Swords: 08 - The Fifth Book Of Lost Swords - Coinspinner’s Story (22 page)

      
Noting Marland’s expression—anger, though fortunately not directed at him—Adrian got up without comment and busied himself with some make-work tasks around the fire.

      
Amelia meanwhile went to her man, putting her hands on his shoulders, studying his face, trying to discover what his problem was.

      
She hadn’t long to wait. Standing now, he smiled ruefully and reached back over his left shoulder to pat the black hilt. “As long as I wear this, I win. I can feel it now, I’m sure of it. As long as I have this with me, I’m going to win. On every turn.”

      
“Is that so bad?”

      
He gave her a look that said she didn’t understand. “Bad? It’s—” But at that point he broke off, frowning, as if unable to explain his own feelings or even understand them. At last he said: “It isn’t gambling anymore. It’s like—picking up money in the street. It’s good to have, but there’s no kick. You ought to know what I mean.”

      
Amelia said nothing. Watching her face, Adrian thought she was tired of listening to this man, but she kept at it.

      
“Of course, if I were to take this thing into a real casino … one of the big ones…” Marland brightened as this thought occurred to him, but again fell silent.

      
“What are you thinking of doing, Buve?” Amelia sounded worried.

      
If he noticed the name by which she’d called him, he disregarded it. “What am I thinking? I’m thinking that this Sword is big magic. Really big. If it could get me out of that jail the way it did … I’m thinking that it’s bigger than anything the Red Temple can put up against it. Any Red Temple.”

      
Now his lady friend was really growing alarmed. “Buve, what are you planning now? What are you going to get us mixed up in? Remember what happened the last time.”

      
“That’s what I remember. I remember it all too well. I want to see that those bastards remember it too.” He showed his teeth in a kind of smile, and patted her arm. “Last time we didn’t have the gods on our side.”

      
But the plan, whatever it was, was put aside for the time being, withdrawn from discussion, while Marland apparently tried to perfect it in his own mind.

      
For sheer compulsive amusement, to have some simple fun gambling with Adrian, the man now disarmed himself temporarily. He trusted Amelia to sit close beside him, her weight on the sheathed Sword, while he and Adrian played at dice.

      
This time, after fickle fortune had reversed herself several times, Adrian eventually won all the small coins. The boy had not tried to cheat with magic. Used fairly, the dice had finally favored the Prince, while Marland went through several stages of emotion.

      
Whatever force drove Marland into this game was not satisfied until he’d lost his whole allotment of ten coins, and was tempted to dig into his pocket for more.

      
He drew on his capital for ten more, and ten more after those. At that point his luck finally turned and he won all of the coins back. Before that happened, Adrian was beginning to consider magical manipulation of the dice to force a win for Marland and restore him to a good temper.

* * *

      
The evening around the fire was drawing to a close when there came a snuffling and a rustling in the undergrowth nearby. Two greenish eyes set wide apart reflected flame, and Marland grabbed for his Sword.

      
After one or two preliminary howls issued out of the encircling darkness, causing Marland to jump up, a huge gray beast came bounding into the firelight to greet Adrian extravagantly. It was the great dog the Emperor had called Draffut.

      
Adrian, trying to fend off the creature’s demonstrations, and shield it from the Sword at the same time, at last managed to explain.

      
Marland sheathed his Sword again. “That beast isn’t going to ride in the canoe with us!”

      
“No, sir, he sure wouldn’t fit there. He can run along on shore, and keep up.”

      
“Well, as long as he keeps his distance most of the time.” The man considered. “Actually a beast like that might help me play the part.”

      
“What part?” asked Amelia, plainly mystified.

      
“That of a man who’s wealthy enough to keep a giant pet. Among other extravagances.”

      
“Then he can come with us? I promise he won’t be any trouble.”

      
“We’ll see.” Marland frowned. “Has he got a name?”

      
Adrian, with some thought in mind for the Emperor’s predilection for the truth, blurted out what he had been told: “Draffut.”

      
Marland, appreciative of irreverence, got a good laugh out of that.

* * *

      
“From here on, kid,” said Marland, next day, as they were pulling up to the docks of another town, “we’re not going to need the canoe any longer. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you for it.” It was never really money that concerned this man. “You’re still coming with us, though. I’m going to have a job for you.”

      
Draffut had disappeared, somewhere on shore. He had a tendency to do this, and Adrian felt reasonably confident that he was going to come back.

      
And he wasn’t really worried about losing the canoe, either, though it was his grandfather’s. Adrian expected that Grandfather could get it back if and when he really wanted it. With some vague idea, perhaps, of making such a recovery easier, the boy neglected to tie up the craft when they had got everything out of it. And there it went, riding the current on its own, turning freely with the breeze.

* * *

      
Having entered a sizable town, the three now began the process of rejoining civilization.

      
Looking for the best place to change his modest find of jewels to ready cash, Marland paced along the main street. Trivial incidents—a woman passing with a basket of laundry on her head, a baby crawling away from its mother—occurred to block him from the doorways of the first two stores he would have entered, but when he paused near the entrance of a third, a burdened load beast crowded him from behind, effectively nudging him inside.

      
Amelia and Adrian waited in the street. In what seemed like only a short time the man came out, smiling at them and jiggling a stack of coins in his fingers. “Just what the jeweler was looking for,” he informed them. “It seems he’s trying to construct a fancy brooch, and those little pebbles will just fit. How about something to eat?”

      
Having purchased sausages and pancakes from a street vendor, they stood on a corner munching.

