by T Nisbet
Chp. 12
We joined the crowd waiting to enter the city. It was well after noon when Coach grumblingly paid the guards the required tax on goods entering Lockewood, and we finally penetrated the open gates of the city.
The street was wide and reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Florence Italy. Ancient stone buildings with flowered balconies rose up four stories or more on either side of us. A crowd of adults and children rushed about talking loudly, buying and selling goods from stalls and wagons. Bright canopies in a rainbow of different colors extended far down the dark stone street. The smell of a variety of foods and flowers assaulted my nose.
I glance to my left and right as we walked looking at the vendor’s goods. Most contained neatly piled stacks of fruits and vegetables. I wondered if this was normal, or if this was some kind of market day. We had market night in Fairview on Thursdays when the weather permitted. The city closed down Main Street in the evening and the vendors set up their tables. One section of the street held all the produce and the other had been reserved for people trying to hawk sunglasses, God, sobriety, baseball cards, girl scout cookies, a variety of cheap crafts, and other useless crap.
Horses and carriages moved past us headed in the opposite direction. Painted wooden signs hung from various shops behind the carts and tables lining the street. As we moved further into the city the traffic became more congested and the noise louder. When we came to our first cross street, I looked down it both ways. It wasn’t much wider than our wagon, but that didn’t stop it from being filled with people heading towards the market. They emerged from the narrow street and hurried to vendors. Nearly all of these people wore tunics or dresses of much finer material than our own, but they didn’t pause or give us a second glance.
We moved slowly, deeper into the city through the throng of people. Just like back home, the produce gave way to vendors that were hawking goods. Tables and carts held a variety of clothes, jewelry, weapons, flowers, trinkets and foods. The crowd was even more thickly gathered here.
We stayed near the back of the wagon as it crawled forward through the congestion. As we passed a merchant barking to the crowds about his fine assortment of swords, he looked at me and noticed the hilt of my sword.
“Holy mother!” he cried out and stepped forward. “That’s a Quail blade!”
He tore his eyes from the hilt and stepped in front of me. “Surely that was handed down to you. You couldn’t be… hey, you’re glowing!”
Toby put a huge hand on the man’s chest and gently motivated him to get out of my way. He glared up at Toby, but held his hands up and nervously stepped back, letting me pass. I looked at my hands, they didn’t glow in the sunlight, but did when I pulled them into my sleeves. Toby watched me experiment. I held my breath and pulled back my hood.
Toby smiled widely, “No glow Mr. Wizard.”
I sighed in relief. Ivy walking next to me, followed my lead.
I covered the hilt of my sword with my cloak and we moved on, not looking back.
Barkers called out their wares to the crowds, people of every shape and size jostled each other, but we continued our slow trek forward. Coach turned the wagon slowly through the crowd down the next cross street we came to, and, just like that, we were out of the spectacle of the market. The dark cobbled street was wide enough to accommodate two wagons. There were no vendor carts or wagons, no barkers hawking goods. Wooden signs hung from the storefronts and taverns we passed. People walked about minding their own business, entering or leaving the tall buildings.
We continued down the street for quite awhile until coach stopped the wagon in front of a tavern and set the brake. The sign in front declared it as “The Pregnant Wench.” A large window in the front had a beautiful woman lying seductively on her side holding her bulging stomach with one hand and a stein in the other etched into the glass.
Coach hopped down, came around to the back of the wagon, and lowered the creaking tailgate.
“Don’t go anywhere! I’ll be right back,” he said and entered the swinging double doors of the tavern.
“Guess we are about to make a delivery,” Toby said eyeing the huge barrels. “Bet those are going to be heavy.”
I followed his logic. Clearly, he and I would be told to move them. I stretched a bit in preparation.
Coach exited the building a few minutes later followed by four burly men. One held a long thick plank. Coach shooed us out of the way as the men set the plank against the tailgate and jumped into the back of the wagon. They turned the barrels on their sides and rolled them one by one down the plank into the street and then through the doors and into the building. When they had rolled that last of the ten barrels down the makeshift ramp, one of the men grabbed the board and carried it with him into the Tavern. Coach McNally followed. As he approached the doors he looked back at us.
