The Pixilated Peeress (36 page)

             
"Bravo! How didst keep your head in the confusion?"

             
"Simple logic. If a group of men afoot are assailed by horsemen, which gives them the better chance of survival: to present a steady line of pikes, or to flee, pres
enting their defenseless backs? That's why I am now captain. The Duke offered a colonelcy if I would stay, but I declined.
"

             
"
Wherefore?"

             
"Not how I wish to spend my life."

             
"What next, then?" asked Berthar.

             
"The regulars will take me back with a captain's rank, now that old Gunthram has retired. I might ac
cept, if I get no academic appointment."

             
"Fear not for that post at Horgus!" cried Berthar. "Betwixt my advocacy and your war record, it's as cer
tain as
the sun's rise. Tetricus is back and will help."

             
"Good; but I will rejoice when 'tis in my grasp. And how wags your world?"

             
"Excellent! My lady dragon hath egged, and all do eagerly await its hatch. My colleagues have accorded the mountain salamander
the rank of species, which I have named
Salamandra thorolfi
in requital of your sav
ing me from those bravos."

             
Thorolf grinned. " 'Twill not make me as famous as Arnalt of Thessen; but 'tis earthly immortality of a sort."

             
Berthar unhooked a watch the s
ize of his fist from his belt, held it up, and stared at its single hand, while it emitted an audible clank-clank, clank-clank. "Time to close shop. Wilt dine with us?"

             
"Gramercy; but where?"

             
"At my home. I'm wed again."

             
"So am I, to a Tyrrhenian las
s. We're looking for quarters for us, our expected, and my father, who must vacate the palace for loss of the election."

             
"Fetch her along!"

-

             
An hour later, Thorolf knocked on the door of Berthar's house, with a stocky, black-haired young woman on his
arm. As the door opened, Thorolf suppressed a gasp. Yvette, beautiful as ever, stood in the doorway, clad like a decent bourgeois housewife. Berthar loomed be
hind her, saying:

             
"'Thrice welcome, Thorolf. You know my wife."

             
"Ah
—
yea indeed," said Thorolf, turning to the woman beside him. "Darling, these are Doctor Berthar and his wife, Yvette of Grintz. I present my wife, Ramola of Formi."

             
"I am honor to know you," said Ramola in slow, heavily accented Rhaetian. "Excuse, please;
I no speak you language much yet."

             
Dinner came, with all four acting circumspectly. Thorolf retold the tale of his campaign: "
...
and the sad thing was that Formi was burned down after all; some drunken soldiers upset a lamp. We heard about it in Fiensi
."

             
Yvette asked: "Didst ever find any of those rascals who slew the old iatromagus?"

             
"A curious thing, that. A month after the battle, I sat in a mughouse in Parmiglia, when a blind beggar came up, feeling his way with a stick. I gave him a few pence,
whereat he asked in a Carinthian accent if he might sit for a spell to rest his feet. Although his face was dreadfully scarred and pitted, there was something familiar about him. With a little prodding he told his tale.

             
"He'd soldiered for the Brandescan
s and had been set to mixing the devil-powder for their guns. Some
thing went awry; the stuff exploded in his face and de
stroyed his sight. He thought 'twas the gods' revenge for having slain an old magician not long before.

             
"When I asked if the magicia
n was Bardi in Zursh
nitt and if his name was Offo, he gave a squawk of terror and made for the door, stumbling in his haste."

             
"Didst slay him as planned?" she asked.

             
Thorolf shrugged. "What good? The gods
—
if in fact 'twas gods and not blind chance
—
had
punished him more cruelly than ever I could. So I finished the wine I'd bought him and let him go, tapping his way and muttering. Who am I to judge the gods' revenges?"

             
Afterward, Berthar took Ramola off on a tour of his terraria of frogs and salamander
s, lecturing her in fluent Tyrrhenian. Yvette took Thorolf aside, saying:

             
"I knew nought of this. Art happy?"

