all over them like an animated brown carpet. Naked but for ants, Clever Rolf and Viviane ran for the creek and plunged in, scrubbing at their hair and digging the insects out of their ears and noses.
When they looked up, Mebodes stood at the stream bank, a glow of pleasure in his terrible eyes. He bowed mockingly toward Viviane. "Only fair you should have your share of enjoyment, too, my dear." Then to Clever Rolf again: "Not long now before the fly." He gestured, as if to make a sorcerous pass. Both his victims ducked under the water. When they raised their heads again, he was gone.
Viviane shivered, half from the chill of the creek, half from fury. "Ohhh!" she said, a long syllable of rage. "He is such a wicked man! Even the other wizards hate him."
"And I don't blame them--" Clever Rolf stopped in amazement. He stared at her with something closer to real affection than he had shown her for a long time.
"Let go of me!" she exclaimed a moment later. "Stop that, you shameless lecher! Stop it, I say--or at least let's get out on the grass. Let's--mmglmph!"
Clever Rolf was not listening anymore.
When he got an idea, he seized the bit in his teeth and ran away with it. He set out that very night, leaving a rolled-up blanket in bed in the hope that Mebodes might think he was still at home. He even left his mule behind and went by shanks' mare. By the time the sun came up, he was halfway to Estreby, which was a larger town than Argentan and boasted a wizard in residence.
Clever Rolf was footsore and yawning by the time he found the wizard's establishment on a side street between a farrier and an apothecary. The sign simply said "Rigord". Either one knew who he was, or not.
Rigord proved to be a tall, sleepy-looking fellow in his forties; his chamber was dustier than Bardulf's record room. He was not, however, lightly befooled. When Clever Rolf tried to present a circumspect version of his difficulties, the wizard drawled, "Ah yes, heard about you: the fellow who diddled Mebodes. Wants his own back now, does he?"
"Well--yes," Clever Rolf admitted.
Without haste, Rigord got up and dug out an astrological tome and an abacus. He cast a quick horoscope, flicking beads back and forth and muttering to himself as he calculated. At last, when Clever Rolf was quivering with anxiety, he said, "I can help, I reckon. Mebodes is strong, but so full of his affairs that he leaves himself vulnerable to magic. Now"--and Rigord's sleepiness fell away--"what's it worth to you?"