by Fritz Leiber
He took it without gripping, resting it on his spread fingers as he observed it thoughtfully. “Fingers,” he said slowly, as though savoring the word. “Now that's an odd name for a princess."
“I am no princess, sir,” she responded instantly. “That's but something I told the priestesses when I came off Weasel, to be sure my warning would be listened to."
The other girls stared at her as though betrayed, but the Gray Mouser only nodded ruminatively, hefting her hand as though appraising it. “That fits better with what I find here,” he said, “much as your speech says Ilthmar to my ear and not Tovilyis. Observe,” he continued, as if lecturing, “though narrow, this is a strong and efficient working hand, has done much gripping and squeezing, rubbing and slapping, twisting and prodding, tapping and stroking, finger dancing, et cetera.” He turned it over, so her palm lay upward, and rubbed that testingly with his thumb in a circle. “And yet despite the work it's done, it's moist and most pleasingly soft. That's from the oil in the lambswool of the gloves. I doubt not that her uncommon yashmack equally benefits her cheeks, lips, and winsome chin, making them all luxuriously smooth.” He sighed thoughtfully. Then, “May, approach us! Hold out your hand.” The blond girl obeyed wonderingly. He dropped the hand he'd been supporting into it and turned toward Klute, who was grinning wickedly.
“How does my favorite niece?"
The other girls appeared to be hunting furiously for something to say. Fafhrd swung toward the Mouser, Fingers looked tranquil, when all of a sudden Afreyt called briskly from the top of the stairs, “That's enough games in the cellar and skulking in the forecastle! On deck all of you and earn your dinners!"
Klute and the Mouser led the way, gossiping airily, he making much of her, Mara and Gale followed somewhat glumly. Fafhrd deftly caught up May and Fingers where the Mouser had left them standing bemusedly hand in hand and, holding them comfortably in either arm, brought up the rear.
“My co-captain has somewhat crabbed ways,” he explained to them lightly. “Would question the credentials of the Queen of Heaven, yet be jealous of a chipmunk that won attention. He treasures an insult above all else."
5
Cif's kitchen was wide and low-ceilinged, ventilated and somewhat cooled by an early evening breeze sweeping through opposite open doors, although the low rays of the setting sun still struck in.
Tall silver-blond Afreyt and lithe green-eyed Cif were still in their long white priestess tunics, though both had unyashmacked. After embracing the Mouser, the latter directed him and Fafhrd as to carrying the two tables and some benches outdoors on the room's shadeside. The girls were gathered about Afreyt, May and Gale eagerly addressing her in low voices while gazing around from time to time over their shoulders.
When the two men returned from their task, they found the two Moon priestesses standing side by side and changed to gayer scoop-necked tunics of yellow-striped violet and green spotted with brown. The girls, apparently already given their directions, set to carrying tablecloths and trays of condiments and dining utensils outside.
Cif said, “I gather you've already been acquainted with our new guest?"
“And told of the signal service she did our nieces and all Rime Isle, for that matter?” Afreyt added.
“We have indeed,” Fafhrd affirmed. “And I assume you've already taken measures against the miscreants captaining and crewing Weasel?"
“That we have,” Afreyt affirmed. “The Council was convened in jig time and swiftly persuaded to deal with the matter Rime Isle fashion — they imposed a considerable fine (on other charges than intended kidnapping: that Weasel's woodwork showed holes suspiciously like those of the boreworm that swiftly infests other craft) and sent the infamous trader packing posthaste."
“We invited Harbormaster Groniger home to dinner with us,” Cif took up, “but he's gone by way of the headland to check that that pestilent Weasel has dock-parted as sworn to and is on her way."
“So what's all this, most dear Gray Mouser,” Afreyt demanded quietly, “about your badgering the poor child and ignoring she's a novice of the Goddess and even refusing to grip hands with her?"
