The Knight and Knave of Swords Read Online Free PDF Page B

he got another whiff of the musky, goaty, strangely attractive sea odor. Ambergris?) It was the chest of silks and thick ribbons and linens and other costly fabrics intended chiefly for his gift to Cif. It was standing out a little way from the ship's side, almost entirely in the moonlight, as if its lashings had loosened, and now as he studied it more closely he saw that it wasn't lashed at all and that its top was wedged open a finger's breadth by a twist of pale orange fabric protruding near a hinge.
    What monstrous indiscipline did this signify?
    He dropped noiselessly down and approached the chest, his nostrils wrinkling. Was unsold ambergris cached inside it? Then, carefully keeping his shadow off it, he gripped the top and silently threw it wide open on its hinges.
    The topmost silk was a thick lustrous copper-colored one chosen to match the glints in Cif's dark hair.
    Upon this rich bedding, like kitten stolen in to nap on fresh-laundered linens, reposed, with arms and legs somewhat drawn in but mostly on her back, and with one long-fingered hand twisting down through her tousled silvery hair so as to shadow further her lidded eyes—reposed that self-same wharf-waif he'd but now been recalling. The picture of innocence, but the odor (he knew it now) all sex. Her slender chest rose and fell gently and slowly with her sleeping inhalations, her small breasts and rather larger nipples outdenting the flimsy fabric of her ragged tunic, while her narrow lips smiled faintly. Her hair was somewhat the same shade as that of silver-blond, thirteen-year-old Gale back on Rime Isle, who'd been one of Odin's maidens. And she was, apparently, not a great deal older.
    Why, this was worse than monstrous, the Mouser told himself as he wordlessly stared. That one or two or more of all of his crew should conspire to smuggle this girl aboard for his or their hot pleasure, tempting her with silver or feeing her pimp or owner (or else kidnapping her, though that was most unlikely in view of her unbound state) was bad enough, but that they should presume to do this not only without their captain's knowledge but also in complete disregard of the fact that he enjoyed no such erotic solacing, but rather worked himself to the bone on their behalf and Seahawk 's, solicitous only of their health and welfare and the success of the voyage—why, this was not only wantonest indiscipline but also rankest ingratitude!
    At this dark point of disillusionment with his fellow man, the Mouser's one satisfaction was his knowledge that his crew slept deeply from exhaustion he'd inflicted on them. The chorus of their unaltering snores was music to his ears, for it told him that although they'd managed to smuggle the girl aboard successfully, not one of them had yet enjoyed her (at least since the loading and business of getting under way was done). No, they'd been smote senseless by fatigue, and would not now wake for a hurricane. And that thought in turn pointed out to him the way to their most appropriate and condign punishment.
    Smiling widely, he reached his left hand toward the sleeping girl, and, where it made a small peak in her worn silver-faded tunic, delicately yet somewhat sharply tweaked her right nipple. As she came shuddering awake with a suck of indrawn breath, her eyes opening and her parted lips forming an exclamation, he swooped his face toward hers, frowning most sternly and laying his finger across his now disapprovingly set lips, enjoining silence.
    She shrank away, staring at him in wonder and dread and keeping obediently still. He drew back a little in turn, noting the twin reflections of the misshapen moon in her wide dark eyes and how strangely the lustrous coppery silk on which she cowered contrasted with her hair tangled upon it, fine and silver pale as a ghost's.
    From around them the chorus of snores continued unchanged as the crew slept on.
    From beside her slender naked feet the Mouser plucked up a black roll of thick silken