Faithful To The Covenant

What did you dream? asked Gaius

That you ordered me to steal the glittering knife, said Arthur. 

And did you? asked Gaius.

No, said Arthur. I was going to, but you poked me, and I woke up.

So you would have done it? said Gaius.

I would, said Arthur.

Gaius fell to thinking. Arthur would have done it. Good. He had brought him along because he was reliable.

Stacey meanwhile was still reading the story of the fisherman to Lavender and Ouvert. When would it end? She had other things to do.The ifrit showed the  fisherman a mountain pool in which swam red, blue, green and yellow fish. The fisherman caught four fish and took them to the king. The king was expecting visitors and he asked the cook to fry the fish for supper. The cook had just placed the fish in the frying pan when a beautiful woman burst through the kitchen wall and thrust her bamboo staff into the pan.

Fish, are you still faithful to your covenant? she asked.

Yes, yes, replied the fish, and they recited:

if you return, we return

if you keep faith so do we

but if you go off we are quits.

Well, said Stacey. I think I shall go off and we'll be quits as well.

But what happens next? wailed Lavender.

The cook faints and the fish are burnt, said Stacey, guessing.

But that's a terrible story, said Lavender, I'll never get to sleep.

Arthur can finish it, said Stacey, getting up to leave. She leaned over the red Day-Nighter to give the book to Arthur. But Arthur had disappeared.

Where's Arthur gone? she said to Gaius.

Prunes, said Gaius, cannily.