Straightening himself and folding his arms across his chest and looking her in the eye, even doing the leaning-back bit, the Mouser retorted loudly, “Poor child, forsooth! She is no princess, as she swift confessed, nor any kidnapped moon novice from Tovilyis, I'll be sworn. What her game is I do not know, though I could guess at it, but here's the truth: She's nothing but a cabin-girl from Ilthmar where the rat is worshipped, the lowest of the low, beneath recognition, a common child ship-whore hired on for the erotic solacing of all aboard, unfit to share your roof, Lady Afreyt, or company with your innocent nieces or with Cif's except to corrupt them. All signs point to it! Her name alone is proof. As Fafhrd here would instantly confirm, were he not lost in romancing, fondly willing to play knight-and-princess games for a child audience whatever the risk. Which is his chief weakness, you may be sure!"
The others tried to hush or answer him, the girls all listened wide-eyed, slowing in their chores, but he doggedly maintained his tirade to its end, whereupon silver-blond Afreyt, her blue eyes flashing lightning, spoke arrow-swift, “One thing's confirmed beyond question, mean-minded man, she is a true novice of the Goddess: she knows the cryptic words and secret signs."
To which Cif swiftly added, “She knows the color. She wears the garment and the yashmack."
“And gloves?” the Mouser inquired blandly. “I never knew you and Afreyt wear gloves of any hue in summertime. Even in winter it is mittens only. The girls the same, goes without saying."
Cif shot back, “We at Rime Isle are but one twig of the sisterhood. Doubtless they have different local customs in Tovilyis."
The Mouser smiled. “Dear lady, you are far too innocent, and limited in your knowledge by your island life. There's more evil in gloves than you ever dreamed, more uses for a yashmack than a badge of purity or advertisement of a man's possession, or for a mask. Amongst the more knowing Ilthmar cabin-girls (and this one is no novice I'll he bound!) it is the practice to wear such things to keep their hands soft, also their lips and faces, while as for their privities, you may be sure they enjoy the close covering of oily wool, being tweaked shamelessly hairless besides. For, hark you, on Ilthmar ships the cabin-girl delights the crewmen by her hands alone, the short knowing dance of her most pliant fingers; there'd be too much risk of damage to her otherwise, and fresh cabin-girls do not grow on sea trees, as they say. That, by the by, is why her name is proof. The mates and lesser officers have the freedom of her face and teats, all above waist, while what's below is reserved for his eminence the captain alone, besides all else he wants. But he, the wisest aboard, can be trusted to see she doesn't conceive. The arrangement is swift, efficient, and practical — helps maintain discipline and status both."
By this time the girls were all gathered close around, four of them goggle-eyed, Fingers respectfully attentive.
“But is this true he says?” Afreyt asked Fafhrd with some indignation. “Are there such cabin-girls and naughty practices?"
“I'd like to lie to spite him for his boorishness,” the Northerner averred, “but I must agree there are such practices and cabin-girls, and not alone on Ilthmar ships. Mostly their parents sell them to the trade. Some grow up to become hardy sailors themselves, or wed a passenger, though that is rare."
“All men are beasts,” Cif said darkly. “New proofs keep coming in."
“And women beastesses,” the Mouser added sotto voce, “Or animalesses?"
Afreyt shook her head, then looked at Fingers, who did, alas, appear to have been hearing all these enormities with remarkable coolness.
“What say you to all this, child?” she asked, straight out.
“All Captain Mouser said is mostly true,” Fingers replied simply, making a little grimace suiting her piquant mien, “about cabin-girls and such, I mean, although I only know what I learned serving aboard Weasel. Unwillingly. But on
the first legs of our voyage there was a two-years-older cabin-girl, jumped ship at Ool Plerns, who taught me much. And my parent did not hire or sell me into the trade. I was stolen from her — that much is true of ‘kidnapped.’ But I did not tell you about these matters, Lady Afreyt and Lady Cif, when I escaped and brought you my warning, singling out you two because you wore the color and the yashmack, because I did not think that they were vital."
The Mouser butted in complacently with, “So much for the story of Weasel being a slaver. Her tale is fishy."
“She never told us Weasel was a slaver!” Afreyt snapped.
“She lost one cabin-girl at Ool Plerns,” Cif put in eagerly. “What more natural than that the brutes should plot to steal a replacement here? — where are none such for hire, I'll be bound. All Rime Isle women serving sailors must be full-grown."
