I edged away, hands behind my back. "Not me! I'm too fond of my private parts."

"Then you!" he cried and slapped it into Reginaldo's limp hand. "Take it away at once!" The blade stared at it mutely. "Look lively, now! I want that thing out of the castle!"

Reginaldo gazed up at the Queen, whose eyes were bright with unshed tears. "It was a glorious spoon,"

she said, "but now its day is past. We must think of the future."

The blade bowed his head. "By your command," he said simply, then swept out of the courtyard.

"You, swineherd!" The King pointed after the blade. "See that he leaves the castle, or I'll have your head!"

"My goodness, Bentie," the Queen purred, "you are feeling forceful this morning."

"As a matter of fact," he said, sweeping his arm around her waist and pulling her against his chest, "I feel quite frisky."

"But what about the Sour Lamb Supreme?" she asked. "Shouldn't we check on it-you know, before?"

"d.a.m.n the lamb!" He buried his face in her neck.

I caught up with Reginaldo and we hurried back out past the blacksmith's shed and the chandlery, the fleece storehouse and the cattle pens. There was no sign of Gerta and I was getting worried.

Reginaldo gave the spoon a final glance, then thrust it into his purse. His lips were quirked into a most knowing smile.

"How did you come by that thing anyway?" I shook my head. "And why did you give it to the Queen?

Aren't Sacred Spoons worth quite a bit of gold?"

He threw back his head and laughed out loud as we pa.s.sed through the town gate out into the sunshine, and then leaned back against the stone wall beside the moat, giggling and snorting until the tears ran down his face and he had to beat upon his thigh with his fist.

I stared at him angrily. "I don't understand."

He shook his head, almost too weak with hilarity to speak. "There is-no such thing as-the Sacred Spoon-of Nunpoor."

I narrowed my eyes. "What?"

He pulled the spoon out of his purse, then buffed it on his breeches. "I made the whole thing up to impress her."

I picked Reginaldo up by his collar and hefted him out into the middle of moat, where he hit the sc.u.mmy green water with a most satisfying splash and sank, spoon and all.

Gerta didn't emerge from the castle for five days, and ever after displayed a distressing yen for strawberry-garlic crumpets, extremely difficult to satisfy out on the trail. Despite repeated inquiries, we never recovered the poor pig, Betina, who reputedly ended up as the following Wednesdays lesson, Ham Dumplings Ala Mode.

The blade, Reginaldo, eventually floundered to the opposite bank of the moat, where a pa.s.sing milkmaid reportedly took pity upon him and fetched him home to nurse. The last I heard, they were married, had three sly-eyed brats, and he wasn't so pretty anymore, having put on forty pounds around the middle, the result of good plain food and toting about all those shovels of manure. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke, as they say.

As for me and Esmeralda, we've given up blade-running altogether. I know they say there's no real harm in it, just a bit of fun to amuse princesses and upper cla.s.s daughters, who will all settle down eventually and raise families of their own, but I just don't have the stomach for it anymore.

I mean, what's the world coming to when you can't even trust a d.a.m.ned spoon?

Keeping Up Appearances

LawrenceWatt-Evans

Maribelle stared at the little black-iron cage in dismay. She had known when she returned from visiting her family and found the room deserted, with a note from Armus dated the day before yesterday directing her to look for him here if he wasn't home yet, that there was trouble.

But she hadn't expectedthis.

The hamster in the iron cage stared back at her. It was small and round and golden and looked totally harmless.

And rather stupid, but that didn't surprise Maribelle at all. "That's really Armus?" she asked.

"So the wizard's messenger said," Derdiamus Luc replied.

The hamster squeaked and nodded.

"Oh, dear," Maribelle sighed. "Whatwill I tell his mother?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Luc said with an uneasy smile.

"Speaking of things you do or don't know," Maribelle said, "would you know how to turn him back? I mean, is this permanent? Is there some way to break the curse?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea," Luc said. "The messenger didn't tell me much of anything." "Did the messenger tell youwhythe wizard Esotissimus turned Armus into this little furball?"

