by Sharon Green
The Ax and Shield wasn't quite in the middle of it all, but something about the place said it wasn't in the middle because it didn't want to be. Its faded sign had been brown and red and silver and black, but it hung over walls of the gray of stone, the front door dull but heavy wood. A battered lantern high up on one stone wall was meant to illuminate the sign, but that early in the evening it hadn't yet been lit. I sat there for a moment and simply stared, then began to look around.
''We've got to find some place to leave you,'' I muttered to my mount as I patted his neck. "If I tie you to that hitching pole, you'll be gone before the door swings closed behind me. I guess it'll have to be there."
My horse snorted his dislike of the dirty boarding stable I'd spotted on the opposite side of the street, but he didn't have any more choice than I did. The front doors of the stable were standing wide open, but the thin man moving around inside wasn't worried that anyone would walk in and disturb his charges. The two large, armed men standing in front of the doors were there to see that nothing unpleasant happened, and having a horse was probably the only thing that got you by them without comment.
The stable owner was more than happy to accept my business, and that despite the fact that his stable was far from empty. The piece of silver I had to produce in advance finally told me why he was so happy, but I made no effort to point out that I could almost buy a horse for what he was charging for stabling. If I decided against using his facilities I would have to buy a horse, as soon as I discovered mine was gone. The only benefit I got out of silently producing his demanded payment was the way he lost his grin looking at my expression - and the way his two bully boys let me walk out between them, still without comment.
Crossing that street in sandals was an experience in itself, but it would have been a lot worse if I'd had the sort of gentle upbringing so many people thought I should have had. I made it to the other side more or less uncontaminated, really glad that the dress had turned out to be too short for my height. Skirts brushing the ground may be stylish, but not in a neighborhood like that. The door of the tavern had a heavy metal grip, but despite the weight of it all the door swung open smoothly and quietly, letting me move inside with no further delay.
The Ax and Shield wasn't more than only just true to its name, with a rusty throwing axe and a wood-and-paper shield hanging on the wall behind the counter at the back of the large room. The place wasn't quite as dirty inside as out, but the stone walls were greasy with years worth of lamp soot and cooking smoke, the wooden beams of the ceiling were just about black, and the heavy plank floor should have been ankle-deep in sawdust instead of unevenly coated, if all the pools of spilled brew and wine were meant to be sopped up. The larger tables and their benches were in the corners to the left and right of the door, smaller tables littered the floor with rickety chairs or stools around them, and the lamps which were already lit were badly in need of trimming and cleaning. In other words a perfectly normal tavern for a rundown area like the one it lived in, better than the streets and maybe even better than the homes of its patrons.
The mutter of voices hadn't really stopped when I’d walked in, not with the number of mutterers in the place even at that early an hour. A good two-thirds of the big room was filled, mostly with men at the small tables or standing in front of the counter at the back, a serving girl bringing drinks to those who didn't care to get up themselves and walk for them. The men paid for the service, of course, rather than having it included in the price of whatever they were drinking, just the way the services of the three other women in the room weren't included. Night houses took care of everything at once, but taverns didn't have the same arrangement.
I took a breath of the thick, over-warm air around me and then began to walk toward the counter, trying to decide what to do next now that I'd found the place. I'd been told by my guide out of the city to buy a drink and wait to be contacted, but he hadn't mentioned how long a wait it might be. I didn't know exactly how fast time was running out on me, but it would be safe to assume I didn't have any to waste. I worked my way around to the right side of the counter where there were fewer patrons, and also where the counter ended short of the wall to allow a narrow aisle which led back to a door standing in shadow.
The tavern keeper behind the counter, a big man with a craggy, unshaven face and a dirty, once-white cloth tucked into the top of his trousers, spent a minute or two trying to ignore me. He seemed to be hoping I'd disappear if he pretended I wasn't there to begin with, and I discovered that the attitude was annoying me. I wasn't used to being ignored in taverns, most especially not in taverns that were dives, and I suppose my impatience showed in my expression. After the minute or two, the tavern keeper walked over to me with a scowl.
''We don't serve no ladies in here," he informed me in a deep, scratchy growl, black eyes staring at me from under bushy brows. "Get on home, girl, and do it fast."
"Your service policies are fascinating," I said in as dry a tone as I could manage, cursing silently at myself for momentarily having forgotten what I was wearing. The man was trying to frighten me into leaving, the way he would have done with any other innocent little girl. "But fascinating or not, I'll have a brew."
"You don't hear so good," he said, but his eyes narrowed as he looked at me a little more closely. "If you're hopin' t' catch your man stumblin' in here with his hands all over a rag, it ain't gonna happen. You wanna make trouble, you do it some place else.''
"I'm here for a brew, not trouble, and I don't have a man,'' I said, trying to make him believe it. ''What I do have is an appointment to meet someone here, so you're stuck with me for a while. If I have a drink in my hands, the wait should go faster for both of us."
