by Peter David
The victim of her attack, however, clearly failed to see the humor of the situation. He was on his feet, towering over her. If she’d tried to swing the mug at his head she would have missed.
“Let’s try that again,” he snarled.
“Simon!” snapped the bartender, whom he’d addressed as “Marie.” “She’s not worth wasting time on! She can’t hurt you—”
The words had barely left her mouth when Entipy swung the mug again. This time she was aiming at his crotch. Not a bad change in tactics, except he was ready for her and caught her by the forearm. She let out a screech of rage as he shook the mug loose from her grip, and it was at that moment that I started seriously considering backing out the door and distancing myself from the whole mess. Naturally that was the moment that her gaze fell upon me.
“Apropos!” she shouted. “You are my protector! Protect me!”
All eyes turned to me, and never had I wanted to be someone else, anywhere else, as I did at that moment. I was hoping to get out of the situation on the strength of my not inconsiderable charm. I waved. They seemed determinedly uncharmed.
My mind racing for inspiration, it nearly froze up as the gargantuan Simon took a step toward me, bristling with fury. Suddenly, inspiration seized me. Ignoring the staff in my hand and the sword strapped to my back, instead I grabbed a long spoon off the table next to me, dropped my voice to as deep a level as I could, and bellowed in a purely comic style, “I’ll save you, my lady! I, your valiant knight, am here!”
Well, naturally I looked nothing like a knight. Wild-haired, sopping wet, lame of leg, I came across as much like a knight (or a hero, for that matter) as Entipy did a princess. I continued to advance, waving the spoon as if it were the most lethal blade in the land, and declaring, “I am coming, Your Highness! Ho, varlet! Knave! Wretch! Have at thee! Ha! Yah! And yah again!” I stomped on the floor and thrust forward again, maneuvering around Simon, who was simply staring at me, stunned, since I offered about as much practical threat as a pile of leaves. I heard some initial chuckling from nearby, which was exactly what I was hoping for. I got to Entipy, grabbed her by the wrist, and swung her unceremoniously behind me.
“What are you doing?!” she whispered sharply in my ear.
Simon was still watching me, and the laughter was starting to build. Marie, the bartender, still looked suspicious.
I grabbed her by the back of the head and brought her ear to my mouth. I spoke very quietly and very quickly. “Now listen to me, you little git,” I whispered right back. “I’ve got one blade and I count a dozen in potential opposition … plus Simon here could kill me bare-handed. The only way we get out of this alive is pretend we’re playacting, and if you don’t go along with this, we’re dead. We’ve one chance at this; don’t muck it up,” and with that I raised my voice and cried out again, “One side, varlet, for a princess of the realm! Hah! Double hah!”
For just a moment, Entipy’s instinct for arrogance warred with her interest in self-preservation, and suddenly she cried out, “Ha! Arrogant knaves! Now thou shalt know the wrath of my true man-at-arms!”
Pushing it as far as I could, I lunged and jammed the spoon against Simon’s massive chest. I made a mental note of the fact that it was like pushing against a stone wall, but simply acting as if I’d scored a hit, I shouted, “Ha! He is down! Let no one else muck with a knight and his lady!”
Simon still didn’t make a move against us. He had never seen any display quite like it. In this manner, we “hacked” our way through the crowd, shouting and making as much brouhaha as we humanly could. Laughter began to build, feed upon itself, and I heard people saying “They’re mad!” and others countering with “No, don’t you get it? They’re performing fools!” In reality, it might well have been a bit of both.
We made it all the way to the door, and I threw it open.
Snow was falling.
I don’t mean some light, gentle display; it was cascading, a solid white wall, coming down fast and furious. A fearsome wind was cutting through it. Snow was already accumulating at a horrifyingly rapid rate. If we went out into that, we’d be dead in no time.
Without even a second’s hesitation, I slammed the door back, turned and threw my arms wide so quickly that I almost smacked Entipy in the face in doing so. “My good friends!” I shouted, dropping the bombast, “we are the Royal Players! Let us have a round of applause for Simon, who’s been a terrific sport! Simon, take a bow!” and I limped toward him, grabbed his hand, and raised it up.
There followed thunderous clapping from all around. The confusion slowly seeped from Simon’s mien, to be replaced by an appreciative smile and a chuckle as if he was in on the “joke” the entire time. I grabbed up a napkin and helped him dry himself off, saying “Well done!” the entire time.
Entipy was glaring at me. I couldn’t have cared less. My concern was our survival, not winning her approval. And I could only assume that she shared that sentiment to some degree, because although she was glowering, she was doing nothing to pierce the veil of our little charade.
The crowning touch was Simon buying us two mugs of mead and treating us as if we were his new best friends. As astounding a development as that was, on some level I could almost understand it. Men like Simon didn’t exactly get a great deal of acclaim, so a roomful of people singing his praises for a job well done was heady stuff for him.
The mead felt terrific going down, suffusing me with inner warmth while the fire I huddled near helped to dry out my clothes. Entipy sat a few feet away. She was gulping the mead down. Say what you will about her; at least she could hold her liquor. She was not, however, giving me any favoring looks. That didn’t bother me.
