The Pixilated Peeress (6 page)

             
"My good Sergeant, I have been on the run for days, and this is my first chance to take my ease in a duck's age! Thank you, Mashter
—
Master Taverner."

             
She tossed down the colorless schnapps with a single gulp, while Thorolf drank his by sips. Then she fix
ed him with a purposeful stare. "Tell me, dear rescuer, what meant those yokels of the nightwatch, chaffing you about their virtuous sergeant? I mean, when you clept me Queen of Armoria." She giggled.

             
"Merely," said Thorolf uncomfortably, "that they have
not seen me strolling with the strumpets of the town, as they have many of mine unwed soldier lads."

             
Yvette's glance became sharp. "Are you one of those unlucky ones whose passions veer toward their own sex?"

             
"Kernun forbid! I am as avid for womankind
as any."

             
"Well, then, an you roll not the local trollops, hast a regular light o' love whom you visit for a bout betwixt sheets?"

             
"Nay, none." Thorolf stared at his noggin, increas
ingly embarrassed by the direction of the questions.

             
"Then whom have
you fuf-futtered?"

             
Thorolf gulped, his wits slowed by drink. The ques
tion appalled him; it was certainly not what he had been brought up to consider ladylike. On the other hand, with this masterful woman, he feared he could never get away with the pret
ense of ever having been a great lover. He barter!:

             
"Well
—
in sooth
—
I haven't."

             
"What?
How old are you?"

             
"Twenty-nine."

             
"Three more years than I, a man of normal urgings
—
or so you say
—
and a
virgin?
'Tis a thing incredible. In Carinthia they'd put y
ou in a curio cabinet." She beck
oned Vasco and ordered another round of
aqua vitae.

             
"Really, Countess," said Thorolf, "you will rue your overindulgence
—
"

             
"No one tells the daughter of a hundred kings and nobles what to do! But back to your case. W
hat's the caush of your unwonted abstinence?"

             
Thorolf gulped again. "Well, if you must know, I promised my mother on her deathbed not to fornicate before marriage. I once got as far as betrothal to the daughter of our senior sergeant; but she forsook me
for one who, I ween, was less scrupulous."

             
She drank more schnapps and giggled. "Sh
—
serves you right! What a pity that yours be a lower-class organ! I could give you lessons
—
break you in
—
were not plebian organs forbidden my c
—
c
—
" She fell into a spell of
hiccups.

             
Thorolf said, "Mean you
—
ah
—
that you've had much experience of such things?"

             
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 o
r 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 pick
ed 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 ye
ars 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 bor
rowed 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 noug
ht
...
"
As she pulled off the last of Thorolf's linen small
clothes, 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 int
o
her body.

             
Thorolf shrank back, for the thing on the settee was no longer remotely human. Its parts shifted into a com
pletely alien configuration. The limbs and eyes mi
grated to one end, leaving the torso a mere fleshy bag.

             
The four limbs split lengt
hwise 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 bi
te 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 ou
t on for years; but just now he would gladly forgo the experience.

             
"Yvette!" he cried. The octopus continued to snug
gle, 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 col
lapsed 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 serpen
tine 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. Find
ing locomotion out of water hard,
i
t clambered labori
ously up on the dressing chair and stared at its reflection in the mirror. The image was that of an octopus, prov
ing 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 floo
r
. 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 slith
ered 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 di
pped 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 wate
r?"

             
"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 in
sists on utter privacy."

             
" 'Twill cost extra," the taverner warned. "And 'tw
ill 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 suc
ceeded. He opened the door of the wardrobe and mo
tioned Yvette to ente
r. 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 bear
ing t
w
o buckets. When these had been emptied into the tub, the potboy asked: "Be that enough, sir?"