He continued to stare at me for a moment, possibly trying to decide whether or not to throw me out anyway, then turned away and went to draw a brew. He came back with the drink sloshing over one side of the dented metal flagon, then plunked it down on the counter closer to him than to me.
"I don't want no trouble," he said again, just as though I hadn't heard him or believed him the first time. "The one you're waitin' for - gimme a name."
The demand was as flat as the look in his eyes, as flat as his hands on the counter to either side of the flagon. I couldn't believe he was asking a question like that, then sighed when I remembered again what he was seeing.
''The man's an old friend of mine, someone I've known for years and years,” I said, calmly meeting the veiled suspicion in my questioner's eyes. ''He's small and dark and was a Blade for a while, but he's given that up now. He invited me to meet him here the next time I was in the neighborhood, so that's what I'm doing. His name escapes me for the moment."
An odd look came into the man's eyes and he snorted, then he pushed the flagon to me and walked away. I wasn't quite sure what his reaction meant, but I couldn't help noticing that he hadn't asked to be paid for the brew. Either he felt I'd earned the drink by showing I knew better than to mention names, or something was going on that I wasn't yet seeing as a whole. I knew I would probably find out about it sooner or later, so instead of worrying at something I couldn't change I took my brew to an empty table that stood to the right of the counter, then sat down with my back to the wall.
My body, at least, was grateful that I was finally resting it, and a short while passed with nothing terribly exciting happening. The serving girl got most of what she served from the tavern keeper, but every now and then she hurried up the aisle on my right to the shadowed door recessed into the back wall and through it, then came out a minute or two later with what was probably supposed to be food. From what I could see and smell as she passed my table, it wasn't anything I would have had the nerve to swallow, even on a bet. The small, overfilled bowls dripped new stains to add to the old on her cheap skirt and blouse, and none of what she brought looked hot but the soup, which looked even greasier than it did hot.
The working women stationed at their own tables glared in my direction at first, but onc
e I'd shaken my head to the offers of three men who came over one at a time, they understood I wasn't there to compete. All of the women were a bit long in the tooth and were trying to hide it by wearing too-youthful, low-cut blouses and very full, very bright skirts. Their less-than-tender age was probably the reason they were working a tavern rather than a night house, and the men I turned down seemed disappointed that I wasn't there to replace the women.
I sipped at my brew as I let my gaze wander across the big room, faintly surprised that the patrons of a place like that were so well mannered and well-behaved. There were no arguments, no fights, no rowdy laughter and horseplay, no insistent drunks to discourage; even the men who had approached me had taken no for an answer without a fuss. There was some quiet laughter at some of the tables, but most of the conversations seemed serious and absorbing, at least to the men engaged in them. I was beginning to wonder what sort of place that tavern really was, when the door was yanked open and six men laughed their way in.
''We'll have brew and lots of it," one of them called even before they'd reached the counter, their raucous amusement intruding on everyone's previous quiet. Scowls followed them as they moved across the floor, but the sight of their tan leathers and swordbelts kept words from joining the scowls. The six newcomers were mercenaries, and when they reached the counter they casually pushed the men already there out of the way so they could all stand together.
I'd been curious as to whether the tavern keeper would give them the same lecture about trouble that he'd given me, but possibly once a day was the limit for that particular lecture. He busied himself filling flagons without saying anything at all, and it was difficult to tell if the previous conversations had started up again because of the laughing, joking, and noise of the six. One of them pounded on the counter as though it were a drum, apparently trying to hurry the arrival of the brew, and once he’d started another laughed and joined him.
All six had flagons in front of them and had swallowed down half or more of the round, when one of those in the middle of the line stepped away from the counter fast with a laugh of his own. The serving girl had hung back among the tables until she thought the mercenaries were occupied with drinking and then had tried to hurry past behind them, but the one in the center hadn't been as distracted as the rest and had turned fast to catch her. She gasped with fright as she was pulled up against the big man, a very young girl caught up in something she wanted no part of, and the tavern keeper finally remembered there were supposed to be rules in that place.
''She ain't for nothin' but servin' drinks 'n food,'' he said to the mercenary holding the struggling girl, raising his voice to be heard over the laughter of the others. "You want a woman, take one a them that's here for it. The girl's got chores waitin' in the kitchens.''
"I like my rags at least half a decade younger than my grandmother,'' the man answered, grinning down at the whimpering girl rather than looking at the tavern keeper. ''This one doesn't have much in the face, but I'll bet she's round and ready under all that cloth. You don't mind if I just take a look, do y – "
The way his words suddenly broke off drew my full attention back to the incident, a good part of my thoughts having drifted away to consider how long I'd have to sit there waiting to be contacted. Knowing how well most taverns protected their own had kept me from worrying that the girl would be hurt, but suddenly it was no longer the girl who the mercenary was looking at. Moving away from the counter had put him in a position to see my table with nothing blocking his view, and that's what he was looking at over the top of the girl's head. My table. And me.
