“Ah, that sweet bare-skinned redhead.” Mudge spoke wistfully. “Always was like that, ’idin’ ’er true feelings behind a fake wall o’ temper. That’s just to show the world ’ow tough she is. When she says yes she means no, and when she says no she means yes.”
“She had her sword out a few hours ago. I think that means ‘no.’”
“Wot a sense o’ humor. You’re a lucky male, Jon-Tom.” The otter chuckled.
“I believe,” he continued dryly, “she intended to come up here and cut your heart out.”
The otter shook his head. “Wot a laugh, your Talea!”
Jon-Tom glanced toward the stairway. “In fact, I think I hear her coming up now.”
The otter’s smile vanished instantly and he bounded back behind the bed, the amused expression on his furry face now replaced by one of stark terror.
“Don’t let ’er get me, mate. I’ve seen ’er like this before. She goes crazy. You can’t talk to ’er, no one can, not even you.”
Jon-Tom suppressed a smile. “I think she’s gone back down—for the moment. No promises, but if you agree to accompany me I think I can calm her down long enough for us to slip out of the house without bloodshed.”
Mudge looked uncertain. “Got to cross the ’ole Glittergeist, you say?”
Jon-Tom nodded slowly. “And then an unknown stretch of jungle after we leave the boat.”
The otter considered silently before replying. “I ain’t so sure I wouldn’t be better off just takin’ me chances with Talea’s sword.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little bitty gal like Talea?”
“You ’aven’t seen that ‘little bitty’ one fight the way I ’ave. She’s ruthless as a magistrate on ’angin’ day.”
Jon-Tom turned and started down the stairs. “You coming with me or not?”
“Give me another minute to think it over, mate,” the otter pleaded.
“I can hear her banging around down there with that sword. Sounds like she’s getting herself good and worked up.”
“Okay, okay.” The otter rushed out from behind the bed. “Just keep ’er off me, will you?”
“Let’s go,” Jon-Tom suggested. “It won’t seem so bad on a full stomach, although,” and he glanced down at the bulge that was straining the limits of the otter’s waistband, “you don’t look like you’ve been empty for some time.”
“Right. Always a good idea to eat and then talk. Besides, if she’s wieldin’ a servin’ spoon she can’t handle a sword.” He was careful to follow his host down the stairs.
“A wonderful meal, luv.” Mudge leaned back in his chair as if to accentuate the compliment, wiping grease and fragments of food from his lips. “All those years you and I were pickin’ pockets and relievin’ undeservin’ citizens o’ their oversized wallets and you never dropped a ’int that you could cook as well as you could cut.”
“We all have hidden talents, Mudge.” Talea was cleaning off the stove as she spoke. Clothahump’s tree-expanding spell hadn’t provided for a separate dining area so the rough-hewn table was located in the middle of the kitchen.
“That we do,” the otter agreed contentedly. “Wot might you suppose mine would be?”
“I think you’d make a fine salesman,” she replied, wiping her hands with a damp rag. “You’ve always been as fast with your tongue as with your feet.”
“Crikey, that’s wot all the ladies tell me. But, says I, why haul a lot o’ goods around the country to sell when ’tis easier and cleaner to relieve folks o’ their coin without burdenin’ them with shoddy goods in return?”
“Something called morals.” Jon-Tom was finishing the last of his lunch.
The otter’s brows drew together. “Morals, morals—let me see now. I’m sure I’ve ’eard that word somewhere before, lad, but at the moment its meanin’ escapes me. Some sort o’ fruit or somethin’, ain’t it? Grows up north somewheres?” Jon-Tom could only shake his head ruefully.
Mudge slipped out of his chair and stretched. “’Tis been a wonderfully relaxing few days, it has, but I know when I’ve overstayed me welcome. No, you needn’t try to talk me out o’ leavin’.” He put up a restraining paw despite the fact that his hosts were not exactly imploring him to change his mind. “Far be it from me to strain a friend’s largess. I can see that ’tis time for old Mudge to be movin’ on. They say the opportunities for ungainful employment in Malderpot are ’ot just now. I think I’ll mosey on up that way and check out the scenery, so to speak.”
Jon-Tom put his fork aside. “Just a minute. Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Forgettin’ somethin’?” The otter mumbled to himself for a moment, then he said brightly, “O’ course. Don’t worry, mate, I’ll see to me kit and me weapons before I takes me leave. Wouldn’t do for old Mudge to go traipsin’ off without ’is weapons, now would it?”
“Certainly not, considering the length of the journey that lies ahead of us.”
“Us? Long journey? Oh, you mean that brief ocean voyage you were tellin’ me about. I’m sure it’ll do you well, mate. The sea seems to agree with you. When you get back you ‘ave to look me up so you can tell me all about it.”
Jon-Tom’s sense of humor was ebbing rapidly. “You’re forgetting something else. You’re coming with me, remember? You agreed.”
“Piffle. Surely you didn’t take that serious, lad? Now, if your life were in danger or it were a truly serious situation, why, I wouldn’t ’esitate to tag along to back you up.”
“You don’t think the fact that my duar is shattered is serious?”
Mudge shrugged. “Serious for you maybe; not serious for anybody else. Not my responsibility, it ain’t. As I said, if you were off to save the world. …”
“You’d be so eager to come along you’d be tripping over your own feet, I know,” Jon-Tom said evenly. “Now you listen to me, Mudge. You go upstairs and pack your things, but not for Malderpot. We’re leaving for Yarrowl in half an hour.”
“Yarrowl? I ain’t got no business in Yarrowl, mate.” The otter stared back at him out of steely dark eyes. “I might accompany you for a day or so just so’s to make sure you start off on the right road, but then I promise you mate, I’d just kind o’ slip away quiet-like some night in the woods.”
“You never did anything like that before.”
“Me conscience were never clear about it before. Knowin’ this time that I weren’t abandonin’ you to some ’orrible danger, I wouldn’t have a second thought about it.”
