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bar without another word.
    One would think that such a strong reaction to Dovo’s faux pas would have taught a lesson to the other men in the Bold Bard. But such was not the case. Mayor Tobald left shortly after the contretemps, with many a yawn and a belch, but Grodoveth remained behind, with a predator’s eye on Kendra, who continued to nurse a single mug of Old One Eye.
    At last the king’s envoy got up and walked over to the beautiful adventuress. Everyone in the tavern suddenly quieted and paid attention, but Grodoveth was using the technique he had used with Mayella—soft and subtle, though not subtle enough for Barthelm’s tastes. Not enough for Kendra’s either, for she looked at Grodoveth as though he had just fouled her beer, and placed a hand on her sword hilt.
    I saw Grodoveth’s shoulders shake with a chuckle, and Kendra’s expression change from sneer to snarl, showing pearly, perfect teeth. Grodoveth shrugged, said something
    else that infuriated the woman, then slowly stood up and bowed deeply.
    Kendra knew better than to attack an envoy of the king of the land in which she was a guest, and Grodoveth knew she knew it. I can only guess at what he said to her, and those who were close enough to hear would not repeat the words. “Nay,” said Tim Butterworth later, “that language I’d not use before the foulest drab in Huddagh.”
    Grodoveth spoke again, and this rime Kendra turned her back on him, wishing, no doubt, that he would grab her as Dovo did, so that she could split his head to the gullet legally. But Grodoveth didn’t touch her, just laughed and walked out of the tavern. No one talked to the woman after that but Shortshanks, who apologized for the crude behavior of his customers.
    In another half hour I decided to leave as well and return to Benelaius’s cottage. He would still be awake. Indeed, I hardly ever saw my master sleeping, in spite of his physical indolence. Perhaps, I thought, his lack of motion made it unnecessary for sleep to refresh him, since he never really expended any energy other than mental.
    I retrieved the cask of clarry from behind the bar, settled my account with Shortshanks, and strapped the cask behind the saddle. Then I mounted Jenkus and headed southeast toward the Vast Swamp. And the ghost.
    *****
    I had not had very much to drink, so it was difficult to forget about the stories of Fastred’s ghost. I tried to occupy my mind by recalling as best I could everything that had been said and done tonight at the Bold Bard, for I knew Benelaius would want to hear every detail.
    He reveled in the stories I brought back from town, and I often wondered why he did not go in himself on occasion. In spite of his corpulence, he was certainly mobile enough, for I once saw him dash across the room to keep an armillary sphere from crashing to the floor after one of the cats had bumped it
    Still, as I drew nearer the Vast Swamp, my mind was filled with the tales of haunts and phantoms and geists, let alone the monsters that I was positive really did live in the swamp. I tried to imagine once more that I was the brave and gallant Camber Fosrick, who would laugh at ghosts and snicker at specters.
    But by the time I arrived at the fork in the road and turned left toward Benelaius’s abode, I was, I confess it, aquiver with nervousness. I tried to avert my glance from the swamp now on my right, but my gaze kept moving there. The moon provided but little light, and I thought that a mercy as I rode on. Jenkus sensed my nervousness, for he was a mite skittish himself, and I kept a firm grasp on his reins.
    Then, at a spot where the road curved to bring my path close to the treacherous Vast Swamp, I heard a dull moan, like the voice of a man with his head in a well. It came from the direction of the swamp, and although I told myself to ride on and not to look, of course my head shifted until I was gazing through ribbons of mist. Not twenty yards ahead, so close to the road that it