“Or else,” he recommenced rapidly, cutting in on himself, as it were, “it was a lacy silver dress with a silver-set green gem at its neck — the Captain questioned me closely about just such a dress when he was quizzing me about the chest before you came."
My, my, the Mouser thought, I never dreamed Mikkidu had such a juicy fancy or would spring to my defense so loyally. But it does now appear, I must admit, that I have falsely suspected these two men and that Ississi somehow did board Seahawk solo. Unless one of the others — no, that's unlikely. Truth from a whore — there's a puzzler for you.
Skor said triumphantly, “But if it was the dress you saw on's bunk and the dress had been in the chest, doesn't that prove the chest too was in the cabin? Yes, it may well have been a filmy silver dress we saw, now that I think of it, which the girl slipped teasingly and lasciviously out of before leaping between the sheets, or else your Captain Mouser ripped it off her (it looked torn), for he's as hot and lusty as a mink and ever boasting of his dirksmanship — I've heard Captain Fafhrd say so again and again, or at least imply it."
What infamy was this now? the Mouser asked himself, suddenly indignant, glaring down at Skor's balding head from his vantage point. It was his own place to chide Fafhrd for his womanizing, not hear himself so chidden for the same fault (and boastfulness to boot) by this bogus Fafhrd, this insolent, lofty, jumped-up underling. He involuntarily whipped up his fist to smite.
“Yes, boastful, devious, a martinet, and mean,” Skor continued while Mikkidu spluttered. “What think you of a captain who drives his crew hard in port, holds back their pay, puritanically forbids shore leave, denies ‘em all discharge of their natural urges — and then brings a girl aboard for his own use and flaunts her in their faces? and then plays games with them about her, sends them on idiot's hunt. Petty—that's what I've heard Captain Fafhrd call it — or at least show he thought so by his looks."
The Mouser, furious, could barely restrain himself from striking out. Defend me, Mikkidu, he inwardly implored. Oh the monstrousness of it — to invoke Fafhrd. Had Fafhrd really—"Do you really think so?” he heard Mikkidu say, only a little doubtfully. “You really think he's got a girl in there? Well, if that's the case I must admit he is a very devil!"
The cry of pure rage that traitorous utterance drew from the sprung-up Mouser made the two lieutenants throw back their heads and stare, and brought the nappers fully awake and almost to their feet.
He opened his mouth to utter rebuke that would skin them alive — and then paused, wondering just what form that rebuke could take. After all, there was a naked girl in his cabin with her legs tied wide — in fact, spread-eagled. His glance lit on the lashings of the chest of fabrics still lying loose on the deck.
“Clear up that strewage!” he roared, pointing it out. “Use it to tie down doubly those grain sacks there.” He pointed again. “And while you're at it—” (he took a deep breath) “double lash the entire cargo! I am not satisfied that it won't shift if hurricane strikes.” He directed that last remark chiefly at the two lieutenants, who peered puzzledly at the blue sky as they moved to organize the work.
“Yes, double lash it all down tight as eelskin,” he averred, beginning to pace back and forth as he warmed to his task. “Pass the timber's extra ropings around belaying pins set inside the oarholes and then draw them tight across the deck. See that those wool sacks of grain and fruit are lashed really tight — imagine you're corseting a fat woman, put your foot in her back and really pull those laces. For I'm not convinced those bags would stay in place if we had green water aboard and dragging at them. And when all that is done, bring a gang aft to further firm the casks and barrels in my cabin, marry them indissolubly to Seahawk's deck and sides. Remember, all of you,” he finished as he danced off aft, “if you tie things up carefully enough — your purse, your produce, or your enemies, and eke your lights of love — nothing can ever surprise you, or escape from you, or harm you!"
8
Cif untied the massive silver key from the neck of her soft leather tunic, where it had hung warm inside, unlocked the heavy oaken door of the treasury, opened it cautiously and suspiciously, inspected the room from the threshold — she'd been uneasy about the place ever since the sea-ghost's depredations. Then she went in and relocked the door behind her. A small window with thumb-thick bars of bronze illumined not too well the wooden room. On a shelf reposed two ingots of pale silver, three short stacks of silver coins, and a single golden stack, still shorter. The walls of the room crowded in on a low circular table, in the gray surface of which a pentacle had been darkly burnt. She named over to herself the five golden objects standing at the points: the Arrow of Truth, kinked from Fafhrd's tugging of it from the demoness; the Rule of Prudence, a short rod circled by ridges; the Cup of Measured Hospitality, hardly larger than a thimble; the Circles of Unity, so linked that if any one were taken away, the other two fell apart; and the strange skeletal globe that Fafhrd had recovered with the rest and suggested might be the Cube of Square Dealing smoothly deformed (something she rather doubted). She took the Mouser doll from her pouch and laid it in their midst, at pentalpha's center. She sighed with relief, sat down on one of the three stools there were, and gazed pensively at the doll's blank face.
9
As the Mouser approved the last cask's double lashings and then dismissed as curtly his still-baffled lieutenants and their weary work gang — fairly drove ‘em from his cabin! — he felt a surge of power inside, as if he'd just stepped or been otherwise carried over an invisible boundary into a realm where each last object was plainly labeled “Mine Alone!"
Ah, that had been sport of the best, he told himself — closely supervising the gang's toil while standing all the while in their midst atop the draped chest he'd had them hunting all day long, and while the girl Ississi lay naked and securely spread-eagled beneath the blanket spread across his bunk — and they all somehow conscious of her delectable presence yet never quite daring to refer to it. Power sport indeed!
In a transport of self-satisfaction he whipped the drape from the chest, threw back its top, and admired the expanse of coppery silk so revealed and the bolts of black ribbon. Now there was a bed fit for a princess's nuptials, he told himself as he filled and downed a brass cup of brandy, a couch somewhat small, but sufficient and soft all the way down to the bottom.
His mind and his feet both dancing with all manner of imaginings and impulses, he moved to the bunk and whirled off its coverings and—
The bunk's coarse gray single sheeting was covered by a veritable black snow-sprinkle of ribbon scraps and shreds. Of Ississi there was no sign.
After a long moment's searching of it with his astounded eyes, he fairly dove across the bunk and fumbled frantically all the way around the thin mattress's edges and under them, searching for the razor-keen knife or scissors that had done this or (who knew?) some sharp-toothed, ribbon-shredding small animal secretly attendant on the girl whore and obedient to her command.
A trilling sigh of blissful contentment made him switch convulsively around. In the midst of the new-opened chest, got there by sleights he could scarce dream of, Ississi sat cross-legged facing him. Her arms were lifted while her nimble hands were swiftly braiding her long straight silvery hair, an action which showed off her slender waist and dainty small breasts to best advantage, while her green eyes flashed and her lips smiled at him, “Am I not exceedingly clever? Surpassingly clever and wholly delightful?"