Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [89]
“Nope.” The swordsman nodded at Ehomba. “He’s the wizard. This one here, he’s just a dipso who knows everything.”
“He can’t know everything,” the proprietor protested.
A line of slightly yellowish drool dribbling from the scabby right corner of his mouth, Knucker cackled softly. “Your wife knows where the drawer is. Why do you think each time you go there that there’s always a little less in the bottles than you remember?” The landlord’s lower jaw fell farther. “She also knows that you’re tumbling the downstairs maid.”
A look of tentative satisfaction came over the stocky landlord’s face. “Ha! You may be some kind of besotted seer who can see certain things, but you can’t see everything! I know my wife. If she knew that, she would have confronted me with it.”
Turning away from the men supporting him, Knucker coughed once. “Not in this instance. Because, you see, she is tumbling the downstairs maid also. It’s a matter of mutual tumbling, actually.”
The proprietor looked stricken. “By all the deities, you may not know everything, but you know too much!” Turning away angrily, he resumed the ascent. “No more, tell me no more!”
As they struggled up the stairs, Simna leaned closer to the man he was helping to support. “So the lady of the house and a servant are having a twiddle, hoy?” An inquisitive leer stole across his face. “If you know that, you must know all the details.”
Turning to him, Knucker tried to stand a little straighter as he was half carried, half dragged upward. “I may be many things, sir, but at least I am not degenerate.”
“Hoy. There lies the difference between us, bruther. I admit to what I am.”
“A drink.” The little man licked his lips and smacked his tongue against his palate, sending out the universal signal of need common to all his kind. “I’ve got to have something to drink.”
“We will try to get you some nice tea as soon as we are settled,” Ehomba told him reassuringly. A look of horror came over Knucker’s face.
The landlord had stopped outside a door. “I have only one room vacant, and it is far too small for your party. But this one here is a spacious chamber and you will be quite comfortable within—if I can persuade the current occupant to move.” He put his finger to his lips as he gently inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. “The gentleman is presently within, but I will offer him a discount and a free breakfast, and I think if I explain the situation to him calmly and rationally he may be willing to accept alternate quarters for the night.”
As soon as the door was open, Ahlitah pushed past the assembled humans. “I’ll explain the situation to him.”
“No!” As the proprietor reached out to grab and try to restrain the big cat, a small but loud voice shrieked warningly within his head, “What do you think you are doing?” Ordinary common sense immediately overwhelming his stalwart sense of managerial duty, he hastily drew back his hand.
Silently padding across the floor, the black litah approached the large bed and the single sleeping shape within. Reaching up, he rested a forepaw on the figure’s shoulder.
“Mmph—wha . . . ?” The sleeper’s eyes flickered. Then they opened wide. Real wide.
Ahlitah leaned close and spoke softly. “Go away.”
Wide awake, the naked sleeper gathered sheets and blanket around him and flew off the bed in the direction of the door. “I’m gone,” he responded. And he was, not even pausing to complain to the landlord. The stubby owner did not try to stop or slow him. He could not have done so in any event.
“I expect I’ll find him downstairs, in my office.” He sighed again. “He’ll probably want a refund.” Stepping into the room, he brought out a striker and lit the two oil lamps within, one on the wall by the doorway and another that sat on a small writing table. “There is another, smaller bed in the second sleeping room. Through that door, there.” He pointed. “Please try to keep quiet. It’s very late, and everyone else in the house is asleep.”
Ehomba assured him that they would prepare for slumber