"I honored the deal only because it was made by others on my behalf," Che said. "I am under no obligation to make a new one."
"Nevertheless, one must be made," the gobliness said grimly. "Now that Jenny is here, she must become party to it." She glanced across Che's back to Jenny. "But we must get you some clothing. Just one moment." She went to the door and rapped on it with a knuckle. "Bring one of Gwendolyn's outfits," she called.
"Yes, lady," a goblin answered.
Godiva returned to Che. "I am prepared to offer commitments of my own in return for yours. First, a comfortable mode of life, including the best food, clothing, and entertainment, along with security. In return for your commitment never to tell another person what I am about to tell you now."
Jenny was astonished. "If you want to keep a secret, don't tell us at all!" she said. "I don't think we're your friends." But she regretted that, because Godiva had impressed her during their journey here.
"But I think we have seen enough of one another to know that we can trust one another," Godiva said, "if we give our words. Therefore we can deal."
"This is true," Che said. "But I see no reason to give our words."
"Because if you don't, I can not tell you why I abducted you," Godiva said evenly. "The entire mission will become pointless, and that will profit none of us."
"Then perhaps you should let us go," the centaur said.
"I am not prepared to do that. And I think that you will understand, once I tell you why you are here."
"I do not care to understand," Che said, his little jaw setting.
Godiva sighed. "Centaur stubbornness is legendary. But you do not need to agree to fulfill the role I have in mind for you, only to agree to listen—and not to tell others. This is not unreasonable."
"You abducted me," Che said, showing that stubbornness she had described. "You have no right to ask anything of me, only to return me to my dam."
Godiva considered. "Suppose I tell Jenny Elf, and then she can tell you whether to make the deal?"
"Now wait—" Jenny protested.
But Che considered it. "Jenny was not abducted by you. She came here by her choice. She may deal with you if she chooses."
"Then come with me, Jenny," Godiva said.
"But I came here to be with Che!" Jenny said. "I don't want to leave him."
"I promise to return you to him the moment our dialogue is done," Godiva said. "He will not cooperate with me until he hears what I have to say and until you return, so I have no motive to keep you from him, only to protect the privacy of my statement."
That seemed to make sense. "I'll do it," Jenny said. "But I can't promise to tell Che to do anything."
Godiva rapped on the door again. "Pass in that outfit," she called.
The door was unbarred. A goblin hand poked in, holding a dress. Godiva took it, then took a pair of slippers and other material. The door closed again.
"Now, Che," Godiva said firmly. "Face the door and close your eyes."
"Why?"
"Because we are about to dress Jenny Elf, and this is a process no male is allowed to witness."
"But—"
"Including panties."
That did it. He knew about panties. He faced the door and clamped his eyes absolutely shut.
Godiva approached Jenny and held out the panties. They were pretty and pink, much nicer than seemed likely for a goblin stronghold. Jenny put them on. Then another item of apparel that it seemed was even less mentionable, about halfway between the panties and her head. Then the dress, which was also pink, and fit her almost perfectly, and was quite the nicest one she had encountered. Finally the slippers, which were made of stretchy stuff that expanded to fit her feet without pinching. She looked at herself in the stone mirror and was amazed; except for her tangly hair, she looked almost like a princess!
"Where—how did you get—" she started, as she took the brush Godiva presented her and worked on her hair. It would never come within even the thought of a suggestion of anything like Godiva's own glorious hair, but she might as well get it as unmessy as she could. Her hair had fallen to her waist, before this adventure started, but it had gotten so tangled that it might as well have been cut off.
"The outfit belongs to my daughter, Gwendolyn," Godiva explained. "She is about your size."
Evidently so! And that explained the quality of this apparel, because Gwendolyn was a princess, or the goblin equivalent. The outfit had enabled Jenny to be transformed much as Godiva herself had been by her change of clothing. Jenny had thought that Godiva always wore mainly swirling hair, but apparently that was only outside the mountain.
