The World Shuffler Read Online Free PDF Page A

you.” She tossed the shot back with a practiced twist of the wrist. Lafayette sampled his, winced at the pain, then swallowed it whole. Swinehild watched sympathetically as he fought to draw breath.
    “I guess life in these parlous times is enough to drive any kind of sensitive guy off his wire. Where you from, anyway? Not from around here. You dress too fancy for that.”
    “Well, the fact is,” Lafayette started, and paused. “The fact is, I don’t quite know how to explain it,” he finished in a hopeless tone. Suddenly, he was acutely aware of the pain of scratches and the ache of unaccustomedly stretched muscles, conscious of his urgent need of a good dinner and a hot bath and a warm bed.
    Swinehild patted his hand with a hard little palm. “Well, don’t worry about it, sugar. Maybe tomorrow everything’ll look brighter. But I doubt it,” she added, suddenly brisk again. She refilled her glass, drained it, placed the cork in the bottle, and drove it home with a blow of her palm. “It ain’t going to get no better as long as that old goat Rodolpho’s sitting on the ducal chair.”
    Lafayette poured his glass full and gulped it without noticing until the fiery stuff seared his throat.
    “Listen,” he gasped, “Maybe the best thing would be for you to fill me in a bit on the background. I mean, I’m obviously not in Artesia any longer. And yet there are certain obvious parallels, such as you and Alain, and the general lie of the land. Maybe I’ll be able to detect some useful analog and take it from there.”
    Swinehild scratched absently at her ribs. “Well, what’s to say? Up to a couple years ago, this used to be a pretty fair duchy. I mean, we didn’t have much, but we got by, you know what I mean? Then everything just kind of went from bad to worse: taxes, regulations, rules. The cricket blight took out the tobacco and pot crops, then the plague of mildew spoiled the vintage two years running, then the yeast famine: that knocked out the ale. We squeaked by on imported rum until that ran out. Since then it’s been small beer and groundhog sausage.”
    “Say, that reminds me,” Lafayette said. “That ground hog sounds good.”
    “Brother, you must be hungry.” Swinehild recovered the skillet from behind the door, shook up the coals in the grate, tossed a dubious-looking patty of grayish meat into the melting grease.
    “Tell me more about this Duke Rodolpho you mentioned,” Lafayette suggested.
    “I only seen the bum once, as I was leaving the ducal-guard barracks about three at the A.M.; visiting a sick friend, you understand. The old boy was taking a little stroll in the garden, and being as it was early yet, I skinned over the fence and tried to strike up a conversation. Not that his type appeals to me. But I thought it might be a valuable connection, like.” Swinehild gave Lafayette a look which might have been coy coming from anyone else. “But the old goat gave me the swift heave-ho,” she finished, cracking an undersized egg with a sharp rap on the edge of the skillet. “He said something about me being young enough to be his niece, and yelled for the johns. I ask you, what kind of administration can you expect from an old buzzard with no more sporting instinct than that?”
    “Hmm,” Lafayette said thoughtfully. “Tell me, ah, Swinehild, how would I go about getting an audience with this duke?”
    “Don’t try it,” the girl advised. “He’s got a nasty reputation for throwing pests to the lions.”
    “If anybody knows what’s going on here, it ought to be him,” Lafayette mused. “You see, the way I have it figured out, Artesia hasn’t really disappeared: I have.”
    Swinehild looked at him over her shoulder, tsked, and shook her head.
    “And you not hardly more’n middle-aged,” she said.
    “Middle-aged? I’m not quite thirty,” Lafayette pointed out. “Although I admit that tonight I feel a hundred and nine. Still, having a plan of action helps,” He