"Oh, Fergus!" she gushed. "I've had scores of lovers in the intervening years, but none hath erased the memory of our marvelous night. After a lusty Terran, all males of my species seem to lack ..."
"Very kind of you," interrupted Reith, casting about for an idea to divert the proposal that he feared would come next. But, with the inexorability of an avalanche, it came. She said: "Could we not repeat our magical tryst, this very night?"
"I fear you'd be disappointed. After all, I'm twenty years older now—"
"Fiddle-faddle, good my sir! So forsooth am I, and I find my passions not a whit abated; and 'tis plain to see that your eye be as bright and your step as jaunty as ever. I'll wager you can pleasure a lady as featly as any wight."
"There are difficulties," he muttered, groping for an excuse. The thought of copulating with Gashigi had become repugnant to him.
"Is it that you and the yellow-haired doxy be lovers?"
"No, we are not. But ..."
"Then what hinders? I can smooth your way to the Grand Master's approval."
"Isn't he your present lover?"
"Aye, but what thereof? He knows I seek pleasure elsewhere, and he'd better not cavil thereat!"
"How about Khabur, the fellow who was going to carve me up?"
"Dead. We parted at last, years agone, and he took up with another lady. He caught her in full fetter with another knight and stabbed the libertine to death. Then a friend of the dead man challenged Khabur and slew him in a duel."
"Seems to me," said Reith dryly, "that with such a high mortality among the Garma, the Knights would have trouble keeping up their numbers."
"Aye, 'tis true. But you evade my question. I'll put it plain: Give me what I beg, and your clients shall make their living picture in Mikardand with our aid. Deny me, and Yazman shall refuse your simplest request. Grasp you the nub?"
"I understand and will give the matter thought"
"Think all you like, dear Fergus, but my promises stand. I shall expect you here within the hour that marks the close of tonight's entertainment. Unless you'd fain demonstrate now—"
"To my infinite regret, I've promised to take my people sightseeing. They await me below." Reith bowed himself out quickly, before Gashigi could seize him in another octopuslike embrace.
A sorely-tried travel guide showed his trio through the Citadel's miniature museum, translating the captions on the exhibits. Then he piled them into his carriage and drove them around the city. Ordway, little heeding the historic sights of Mishé, gazed fixedly at Alicia with the eyes of a hungry wolf. White craned his neck this way and that, from time to time exclaiming: "That street scene would make a splendid shot ... The place in the script where Attila has hero meet heroine at the vegetable stalclass="underline" wouldn't that market over there be just right for it? Cyril, I'm talking to you!"
Back in the Citadel, White said, "I've got to write up some notes on what we've seen. Cyril, come along and help me remember."
When they had departed, Reith tapped on Alicia's door. "Lish, may I speak with you a minute?"
"Sure; come in. What's got you in a tizzy?"
Nervously cracking his joints, Reith paced about Alicia's two-room suite. "You know I was gone for an hour this morning? Well, I was paying a command visit on our Treasurer ... No, she didn't seduce me, though she tried. What happened was this ..." Reith summarized his talk with Gashigi.
Icily, Alicia asked: "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want to ask you, seriously: if I gave her what she wants, how would you feel about it?"
Alicia's sky-blue eyes widened, and she sniffed her displeasure. "Good heavens, what a question! It doesn't matter to me, which she-Krishnan you copulate with. I should think a man in your situation would leap at the chance. As I remember, you did it with her once before, after we ... Go ahead and hump her till she yells, 'Enough!' "
"Lish, you haven't answered my question. Would you, deep down in, disapprove?"
"Fergus!" she said in a voice pregnant with exasperation. "Let's understand a few things. Once you and I were married. Later, when we were no longer married, we were lovers for a while. But all that's long ago and far away. Now we're not married; we're not engaged; we're not lovers. We're nothing but old friends—at least, I hope we are—and business associates.
"So your sex life is no affair of mine. I have no more right to object to your laying Gashigi than you'd have to stop me from inviting Cyril Ordway in for the night. So do what you want and just don't talk to me about it!"
"You still haven't given a straight answer to my question. Would you mind?"
"Would you mind if I didn't mind?"
Some of the tenseness went out of Reith, and he gave a sly chuckle. "Now you've put me on the spot! Let's say me ego would be chipped. So what's the answer to my question?"
Alicia brought her fist down on the night table, making the brass candlestick jump. "Damn it, stop badgering me! Go ahead and fuck your big, blowsy hominoid, and see if I care! You—you alpha male!"
Her lip trembled, and a tear ran down her cheek. Reith murmured: "Oh, darling!" and gathered her into his arms. After he had petted her and stroked her shining hair, Alicia shook herself free and wiped away the tears. She said: "Fergus Reith, sometimes I hate you for being the only person in the Galaxy who can make me cry. This is like a replay of my affair with Vizman, only with—" She broke off, clapping a hand to her mouth.
"With roles reversed? Except that—"
She seized his arms and gave him a little shake. "Oh, please! Don't talk about it! I was a fool to mention it ..."
Reith enfolded her and held her silently for a few seconds. Then he bent down, saying: "Lish darling, please, give me some honest advice on handling this she-octopus. Right now, I no more want to frig her than if she were something that crawled out of the Great Koloft Swamp. I feel that if I so much as let her loss me, I'd turn into an enchanted frog.
"Feeling that way, I doubt if I could give satisfaction in any event—even if I did it with your blessing—and there goes your movie. So what should I do? Weave a circle round her thrice and close my eyes in holy dread?"
Alicia looked up at him. "Fergus, I have a marvelous idea!"
He released her. "What's that?"
"To hear Cyril talk, you'd think he was Lothario, Don Juan, and Casanova all rolled into one. Of course we know better than to take such boasts seriously; but how would it be if you came down with a diplomatic illness and sent him to Gashigi in your place?"
"That's my brilliant superwoman! Even if he doesn't satisfy Gashigi, at least it'll stop him from stripping you with his eyes every time he looks at you!"
Next morning, Ordway did not appear for breakfast. Later, when Reith was in the courtyard directing the harnessing of the ayas and the stowage of baggage, Ordway came out; moving as if still half asleep. When he came close, Reith asked quietly: "How did it go?"
Ordway rolled his eyes. "God, man, the bloody popsie's insatiable! If my—uh—capacity hadn't given out, we should still be at it. I'm not that Spanish bloke they tell about, who could roger day and night without letup. What was his name? Something like Donald June."
"You mean Don Juan?"
"I suppose so. Anyway, I did my best." Grinning, Ordway dug an elbow into Reith's ribs. "Know what she said? That she preferred me to you, and not just for my beautiful whiskers. She's commanded me, on pain of flaying alive, to wait upon her whenever we pass through Mishé."
"Bully for you!" said Reith. "Are you packed to go?"
"Oh, hell, I'd forgot we're leaving! Half a mo' and I shall be with you." Ordway departed at a run.
Fallon appeared, saying, "Just dropped by to see you off"