The Mouser launched in again satisfiedly with, “But surely, Lady Afreyt, you and Cif cannot have taken this tale of multiple slavings and kidnappings very seriously. Else you'd not now be letting Weasel sail free away without thorough search of every space aboard might harbor prisoners?"
“Again, you're wrong,” the tall woman told him angrily. “The two men sent aboard to discover boreworm holes searched her most thoroughly before they found them!"
“No other girls aboard Weasel?” the Mouser inquired ingenuously. “No females at all?” Both women nodded, glaring at him. “So, no evidence at all for kidnap theories,” he concluded blandly.
“But Cif's suggestion about their lusting after a second cabin-girl — or maybe four—” Afreyt began exasperatedly.
“Your pardon, my dear,” Fafhrd interrupted without heat yet commandingly, “but would it not be best if we do our guest Fingers the courtesy of listening to her full story without any more interruptions? — especially sly, argumentative ones!” And he gave the Mouser a very hard look. “She tells it well, speaking concisely.” He smiled at her.
“That's sensible,” Afreyt admitted graciously. “But before we do, since it's oppressive here, let's go outside where she can speak and we can listen comfortably. We'll delay serving dinner. It will not spoil. Yes, girls, you may come along,” she added, seeing their expressions, “and place yourselves at the same table. Chores can wait, but no chattering."
6
Outside, Rime Isle's treeless summer verdure stretched out to the sea and to the nearby headland, which was still in sunshine, broken only by a few low juts of rock and fewer grazing sheep, and, like a giant's round shield cast down close by on the turf, the dark bronze flatness of a large moondial that marked a white-witch dwelling and traced the wanderings of Nehwon's moon through the constellations of Nehwon's broad zodiac; the several bright star pairs of the Lovers, the dim stars of the Ghosts, and the skinny long triangle of the Knife, with the bright tipstar red as blood. The ghostly moon herself, on the verge of full, hung low above the watery eastern horizon, from behind which she'd emerged within the quarter hour. The cooling eve breeze rippled around them gently. The house they'd just left hid them from the sun (soon to plunge into the western sea) save where its flat red rays gleamed from the open kitchen door and windows behind them.
The four adults took seat with Fingers in their midst. The four other girls leaned into the four spaces between.
She began, “I was born at Tovilyis, where my mother was an officer in the Guild of Free Women and a moon priestess besides. I never knew my father. Quite a few Guild children didn't. I became a moon novice there, where truly white gloves are worn, though not of lamb's hide.” She touched those under her belt. “The Guild falling into hard times, I journeyed with my mother for a space, settling in Ilthmar, where we worked as weavers, from my dexterity at which occupation and at the flute and small drum and the games cat's cradle and shadow shape, I got the nickname Fingers, which later proved to be most ominous indeed. We got Ilthmar accents. Mother says, fit in! We even paid lip service to the Rat and made sacrifice on his holidays at his dockside temple on the Inner Sea. Beneath the dark low portico of which I was one night sandbagged, as I later deduced, awakening to find myself aboard Weasel, choppy gray Inner Sea all around, feeling dizzy and headachy. I was more than naked, being shorn and shaved of all hair save my eyelashes and brows. And I was being instructed by one of her officers and this two-years-older cabin-girl called Hothand in the latter's arts, which are by no means always exercised in cabins.
“When I balked at some of their directions and demands, they set boreworms to me."
“Monstrous!” Fafhrd exclaimed. Afreyt frowned at him and flirted an admonitory hand for silence while the Mouser laid a remindful finger across his blandly smiling lips.
Fingers continued, “As you may know, those bristly gray caterpillars, though feeding solely on wood, will flee the light if brought outside their tunnels by wriggling into the nearest crevice or small orifice, whether it be in inert material or living flesh, thereafter writhing deeper and deeper until they starve for lack of dead wood or proper food. My instructress told me they're sometimes used to break in or discipline new whores, young or older, since they mostly do no lasting damage, only excruciate."
“So there were boreworms—” the Mouser began, instantly clapping his hand over his mouth.