“Don’t stand there gawking, this isn’t Disneyland for God’s sake! Bring the packs and Brianna’s bag,” he said and disappeared inside.
Toby and I exchanged looks and gathering our stuff, followed Coach McNutty into “The Pregnant Wench”.
As we entered the dusky tavern’s great room, I looked down at my hands, relieved to find I wasn’t glowing. Hanging oil filled lamps bathed the great room of the tavern with in a soft ocher light. Rich, multi-colored silk banners displaying variety of coats of arms hung down from thick oaken beams above our heads. An ornately carved wooden bar ran the length of the room to the right. A few patrons sat on barstools watching, as the same four men from outside, strained and grunted trying to lift one of the massive barrels into an empty rack behind the bar. McNally and a fat man in an apron waited patiently. When the men had the barrel in position, Coach hammered a silver tap into it.
The portly man in the apron held a pewter tankard under the shining tap and poured himself a beer. He smelled it, then tasted the ale carefully. A smile spread over his features and he laughing delightedly, then handed Coach McNally a small pouch. Coach poured the shining contents into his hand and counted.
Brianna led us over to a large table near a great stone fireplace against the wall opposite the bar. Toby and I put the packs and Brianna’s bag under the table and we all sat down. Sitting with a sword hanging at your belt is not the easiest thing to do as I discovered, but I managed. Coach joined us after a minute or two and pulled up a chair.
“So far so good, or lucky in our case,” he said. “We have rooms upstairs for the night. Gregor seemed to believe I was going to start selling my beer to “The Dancing Trollop” and comp’d us the rooms, a meal, and our drinks for the night.”
“We don’t get to go to Chili’s or Applebee’s?” Carla whined.
Coach closed his eyes exacerbated, and shook his head. “I need a drink.” He got up and threw two room keys down on the table.
“Don’t bother me until morning,” he said and walked away.
We were busy laughing at Carla’s taunting, when a buxom serving woman in her late twenties, wearing a low cut white blouse arrived. She smiled pleasantly.
“Pardon my words, and I mean no offense to anyone, but how a horses’ ass o that extent makes Ale that good, no one knows,” said the waitress putting a tankard of beer in front of each of us. Her accent sounded Scandinavian.
“He doesn’t,” Carla smirked. “His wife does.”
The waitress smiled brightly and winked at Carla. “Figures. Where are you from, I don’t recognize your accent?”
A chill went down my spine, though I tried to remain calm.
“We spent some time at the border of the great wood to the south, trading with the fair folk. Their speech wears off on you,” offered Ivy. I groaned inwardly.
“That is it then,” the waitress smiled and left us to our beers.
We all breathed a sigh of relief and congratulated Ivy on her quick thinking. Heart still pounding in my ears I took a big swig of beer and found that it helped quite a bit.
As we sat there drinking our beer, I tuned out of the conversati
on and thought about home. I wondered what my parents were thinking right now. What had Ivy’s mother told them? Then I remembered the time difference. It was roughly fifteen seconds between our sitting on the stone in the fairy ring, yet we had arrived and hour later. Was the difference in the trip itself? Or was it the difference to how time moved while we were here.
I interrupted Brianna and apologized, explaining what I had been thinking about.
“Einstein would be able to explain it,” Toby said when I had finished.
“I don’t think the difference was in the trip, Jake. It makes more sense that it is an actual difference between home and here,” offered Carla. She got out her I-phone.
“Dead.”
“I bet you wouldn’t have that problem with Verizon,” Toby chuckled, “They probably get coverage here. Can you hear me now?”
“Very funny,” Carla said smacking him in the arm. “I was going to use the calculator function. If I had a piece of paper and a pen, I could calculate the conversions real quick.”
“It converts to roughly… four hours per minute, six minutes per day, three hours per month, and thirty six hours per year,” said Brianna.
We all stared at her.
“What?” she laughed, “I’m good with numbers, so sue me.”
“I’ll say you are,” Carla admitted.
“So that means we could be here seven or eight months and make it back for classes on Monday!” I smiled.