             
"Within reason. And you? What of your country and your blue blood?"

             
"My expedition to Grintz collapsed like a ruptured bladder. Word came th
at Gondomar had died in some silly skirmish; the King of Carinthia appointed a new Duke of Landai and a new Count of Grintz. These raised powerful forces to resist my restoration. So my loyal subjects melted away like the snows of spring, and I faced the
a
lternatives of marriage, whoredom, or star
vation. Oh, curse it all, if only I were not a woman and a little wisp of one at that! Were I a man with your thews, I'd get my title back, fear not!"

             
After a pause she continued: "I am sorry for Gon
domar in a way. He was not truly a wicked man
—
dull, pompous, and insistent on his own way, but not vicious like Parthenius. I suppose he did love after his fashion. I've wondered
...
" She paused again.

             
"So," she resumed, "seeing no hope of resuming my ri
ghtful place, and with you away in Tyrrhenia
...
" She spread her hands.
"I
like Berthar well enough. He's sweet-tempered, kind, and gentle, albeit he spends so much time with his stinking beasts and slimy reptiles that I see but little of him. Moreover, he
's nearly old enough to be my sire; so his blood runs not so hotly as mine."

             
"Meaning he can no longer futter all night every night, eh?"

             
"Thorolf! Such language to a
—
but I forget I'm no longer a peeress."

             
"I've heard blunter from you."

             
"Yea, but t
hat's the privilege of the nobly born. You commoners should use it only amongst yourselves, never to us of noble blood."

             
Thorolf smiled. "I'll essay to remember, your High
ness. Dost keep Berthar's house?"

-

             
L. Sprague de Camp, who
has over one hundred books to his credit, writes in several fields: biography, historicals, SF, and popularizations of science. But he is a master of that rare animal,
humorous fantasy.

             
In 1976, he received
The Gandalf-Grand Master Award for Lifetime Ac
hievement in the Field of Fantasy.
And The Science Fiction Writers of America presented him with their
Grand Mas
ter Nebula Award of 1978.

             
Catherine Crook de Camp, Sprague's wife of half a century, personal editor, and business manager
, has also collaborated with him on numerous works of science fiction and fantasy. This close and loving couple travel everywhere together and are welcome guests at fan conventions throughout the United States.

             
The de Camps now live in north-central Texa
s, where the gen
tler climate and proximity to their two sons, both distinguished engineers, seem to have stimulated their literary productivity. Among their upcoming works are several novels and Sprague's autobiography
Time and Chance.

* * * * * *

The Spell and the Octopus

             
"Put me down, Thorolf!" Countess Yvette said. "I can hold my liquor."

             
"When her feet came to the floor, she pushed Thorolf down, sat on his lap, and kissed him vigorously. "There," she said. "now you shall l
earn what you should have found out years agone."

             
"I only hope I can meet your expectations," Thorolf said.

             
The countess broke off. "Thorolf, I feel very strange of a sudden!"

             
"After all that liquor
—
but then, too, it must be time for Bardi's spell to
take effect," Thorolf said sententiously.

             
"Oh, I had forgotten! Ouch! I am in pain
...
glub
...
"

             
As Thorolf gazed with mounting horror, the golden-haired woman changed before his eyes. Her limbs became limp, as if their bones had diss
olved. Her face lost form and sank into her body. The thing on the settee was no longer remotely human!

             
The octopus shipped tentacles around Thorolf's neck and hoisted its body into his lap. It pressed its beak against his bar chest, but did not bite him
; it merely touched his skin lightly here and there. Thorolf realized it was trying to kiss him!

The

Pixilated

Peeress

L. Sprague de Camp and

Catherine Crook de Camp

A Del Rey Book

BALLANTINE BOOKS
–
NEW YORK

Sale
of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold or destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

A Del Rey Book

Published by
Ballantine Books

Copyright 1991 by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, In
c., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 90-93528

ISBN 0-345-36733-2

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Hardcover Edition: August 1991