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Gudge eyed his master with a look of cool disdain worthy of a Lofty Elf. So perfectly belittling was that glance that it gave Prince Lorimel the optic equivalent of being smacked right in the chops with a sizeable halibut. Even the lovely-but-cruel Beverel was shocked to see an expression of so much authority upon the countenance of such a previously underestimated supporting character.
But all Gudge said was, “Well, we’ll just be off then, m’lud,” and he headed up the dungeon steps with a bemused and doubtful Vug in tow.
Once they were beyond the dungeon door and had stepped gingerly over the puddled troll in the corridor, Gudge turned to Vug and said, “Beggin’ yer Depravity’s pardon, but this be as far as I can go ’thout ’ee gives me some d’rections, seein’ as how I be a stranger to Castle Bonecrack.”
Vug blushed a becoming shade of rosy pink. “Of course; how silly of me. This way, if you please.” She gave Gudge’s leash a tug, but it was really more of a gentle waggle that didn’t even make the links clank together.
By way of fetid passageways, dimly lit and vermin-haunted stairwells, musty rooms rank with the stench of ageless evil, and the back door to the kitchen, Vug at last brought Gudge out into the light of day. The elf prince’s castoff servant blinked to accustom his eyes to the long-missed brightness and filled his lungs with the sweet air of the little herb garden whither Vug had conducted him.
“Ah, ’tis true as they say,” Gudge opined, a look of beatific calm and resignation on his face. “A garden’s a lovesome thing, th’ gods wot, where t’ be cruelly done t’ death by an evil overlord’s daughter what’s as wicked as she’s beautiful. All right then, young lady: I be as ready naow as ever t’ perish, aye. Just say t’ word as to where ’ee’d find it most cornveenent fer me t’ stand whilst ’ee rends me limb from limb, if that’s yer pleasure.”
“Rend you limb from-? Oh my, no!” Vug dropped Gudge’s lead chain and clapped both hands to her face in an access of dismay.
“Nay?” Gudge gave her a speculative look. “Then I’m t’ die by murd’rous sorcery, aye?”
Vug shook her head in the negative so hard that she whapped herself across the mouth several times with both braids. “Not that. I couldn’t stand doing that to anyone.”
By now Gudge was truly flummoxed. “Not death by steel nor death by sorcery? What’s left, then? Ah, wait, I knows th’ answer! ’Tis poison as must send me into th’ shadows.” He slapped his forehead as best he could without breaking his own nose with the manacles binding his wrists. “How could I’ve forgot summat that simple? An’ this here garden where ’ee’ve brang me, m’lady, no doubt’s the source fer the venom as’ll be my doom, aye?” He bent over and plucked a large tuft of leaves from the nearest plant. “Well, as me old slut of a Mum used t’ say, don’t be shy, no one’s gettin’ any younger, no time like the present, and bottoms up!”
He stuffed the leaves into his mouth, chewed lustily, and swallowed, then stood by with a look of uncomplaining anticipation.
“Er, sir?” Vug tapped her captive lightly on the shoulder. “That was basil.”
“Oh, aye?” Gudge ran his tongue over his teeth, dislodging a few clingy green shreds. “An’ what’d poor ol’ Basil do wrong fer ’ee t’ be turnin’ ’im inter a poisonous shrub?”
Vug patiently corrected Gudge’s misapprehension. He listened attentively, then said, “I see. Well now, in that case, I’d be obleeged if ’ee’d point me at th’ nearest properly lethal veggie. Meanin’ no offense t’ yer Dread Badness, fer ’tis not yer comp’ny as I’m findin’ teedjus, but on th’ other hand, there’s no sense puttin’ off th’ inevitable, nay. Th’ sooner I’m dead an’ gone, th’ sooner I can stop bein’ scairt a mere halfway t’ death o’ dyin’, as is me present state o’ mind. So… got any henbane?”
Vug began to weep. “Oh, please stop being so nice about this!” she wailed. “It’s bad enough my having to kill you without your being helpful about it. Really, it’s too cruel!”
At this point, Gudge’s bewilderment had reached that level where the bewilderee begins to question his own sanity. In such cases, matters have come to such a cognitively dissonant head that the only two possible explanations are:
That the whole world has gone mad or:
That the witness to such alleged madness is himself irredeemably ’round the twist.
Most people placed in such a lose-lose situation tend to get rather testy about it. Gudge was no exception.
“Naow look’ee here, Missy!” he exclaimed, rattling his manacles in a monitory ma
“Aye. I mean, yes,” Vug said in a miserable voice not much above a whisper.
“An’ ’ee knows yon rules of which I speak?”
This time Vug merely nodded.
“Then what’s holdin’ ’ee back from slaughterin’ me, seein’ as how th’ rules says ’ee’ve got t’ be as wicked as yer beautiful? Fer if that’s so, ’ee must needs be th’ wickedest creetur as ever breathed.”
It was now Vug’s turn to put sanity on the witness stand to determine when it had left the premises.
“You… you think I’m that evil-I mean, that beautiful?” she asked Gudge.
“Aye, m’lady.” Gudge’s face broke into a rapturous smile. “ ’Ee be th’ fairest thing as I’ve ever seen, an’ ’tis me one consolement, here on th’ brink o’ death hisself, t’ have been able t’ get me an eyeful o’ such pulchritude as yer own. Now let me die, fer ’tis me sad and sorrowful fate that-”
“Shut up, Gudge,” said Vug, and she threw him down and had him in the basil.
Some time later, Gudge sat up and scraped impromptu pesto out of his hair. “You know, if this is the way you’re going to kill me, my lady, I feel honor bound to tell you that it’s not working,” he said. “Not that I’m complaining, you understand.”
Vug sat bolt upright and stared at him as though he’d sprouted radishes. “You can talk?” she exclaimed. “I mean, you can talk like that? Did I just break some kind of evil enchantment on you? Usually it only takes a kiss. Daddy always did say I was an overachiever.”
Gudge shrugged. “This is the way I speak. It’s not much help in the job market, though. Outside of their house-and-palace domestics, the Lofty Elves only hire servants who speak fluent Bumpkinshire, for some reason. Ooo, arrh, aye,” he added for effect, and tugged his forelock is the approved Rustic Underling ma
“Then the Lofty Elves are all a bunch of smug, affected, bullying twits,” Vug said grimly. “Just like Beverel. That mean, greedy thing knows that I’m the one who’s supposed to take care of all our prisoners, but did that stop h-”
Gudge stemmed the flow of her complaints against Beverel with a kiss. “My sweet Vug, I’m begi
Vug smiled and kissed him back. “I should hope not! The only proper way to take care of prisoners is seeing that they’ve got enough to eat and drink, that their cells aren’t too dank or too warm, that all the dungeon rats have had their rabies shots, that their manacles aren’t too tight or too-Wait, let me get that for you.”
She spoke a word of power and Gudge’s irons dropped away from neck and wrists. “That’s better.” She favored him with a smile. “Anyway, that’s how I take care of prisoners. Beverel makes fun of me, but it can’t be helped. There’s no getting around the rules: the evil overlord’s daughter must always be as wicked as she is beautiful, and just look at me! Once I put on a little bit of lipstick and kicked Daddy’s favorite hellhound, but I felt terrible about it afterward.”
Gudge took her in his newly freed arms. “Bother the rules,” he said. “I say you are beautiful, even if you’re nowhere near wicked. Your father’s minions can recapture me, drag me back down into that dungeon, torture me, and I’ll still say so.”