A shadow loomed over me. For one frightening moment I thought it was Simon, thinking better of his generosity and moment in the sun, and deciding instead that what we really needed was a good pummeling. But I looked up and saw instead that it was Marie. She pulled a barrel over and sat upon it, bringing us to eye level.
“I’m not so certain that you’re traveling players, no matter what you’ve convinced these fools of,” she said in a low voice. “I saw the prideful haughtiness in her eyes, and the panic in yours when she looked to you. No one walking this planet is that good an actor. Whatever you are, you disrupted my customers and put my place at risk of having a brawl.” I noted the words “my place.” So she wasn’t just an employee; she was the actual pub owner. “I’m not going to bring that to their attention because it might prompt the very thing I want to avoid,” she continued. “But I want you out of here, immediately.”
“It’s snowing, madam,” I said,“and rather fiercely. We’ll surely die …”
“That is of no consequence to me.”
At that moment, Simon, our most unlikely benefactor, raised a mug and called out, “To our players!”
“Our players!” echoed the others.
Someone else shouted, “And to our Marie!”
“Marie!” came the call. She bobbed her head in acknowledgment, forcing a smile so that she could get back to the business of preparing to send us out to our deaths.
And then a third man shouted, “To our noble liege, the dreaded Warlord Shank!”
“To Warlord Shank!” came the call.
If I hadn’t been cold before, I froze then.
Warlord Shank. The lord of the so-called Outer Lawless regions, who had risen against King Runcible and been driven back, but only at great cost.
I glanced at Entipy, but there was no registering of recognition in her face. The name meant nothing to her. No reason it should have, since Shank’s incursion and the subsequent war had happened long after she’d been shunted away to the Faith Women and sheltered from news of the outside world. But it meant more than enough to me for the both of us. As incredible as it seemed, we had actually had a major stroke of luck. If these men were loyal to Shank, the acquisition of Runcible’s daughter would have been invaluable. Shank could have blackmailed the monarch into practically
anything. Either that or the king would have told them to go ahead and kill her, for which I wouldn’t entirely have blamed him, except that it would have meant my demise as well (since she was quick to finger me as her “protector”).
“So … this would be the Outer Lawless regions, then,” I said slowly.
Marie looked at me oddly. “Know you not where you are?”
“We … became separated from our troupe, and have been somewhat lost recently,” I said. “I wasn’t quite certain. And if this is the Outer Lawless regions … then what I saw outside would be the start of the famed Outer Lawless winter … ?”
She nodded, grimacing in a resigned manner. She didn’t seem any more enthused about it than I. “Seems more intense this year. Earlier. But that would be it, yes.”
Well, we were well and truly screwed. When snow was dumped in the Outer Lawless regions, it came fast and fierce, and then it stayed. The natives of the land managed to get around on the snow-sodden roads, but neither Entipy nor I were natives. Nor did we have the requisite furs, snowshoes, or boots, or any sort of survival equipment. There was simply no way that we would manage to get any significant distance. We were, in effect, stuck there. Except the “there” wasn’t being particularly hospitable.
“A commweaver,” I said with growing urgency. “Do you know where there is one?”
“Down the road, straight east, about twenty miles. She serves the various nobles and feudal lords. Goes by the name of Dotty, which is apt enough since she is a bit dotty. But she’s been around forever; so long that folks hereabouts sometimes call her ‘Ma Spell.’ Charges a pretty sum for her services, from what I hear.”
With the snow on the ground, twenty miles might as well have been twenty hundred. Walking wasn’t an option. I would have not hesitated to steal a beast to carry us, but even if we got there, the situation was exactly as I thought: Such weavers charged mightily for their services, and we didn’t have two sovs to rub together.
Our predicament didn’t garner a scintilla of pity from the hardeyed Marie. “Now, as I was saying, out you go … unless you’ve money to pay for food or lodgings, which I strongly suspect you don’t, since you didn’t even have the brains to go around and solicit money for your ‘performance’ …”
I kicked myself mentally. I’d been so relieved that we were alive that I had missed an opportunity for profit. I was losing my touch. Inspired, I said, “We could stay here, be players in residence—”
“Dump alcohol on my patrons? Pick fights on a regular basis? And how long before I wind up the worse for it.” She snorted disdainfully at the thought.
I remembered the sign on the door. “You need help. I know taverns. I grew up in one.” The truth out of my mouth; God, I really was losing my touch.
“I don’t need you two. Her, in particular.”
I looked in Entipy’s direction once more. She had downed the contents of the mug and was wavering slightly from side to side. I felt one good push would send her tumbling to the floor. “She is something of an annoyance, I’ll admit …”
“I’ll say,” she grumbled. Nothing brings commiseration like mutual resentment for others. “A regular prima donna, right? So used to playing noblewomen that she thinks she excretes gold.”
“Actresses,” I sighed. “What can you do with them?”
“I know what I’d like to do with one of them.”
My eyes narrowed and I leaned forward conspiratorially. “And just think what you could do … with one in your employ. Lugging water. Cleaning tables. Hauling garbage. Slinging ale.”