“Monday’s a holiday, Jake-O,” Toby said.
“Two years, four months give or take a week or so, before the bell rings for first period on Tuesday morning,” Bri supplied.
“Holy crap!” Was all I could say. If this mission or whatever we were calling it, took a couple of weeks, I could still be home before my parents got back from Aunt Trisha’s.
The tavern began to fill up as we sat there drinking and talking. The waitress kept our mugs topped off which made it difficult to tell how much beer we’d had. We tried to keep our voices hushed so nobody at the other tables would overhear us, but we couldn’t stop laughing. Carla and Toby were on a roll.
“Carla, I do believe you’re drunk,” stated Toby laughing at himself.
Carla had told us a very lurid story about the girl’s locker room and a peephole that she and a friend had made to look into the boy’s showers. She said it was how she had selected Toby as a boyfriend.
The pure sound of a flute broke through our laughter, and the crowd noise of the tavern, suspending conversations, demanding attention. The solemn note held for a moment and then flowed downwards lazily.
I looked up and saw a minstrel standing upon a small stage, holding the silver flute, eyes closed as he played.
“Wow!” sighed Carla.
“That is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” Brianna whispered.
“I’ll say!” Carla agreed.
“I’m hurt… so very hurt,” Toby chuckled.
Carla punched him in the arm. “Shhhhh!”
I would have laughed at their reaction, but the girls weren’t telling a lie. The handsome flutist could have graced the cover of any magazine. Shiny, pitch-black hair hung down in lazy curls around a familiarly angular face. He had to be an elf with features like that. Unlike the elves we’d met in the forest however, his skin wasn’t tanned, it was so pale as to be verging on true white. Maybe he wasn’t an elf. I couldn’t see his ears to be certain, because of the black leather hat he wore, pulled rakishly to the side. His tunic was also black, and a black and red cape was clasped around his neck with a silver clasp.
The notes that rose up into the rafters of the tavern were so pure they demanded our attention as they flowed effortlessly from of his instrument. From behind us near the back of the tavern, a horn sounded, joining, and wrapping around the notes of the flute. I turned my head and saw yet another black clad musician. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as the performer on stage, but arguably just as skilled at his craft. The two played an instrumental that reminded me of a fight between two friends over a woman that they both loved. They played against one another challenging, giving, soaring and swooping neither gaining the upper hand.
Suddenly the sweet sound of a violin rose up between the two. I saw a female sitting on a barstool roughly half way between the other two playing, her golden hair flowed over her black outfit.
The three musicians’ played out the remainder of the song to a spell bound audience. The sounds of the violin faded first, then the horn, leaving the solitary flute to end the composition in apparent despair. When the last lonely note rang out and ended, an extraordinary stillness filled the tavern as the crowded room held its collective breath. Then a mad cheering rose. Looking around, I saw tears rolling down Brianna and Carla’s cheeks. Ivy’s head was down and her eyes closed, as she rocked silently back and forth.
I joined the cheer. I’d never heard anything more beautiful in my life. I gently lay a hand on Ivy’s shoulder, and she smiled up at me her eyes glistening.
“That was amazing!” I whispered, she nodded, smiling back at me. My heart lurched as we stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. I felt the need to protect her, care for her...
I tore my gaze away and drained my tankard. Ivy moved her chair closer to mine and laid her head against my shoulder.
The musicians played many more songs to the overflowing tavern. At one point the waitress paused breathlessly while refilling our mugs and commented on how rare it was for blood elves to play for humans.
My mind felt fuzzy, and I realized my bladder was about to explode. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“I can draw a bath for you, but it will be awhile before I get off work.” She winked seductively and shrugged, gesturing at the crowd around us. “We’re kind of busy as you can see!”
“No, no, no..” I stammered feeling a flush coming into my cheeks, “not a bath, but a place to… to relieve myself.”
She smiled and laughed.
“You mean the water closet da?”
“Da.” I said standing up. The room tilted slightly, but I kept my balance.
The waitress giggled and stepped close, whispering directions in my ear, her breath warm on my neck, then left to fill tankards.