The Pixilated Peeress Read online

  The Pixilated Peeress

  Incorporated Knight 02

  (1991)

  L. Sprague de Camp & Catherine Crook de Camp

  Contents

  I – The Captivating Countess

  II – The Senescent Sorcerer

  III – The Sinister Sect

  IV – The Desirable Dragon

  V – Maleficent Murder

  VI – Empyrean Exile

  VII – Nugacious Nuptials

  VIII – Dubious Deliverance

  IX – The Disappearing Delta

  X – Sanguinary Swords

  XI – A Sufficiency Of Slaughter

  About the Authors

  Book information

  -

  I – The Captivating Countess

  Thorolf Zigramson laid his scabbarded sword on the grass and baited his hook with a squirming green grub. He tossed the hook into the pool in the mountain stream and watched the crimson float bob amid the silvery ripples. He gathered his russet cloak to sit down on the greensward when, a few paces downstream, a holly-green spruce sapling spoke:

  "Goodman! Pray give me some clothes!"

  Thorolf started. Dropping his fishpole, he clapped a bronzen hand to the hilt of his dagger. "What say you, bush?"

  The sapling's voice, though musical still, took on a note of command. "I said, give me some clothes! Your cloak will do, to start."

  "Forsooth! And why should I give my good Tyrrhenian mantle away to the first bush that begs for it?"

  The voice grew sharp. "Cease calling me 'bush,' knave!"

  "Why? Prefer you 'shrub'? Or perchance 'evergreen'?"

  "Oaf! The proper address for one of my rank is 'my lady' or 'your Highness.' "

  Thorolf sheathed his dagger with a smile. "A female shrub, forsooth? You are the first plant I ever heard to claim nobility. Not that it signifies aught in Rhaetia; we long ago abolished titles."

  The soprano voice rose in exasperation. "I know that, yokel! That is why you have no government worth the name. But I am in sore need of garments. You should have the courtesy—"

  "Come out and tell me who you be, and I'll consider. "

  "I cannot."

  "Wherefore not?" demanded Thorolf. "I am not decent."

  Thorolf smiled through his beard. "Let not that prevent you. I know persons of all degrees, including some given to crass indecencies."

  "Not indecent in a moral sense, blockhead! I beg your raiment because I lack proper attire."

  With slow deliberation, Thorolf picked up his fish-pole. "No meeting, no garments. Now go away; you frighten the fish."

  "Incondite rascal! I'll show thee!"

  From behind the conifer sapling stepped a slight, fair-skinned young woman, naked save for a golden coronet on her aureate hair. Although but little over five feet tall and a jot too slender for Thorolf's taste, she was a beautiful creature.

  "Good gods!" he exclaimed, dropping his rod for the second time. "Are you, mayhap, the Queen of the Fairies?"

  "Nay; a mortal woman in distress. I hight Yvette, Countess of Grintz."

  Thorolf glanced up uncertainly at the snowcapped peaks of the Helvetians, where dwelt the trolls; then bowed slightly. "Forsooth, Countess, your garb becomes you, albeit a trifle impractical for this cool mountain clime."

  He picked up his cloak, shook a fallen leaf out of its folds, and handed it to the woman, who swirled it around herself. Since Thorolf was big. all the Countess but her coroneted head disappeared into the russet garment.

  "How gat you into this predicament, my lady?" he asked.

  "I fled the men of Duke Gondomar of Landai, who pursued me across the border. Thinking I had given them the slip for good, I paused for a dip in this stream, in a pool well below this one. Whilst bathing I heard their clatter round the bend of the Rissel and outcry as they espied my mount and abandoned garments. Ere they came in sight, I splashed across to the farther bank, climbed out, and ran. Seeing you, I hid behind that tree."

  "Did the men of the Duke discover you?"

  "Methinks not."

  Thorolf considered what he might do if he were chasing such a quarry. The Duke's men plainly paid no heed to Rhaetian sovereignty. While reflecting, he changed the subject:

  "Why do you wear that little crown? It suits not your bathing costume."

  Unsmilingly, Yvette replied: "I dared not lay down my coronet whilst I did bathe, and a good thing, too. Lacking gold and jewels, I count upon this bauble to pay for mercenaries to regain my lands."

  Aside from the Countess' beauty and unconventional garb, Thorolf was struck by the woman's utter self-confidence. So certain an aristocratic poise aroused in him—a Commonwealth citizen owing no devoir to any noble—a shadowy urge to kneel and utter oaths of fealty. He conquered the impulse but reflected that the sage who proclaimed that universal nudity would place all mankind on a uniform level had never met Yvette of Grintz. To cover his momentary confusion he gruffly said:

  "That cloak is but a loan, my lady. I shall want it back when we find you more suitable raiment."

  Yvette studied him. "Trust a Rhaetian to keep close track of's property! But from your speech you are no yokel. Who in sooth are you?"

  Thorolf placed a hand on his chest and bowed. "Acting Sergeant Thorolf Zigramson of the Fourth Commonwealth Foot, at your service."