      
“The more good things happen to us,” said Marland, looking at Amelia, “the more afraid you look.”

      
“I am afraid.”

      
He snorted something, and took another bite of sausage. “You afraid, Mudrat?”

      
Adrian wasn’t required to answer. Amelia was trying her best to argue with her man. “Look, Buve, we’ve got a good thing going now. A great thing. We’ve got some money, and—”

      
“
Some
money. Yeah. Hah!”

      
“You want more? We can get more, without—sticking our necks out again. We can go anywhere we want—”

      
“It’s not enough. Not after what those bastards did to me—and to you—and what they almost did. I can go anywhere I want, all right, and I know where I want to go. I’m going to take it out on them.”

      
Adrian watched as Amelia turned away. She was muttering something and he thought it might be prayers. Or maybe it was curses, or most likely some of each. She probably realized, thought the Prince, that her chances of talking Marland out of a scheme, once he’d made up his mind to it, were practically zero.

      
When they had finished their lunch, Marland walked ahead, strolling the street, doubtless trying to plan just what he ought to do next. Amelia and Adrian followed. They had the opportunity for another private talk, in which Amelia spelled out her fears in greater detail.

      
“Cham,” she suggested suddenly, “your canoe’s gone-—he didn’t pay you for that yet, did he?”

      
“No, ma’am.”

      
“He will—he’s not a tightwad. Where’s your dog?”

      
“Around somewhere. He’ll show up.”

      
“Good. When he does, you might take your money and your dog and get on out of town. There’s safer people than us for you to hang around with.”

      
Adrian, wondering what to say, said nothing.

      
In a moment the woman continued: “Marland thinks you’re lucky for him, and no gambler ever has enough luck. But whatever happens is not going to be lucky for you, kid. Or for me either. I can feel it.”

      
“You’re not running away.”

      
“Me? No. He’d come after me, and with that lucky charm of his he’d find me. Besides, I—I had my chance a long time ago, and I didn’t take it then.” She seemed to feel trapped, compelled, in a way that young Adrian couldn’t understand. It was foreign to his whole way of thinking.

      
“But you can go, sonny. He won’t care about losing you that much. It’ll be easy for him to recruit another helper if he thinks he needs one.”

      
The Prince could not help feeling tempted. The overall geography was now definite enough in his mind that he felt fairly confident of being able to find his way home from here; he would have a little money, and of course his skills. But he interpreted what his grandfather had said to him as encouragement in his course of pursuing Coinspinner, though it had included a warning to be careful while he did so. And the Emperor trusted him, believed that he would be able to get the Sword, or at least do a good job of trying.

      
So the Prince was not going to turn his back on the Sword. Not now. “I guess I’ll stick around for a while yet.”

      
Amelia stared at him. The way she looked made him believe that she could be really nasty if she wanted to. “What do you think you’re going to get out of it? Do you think he’s really going to make you rich? He doesn’t care about that, not really. He’s going to get all three of us killed, most likely.”

      
“I’m staying. Marland’s got a lot of luck on his side.”

      
Amelia looked at him now as if she wondered who he really was. “All right, all right. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

      
Adrian certainly would never be able to say that. And despite his brave words and his decision he was worried. Sometimes he had definite magical indications that Wood was coming after him again.

      
On their first night under a roof, in the first cheap suburban inn they came to, Adrian saw Marland sleeping with the sheathed Sword pinned beneath his head and body, making a hard pillow, no doubt, but the only one that could give this man rest.

      
Once more the Prince, for a moment at least, contemplated trying to grab the Sword away. Grab for the black hilt, tug it from the sheath. The trick seemed safe, and almost easy. But always, knowing the Sword’s power, Adrian held back. And in fact, when he looked closer, he saw that Marland had tied the hilt to the sheath with a thread or thong.

      
No, Adrian thought, the only way to get Coinspinner away from its owner was to have him give it freely. Of course in this case the chance of that happening was just no chance at all. Then why was he, Adrian, hanging around? Because, he supposed, he was too stubborn to give up.

      
As they hiked between towns next day, the gambler was ready to take his two confederates into his confidence regarding his plan to gain revenge on the Red Temple. Marland was going to have to tell both of them the plan in some detail, because he was going to need the help of both in carrying the plan out.

      
“The trouble is,” said Marland, “that Coinspinner here is never going to let me lose. Not ever. Not even once.”

      
“A lot of people,” said Amy, “would like to have that kind of trouble.”

      
“Shut up for a minute and let me finish. You see, the problem, my friends, is that the people who run the big casino are not idiots. They’re—”

      
“The big casino.” Amy stopped for a moment in the middle of the road. “
Did you say the big casino?
”

      
“Yes, my lady. Yes, my dearest. That’s just what I said.”

      
“O gods, I was afraid that’s what you had in mind. What are they going to do when they see you come back?”

      
He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her forward, set her walking down the road again. “They’re not going to see me come back, my love. Because I don’t want them to see me, and I’m very lucky now—haven’t you noticed? Or if they do see me, they won’t know me. I’ve lost weight since they’ve seen me last—a lot of weight. Plus, I have this new beard.” He stroked it. Adrian thought it was looking somehow thicker and healthier in just the few days since Marland had started to become prosperous.

      
“They won’t let you carry a weapon up to the gaming tables—will they?”

      
“You know something, Amy? I’m not going to ask their permission—now will you let me finish? They’re not idiots, as I was starting to say, and if they find themselves up against a gambler who never loses, they’re just going to close down the game, if necessary, until they find out what’s wrong. And they’re going to do that long before their bank is broken.”