The World Shuffler (4 page)

“I have to talk to you!” Lafayette said desperately.

“It’ll cost you,” Swinehild said flatly. “H-how much?”

“By the hour, or all night?”

“Well, it won’t take but a few minutes to explain matters,” Lafayette said eagerly. “Now, to begin with—”

“Wait a minute.” The girl dropped Hulk’s heels. “I got to slip into my working clothes.”

“You’re fine just as you are,” Lafayette said hastily. “Now, as I was saying—”

“Are you trying to tell me my business, stranger?”

“No—that is, I’m not a stranger! We’ve known each other for years! Don’t you remember the first time we met, at the ball King Goruble decreed to celebrate my agreeing to take on a little chore of dragon-slaying? You were wearing a blue dress with little bitty pearls on it, and you had a tiger cub on a leash—”

“Aw—you poor sucker,” Swinehild said in sudden comprehension. “Your marbles is scrambled, huh? Why didn’t you say so? Hey,” she added, “when you said you wanted to talk, you really meant talk, huh?”

“Of course, what else? Now, look here, Adoranne: I don’t know what’s happened—some kind of hypnotic suggestion, maybe—but I’m sure with a little effort you could remember. Try hard, now: Picture a big, pink quartz palace, lots of knights and ladies in fancy costumes, your apartments in the west wing, done in pink and gold, and with a view of the gardens, the gay round of parties and fetes—”

“Slow down, bub.” Swinehild took a bottle from under the bar, selected two cloudy glasses from the mismatched collection heaped in the wooden sink, and poured out two stiff drinks. She lifted her glass and sighed.

“Here’s to you, mister. You’re nutty as a couple of dancing squirrels, but you got a nifty delusional system working there, I’ll say that for you.” She tossed the shot back with a practiced twist of the wrist. Lafayette sampled his, winced at the pain, then swallowed it whole. Swinehild watched sympathetically as he fought to draw breath.

“I guess life in these parlous times is enough to drive any kind of sensitive guy off his wire. Where you from, anyway? Not from around here. You dress too fancy for that.”

“Well, the fact is,” Lafayette started, and paused. “The fact is, I don’t quite know how to explain it,” he finished in a hopeless tone. Suddenly, he was acutely aware of the pain of scratches and the ache of unaccustomedly stretched muscles, conscious of his urgent need of a good dinner and a hot bath and a warm bed.

Swinehild patted his hand with a hard little palm. “Well, don’t worry about it, sugar. Maybe tomorrow everything’ll look brighter. But I doubt it,” she added, suddenly brisk again. She refilled her glass, drained it, placed the cork in the bottle, and drove it home with a blow of her palm. “It ain’t going to get no better as long as that old goat Rodolpho’s sitting on the ducal chair.”

Lafayette poured his glass full and gulped it without noticing until the fiery stuff seared his throat.

“Listen,” he gasped, “Maybe the best thing would be for you to fill me in a bit on the background. I mean, I’m obviously not in Artesia any longer. And yet there are certain obvious parallels, such as you and Alain, and the general lie of the land. Maybe I’ll be able to detect some useful analog and take it from there.”

Swinehild scratched absently at her ribs. “Well, what’s to say? Up to a couple years ago, this used to be a pretty fair duchy. I mean, we didn’t have much, but we got by, you know what I mean? Then everything just kind of went from bad to worse: taxes, regulations, rules. The cricket blight took out the tobacco and pot crops, then the plague of mildew spoiled the vintage two years running, then the yeast famine: that knocked out the ale. We squeaked by on imported rum until that ran out. Since then it’s been small beer and groundhog sausage.”

“Say, that reminds me,” Lafayette said. “That ground hog sounds good.”

“Brother, you must be hungry.” Swinehild recovered the skillet from behind the door, shook up the coals in the grate, tossed a dubious-looking patty of grayish meat into the melting grease.

“Tell me more about this Duke Rodolpho you mentioned,” Lafayette suggested.

“I only seen the bum once, as I was leaving the ducal-guard barracks about three at the A.M.; visiting a sick friend, you understand. The old boy was taking a little stroll in the garden, and being as it was early yet, I skinned over the fence and tried to strike up a conversation. Not that his type appeals to me. But I thought it might be a valuable connection, like.” Swinehild gave Lafayette a look which might have been coy coming from anyone else. “But the old goat gave me the swift heave-ho,” she finished, cracking an undersized egg with a sharp rap on the edge of the skillet. “He said something about me being young enough to be his niece, and yelled for the johns. I ask you, what kind of administration can you expect from an old buzzard with no more sporting instinct than that?”

