Fritz Leiber - Swords and Deviltry

A swag-bellied little old man came strutting toward him with something of the bounce of youth. This one wore ragged finery touched up with gilt. Even his long gray moustache and goatee glittered with specks of gold above and below his dirty-toothed mouth. His heavily pouched eyes were rheumy and red all around, but dark and darting at center. Above them was a purple turban supporting in turn a gilt crown set with battered gems of rock crystal, poorly aping diamonds.

Behind him came a skinny, one-armed Mingol, a fat Easterner with a vast black beard that stank of burning, and two scrawny girls who, despite their yawning and the heavy blankets huddled around them, looked watchful and evasive as alley cats.

“What's this now?” the leader demanded, his alert eyes taking in every detail of Fafhrd and his burden. “Vlana slain? Raped and slain, eh? Know, murderous youth, that you'll pay high for your fun. You may not know who I am, but you'll learn. I'll have reparations from your chiefs, I will! Vast reparations! I have influence, I have. You'll lose those pirate's bracelets of yours and that silver chain peeping from under your collar. Your family'll be beggared, and all your relatives, too. As for what they'll do to you —”

“You are Essedinex, Master of the Show,” Fafhrd broke in dogmatically, his high tenor voice cutting like a trumpet through the other's hoarse, ranting baritone. “I am Fafhrd, son of Mor and of Nalgron the Legend-Breaker. Vlana the culture dancer is not raped or dead, but stunned with snowballs. This is her tent. Open it.”

“We'll take care of her, barbarian,” Essedinex asserted, though more quietly, appearing both surprised and somewhat intimidated by the youth's almost pedantic precision as to who was who, and what was what. “Hand her over. Then depart.”

“I will lay her down,” Fafhrd persisted. “Open the tent!”

Essedinex shrugged and motioned to the Mingol, who with a sardonic grin used his one hand and elbow to unlace and draw aside the entry-flap. An odor of sandalwood and closetberry came out. Stooping, Fafhrd entered. Midway down the length of the tent he noted a pallet of furs and a low table with a silver mirror propped against some jars and squat bottles. At the far end was a rack of costumes.

Stepping around a brazier from which a thread of pale smoke wreathed, Fafhrd carefully knelt and most gently deposited his burden on the pallet. Next he felt Vlana's pulse at jaw-hinge and wrist, rolled back a dark lid and peered into each eye, delicately explored with his fingertips the sizable bumps that were forming on jaw and forehead. Then he tweaked the lobe of her left ear and, when she did not react, shook his head and, drawing open her russet robe, began to unbutton the red dress under it.

Essedinex, who with the others had been watching the proceedings in a puzzled fashion, cried out, “Well, of all— Cease, lascivious youth!”

“Silence,” Fafhrd commanded and continued unbuttoning.

The two blanketed girls giggled, then clapped hands to mouths, darting amused gazes at Essedinex and the rest.

Drawing aside his long hair from his right ear, Fafhrd laid that side of his face on Vlana's chest between her breasts, small as half pomegranates, their nipples rosy bronze in hue. He maintained a solemn expression. The girls smothered giggles again. Essedinex strangledly cleared his throat, preparing for large speech.

Fafhrd sat up and said, “Her spirit will shortly return. Her bruises should be dressed with snow-bandages, renewed when they begin to melt. Now I require a cup of your best brandy.”

“My best brandy—!” Essedinex cried outragedly. “This goes too far. First you must have a help-yourself peep show, then strong drink! Presumptuous youth, depart at once!”

“I am merely seeking—” Fafhrd began in clear and at last slightly dangerous tones.

His patient interrupted the dispute by opening her eyes, shaking her head, wincing, then determindedly sitting up — whereupon she grew pale and her gaze wavered. Fafhrd helped her lie down again and put pillows under her feet. Then he looked at her face. Her eyes were still open and she was looking back at him curiously.

He saw a face small and sunken-cheeked, no longer girlish-young, but with a compact catlike beauty despite its lumps. Her eyes, being large, brown-irised and long-lashed, should have been melting, but were not. There was the look of the loner in them, and purpose, and a thoughtful weighing of what she saw.

She saw a handsome, fair-complexioned youth of about eighteen winters, wide-headed and long-jawed, as if he had not done growing. Fine red-gold hair cascaded down his cheeks. His eyes were green, cryptic, and as staring as a cat's. His lips were wide, but slightly compressed, as if they were a door that locked words in and opened only on the cryptic eyes’ command.

One of the girls had poured a half cup of brandy from a bottle on the low table. Fafhrd took it and lifted Vlana's head for her to drink it in sips. The other girl came with powder snow folded in woolen cloths. Kneeling on the far side of the pallet, she bound them against the bruises.

After inquiring Fafhrd's name and confirming that he had rescued her from the Snow Women, Vlana asked, “Why do you speak in such a high voice?”

“I study with a singing skald,” he answered. “They use that voice and are the true skalds, not the roaring ones who use deep tones.”

“What reward do you expect for rescuing me?” she asked boldly.

“None,” Fafhrd replied.

From the two girls came further giggles, quickly cut off at Vlana's glance.

Fafhrd added, “It was my personal obligation to rescue you, since the leader of the Snow Women was my mother. I must respect my mother's wishes, but I must also prevent her from performing wrong actions.”

“Oh. Why do you act like a priest or healer?” Vlana continued. “Is that one of your mother's wishes?” She had not bothered to cover her breasts, but Fafhrd was not looking at them now, only at the actress's lips and eyes.

“Healing is part of the singing skald's art,” he answered. “As for my mother, I do my duty toward her, nor less, nor more.”

“Vlana, it is not politic that you talk thus with this youth,” Essedinex interposed, now in a nervous voice. “He must—”

“Shut up!” Vlana snapped. Then, back to Fafhrd, “Why do you wear white?”

“It is proper garb for all Snow Folk. I do not follow the new custom of dark and dyed furs for males. My father always wore white.”

“He is dead?”

“Yes. While climbing a tabooed mountain called White Fang.”

“And your mother wishes you to wear white, as if you were your father returned?”

Fafhrd neither answered nor frowned at that shrewd question. Instead he asked, “How many languages can you speak — besides this pidgin-Lankhmarese?”

She smiled at last. “What a question! Why, I speak — though not too well — Mingol, Kvarchish, High and Low Lankhmarese, Quarmallian, Old Ghoulish, Desert-talk, and three Eastern tongues.”

Fafhrd nodded. “That's good.”

“Forever why?”

“Because it means you are very civilized,” he answered.

“What's so great about that?” she demanded with a sour laugh.

“You should know, you're a culture dancer. In any case, I am interested in civilization.”

“One comes,” Essedinex hissed from the entry. “Vlana, the youth must—”

“He must not!"

“As it happens, I must indeed leave now,” Fafhrd said, rising. “Keep up the snow-bandages,” he instructed Vlana. “Rest until sundown. Then more brandy, with hot soup.”

“Why must you leave?” Vlana demanded, rising on an elbow.

“I made a promise to my mother,” Fafhrd said without looking back.