"Now you may look," Godiva told Che.
The foal opened his eyes, turned, and looked at Jenny. "You are beautiful," he remarked.
Jenny blushed hard enough to obscure her freckles. "I am not!" she protested.
Che turned away.
"You should not have said that," Godiva murmured. "A centaur speaks only the literal truth. You have hurt his feelings."
Jenny was appalled. "Oh, Che, I'm sorry," she cried, dropping the brush. "I didn't mean to—I misunderstood! Please forgive me!"
"Of course," he said, brightening. "I should have realized. I apologize."
She decided not to argue with that. She just hugged him. Then she turned to Godiva. "I am ready to go with you."
She glanced down at Sammy, who had not moved since entering the chamber. "Sammy will keep you company, Che, while I am gone. He won't move or speak, but he can understand you, and if you lose something, he can find it."
"I think I have lost my confidence," Che said with a weak smile.
Godiva rapped on the door again, and it was unbarred. It opened, and they stepped out into the hall. The goblins barred it again behind them.
Godiva led the way along the passage. Soon she came to another chamber. She opened the door and ushered Jenny in.
This chamber was quite different from the last. It had rugs on the floor and carpets on the walls and a painting of the sky on the ceiling. It had soft-looking chairs. It was the kind of chamber that could make a person forget all her problems.
"This will be yours to share with Che, if you wish," Godiva said. "If you get him to consider my proposal."
Jenny had heard the demoness Metria struggle to find a word. She felt like that now. There was surely a word that covered this situation, but she didn't know it. The gobliness was offering her something nice to do what she probably should not do. But she had agreed to listen. "I will listen and not tell anyone else except Che, if I decide to," she said. "That is all I promise."
"That is enough. I want Che to be companion and steed for my daughter, Gwendolyn. I knew he is not yet of age to be a steed, for his bones are not yet grown, but he can be her companion until they both are of age. That will be some years. How old are you, Jenny Elf?"
Jenny saw no reason not to answer. She showed three hands of four fingers each.
"Twelve, by our reckoning. That is Gwendolyn's age. It is perhaps a fortunate coincidence that you match her so closely. She is a child, like you, but will not remain so much longer. She is my only offspring, and the first heir to the chiefship. It has not before passed to a woman, but this time it shall, for Gwendolyn will have the magic wand."
Jenny appreciated the difference that made. She had seen that wand in action. "But why should she need a steed, when she has that?"
"She is lame. This is the first aspect of her situation. But with a steed, that need never be a problem. I need her to have that steed by the time Gouty passes, which I fear will be sooner than might ordinarily be the case. His illness is progressive, and when he can no longer walk he will be deposed. This I can not prevent."
It was evident that goblin politics were as fierce as their natures. They required a fit and active leader. Jenny had seen what happened to her own folk when they became incapacitated. They usually chose not to remain as burdens on the holt.
"But this is perhaps the lesser of
Gwendolyn's problems," Godiva continued. "She is also virtually blind."
Jenny jumped. "You mean nearsighted, like me? These spectacles have made me see so much better! Maybe if you get her a pair—"
"We may not do that. Her deficiency must not be accommodated in this manner. If others of the mountain discovered that her vision is impaired, they would make her life a short one. So she must conceal her liability. She can see only general shapes, but not well enough to recognize faces or the detail of tapestries. I have kept her isolated so that the others are not aware of this, but it will be far more difficult as she matures and is required to take greater part in the activities of the tribe. The centaur can serve as her eyes, too, advising her of those things she needs to perceive."
"But surely other goblins will help her!" Jenny said, beginning to feel for the goblin girl. To be lame and nearly sightless—what an awful thing for a princess!
Godiva frowned. "I see you do not understand the way of goblins," she said.
"Well, I'm not from here," Jenny admitted. "You call me an elf, but where I come from I'm just a girl. I've never been to Xanth before, and it's strange seeing cookies growing on plants, and having cherries explode. So I guess I don't know much about anything here."