“Hmm,” Lafayette said thoughtfully. “Tell me, ah, Swinehild, how would I go about getting an audience with this duke?”

“Don’t try it,” the girl advised. “He’s got a nasty reputation for throwing pests to the lions.”

“If anybody knows what’s going on here, it ought to be him,” Lafayette mused. “You see, the way I have it figured out, Artesia hasn’t really disappeared: I have.”

Swinehild looked at him over her shoulder, tsked, and shook her head.

“And you not hardly more’n middle-aged,” she said.

“Middle-aged? I’m not quite thirty,” Lafayette pointed out. “Although I admit that tonight I feel a hundred and nine. Still, having a plan of action helps,” He sniffed the crisping patty as Swinehild lifted it onto a chipped plate, added the brownish egg, and slid it in front of him.

“You did say ground hog?” he inquired dubiously, eyeing the offering askance.

“Groundhog is what I said. More power to you, mister. I could never choke the stuff back, myself.”

“Look here, why don’t you call me Lafayette?” he suggested, sampling the fare. Aside from a slight resemblance to library paste, it seemed to be tasteless—possibly a blessing in disguise.

“That’s too long. How about Lafe?”

“Lafe sounds like some kind of hillbilly with one overall strap and no shoes,” O’Leary protested.

“Listen, Lafe,” Swinehild said sternly, planting an elbow in front of him and favoring him with a no-nonsense look. “The quicker you get over some o’ them fancy ideas and kind of blend into the landscape around here, the better. If Rodolpho’s men spot you as a stranger, they’ll have you strung up on a curtain stretcher before you can say habeas corpus, tickling your secrets out of you with a cat-o’-nine tails.”

“Secrets? What secrets? My life is an open book. I’m an innocent victim of circumstances—”

“Sure: you’re just a harmless nut. But just try convincing Rodolpho of that. He’s as suspicious as an old maid sniffing after-shave in the shower stall.”

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Lafayette said firmly, scraping his plate. “The straightforward approach is always best. I’ll just go to him man to man, explain that I seem to have been accidentally shifted out of my proper universe by some unspecified circumstance, and ask him if he knows of anyone carrying on unauthorized experiments in psychical-energy manipulation. In fact,” he went on, warming to his subject, “he might even be in touch with Central himself. In all likelihood there’s a sub-inspector of continua on duty here, keeping an eye on things, and as soon as I explain matters—”

“You’re going to tell him
that?”
Swinehild inquired. “Look, Lafe, it’s nothing to me—but I wouldn’t if I was you, get me?”

“I’ll start first thing in the morning,” Lafayette murmured, licking the plate. “Where did you say this duke maintains his establishment?”

“I didn’t. But I might as well tell you, you’d find out anyway. The ducal keep is at the capital, about twenty miles west of here as the buzzard flies.”

“Hmmm. That puts it at just about the position of Lod’s H.Q. back in Artesia. Out in the desert, eh?” he asked the girl.

“Nix, bub. The city’s on a island, in the middle o’ Lonesome Lake.”

“Fascinating how the water level varies from one continuum to another,” Lafayette commented. “Back in Colby Corners, that whole area is under the bay. In Artesia, it’s dry as the Sahara. Here, it seems to be somewhere between. Well, be that as it may, I’d better get some rest. Frankly, I’m not as used to all this excitement as I once was. Can you direct me to an inn, Swinehild? Nothing elaborate: a modest room with bath, preferably eastern exposure. I like waking up to a cheery dawn, you know—”

“I’ll throw some fresh hay into the goat pen,” Swinehild said. “Don’t worry,” she added at Lafayette’s startled look. “It’s empty since we ate the goat.”

“You mean—there’s no hotel in town?”

“For a guy with a chipped knob, you catch on quick. Come on.” Swinehild led the way through the side door and along a rocky path that led back beside the sagging structure to a weed-choked gate. Lafayette followed, hugging himself as the cold wind cut at him.

“Just climb over,” she suggested. “You can curl up in the shed if you want, no extra charge.”

Lafayette peered through the gloom at the rusted scrap of sheet-metal roof slanting over a snarl of knee-high weeds, precariously supported by four rotting poles. He sniffed, detecting a distinct olfactory reminder of the former occupant.

“Couldn’t you find me something a trifle more cozy?” Lafayette asked desperately. “I’d be forever in your debt.”

