" 'Do as she says,' quoth Ishbahar. 'This damned tub is cutting off our circulation.'
"By the time the sledge hammer was brought, the servants, with dippers and pails and sponges, had removed nearly all the water. So Haziran smote the tub on the side where it gripped Ishbahar's hips, and with a loud crash the tub broke into several pieces. The king gave a yelp of pain from the impact, but he recked that a bruised hip were a small price for his freedom. He dried himself, embraced Haziran, and led her off to the bedchamber. She was a level-headed woman, and had she not died of a pox a few years later, she might have saved the kingdom much grief by giving Ishbahar good advice.
"Anyway, the king ordered another bathtub. This time he made sure it was large enough so that, no matter how fat he got, he would be in no danger of being entrapped. And in later years, when officials of the House of Learning complained of the king's cutting their appropriations, Ishbahar would say: 'Ha! For all your pretended wisdom, you geniuses could not even get us out of a bathtub!'"
"An edifying tale," said Karadur. "But why did he have it fabricated of copper? It must have been much more costly that way."
"That was a decision political. His officials were embroiled in a quarrel with the potters' guild over taxes, and ordering the tub from the coppersmiths' guild was Ishbahar's way of reminding the potters who was boss."
"Now back to our own plans," said Karadur. "How shall you get your queen up the rope and into the tub again? Mighty though you be, I misdoubt you could scale the rope with one hand whilst grasping your sweetling with the other."
Jorian frowned. "You have a point. I suppose the best way were to have her grasp me round the neck from behind, thus leaving my hands free."
"Do you ween you can hoist the weight of the twain of you?"
"If not, I shall have to remain clinging to the rope until you find us a safe place to alight."
"You cannot dangle until we are out of Xylar! The journey would require hours. And if we alight ere departing this land, Gorax will desert us, and we shall be forced to flee afoot."
"Hmm." After a moment of silence, Jorian said: "I know! There's a ruined castle, said to be haunted, a dozen leagues southeast of Xylar City. A certain Baron Lore built it back in feudal days. Much of the main wall still stands. Gorax can drop us on the wall and then bring the tub down to the level of the parapet, so we can climb in. Be sure to tell him not to let the tub touch the wall, lest he deem himself freed from his last labor."
Karadur muttered: "I like it not. Demons are tricky beings, especially those we cannot see. And what is this about the castle's being haunted?"
"Just a rumor, a legend. There's probably nought to it; and if a malevolent spirit does abide there, I trust you to protect us from it by magical means."
Karadur dubiously wagged his beard. "Why not bring the tub to the edge of the palace roof, as you speak of doing at Baron Lore's castle?"
"Because, save for a narrow walk around the penthouse and a little terrace, the roof slopes down on both sides, and there is nought to hang on to ere one reaches the eaves. By myself, I might chance sliding down the roof tiles and leaping into the tub, but I cannot ask that of Estrildis."
"Curse it, boy, could you not take me across the border into Othomae and leave me there? I would instruct Gorax to obey you until his final dismissal."
"Oh, no indeed!" said Jorian. "I need you to control this aerial chariot whilst I am below fetching my darling. Cheer up, old man! We've gotten each other out of more parlous plights."
"All very well for you, young master," grumbled Karadur. "You are constructed of steel springs and whalebone, but I am old and fragile. I know not how many more of these exploits I can endure ere joining the majority."
"Well, you can't complain that life in my company has been dull, now can you?"
"Nay. Betimes I lust for some nice, quiet, boresome dullness."
The time was past midnight and a silvery half-moon was rising when Jorian sighted a sprinkling of faint lights, far off to their left. He said: "Methinks that's Xylar City yonder. Tell our demon, hard to port! His deduced reckoning was off by half a league."
The tub changed course in obedience to the Mulvanian's mental command. Soon the lignxs grew and multiplied. Some came from the windows of houses; some from the oil lamps that Jorian, when king, had erected on posts at major street crossings. This was the city's first regular street lighting; before, citizens, unless rich enough to hire bodyguards and link boys, stayed home behind bolted doors at night.
"We must keep our voices down," whispered Jorian.
By whispered commands to Karadur, who passed them on mentally to Gorax, Jorian guided the tub to the royal palace. He circled the structure before coming close to the penthouse.
"No guards on the roof; good!" he murmured.
He brought the tub to a halt six cubits above the small square terrace at one end of the penthouse. While Karadur placed the tub just where Jorian wanted it, Jorian knotted one end of the rope around the faucet and dropped the rest over the side. He prepared to climb down.
"No sword?" whispered Karadur.
"Nay. It would clank, or bang the furniture, and give me away. If an alarum sound and the guards rush in, one sword were of no avail against several."
"In the epics," mused Karadur, "heroes are ever slaying a hundred fierce foes single-handed."
"Such tales are lies, as anyone who has done real sword fighting knows. Take a legendary hero like Dauric—but here I am talking when I should be acting."
"Your besetting weakness, my son. That runaway tongue will yet be our doom."
"Perhaps; but there are worse vices than garrulity. The reason I talk so much—"
"Jorian!" said Karadur with unusual vehemence. "Shut up!"
Silenced at last, Jorian went over the side and down the rope. The soles of his boots made scarcely a whisper as they touched the tiles of the terrace.
He stole to the door of the penthouse, feeling in his purse for his picklocks. He had learned to use these implements during the year preceding his escape from Xylar. A wise woman had prophesied that Jorian was best fitted to be either a king or a wandering adventurer. He had no special desire to be either, since his real ambition was to be a prosperous, respectable craftsman like his father, Evor the Clockmaker. But circumstances conspired to thrust him into these rdles willy-nilly.
Jorian had become King of Xylar by unintentionally catching the head of his predecessor when it was thrown from the execution scaffold. Since it was plain that he could not indefinitely continue as king in the face of the Xylarian law of succession, he had determined to be the ablest adventurer he could. So he had trained himself for the rdle as rationally and thoroughly as would any expert in science, art, or law.
He studied languages, practiced martial arts, and hired a group of rascals: a cutpurse, a swindler, a forger, a bandit, a cult leader, a smuggler, a blackmailer, and two burglars, to teach him their specialties. If the gods would not let him play the part of an industrious, law-abiding bourgeois, at least he would act the rdle they had forced upon him competently.
As it turned out, he did not, on this occasion, need his picklocks, since the door was not locked. Jorian turned the knob, and the door opened with the faintest of squeals.
He well remembered the plan of the penthouse from the days when he had dwelt there. Each night he had one of his five wives sent to him. To allay jealousy, he companied with them in rotation. But the system broke down when one or more became ill or pregnant, and disputes arose over who should take the absent one's place. Finally Jorian settled the argument by saying that he was glad of a night or two off.