He knew where the salon was, because Gabrielle liked salons and so he always made a point to seek them out in every town he passed through, just in case one day she asked him where one was and he would know and could be helpful and take her there and she would be impressed. She actually never had asked him where a salon was yet, but he figured one day she might so he stayed prepared. This particular salon was not far from the inn and the streets were not too twisty, and so he found it after only four or five wrong turns. That was pretty good time for him. His luck was holding.

But it appeared the better his luck got, the worse everyone else's did, for Gabrielle's new poem did not seem to be going over well. There was quite a large audience listening to her performance, but they were fidgeting and grumbling and just not paying her the respect she deserved, because she was a wonderful poet, really. Also she was Gabrielle, which made up for a lot. He slipped as quietly as possible along the back wall and tried to figure out what their problem was with her new, truth-put-into-it epic.

He couldn't. It seemed fine to him. Gabrielle's poetry had wonderful rhythm, and the way she had scanned the lines in her description of the pitch and fall of the Argos on the waves was so vivid he was almost getting seasick just from the sound of it. And the way she described the sailors being sick over the side, and the stench from everyone living together in such a small boat for such a long time, it was terrific. Well, not terrific, because it was a pretty bad smell, but the description was terrific.

"They're Argonauts," someone in front of him said, not bothering to speak quietly. "They don't smell."

They hadn't in the first version of the poem, true. In fact, they hadn't in any version of the story he'd ever heard, but then that was Gabby for you, wasn't it? Such a unique thinker. He was going to say something to the backbench critic, but Gabrielle broke off her recitation and spoke first. "I'm sorry," she said, "but do you have a problem with something?"

The critic said nastily, "Argonauts don't smell."

"They have been on that boat for weeks. The truth is, they stink to high heaven." She looked at the man in what Joxer knew was a very dangerous fashion. Unfortunately that was at exactly the same moment he was leaning over to speak sharply to the critic himself.

Joxer had a bad feeling he was about to catch it for something. He glanced cautiously at Gabby's face, and the expression there confirmed it. Big smile, he thought, very very big smile and it might not hurt so much. "Hi, Gabrielle."

"Joxer, what are you doing here?"

"Funny," the critic said to her, "I was gonna ask you that same question."

"Yeah," said someone else, "shove off."

Several people started to boo. Joxer had seen this happen before. This was the kind of thing where a whole lot of people suddenly and for no apparent reason decided to get mad at some person who hadn't even done anything hardly. Usually that person was him, but apparently tonight it was Gabby. He pushed his way quickly to the stage. "Gabrielle," he said as pleasantly and quickly as he could manage, "let's go back to the inn now."

"Are you insane? I'm in the middle of a performance."

Or maybe the middle of a lynching. "They, uh, really don't seem to be appreciating it much."

"Of course they do." Gabrielle stepped slightly to the side to avoid being hit by a dry crust of bread that had come sailing out of nowhere. "They just think they don't."

"I don't think they do either."

"What do you know about audience reaction? Do you want to know the truth?"

"No."

"They need to know the truth because that's the whole purpose of poetry to begin with. That's what art is, truth."

He felt that this was probably not the best time nor place for Gabrielle to start expounding on her theories of Art. Actually Gabrielle's theories on Art were a little hard to take no matter where she was expounding on them. "Yeah, yeah, truth," he said, trying to verbally hustle her along, "but, ah, don't you think maybe they've had enough truth for a while?"

Gabrielle snatched another crust out of the air and flipped it back at its source somewhere far back in the room, which yelped in protest. "The truth is, I'll tell them when they've had enough. The truth is, I haven't even started yet."

"But aren't there more important things you should be doing?"

"Like what?"

"Well, like going back and apologizing to Xena, for starters." Whoops, Joxer thought.

And whoops again. First of all, he shouldn't have told her the truth, because she wasn't going to appreciate it any more than the surly audience had. Second of all, if he told her the truth that set her up to tell him the truth, and he didn't want to hear it. Whatever it was, he didn't want to hear it.

