She got her hiccups under control. "What thinkst? We of the true nobility make no holy idol of chast—" The hiccups broke in again.
Fearing that she would pass out or get publicly sick, Thorolf spoke sharply, in the tone he used on stumbling recruits: "Come, Yvette! Let me take you to bed!"
He half-forcibly dragged her out of her seat and guided her, staggering, to the stair. Here she became so unsteady that he picked her up and carried her to the room. When he would have laid her on the bed, she said:
"Put me down, Thorolf! I am hale; but tell nobody that I cannot hold my liquor. 'Twas jush the fatigue of recent days."
When her feet came to the floor, she pulled Thorolf. clutching his arm and staggering, to the settee. There she pushed him down, sat on his lap, and kissed him vigorously. "There! Izh—isn't that better?"
"Well—ah—"
She kissed him some more. "Now you shall learn what you should have found out years agone."
"Methought you said—"
"Ne'mind what I shaid. I'm a noblewoman and can bed anyone I like. Besides, I'm in your debt, and debts mush be paid. Since I cannot fill your hat with g-gold ..." Rising unsteadily, she did off the bodice, blouse, skirt, petticoat, and accessories. Leaving the garments borrowed from Vulfilac in a heap on the floor, in full pink-and-white glory she staggered back to Thorolf and fumbled with his laces, mumbling:
"Flinch not; I'll not hurt you. You actually blush!" She peeled off Thorolf's shirt. "Now your breeks ... Aha. I see you have indeed the means ..."
"I only hope I can meet your expectations," said Thorolf.
"Fear not: if our first firsh try come to nought ..." As she pulled off the last of Thorolf's linen smallclothes, she broke off, dropped the underwear, and fell into a sitting position on the settee. "Thorolf, I feel very strange of a sudden!"
"After all that liquor—" he began sententiously.
"But then, too, it must be close to the time for Bardi's spell to take effect."
"Oh, I had forgotten! Wilt still love me, even though I become dark and dumpy? I shall still be the same ... Ouch! I am in pain ... glub—"
As Thorolf gazed with mounting horror, the slight, golden-haired woman changed before his eyes. Her voice sounded like the bubbling of gas through swamp water and then ceased. She seemed to flow together. Her limbs became limp, as if their bones had dissolved. Her face lost form and sank into her body.
Thorolf shrank back, for the thing on the settee was no longer remotely human. Its parts shifted into a completely alien configuration. The limbs and eyes migrated to one end, leaving the torso a mere fleshy bag.
The four limbs split lengthwise to form eight, which became sucker-lined tentacles. They surrounded the mouth, which acquired a short, horny beak. The skin changed to a shiny, mottled, dark-brown integument, over which rippled flashes of red, yellow, white, and black. The Countess had become an octopus.
Thorolf sat paralyzed. When he gathered his bare legs beneath him to spring up, the octopus whipped tentacles around his neck and hoisted its bag of a body into his lap. It pressed its beak against his bare chest, but it did not bite him: it merely touched his skin lightly here and there. Thorolf realized that it was trying to kiss him.
To be seduced by a drunken octopus was, he thought, not a fate that befalls many. If he survived this night, he would have a tale he could dine out on for years; but just now he would gladly forgo the experience.
"Yvette!" he cried. The octopus continued to snuggle, as if she expected him to continue the project on which they had embarked. But not only did Thorolf have no idea of how to do this, his lust had also collapsed like a tent blown down in a gale.
He shouted, still without effect. Then he realized that, as a sea creature, the octopus lacked the organs for hearing and speech. How, he frantically wondered, could he communicate?
At last the octopus slithered off his lap. With serpentine tentacular writhings, it heaved itself across the room to the dressing table, while changes of color, white to tan to brown to black, rippled over its shiny skin. Finding locomotion out of water hard, it clambered laboriously up on the dressing chair and stared at its reflection in the mirror. The image was that of an octopus, proving that this change was no mere glamor or illusion.
Then the octopus slid off the chair with a plop and humped and wriggled to the washstand. There it picked up the pitcher and, its tentacles quivering with strain, tipped the vessel over itself, so that water splashed over its body and trickled to the floor. It dropped the empty pitcher, swiveled about to face Thorolf, and waved its tentacles, pointing a couple of them at the pitcher. It seemed to be trying to say something; but with neither lungs nor an agreed-upon sign language, it failed.
Next, it slithered to the writing desk and, groping about on the desktop, located the inkwell. It dipped the tip of a tentacle into the ink and wrote on the wall in large, crude letters: WATER.
Of course, Thorolf thought, such a marine creature could not long survive in air. But how to succor it? He could not stand pouring pitcher after pitcher over it. The water would leak through the floor and bring Vasco on the run. And whence would come such a supply of water?
The octopus seemed to divine his thought. Again it dipped the tentacle and wrote: TUB.
Light broke upon Thorolf. He nodded, hastily pulled on his shirt and trews, and went below to find Vasco. To the innkeeper he said:
"My lady demands a bath. Will your people haul up a tub and several bucketfuls of water?"
"Sergeant!" said Vasco. "Why can she not bathe in the perfectly good tub at the end of the hall, as ye did aforetime?"
"She's high-born and fussy," said Thorolf. "She insists on utter privacy."
" 'Twill cost extra," the taverner warned. "And 'twill take an hour to heat the water."
"The water need not be heated."
"A rugged wench," Vasco muttered.
Back in the room, Thorolf signaled that he had succeeded. He opened the door of the wardrobe and motioned Yvette to enter. She was barely concealed therein when a knock announced the arrival of the squirrel-toothed potboy and the maid, lugging a large wooden tub. They set it down and eyed Thorolf curiously before departing for the water. They soon returned, each bearing two buckets. When these had been emptied into the tub, the potboy asked: "Be that enough, sir?"
Thorolf looked into the tub. "Nay; we need four buckets more."
When four additional buckets had been emptied, Thorolf said, "Methinks that will do."
The maid went out, but the potboy hung around saying: "Will there be aught else, sir?" His youthful glance roamed the room. He must be puzzled, Thorolf thought, not to see Yvette. Either he is angling for a tip or hoping to glimpse a noble lady at her bath. "Well, sir, an ye think of aught else—"
The door of the wardrobe flew open, and Yvette slithered across the floor. The sound of life-giving water had plainly put upon her self-restraint more stress than it could withstand.
As the octopus whipped a tentacle over the edge of the tub, the potboy stared with bulging eyes. When Yvette slid bonelessly into the tub with a small splash, the potboy fled with piercing shrieks.
Thorolf closed the door and looked into the tub. Yvette lay flattened down on the bottom like a cluster of hibernating serpents, with the water covering all but her eyes.
The eyes that gazed up at Thorolf had slit pupils like those of a cat, but the slits were horizontal instead of vertical.
A tentacle snaked out of the tub. For an instant, Thorolf wondered if he would be seized and pulled in, though for what purpose he could only guess. He braced himself to resist, but the tentacle merely stroked and patted his chest, as if to show affection.
Footsteps sounded, and Thorolf heard Vasco's knock. He narrowly opened the door and slipped out, firmly holding the knob to cut off the view of the room.