"Well..." Luc coughed.

Maribelle tore her gaze away from the hamster and looked at Luc. It wasn't hard to see that the merchant was hiding something.

And it wasn't hard to guess what it was, either. When she got Armus home she intended to have a few words with him, whether he was hamster or human at the time.

For now, though, she stared at Luc in wide-eyed innocence, pretending she hadn't a clue as to why the wizard would have been irked with Armus.

"I'm afraid it's partly my fault," Luc admitted. "Esotissimus has been telling my customers the most terrible lies about some of the goods I sell, and I hired the young man to deliver a strong complaint about this practice." He glanced at the hamster. "It appears the wizard didn't appreciate it. Iamsorry."

Maribelle sighed again.

Actually, she supposed the wizard had been merciful, since the "strong complaint" Armus was supposed to deliver had almost certainly been a dagger between the ribs. And the "terrible lies" were probably accurate a.s.sessments of the value of some of the charms and potions Luc sold; Maribelle was fairly certain that Luc's so-called "irresistible love spells" were just civet and musk, and the "miraculous medicines" nothing but willow bark in distilled wine, with no magical content at all.

But what had Armus thought he was doing, going after a wizard alone?

"Well, I'm sure you meant well," she said, picking up the cage. She turned to go, then paused and turned back to Luc. "Um... while I can see that the response wasn't what you might have hoped, Armus apparentlydiddeliver your message. Shall I send a bill, or would you like to pay now?"

Luc's jaw dropped, then snapped shut.

"Pay?" he said, sounding a bit strangled.

"Well, yes," Maribelle said. "I'm afraid that the a.s.sa.s.sins' Guild would insist. Armus is a member, after all, so even though you merely hired him as a messenger, Guild rules would apply. Wouldn't they, Armus?"

The hamster made a noise that was clearly meant as agreement.

"a.s.sa.s.sins' Guild? You mean there really is..." Luc stopped in mid-sentence. He looked at Maribelle's wide-eyed innocent gaze, and at the hamster's beady little eyes, both fixed on him.

"Of course," he said through clenched teeth. "I believe we had agreed upon a price of fifty royals..."

Armus cheebled angrily.

"How foolish of me," Luc said, forcing a laugh. "I meanone hundredand fifty. I'll just write you a chit."

"Sire Luc, I'm afraid I may be traveling soon, on short notice," Maribelle said, her voice oozing regret."I'll need to have cash."

"Well, I don't see how I..." Luc began.

Maribelle interrupted him, her tone still regretful but a little harder than before. "I wouldn't want to tell my friends in the Guild you wereuncooperative, after you got the man I love turned into ahamster..."

Luc winced. "Of course," he said quickly.

Maribelle waited patiently as Luc counted out the coins. So far as she knew therewasno a.s.sa.s.sins'

Guild, here in Verengard or anywhere else, but Luc wouldn't know that. Merchants heard all the rumors, and never knew which to believe. And Luc certainly knew what Armus did for a living. What's more, the amount of money involved confirmed that Luc hadn't hired Armus the a.s.sa.s.sin just to deliver a message.

He could have hired any urchin off the street for two royals-or maybe it would have taken as much as five, since a wizard was involved.

A hundred and fifty meant something more than a message, something a bit more pointed.

Twenty minutes later, back in the rented room two streets over, Maribelle opened the cage and pointed to the sheet of parchment and the little pan of ink she had set out.

"Now," she said, "would you mind telling me what you thought you were doing, contracting for an a.s.sa.s.sination without me? And agreeing to kill awizard, without properly researching the job? I was only gone for eleven days! You couldn't wait that long?"

The hamster cheebled angrily at her.

"I can't understand anything you say," Maribelle told it. "Just dip a claw in the ink; I know you can't hold a pen."