"That's what this is all about? Xena sent you to interrupt my performance to tell me to come back and apologize to her?"

Off the hook, even if it was not exactly the truth. "Well..." he hedged.

"She can forget it, and you can forget it, and you-- " this over his head to the audience-- "you be quiet, I'll start again in a minute."

This wasn't working out well. "Gabrielle," he begged desperately, "come on, let's go back."

"What makes you think I am going anywhere with you? Do you want to know the truth?"

"No," Joxer said, horrified, and backed away until he thumped into a table and sent drinks spilling. For a minute he thought Gabrielle might tell him anyway, but she had turned away from him and started reciting her ode again. Then he thought he was safe. Then the occupants of the table he had collided with, clothes damp with spilled wine, explained to him otherwise.

The only good thing, he thought ruefully as he picked himself up from the gutter they had thrown him into, the only good thing about it was that at least the tussle had distracted the audience from any aesthetic differences they might have had with Gabrielle. He could hear her voice through the open doorway, chanting the tale of how half the crew came down with dysentery, and the misery that ensued. She had such a lovely voice, Gabrielle. He listened, fascinated, for a few seconds, until he remembered why he was there. Then he got depressed again.

Joxer hung around outside the salon for a while to see if the audience should grow irritated once more and the building burst into flames or something. But apparently things did not get so bad for Gabrielle in such situations as they would get for him, and finally he abandoned his vigil and started back towards the inn.

Then he started away from it. Then he started back towards it. Then he got thoroughly lost and wandered up and down while the sun went down and the darkness deepened and people who really didn't care about the truth one way or another shoved their ways past him and disappeared into the gloom. No Gabrielle. Xena was going to be really irritable. He should go back and face her. No, he shouldn't. Well, she hadn't known he was going after Gabrielle, she wouldn't blame him. Who was he kidding? She always blamed him. Joxer sighed inwardly, and carefully ensured he remained lost for a little while longer.

After the third time his wayward feet brought him back to within sight of the inn, he gave up and went inside. The first thing he saw was nothing. Every table in the common-room was empty. The second thing he saw was Xena, sitting by herself at the bar, the pack lying lonely and inert at her feet. The third thing he saw was the innkeeper, who showed up out of nowhere and scared the heck out of him. "You!" the innkeeper hissed softly.

Joxer backpedaled a step, suspiciously looking for evidence of the mop.

"For gods' sakes," the man said, "get her out of here before my business is utterly ruined."

It seemed like Xena had been giving him pretty good business, judging from the number of empty tankards she was hoarding on the counter. "What's she doing?" Joxer asked prudently.

"It's not what she's doing, it's what she's threatening to do. I haven't had a customer stay longer than thirty seconds all night."

"Oh," said Joxer, recognizing the symptoms, "she's bored." Xena had an interesting imagination on the rare occasions she allowed herself to indulge it.

"Two guys fainted after she said something to them and I had to drag them out of here. The rest of them just ran. Could you just get her to go upstairs and leave my customers alone? Please?"

Despite the fact that he really did know better, really, Joxer was impressed and more than a little flattered that the innkeeper thought that Xena would actually listen to him, and because of this he found himself approaching her before he realized he didn't have the faintest idea of what he was going to say. "Ah, Xena... hi."

Xena turned her head enough to look at him. "Oh. It's you." She turned back to the current tankard of interest.

Joxer decided to consider this as encouragement. "Wow. Boy! Is it late. I didn't realize how late it was." He waited a minute and when she did not pick up on this, prodded, "Late."

Xena continued to ignore him. Joxer was not a man at ease with subtlety and gave up on it. "Wouldn't you like to go upstairs and go to bed now?"

"What, alone? Do you want to know the truth?"

"No."