"But you did see how it was in the Golden Horde."
Jenny shuddered. "They are mean folk."
"Goblins generally are mean folk," Godiva said. "This dates from a long time ago, when a curse was put on us so that the women preferred the worst of men. This resulted in a degenerating species, at least with respect to the male persuasion. That curse was finally eliminated, so that now we can choose good men, but there is great inertia."
"Great what?"
"Things are slow to change. This is because there are so few good men of our kind that we are constrained to pick the marginally less bad. It will be a long and frustrating climb back to decency, and I suspect that some tribes will not make it."
"Like the horde," Jenny said, understanding.
"Yes. The goblins of the mountain are not that bad, but remain bad enough. My husband, Gouty, does have certain qualities of leadership, though he does his best to conceal them. But he has done this tribe one signal favor, though he does not see it that way. He sired as his legitimate heir no male."
Jenny's brow furrowed. "You do not choose your chiefs according to who is best?"
"We do not. The son of the chief will be the next chief. That is one reason I married Gouty: he was the son of a chief. My mother, Goldy, married a lesser chief, one high in the hierarchy but not the leader. She was beautiful, but it was the magic wand that gave her extra appeal, because it enhanced the power of her husband. She passed it on to me so that I could nab a full chief. Thus my son would have been the next chief. Only Gouty dissipated his waning energy with mistresses and lost his ability to summon the stork before providing me with a son. So Gwendolyn is heir to the chiefship and has the chance to improve things greatly in this tribe, because, of course, the goblin women have always been everything the goblin men are not: intelligent, attractive, and decent."
Jenny had seen the difference between Godiva and the goblin males. She had no argument. "So that's good, then."
"I see you still do not appreciate the difficulties. Perhaps there is no concept of infidelity among your people. Do you know what a mistress is?"
"A person who is in charge of something or very good in her work," Jenny said promptly.
Godiva nodded sadly. "I do not like doing this, but I must encroach on the tenets of the Adult Conspiracy in order to make something clear to you. It is forbidden to tell a child how to summon the stork, along with certain related matters. This is why Che Centaur, who is a male child, is forbidden to see your panties."
"But what do panties have to do with storks?" Jenny asked, bewildered.
"I may not answer that. Just accept the fact that no male of any age may see any woman's panties, with the single dubious exception of his wife's. This is not merely goblin protocol, it is Xanth protocol. As for the storks: they bring babies, and no child is permitted to know the mechanism by which the stork is signaled for this purpose."
"But this seems like nonsense to me!" Jenny protested. "Where I come from, there are no—"
"You are not where you came from," Godiva reminded her.
Jenny nodded, realizing that there were whole hosts of ways in which she was ignorant of the ways of this land.
"So I will merely advise you that a mistress, in the sense I am addressing, is a woman who consents to signal the stork with a man who is not her husband." Godiva frowned, and Jenny could see that this was no pleasant matter for her. "My husband indulged himself with several of these women, and the stork, being blind to propriety, brought sons to two of them. These are known as illegitimate offspring, and their place in our society is secondary. But in the absence of a legitimate heir to the chiefship, the older boy would become eligible."
Jenny began to get a glimmer. "You mean, if Gwendolyn wasn't—?"
"If Gwendolyn did not qualify, she would be dispatched, and the boy would assume the chiefship after Gouty."
"Dispatched?"
"The tribe will need a chief. If the leading candidate is not qualified, she must be eliminated so that a better candidate can be considered."
"Eliminated?" Jenny was still missing something.
"Killed."
Jenny gazed at the woman in horror. The way of goblins was abruptly coming clear. "And if she can't see well—"
Godiva nodded grimly. "A lame chief might be tolerated; after all, Gouty does not walk well. But a blind one would be out of the question. Unless she compensated so well that it made no difference. Spectacles could compensate, but that would not be allowed."
"And a centaur companion would compensate," Jenny said, seeing it. "But why a winged one?"