“Not on your nickelodiodion, Jack,” Swinehild said briskly. “Cash in advance. Two coppers for the meal, two more for the accommodations, and five for the conversation.”

Lafayette dug in his pocket, came up with a handful of silver and gold coins. He handed over a fat Artesian fifty-cent piece. “Will that cover it?”

Swinehild eyed the coin on her palm, bit down on it, then stared at Lafayette.

“That’s real silver,” she whispered. “For sob-bin’ into your beer, why didn’t you say you was loaded, Lafe—I mean Lafayette? Come on, dearie! For you, nothing but the best!”

O’Leary followed his guide back inside. She paused to light a candle, led the way up steep steps into a tiny room with a low ceiling, a patchwork-quilted cot, and a round window glazed with bottle bottoms, with a potted geranium on _ the sill. He sniffed cautiously, caught only a faint odor of Octagon soap.

“Capital,” he beamed at the hostess. “This will do nicely. Now, if you’d just point out the bath? ...”

“Tub under the bed. I’ll fetch some hot water.”

Lafayette dragged out the copper hip bath, ; pulled off his coat, sat on the bed to tug at his shoes. Beyond the window, the rising moon gleamed on the distant hills, so similar to the hills of home, and at the same time so different. Back in Artesia, Daphne was probably going in to dinner on the arm of some fast-talking dandy now, wondering where he was, possibly even dabbing away a few tears of loneliness ...

He wrenched his thoughts away from the mental picture of her slim cuddliness and drew a calming lungful of air. No point in getting all emotional again. After all, he was doing all he could. Tomorrow things would seem brighter. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Absence makes the heart grow fonder ...

“Of me?” he muttered. “Or of somebody closer to the scene? ...”

The door opened and Swinehild appeared, a steaming bucket in each hand. She poured them in the bath, tested it with her elbow.

“Just right,” she said. He closed the door behind her, pulled off his clothes—the rich cloth was sadly ripped and snagged, he saw—and settled himself in the grateful warmth. There was no washcloth visible, but a lump of brown soap was ready to hand. He sudsed up, used his cupped palms to sluice water over his head, washing soap into his eyes. He sloshed vigorously, muttering to himself, rose, groping for a towel.

“Damn,” he said, “I forgot to ask—”

“Here.” Swinehild’s voice spoke beside him; a rough cloth was pressed into his hand. O’Leary grabbed it and whipped it around himself.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, stepping out onto the cold floor. He used a corner of the towel to clear an eye. The girl was just shedding a coarse cotton shift. “Here,” O’Leary blurted. “What are you doing?”

“If you’re through with the bathwater,” she said tartly, “I’m taking a bath.”

O’Leary swiftly averted his eyes—not for aesthetic reasons: quite the opposite. The quick flash he had gotten of her slender body, one toe dipped tentatively in the soapy water, had been remarkably pleasant. For all her straggly hair and chipped nails, Swinehild had a figure like a princess—like Princess Adoranne, to be precise. He mopped his back and chest quickly, gave a quick dab at his legs, turned back the covers, and hopped into the bed, pulling the quilt up to his chin.

Swinehild was humming softly to herself, splashing in a carefree way.

“Hurry up,” he said, facing the wall. “What if Alain—I mean Hulk—walks in?”

“He’ll just have to wait his turn,” Swinehild said. “Not that he ever washes below the chin, the slob.”

“He is your husband, isn’t he?”

“You could call him that. We never had no magic words said over us, or even a crummy civil ceremony at the county seat, but you know how it  is. It might remind somebody to put us on the tax rolls, he says, the bum, but if you ask me—”

“Almost finished?” O’Leary squeaked, screwing his eyes shut against a rising temptation to open them.

“Uh-huh. All done but my—”

“Please—I need my sleep if I’m going to cover all that ground tomorrow!”

“Where’s the towel?”

“On the foot of the bed.”

Soft sounds of feminine breathing, of brisk friction between coarse cloth and firm feminine flesh, the pad of bare feminine feet—

“Move over,” a soft feminine voice breathed in his ear.

“What?” Lafayette sat bolt upright. “Good lord, Swinehild, you can’t sleep here!”

“You’re telling me I can’t sleep in my own bed?” she demanded indignantly. “You expect me to bed down in the goat pen?”

“No—of course not—but ...”

“Look, Lafe, it’s share and share alike, or you can go sleep on the kitchen table, silver piece or no silver piece.” He felt her warm, smooth body slide in next to him, lean across him to blow out the candle.