  "Oh, a soldier! You have the thews for it." She studied the massively muscled, broad-shouldered young man from his short black hair and well-trimmed beard to his dusty, well-worn boots. "Findst it an exciting trade?"

  He considered. "Not the word I'd use, madam. True, just before a battle one's heart beats faster, when one is torn betwixt fear of what's coming and fear of showing one's fear. When the fighting starts, one is too busy trying to save one's life whilst depriving others of theirs to think on such matters. But most of a soldier's time is plain hard work, especially since we adopted the Batavian system."

  "What's that?"

  "All men of a unit must dress exactly alike. When my father served his hitch as a youth, to tie a colored scarf about one's arm or hat sufficed; but no more. If, however, a garment gives out on a campaign, the soldier must buy or steal whatever replacement he can. So an army that sets forth brave in uniform garb returns in motley.

  "Then we must drill, drill, drill, so that all shall obey instantly and precisely, as if the soldier were but a cogwheel in a vast machine of clockwork."

  "Ugh!" she said. "It sounds dreadfully dull."

  "It is, but it works. Thus the Batavians drove the Emperor's troops from their swampy land."

  She changed the subject. "Said you Thorolf Zigramson?"

  "Aye."

  "Then, are you perchance kin to Consul Zigram?"

  "My father."

  As Yvette began another question, Thorolf raised a hand. "Let's intermit the questions, Countess. If we stand here havering, your Duke's men may yet catch us in their dip net. Shog along!"

  Thorolf hoisted his baldric over his head and gathered pole, net, and creel.

  Yvette said: "I cannot walk far; my poor feet are half flayed."

  "My horse is nigh. She'll bear the twain."

  When they reached the big, staked-out mare, Yvette frowned. "This cloak were of small avail for riding pillion. Couldst lend me your hosen?"

  Thorolf sighed. "Your Ladyship is not the easiest damsel to succor; I fancy riding bare-arsed no more than you. But—here!" He peeled off his leather jacket and'then his white linen shirt. The latter he held out, saying, "Put your legs in the sleeves and tie the shirt-tails about your waist."

  With a sputter of laughter, Yvette complied. Thorolf looked her over. "Unsuitable for a coronation ball; but 'twill
do, 'twill suffice. Now place your foot in my hands, and up you go!"

  -

  They trotted briskly along a little-used trail, with Yvette, clutching Thorolf's belt and hiding her coronet within the cloak, perched sideways on the horse's rump. The path sloped down. As they reached the lower levels, deciduous trees—oak, beech, and maple—appeared among the ubiquitous conifers, their foliage crisp and brown with the fading of summer. Over his shoulder, the soldier remarked:

  "Now, what was that you said when first we met, about our democratic government?"

  Yvette responded crisply: "It is a standing invitation to mob rule and anarchy."

  "I beg to differ," drawled Thorolf. "Our public men may not all be saints or heroes, but we've never elected a consul like that ass, King Valdhelm the Third of Locania, who betimes imagines himself a watering pot and wanders his palace pissing on potted plants."

  "Indeed, and what of the Rhaetian Consul who made off with half your treasury when he fled the land?"

  "True," said Thorolf equably. "But if an official of ours do prove a fool or a knave, we cast him out at the next election. The Locanians have no voice in choosing their rulers, as all us Rhaetians do."

  "All but your women," said Yvette acidly. "Aha, that punctured your self-satisfaction!"

  "Well, ah," said Thorolf, "the general opinion is that women be not equally endowed in such matters."

  "Thinkst not I be as able a politician as the best of your men? I work as hard for my people's welfare as do any of your senators or consuls. But in your land every Rhaetian with pintle and stones in's crotch may vote, be he as dumb as an ox, whilst the ablest woman is barred. Why not give male trolls the vote?"

  Thorolf raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Trolls are not deemed human. If we start down through the animal kingdom, as well extend the franchise to bulls and billy goats."

  "Trolls are human enough to beget offspring on human women and to burrow for ores to make your nails and swords!"

  "True, but trolls are still not citizens. When my sire was senator, he proposed defining them as human, thus entitling them to the law's protection; but the others took it as a jest."

  "You evade the point, Master Thorolf. A folk cannot thrive without stability, and that requires a framework of hereditary lordships."

  "And what stability, forsooth, has your feudalism given the Grintzers?"

  "Enough of this subject, Sergeant! How come you to ride a mare? Methought men of valor eschewed them, lest they be infected by womanish qualities—or those traits they falsely attribute to my sex."

  Thorolf chuckled. "Mere superstition. Salnia's as brave amongst horses as you are amongst women. And she takes me whither I would go."

  "Rhaetian practicality!" said the Countess with a trace of a sneer. "Are you never chaffed about her?"

  "One of my men jibed me. I picked him up by the ankles and dipped his head in a rain barrel until he agreed to hold his tongue."

  "Fear not that I shall ever taunt you, at least if there be a rain barrel nigh! But how came you, with your connections and learning, to this lowly rank?"

  "Not so lowly, madam. I am responsible for the welfare and conduct of a hundred men—or should be were my company up to strength." After a pause he added: "When I returned from my studies abroad, seeking an academic career, I obtained a readership at Horgus College."