The hamster glared at her for a moment, then scurried to the ink.

The result was smeared and messy, but legible.

I WAS BORED. LOOKED EASY. PAID WELL.

"A hundred and fifty royals?" Maribelle protested.

The hamster let out an offended squawk, and scrawled 600. 150 ADVANCE, 150 MORE EVEN IF WIZARD LIVED.

"And the rest if you actually pulled it off."

Armus nodded.

"And did youreallythink you could kill a wizard single-handed?"

The hamster shook his head, and reached for the ink.

SCOUTING, he wrote. THEN WAIT FOR YOU, FINISH THE JOB TOGETHER. "But you got caught."

The hamster looked sheepish-which was an impressive accomplishment for a hamster, but Armus had always been a talented, charming individual.

Not all thatbright, but talented and charming.

"All right," Maribelle said. "Tell me all about it, step by step. Then we'll see about getting you turned back."

She didn't say it aloud, but mentally added, if youcanbe turned back. She knew perfectly well that transformations were tricky stuff. Some could only be reversed by the wizard who initiated them. Others could only be ended by the wizards death-she didn't think she would very much mind arranging that in this case.

And some transformations couldn't be undone at all.

She shivered at the thought as she watched the hamster scratching ink onto the parchment, leaving smudgy little footprints everywhere. She and Armus had been working together for a little over four years now, and she had hoped they would stay together for the rest of their lives. She'd put aside almost half the money they had earned as a.s.sa.s.sins, with the intention of someday retiring on it and settling down somewhere-after all, they couldn't keep killing people forever. She wouldn't always be sufficiently young and pretty and innocent-looking to use their preferred methods, where Armus would threaten the intended target, drawing all the attention while poor helpless-looking little Maribelle put a knife in the victim's back.

Settling down with a hamster, rather than a man, hadn't been at all what she had in mind.

The wizard Esotissimus was clearly a traditionalist. His establishment was built of wrought iron, smoke-blackened oak, and equally smoke-blackened granite, lavishly trimmed with spikes and gargoyles. Maribelle paused on the street and looked up at it before entering.

Maribelle usually liked traditionalists; they tended to be easy targets, never ready for the unexpected.

They either ignored her completely or tried to seduce her, and both options provided plentiful opportunities for poison or a quick stroke of the blade.

She wasn't here to loll this particular wizard, though, but to coax a favor out of him, and traditionalism might work against her there. Wizards had a traditional dislike for reversing their spells.

And Esotissimus was not merely a traditionalist, but a very powerful wizard. That was why Maribelle had chosen the direct approach. Armus swore he hadn't even seen the wizard's hands move when the transformation spell was cast. He hadn't even realized the wizard was really angry with him until he started shrinking and growing fur.

Armus had attempted a ruse; he had pretended to be a prospective customer, hoping to study the layout of the wizard's home and learn a bit of his capabilities. He still, he said, didn't know what had gone wrong, or how the wizard had known he was lying.

Maribelle lifted the immense iron knocker and let it fall; a m.u.f.fled boom echoed, and with a creak ofbending metal the two black iron gargoyle faces on either side of the door turned to look at her.

She looked back, quickly putting on her dumb-and-demure working expression and smiling at first one, then the other. Just because the iron faces could move that didn't mean they could see her, but there was no reason to take unnecessary chances.

And it was very obvious that this wasrealmagic here, not the cheap imitations offered by Derdiamus Luc and his ilk.

The oaken door opened a crack, and a heart-shaped female face framed in l.u.s.trous black curls peered out at her.

"h.e.l.lo there," Maribelle said. There was no point in turning the charm on full for a woman, but she smiled brightly. "I'd like to see Esotissimus, please."

"You don't have an appointment," the black-haired woman said accusingly.

"I didn't know how to make one," Maribelle explained. "Please, it'sveryimportant." She adjusted the strap of the bag slung over her shoulder.

"What's it about?" the woman demanded.