“So I complied, recalling my mother's rule, Fit in! — and learned another sort of finger-work and other skills besides, until I earned the grudging praise of my young instructress. I did not seek to excel her, since I needed friends and she was my chief watchdog when we were in ports. I did not, for example, copy her signature, which also accounted for her nickname, and which was to blow into her hand before she used it in her work. I walked my fingers upon the bodies of those I serviced, keeping up a glib patter as I approached the target area, about my hand being a lost and ensorcelled princess, conjured tiny, who marveled innocently at all the items she encountered in her little world and the actions that she was moved to perform upon them. The sailors relished that. It fed their fancy.
“So occupied, and under Hothand's hard and watchful eye, I first saw the docks of Lankhmar, forest-girt Kvarch Nar, Ool Hrusp, and other cities on the Inner Sea.
“I also early came to the conclusion that my period of sandbagged unconsciousness had been prolonged with drugs, not for hours but days at least. For as soon as I'd been able to examine myself at leisure, I'd discovered that my head hair had grown and my skin paled as much as it had during my fortnight's seclusion before my novice's initiation, while all my body hairs had been tweaked out. But what else had happened during this period, and if I'd been prisoned at one place or carried about before being taken aboard Weasel, I could never learn, nor would (or perhaps could) Hothand tell me. There was in my mind only a weltering sea of dark nightmarish impressions I couldn't decipher.
“Hothand became my friend, but not to the point where she invited me to desert with her at Ool Plerns. I think she might have, except she knew that losing both cabin-girls would be a sure way to ensure a desperately determined pursuit. In fact, before she left she tied me up most securely (she was expert at that) and gagged me, saying mysteriously, before she kissed me goodbye, ‘I am doing this for your own good, little Fingers. It may save you a beating.'
“And indeed I was not beaten, but when Weasel next docked, at No-Ombrulsk before our long reach here, I was confined below, tethered to timber by a chain and an iron-studded locked collar to which the captain alone held the key. It had previously chained his pursuit hound until the bitch died on Weasel's last voyage but this.
“I've never felt lonelier than I did on the long wearisome sail that next came. At the worst moments I'd comfort myself by remembering Hothand's last kiss, though hating her madly at the same time. I also determined to escape ship at Rime Isle (which I'd always before thought a fable) no matter how strange and savage its inhabitants.” She looked around at them all and her eyes twinkled. “I knew that my first step must be to do all in my power to ensure I was not again chained below. So no longer having to fear Hothand's res
entment, I devoted all my ingenuity and imagination to heightening and prolonging the ecstasies of all I serviced, though not long enough, of course, in the case of crewmen, to offend captain or officers if such were about. And sympathize with them all, goes without saying, in a motherly way, working to increase the area of familiarity and trust among us.
“With the result that when we finally raised Rime Isle and docked in Salthaven, I was allowed on deck for a short look and a breath, though under guard. I soon decided the shorefolk were civil and humane, but I pretended fear and distaste of all I saw, which helped persuade my captors there was little risk of my sneaking off.
“When you, May and Gale, joined those peering at the newly arrived ship, I soon was hearing indecently lustful whispers from all the Weasel's crew around me."
“Really?"
“Truly?"
She nodded solemnly at the two girls and went on, “I pretended to be angry with them, wanting barbarian girls when they had me, but that night I confessed to the captain how much I would enjoy teaching you with his aid the arts in which Hothand had instructed me and disciplining you when you turned balky, complaining I'd had no one to humiliate since becoming chief cabin-girl. He said he'd like to please me but that kidnapping you would be too risky. I kept on wheedling him, however, and he finally told me it would be another matter if I went ashore and lured you to come aboard secretly without telling anyone. I pretended to be terrified of setting foot on savage Rime Isle, but in the end I let him persuade me.
“So that's how I was able to escape from Weasel and warn you, dear Lady Afreyt and Lady Cif,” Fingers concluded with a doubtful smile.
“You see?” the Mouser broke his enforced silence almost gleefully. “She planned the whole kidnapping herself! Or at least forced the Weasel's captain to sharpen his plans. It's the old saw, ‘A devious plot? Some woman wove it!’”