Xena stared at the tankard for another moment, then shrugged. "Might as well. Nothing else to do." She got up. "Fetch," she said briefly and walked to the stairs. Joxer obediently hoisted the pack and followed behind her, barely daring to breathe. Once she got upstairs and away from the bar she might become more talkative, and then he could bring up the subject of Gabby again and maybe not get mangled.

The stairwell creaked under Xena's feet. "Hostile little bastard," she said.

He understood this to refer to the innkeeper. "I think he thought you were drunk, I think."

"I do seem to be a little tipsy." Xena considered. "I'm getting soft. Soft and old. Do you want to know the truth?"

"No."

"I used to be able to drink a dozen strong young men under the table. And believe me, you haven't lived until you've had a dozen strong young men under the table."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Then I took up hanging around with, with people who talk about Art like it has a capital alpha, and the next thing I know I'm getting tipsy in cheapass little places like this." For demonstration Xena yanked the door open. Something splintered.

Slightly worried, maybe over her condition, maybe over the condition she was about to put the room into, Joxer followed her inside. He put the pack down against the wall and listened intently for sounds of something breaking inside it, but heard nothing.

"I'm not tired," Xena said. "I don't feel like going to sleep. I have no one to talk to. And there's nothing to do. And there's no one interesting around to do it with. No offense."

"None taken," he agreed.

"I'm bored," Xena announced. She stretched out lazily on the bed in a fashion that made Joxer think of lions, and panthers, and crossbows, and catapults, and other kinds of really dangerous things that stretched. "I'm bored and I have nothing to do except maybe... " She looked at him appraisingly for a moment. "Do you want to know the truth?" she asked.

"No."

"I've always wanted to ask you something." One minute everything was fine. The next minute the room turned flip-flops over itself and when it straightened out he found himself lying on the bed, with his face about six inches from Xena's and most of the rest of him considerably closer. She held him down easily with one hand. He tried to get up, and the hand tightened. "Urk," Joxer observed.

"Do you bruise easily?"

This was pretty much a conversation-stopper. "Um..."

"See, I've always wondered about that. You have such pale skin. Such very... soft... white... skin." She ran one finger of her free hand slowly along his throat.

Joxer's mind decided to go for a little walk and wandered off to the other side of the room, from where it watched and marveled at how she could hold a sword with nails like that. "So I was just wondering how much it would show the marks," Xena continued conversationally.

"Ah." He tried again to get up and by dint of much panic managed to push himself backwards about a foot before Xena casually yanked him far too close again. "Ah. Xena. I, um, I..."

She looked him over in the same way she might appraise a sacrificial bullock. "We could put them where they wouldn't show. For starters."

He struggled violently and absolutely uselessly. "Ah. Xena, I, I'm really flattered and, and everything, but, um..." Joxer hoped his voice hadn't quite sunk to a terrified whimper, but was afraid it had. "Um, I can't. I mean, I think of you like you're my sister. Or my father. Or something."

"Even more interesting possibilities," Xena mused.

The fingernail headed for his cheek, and in the most spectacular display of grace, strength, and sheer physical prowess he had ever shown in his life he shook himself free and leapt backwards off the bed. "Look, Xena, why don't you get some sleep and, and you'll feel a lot better in the morning."

"No, I will feel hung over in the morning. And frustrated," she added in what was becoming a dangerous tone.

"You'll be fine." He backed towards the door. "The spell will probably be all worn off and, and everything." He backed some more. "I could, um, go look under the table downstairs for some of those young men, if you want." He backed some more. "Look. Even better. I'll go get Gabrielle and you guys can talk it out, and we can all get some sleep, okay?" He backed some more. "Ai..ow!"

"What did you do?"

"Door latch," he squeaked. "Bumped into the door latch. Ow. In the kidney. Ow. Nothing. Really."

Xena sat up. "Let's take a look."

Again moving with a speed and grace that would have done Hercules proud, he yanked the door open and darted into the hall.

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