"That was coincidental. Most centaurs are in Centaur Isle, and there is no hope of getting one from there. They hardly deign to associate with non-isle centaurs or with human beings, and have no truck at all with goblins. Most remaining centaurs live in villages and guard their premises diligently. Che was alone. He was the only one we could reach who was young enough to be trained. The fact that when he matures he will be able to fly is a bonus; Gwendolyn could achieve real success among goblins with such a steed. That can certainly be presented as a rationale for his presence. But the real reason is to compensate for Gwendolyn's sight. With such a creature at her side, no matter how young, she can participate actively in goblin affairs and demonstrate her competence. That will not only enable her to become chief, it will save her life."
Jenny now saw why Godiva had made such a great effort to abduct the foal. Her daughter's life and fate were at stake! Still, she wanted to be quite sure she understood, because she would have to tell Che about this and her own judgment had to be sure. "If one of those other goblins becomes chief, will it make the tribe more like—like—?"
"Like the Goblinate of the Golden Horde? Indeed. You will have a chance to meet that other prospect for the chiefship in due course. But if a woman assumes charge, there will be much improvement. This would be true for any woman, but Gwendolyn is the only one who has the chance, because she is the chief's daughter. There will be considerable resistance to that, because there has never before been a female chief, but with the centaur and the wand I believe she can succeed."
"Why—why can't you become chief?"
"I am not the daughter of the chief, only of a subchief. I am the wife of the chief, but when he dies I will be only a widow, which is no qualification. Only Gwendolyn can do it."
Jenny had seen enough already to be satisfied that what Godiva had in mind was best for her tribe, and probably best for all the creatures in the vicinity of the tribe. "I will tell Che," she said.
"Thank you. Remember, he must agree, as you have, not to reveal Gwendolyn's liabilities. I will move both of you to this suite when he agrees to listen. His decision will be a separate matter; such a thing is not
lightly undertaken by a centaur, and we must have his word. When he gives it, he will be completely free, for there is no binding as firm as a centaur's word."
"Um, could I—could I see Gwendolyn?" Jenny asked. "I will tell Che, but it would be better if I could tell him how Gwendolyn is, if he asks. I mean, if he has to decide whether to be with her—"
"Of course." Godiva got up and walked to a door in the wall, not the one through which they had entered. She opened it and ushered Jenny through.
Beyond was another chamber, decorated with girlish things. There were pictures of trees and flowers and animals and clouds. There were cushions. There was a feather bed, and on it lay a beautiful goblin child, asleep. Her dark hair spread out against the pillow and around to form a kind of coverlet. It was obvious she was Godiva's daughter.
"Gwenny," Godiva said gently.
Jenny felt a start, for that version of the name was so similar to her own. But of course it was the nickname for Gwendolyn, just as hers was for Jennifer.
The eyelids flickered. Gwenny woke and looked up. "Hello, mother," she murmured.
"This is Jenny Elf, who may become your companion," Godiva said.
Gwenny sat up, blinking. "Hello, Jenny Elf. I did not see you." She extended her hand in the general direction of Jenny.
Jenny took it and squeezed it for just a moment. "I just wanted to say hello," she said. "I did not mean to disturb your sleep."
"That's all right. It wasn't much of a sleep."
Jenny found herself liking Gwenny Goblin. That was dangerous, because she had to be objective. "Maybe I'll see you in the morning," she said, backing away.
"I'd like that," Gwenny agreed. She lay down again and closed her eyes.
Jenny went out the door, and then Godiva took her back to the bare chamber where Che remained. "I will talk to him," she said.
"I will wait a moment outside," Godiva said. "If he agrees to listen, knock, and I will convey you both to the other suite."
Jenny entered. Che smiled as he saw her. "Sammy found my confidence!" he exclaimed. "I feel much better now!"
"How did he do that?" Jenny asked, amazed. She had not realized that such a thing could be found in that way.
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