‘Hmm, a most gravid mystery indeed.’
‘You may find this amusing right now, Bugg, but you are the one who will be sleeping down there. They’ll peck your eyes out, you know. Evil has been bred into them, generation after generation, until their tiny black bean brains are condensed knots of malice-’
‘You display unexpected familiarity with hens, Master.’
‘I had a tutor who was a human version.’
Bugg leaned back and glanced over at the woman sleeping in Tehol’s bed.
‘Not her. Janath was only mildly vicious, as properly befits all instructors, plagued as they often are by mewling, lovestruck, pimply-faced students.’
‘Oh, Master, I am sorry.’
‘Be quiet. We’re not talking about that. No, instead, Bugg, my house has been invaded by rabid hens, because of your habit of taking in strays and the like.’
‘Strays? We’re going to eat those things.’
‘No wonder strays avoid you these days. Listen to them-how will we sleep with all that racket going on?’
‘I suppose they’re happy, Master. And in any case they are taking care of that cockroach infestation really fast.’
Creaking from the bed behind them drew their attention.
The scholar was sitting up, looking about in confusion.
Tehol hastily pushed Bugg towards her.
She frowned as the old man approached. ‘Where am I? Who are you? Are we on a roof?’
‘What do you last recall?’ Bugg asked.
‘Being alone. In the dark. He moved me… to a new place.’
‘You have been freed,’ he said.
Janath was examining her shapeless, rough tunic. ‘Freed,’ she said in a low voice.
‘That shift was all we could find at short notice,’ Bugg said. ‘Of course, we will endeavour to, uh, improve your apparel as soon as we are able.’
‘I have been healed.’
‘Your physical wounds, yes.’
Grimacing, she nodded. ‘The other kind is rather more elusive.’
‘You seem remarkably… sound, Janath.’
She glanced up at him. ‘You know me.’
‘My master was once a student of yours.’ He watched as she sought to look past him, first to one side, then the other. Bemused, Bugg turned, to see Tehol moving back and forth in an effort to keep the manservant between him-self and the woman on the bed. ‘Tehol? What are you doing?’
‘Tehol? Tehol Beddict?’
Bugg spun round again, to see Janath gathering her tunic and stretching it out here and there in an effort to cover as much of her body as she could.
‘That lecherous, pathetic worm? Is that you, Tehol? Hiding there behind this old man? Well, you certainly haven’t changed, have you? Get out here, front and centre!’
Tehol stepped into view. Then bridled. ‘Hold on, I am no longer your student, Janath! Besides, I’m well over you, I’ll have you know. I haven’t dreamt of you in… in… years! Months!’
Her brows rose. ‘Weeks?’
Tehol drew himself straighter. ‘It is well known that an adult man’s adolescent misapprehensions often insinuate themselves when said man is sleeping, in his dreams, I mean. Or, indeed, nightmares-’
‘I doubt I feature in your nightmares, Tehol,’ Janath said. ‘Although you do in mine.’
‘Oh, really. I was no more pathetic than any other pathetic, lovestruck student. Was I?’
To that she said nothing.
Bugg said to her, ‘You are indeed on a roof-’
‘Above a chicken coop?’
‘Well, as to that. Are you hungry?’
‘The fine aroma of roasting chicken is making my mouth water,’ she replied. ‘Oh, please, have you no other clothes? I have no doubt at all what is going on in my former student’s disgusting little brain right now.’
‘Come the morning,’ Bugg said, ‘I will pay a visit to Selush-her wardrobe, while somewhat abysmal in taste, is nonetheless extensive.’
‘Want my blanket?’ Tehol asked her.
‘Gods below, Master, you’re almost leering.’
‘Don’t be insane, Bugg. I was making light. Ha ha, we’re trapped in a dearth of attire. Ha ha. After all, what if that had been a child’s tunic?’
In a deadpan voice, Janath said, ‘What if it had.’
‘Errant’s blessing,’ Tehol said with a loud sigh, ‘these summer nights are hot, aren’t they?’
‘I know one hen that would agree with you,’ Bugg noted, walking back to the hatch, from which a column of smoke was now rising.