No Beggarsin theSwallow

“ALE!”

I announced my return to the Cock & Swallow with the force and dignity the occasion deserved. Three days of trying to get back there had left me in leather boots, a formerly white tunic, and a scarf whose continued service around my waist bordered on the miraculous. A wooden sword stuck out of my pack beside the bagpipe guitar. Annali’s saddle hung from the whole miserable arrangement, waiting for me to acquire something more suitable than myself to carry it.

Rufus came through the doorway at my heels. I waited for the room to notice us.

A few patrons sat scattered among the tables. None looked particularly pleased to have been included in my announcement.¹1

It was one in the fucking morning.

Behind the bar, the innkeeper’s head shot up.

“Oi! No beggars in the Swallow!”²2³3

I recognized her face. Apparently, this was not a mutual pleasure.

She was a middle-aged woman built on a scale I hadn’t expected to find behind that bar: tall, broad, and solid through the shoulders, with full cheeks and the beginnings of lines around her mouth. Her generous bosom filled the front of a well-kept bodice above a thick waist and wide hips. There was softness to her, certainly, but the forearms braced against the counter suggested that moving a full barrel wouldn’t require her to fetch somebody else. I found the combination rather appealing. I also suspected she could put me outside without interrupting a conversation.

My memory of our previous acquaintance had apparently omitted quite a lot of woman.

I glanced down at myself. Beggar was a reasonable assessment. A discerning observer might have added recently dragged through a hedge, but she had a business to run.

“It’s me! Rickon the Bard. Remember? I was here a few nights ago.”

“We have so many bards roll through here. Sorry.” Her gaze traveled over the saddle and came to rest on the scarf. “You look like shit.”

“Fair. I’ve seen some things.”

There had been a free room in my recollection of that glorious night. There had also been applause, congratulations, and a great many drinks. I had arrived expecting a welcome fit for a returning artist and been mistaken for a vagrant before I’d got both feet inside. I decided to establish that I could afford a drink before discussing my importance to the establishment.

“May I have a mug of your finest ale, please?”

She put one in front of me. I paid five jades and drank it with very little concern for whether it was her finest.⁴4

Only after I lowered the mug did I notice the blood.

It was on her hands, darkening at the knuckles, with more of it smeared across the front of her clothes. An open grimoire lay within easy reach, its pages crowded with the sort of writing that made a person reluctant to pronounce anything by accident. She’d evidently been reading it before I arrived.

Blood. Grimoire. Late hour.

If she’d been a Dweller, I’d have thought she was from Redfork.

Unfortunately, I found that thought amusing enough to share.

“If you were a Dweller, I’d think you were from Redfork,” I said, chuckling and gesturing between her hands and the book.

She paused.

“I am a Dweller.”

“What? Oh. What? I’m so sorry, you’re just so—”

Shut up. Shut up immediately.

“Stunning!”

That ought to do it.

“I haven’t met many other Dwellers on the road. I just assumed—”

She stared at me with an expression so empty I could almost hear my words falling into it.⁵5

I swallowed. It seemed unwise to clarify which portion of her had inspired the assumption, particularly while the word huge was attempting to fight its way out of my mouth.

“I’m just fucking with you.” She laughed. “I get it. I’m a little tall.”

My shoulders dropped. Hers didn’t need to; they were perfectly comfortable where they were, looming over my prospects.

“Emmi Brewer,” she said.

“Rickon Fiddler.”

“You said.”

“Yes. Of course.”

I smiled into the empty mug. Emmi’s laugh suited her: full and easy, quite capable of making a man feel welcome after she’d briefly considered throwing him out. I was beginning to recover some confidence when I remembered that the blood and the book had survived the conversation entirely unexplained.

“So…”

“Am I a bloodthirsty cultist draining the life-force from all my patrons slash victims?”

She smiled.

“No. That I am not.”⁶6

“Oh. Good. That’s good.”

I’d grown up in Redfork. I was accustomed to people having unusual religious interests. I still preferred to know whether my drink was part of one.

Emmi glanced down at her hands, then at the open book.

“Slow night. I was prepping the roast for tomorrow’s special. And yes, this is a grimoire.” She tapped the page. “Some of them have the greatest recipes stuffed between the spells and incantations. That’s between us, though.”

I looked at the book again. Back home, a bloodstained woman consulting a grimoire would have been a perfectly ordinary sight. It had taken leaving Redfork to learn that sometimes she was only making dinner.

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

I motioned for another ale. She filled the mug, and I paid another five jades. With the prospect of ritual murder settled, I intended to give this one the attention it deserved.⁷7

Emmi let me get comfortable on the stool first.

“So, gotta ask you, Rickon. Why are you teabagging my stool? Is this a style in Redfork?”

I looked down.

The scarf had shifted during the climb. I pulled it firmly into place and sat with a little more care.

“Some missionaries stole my pants.”

She watched me.

“Well. I pledged them, I suppose.”

Her eyebrows rose.

It was difficult to leave it there. Pledged them sounded voluntary, and stole them neglected several important details, including the bit where I’d already been paid. Besides, I had spent three days with Rufus as my principal audience. He was a loyal companion, but his appreciation of a well-constructed anecdote left something to be desired.

I told her the whole story.

It took longer than I’d intended. I tried to explain the parts that made me sound reasonable, which required explaining the parts immediately before them, which generally made me sound considerably worse. Emmi listened, watching my face as if she was waiting to discover whether I understood what I was saying.

I gave the tale what dignity I could. Here was another Dweller, a handsome woman with an excellent laugh, listening to my adventures. It would have been pleasant if she found something impressive in them.

By the time I’d finished, her expression had settled somewhere between shock and pity.⁸8

Then she burst out laughing.

She leaned on the bar and laughed until I began to feel that the story might be a useful addition to my repertoire, provided I could arrange for it to have happened to somebody else.

I let her finish. One ought to respect an audience’s enjoyment, even when it came at such a personal cost.

“So,” I said, when she could hear me again, “needless to say, I need a bath and a bed. The pants will have to wait until tomorrow.”

Emmi wiped at one eye and shook her head.

“Take the room upstairs. It’s late, it’s dead in here. I’ll give you a discount. Say twenty jades for the night. Head up before you pass out on my bar.”

Twenty jades was twenty more than I’d hoped to spend on a room. It was also a price, an address, and permission to stop walking. I counted out the money before she recovered enough to reconsider.⁹9

I climbed down carefully and hauled the pack into place. Rufus got up to follow. There were still trousers to buy and a great deal of filth to remove, but both problems seemed smaller now that someone had told me where I could sleep.

“Come on,” I told him.

I went upstairs with one hand on the scarf.¹⁰10