  "What transmogrified you from apprentice professor to soldier?"

  "A trifle of trouble," said Thorolf uneasily, sorry that he had brought the subject up. "What trouble?"

  " 'Tis a flat, weary, arid unprofitable tale."

  At Thorolf's hint of reticence, Yvette came alert, like a cat that espies a dilatory mouse. "Tell me nameless!" she said in tones of queenly command.

  "If you insist. When the Franconians conquered the Duchy of Dorelia, a crowd of students burst into my classroom, demanding that I sign a manifesto on behalf of freedom for the Dorelians. I refused."

  "Wherefore?"

  "I said that, first, this was a class in Tyrrhenian literature and not a political forum; second, that my signature would do nought to loosen King Chilperic's grip on the land; and finally, that it mattered little to the Dorelian masses whether they were fleeced by a duke or a king."

  "What's this about people being 'fleeced' by their natural lords? In my country ..."

  "Hush!" Thorolf drew rein and, turning his head, held a finger to his lips.

  "But—" began Yvette.

  "Quiet! Not a word!" snapped Thorolf. "I listen for pursuers."

  Yvette subsided, scowling. When Thorolf was satisfied he could hear no jingle of arms or creak of harness, he clucked the mare into motion.

  "Insolent upstart!" shrilled Yvette. "Thus to order about a peeress born! In Grintz you'd be flogged till the skin of your back—"

  "But this is not Grintz, and you have no bullies to jump to your commands. If you give trouble, I'll set you down instanter, and without my borrowed garments. Is that your wish, Countess?"

  Yvette silently fumed, her breath sibilating through clenched white teeth. Far above, the scarlet sunlight lingered on a snow-crested peak, then slowly shrank and faded. The only sound was the patient footfalls of the burdened mare.

  At last Yvette muttered a few words that Thorolf took for a grudging apology. She asked: "What did the students next?"

  "One emptied a slop pail over my head."

  "And then?"

  "I threw him out the window and asked if others would care to follow him. None volunteered, hearing the yells of him who'd broken a leg in's fall. His family went to law and won a thousand-mark judgment against the college. And away went my professorial plans."

  "So you became a soldier?"

  "Indeed. My father said: 'With those shoulders, and having no talent for commerce or finance, 'tis the army for you, my lad.' "

  Yvette exclaimed: "But every Rhaetian's born with a ledger in his fist; else he's like a fish that cannot swim." After a pause, she added: "Hast fought in a battle?"

  "A small affray with revolutionaries from Tzenric. They promised to abolish taxes and give every Rhaetian a stipend, so that none need ever work again."

  Yvette tightened her grasp on Thorolf's belt and shook her head. "Just the sort of mountebanks your democratic fools might elect! Didst cross blades with those joltheads? "

  "I made a few hits; but in such a brabble none knows for certain who does what to whom. In truth, I cared but little for the outcome. I'm a peaceable wight who'd liefer spend his days in scholarship.

  "Now tell me of your plans anent the Duke. That coronet should fetch a few thousand, but such a purse would not long survive an assault upon a dukedom."

  Yvette chewed her lip. "I could doubtless raise a good few thousand more within a year—"

  Thorolf interrupted: "Still insufficient, I fear. Since King Chilperic has hired away our likeliest bullies for his Dorelian war, the pay of mercenaries has risen. My company is down to eighty-odd, since lusty youths earn more as camp cooks and stablemen."

  Yvette sniffed. "Trust Rhaetians to value money above honor!"

  Thorolf chuckled. "As says the buffoon in one of Helmanax's plays: 'Who hath honor? He that was buried yesterday.' "

  "Might I not engage your Rhaetian regulars?"

  "Nay; the Consul has forbidden the hiring thereof for foreign adventures."

  -

  For half an hour, only the chirps of birds, the hum of insects, and the horse's hoofbeats broke the silence of the descending road. At last Yvette spoke:

  "Then I must needs seek magical help. I hear that the King of Locania, since he got the religious bee in's bonnet, hath exiled all his magicians. Many have found a haven in Rhaetia."

  "True," admitted Thorolf.

  "How about Doctor Orlandus, the great Psychomagus?"

  "He advances grandiose claims, but I trust him no more than I trust the ice on Lake Zurshnitt in spring. Some dub him one part wizard and three parts charlatan."

  "They say he doth command th
ose spirits called deltas."

  Thorolf shrugged. "I know nought of that. I do know howsomever an able iatromage, Doctor Bardi. He waxes old and infirm but retains enough prowess to banish the colds in my head.

  "And, Countess, if it be not unmeet to ask, should not your husband, the Count of Grintz, and his retainers defend your county?"

  "I am the late Count's widow. As a woman without issue, I am by law sole ruler until I wed again."

  "What befell the Count? Battle or a tisick?"

  "Neither. Count Volk had seen his eightieth winter when my sire, the Baron Grombac, betrothed me to him, thinking it a brilliant match. On our wedding night, this dotard braced himself and actually sheathed his blade ere his poor old heart gave up."