"Ah, those treacherous grooms!”⁵ They think they can trick anyone! So they send you to a sorcerer of questionable repute."

Cugel anxiously searched the landscape ahead. "Is no other shelter at hand?"

"Our grooms formerly took in wayfarers and murdered them in their beds, but no one wanted to bury the corpses so they gave up the trade. The next lodging is twenty miles."

"That is bad news," said Cugel. "How does one deal with Faucelme?"

The mermelants munched at the sweet-grass. One said: "Do you carry beer? We are beer-drinkers of noble repute and show our bellies to all."

"I have only crab-apples, to which you are welcome."

"Yes, those are good," said the mermelant, and Cugel distributed what fruit he carried.

"If you go to Faucelme, be wary of his tricks! A fat merchant survived by singing lewd songs the whole night long and never turning his back on Faucelme."

One of the farmers came around the wagon, to halt in annoyance at the sight of Cugel. "What are you doing here? Be off with you and stop annoying the mermelants."

Deigning no reply, Cugel set off along the road. With the sun scraping along the forested sky-line, he came to Faucelme's manse: a rambling timber structure of several levels, with a profusion of bays, low square towers with windows all around, balconies, decks, high gables and a dozen tall thin chimneys.

Concealing himself behind a tree, Cugel studied the house. Several of the windows glowed with light, but Cugel noted no movement within. It was, he thought, a house of pleasant aspect, where one would not expect to find a monster of trickery in residence.

Crouching, keeping to the cover of trees and shrubbery, Cugel approached the manse. With cat-like stealth he sidled to a window and peered within.

At a table, reading from a yellow-leafed book, sat a man of indeterminate age, stoop-shouldered and bald except for a fringe of brown-gray hair. A long nose hooked from his rather squat head, with protuberant milky golden eyes close-set to either side. His arms and legs were long and angular; he wore a black velvet suit and rings on every finger, save the forefingers where he wore three. In repose his face seemed calm and easy, and Cugel looked in vain for what he considered the signals of depravity.

Cugel surveyed the room and its contents. On a sideboard rested a miscellany of curios and oddments: a pyramid of black stone, a coil of rope, glass bottles, small masks hanging on a board, stacked books, a zither, a brass instrument of many arcs and beams, a bouquet of flowers carved from stone.

Cugel ran light-footed to the front door, where he discovered a heavy brass knocker in the form of a tongue dangling from the mouth of a gargoyle. He let the knocker drop and called out: "Open within! An honest wayfarer needs lodging and will pay a fee!"

Cugel ran back to the window. He watched Faucelme rise to his feet, stand a moment with head cocked sidewise, then walk from the room. Cugel instantly opened the window and climbed within. He closed the window, took the rope from the sideboard and went to stand in the shadows.