Marie looked at me thoughtfully and then at Entipy. A slow smile spread across her face. It looked rather odd there, as if it was an infrequent visitor and had no idea what to do having arrived. “You are a schemer, aren’t you,” she said.
“I have my moments.”
She chewed on her doughy lip as she gave the matter some thought. Outside the wind was starting to howl. The prospect of stumbling out into that was not one that I relished.
“Very well. The both of you, then, but I’ll pay you as one and feed you as one. And if she so much as drips a drop of ale or mead on one of my customers, by accident much less in a fit of pique, then out you both go. Understood?”
I bobbed my head eagerly, relieved.
“There’s a storage room in the back that the two of you can use for sleeping.”
“The … two of us …”
She looked at me oddly. “I assume that you two are lovers. I mean, no man in his right mind would stay with her, so I conclude that you are besotted with ardor and therefore not thinking clearly.”
“Why would I be in love with her?”
At that she laughed, and it was not a kind noise. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never to wonder why men do the things they do.”
“Very wise,” I said diplomatically.
She looked me up and down. “You’ve only the things on your back?” I nodded. “There’s old clothes you can change into in the storage room as well. Clothes I’ve taken off the backs of patrons who tried to run out on their bills. Some of them should fit. Get changed and get to work. No time like the present.” She rose and waddled off to the bar.
“Are you out of your mind?! You are! You’re out of your mind!” We were standing in the back room. The shelves were piled with assorted supplies, including the aforementioned clothes, plus mugs, plates, cleaning implements, and other things. Entipy was making clear to me that she was less than enthused with the bargain I had struck. “Me! Entipy, Princess of Isteria, a serving wench!”
“Keep your voice down!” I whispered.
“I will not keep my voice down! I am a princess of Isteria, and I—!”
She got no further because I grabbed her, shoved her against the wall with a thud and clapped my hand over her mouth. Several mugs clattered to the floor, but that was the least of my problems. My major difficulty was that Entipy, not taking particularly well to being ham-handedly shushed, was biting down hard on the fleshy part of the hand covering her mouth. I fought back a pained shriek.
“Before you force me to release your mouth and get us both killed, listen to me!” I said between gritted teeth. “You heard them swear fealty to Warlord Shank! He warred with your father and would like nothing better than to get his hands on your father’s little girl! Declare your identity to all and sundry and you as good as bring down your father’s kingdom! Does that matter to you at all?”
She shook her head furiously and bit down harder. I grunted deep in my throat.
“And while he’s holding you prisoner,” I managed to say, my voice jumping higher in pain, “he will keep you in a deep, dank dungeon that will make this place look luxurious in comparison, and subject you to all manner of torture. And if and when your beloved Tacit comes to save you, you’ll be a blind, tongue-seared, disfigured thing barely recognizable as yourself, that Tacit would just as soon kill to put out of your misery as love you. Is that what you want? Because if it is, keep biting my hand, I’ll release it, you convince these bravos of your identity, and that is what will happen to you!”
She stopped biting me. She glared at me poisonously, but she stopped biting.
“We have … no … choice,” I said, my hand still stinging. “And we are damned lucky besides. If they had believed you were more than a loon, you’d be on your way to a dungeon. If they had tossed us out into the snow, you’d be on your way to oblivion. This way we have shelter, clothes on our backs, some degree of sustenance, and, most important, a means of earning money so that we can go to this ‘Dotty’ and have her convey a message to your lord father. This is not only our best chance, it is our only chance. I wouldn’t give us a hope of lasting an hour in that snow, and with the gods dropping this opportunity in our laps, they might not be so generous if we throw it back at them. Now … can I safely remove my hand with the confidence that you won’t send us spiraling to perdition?”
She didn’t nod, just continued to scowl. But I too
k that as consent and slowly—timidly—I removed my hand. She pushed me away roughly and I stepped back.
“You expect me,” she said very slowly, in an affronted tone, “to earn money by working for it?”
“Believe it or not, Highness, the vast majority of the world has very little problem with the concept. The Faith Women had you working, and there was no money involved. Think of this as a step up in your fortunes.”
“This is not just … not equitable … not right …”
And I lost myself.
Looking back, it’s difficult to believe that I reacted the way that I did. I advanced on her. She did not take so much as a single step back but instead stood her ground, and I snarled in her face. “Not right? Not right? I was born with nothing, the product of my mother being brutally raped! She sold her body to make ends meet and keep us with a roof over our head, and when a passing brute murdered her for sport, the worth of her life was reduced to a handful of coins by your father’s court! Work? I’ve worked since before I could walk, which I was never able to do properly anyway! I’ve scraped for every sov I’ve ever held, only to see it taken away from me by the first and only woman I’ve ever let myself feel anything for. I’ve never known anything resembling rightness or justice in my entire life, so don’t you dare stand there and complain to me about what’s right, do you understand me? Do you?”
She made no response. I didn’t expect her to. I turned away from her, flushed and humiliated that so much had come spilling from my mouth, and only relieved that I had not—in the heat of emotions—said even more than I should have.
“How are we supposed to share this room?” she asked.
It was such a mundane concern that I was surprised she even asked. I glanced around. “It’s not large, but we’ll both fit.”