''On second thought, maybe the girl should go and do her chores," the man said, loosening his hold enough that his victim was able to push away from him and race stumbling into the aisle leading to the kitchens. ''I know better when I see it, and that's what I’m seeing right now."
His easy grin was now being sent directly to me, and then he began to come over right behind it. His friends had turned to look at me as well, most of them chuckling, and a cold knot tightened in my middle when the tavern keeper put one hand on the counter but didn't say a word. The serving girl was one of his but I wasn't, which meant I was strictly on my own.
''This certainly is a nicer place than I thought it would be," the mercenary said as he stopped in front of my table, leaning forward to rest his fists on it. That close his dark-haired and dark-eyed good looks couldn't be missed - or the fact that he'd had a couple even before getting to the tavern. It was fairly clear he was a younger son of some noble house, probably of the lesser nobility, and had found a more comfortable home as a mercenary than he would have had in a position that required some sense of honor.
"I find I really like this place," he said, grin going wider as he stared at me. "Especially the way it's decorated. Let's you and I discuss your price while we look for a corner where we can be alone, girly. My friends and I had a long ride getting here, so plan on earning every copper."
''I'm not one of the workers here," I said, not believing for a minute that he thought I was, raising my flagon left-handed to casually sip from it. "I had my own long ride getting here, and now I'm trying to enjoy a quiet drink. Why don't you go back to your friends and do the same."
"Well, well, now that's what I call luck,'' he drawled, picking out from what I'd said the only part he wanted to hear. "If you're not one of the workers here, then I don't have to worry about paying you. Get up and let's go."
I'd never really believed before that the things you go through can make you stupid, but that was the time I found out it was true. If I'd had any sense I would have gone with him quietly to get him away from his friends, waited until he had his pants down around his knees, then showed him what a good edge my dagger had taken. That's what I would have done if I'd had any sense, but I'd spent too much of too many days being told how obedient good little females were supposed to be. I had never been a good, obedient little female, and I felt strongly that it had been too long since the last time I'd proved it.
''Come to think of it, that is what they say about mercenaries, isn't it?'' I drawled back, seeing the confusion coming into his dark eyes. "You're the ones who always need somebody else to do the getting up. What do you plan for once we find some place to be alone? Watching while I see to myself?"
The confusion disappeared from his eyes to let fury take its place, his recognition of the snickering insult coming just about immediately. That particular insult was the one most likely to start a fight with any mercenary still breathing and able to lift a weapon, and the one in front of me proved himself no exception. With a growling snarl he straightened up and showed how dangerous he was by knocking the small table out from between us, sending it and my brew flying off to his right and my left. Most of the tavern's patrons stayed where they were, doing the sort of watching-but-not watching indulged in by those who have no intentions of getting involved in a fight, but four men at a nearby table discovered they were too nearby. The flung table almost landed in their laps, causing them to jump up and back, and their movement drew the immediate, glaring attention of the man I'd insulted.
He watched them only a matter of seconds, just long enough to be sure they were backing off with nervous glances for the mercenaries still at the counter, but when he turned back to me he discovered he'd taken too long with the distraction. With the table out of the way I'd slid to my feet and to the right, with the aisle and the door to the kitchens now behind me. He began an angry step forward, then stopped abruptly when he saw the dagger in my right fist.
"Do you expect that to impress me, you stupid rag?" he snarled, the movement of his eyes showing he hadn't realized I'd stand only an inch or two less than his own height. "Holding a blade isn't anything at all like using one.''
"It isn't?" I asked in turn, giving him a look of wide-eyed innocence. "I didn't know that. Why don't you come a little closer, so I can find out what the difference is."
There was a stir among the men not-watching the go
ings on, a ripple that was most likely strongly suppressed laughter. The other mercenaries still at the counter also stirred, and the face of the man in front of me darkened when he realized he couldn't ask for help from his friends. They'd heard me insult one of their number and had felt insult of their own, but I was only a woman with nothing but a dagger, an easy victim for someone who was both male and mercenary. The man who had started the fuss would have to finish it alone, a necessity whether he wanted it to be or not. He hadn't yet noticed that his friends couldn't come at me unless they knocked him down or climbed over the counter, but even if he had he probably would have thought my positioning was an accident. He was stupid even for a mercenary, but he didn't believe in taking chances.
''Now you want me closer?" he asked, deliberately stepping back as he forced a sneer into his voice. ''I've heard that rags like to change their minds, but I don't feel like letting you do that. You wanted me at a distance, so you'll get me at a distance - sword distance, that is.''
He laughed as he reached for his hilt and drew, taking it slow to give me plenty of time to see it coming and panic. Facing a sword with nothing but a dagger was an excellent way of committing suicide, but I'd known too many mercenaries to have been anything like positive that he'd decide to play it fair. I'd been hoping he'd be arrogant enough to draw his own dagger, and when he didn't I had to ignore that cold knot deep inside as it tightened again.