`The innkeeper is a thief and a murderer,' panted a third limping by with a sore the size of a dinner plate on its haunches.
`Go back. Go back,' barked a tan and black puppy that was so starved its flanks flapped together.
Lem scooped him up. `You poor little thing. If I get any food I will give you some.'
The pup snuggled its head under his arm.
The inn was a rambling manure-walled building with a shingle roof, four attic windows and one smoking chimney. To its left was a stable full of swayed-backed mules and horses. To its right lay a cobblestone yard jammed with vehicles. One was the potato farmers' wagon.
Lem placed the pup under the wagon. `Stay here,' he ordered. But the pup followed him through the inn door.
The stink of spilt ale, badly cooked food, and a floor that was never swept or washed of its layers of tobacco and phlegm, made Lem's empty stomach churn.
`Shut the door and sit down if you're staying,' grunted a man just inside the door.
The interior of the inn consisted of one large smoke-filled room with a ladder leading to the attic, a fireplace large enough for four men to stand inside and a sack- covered doorway leading to the ale room. Over the fire revolved a spit containing a lump of fatty meat, a roasting rooster and three crackling groundhogs.
A wizened old man turned the spit when he wasn't sticking his tobacco-stained fingers into the beef dripping and sucking them. Beside the sizzling carcases hung a soot-blackened soup pot and a smaller pot of mulled wine. The old man's finger dipped into these as well.
Pulled up around the fire were 20 split-log benches and 10 plank tables crowded with men drinking, talking, playing cards or sleeping. Around the inn's walls were smaller unlit tables where men could whisper secrets and not be seen. At one such table sat six drunken red-haired Huntsmen. Abel Penny lolled at another.
Lem wondered if he had changed into a giant pig and galloped all the way to the inn to reach it so quickly.
At a corner table sat the three farmers. The wounded one was resting his head on his arms.
Lem picked up the pup and whispered in its ear. `Who is everyone?'
The pup licked his ear and shared his thoughts. `The innkeeper, Petrie Wartstoe, watches you from behind the curtains. Abel Penny, the toll master, eats here every day. The farmers arrived this morning saying they'd been robbed by bandits and would have been murdered only a golden-haired cliff-spirit freed them.
`The bandits who robbed them never come to the inn. Instead they bartered the farmers' wagon and potatoes for snake meat from the red-bearded Huntsmen. The Huntsmen bartered the wagon and potatoes for ale.
`The men in the black-knitted hats playing cards over there are Mussel Cove fishermen. No one gambles better than a Mussel Cove fisherman.'
`The 12-fingered travellers in the capes and wide brimmed hats are merchants from Belem. Beware of them for they can rob the eye out of a needle while you're still sewing with it.'
Suddenly Lem's hood was snatched from his head. `Hey! No flea riddled mutts in here. We keep a clean establishment. Get him out!'
The speaker was a spiteful-looking boy with an oblong face, long yellow horse teeth, and broomstick arms and legs. He was so skinny that Lem thought a good puff of air would blow him over. For a second he was tempted to try. Then, remembering why he was there he opened the inn door and pushed the pup outside. `Wait,' he commanded.
`So what will it be?' demanded the bag of bones boy, hitching his filthy apron higher up his narrow chest.
Lem lowered his voice. `I wish to speak to the inn keeper,'
`What business have you with Master Wartstoe?' demanded the boy in a voice loud enough for everyone sitting nearby to hear.
Well aware that others were now listening, Lem answered as quietly as he could. `Bartering business. But not here, somewhere safer.'
`Be you saying our inn ain't safe?' demanded the boy. This time his voice carried to every corner of the inn. Everyone looked around.
Lem was so angry he wanted to slap the loud-mouthed boy. Instead he stared mutely at the boy's filthy shirt and trouser cuffs, which were too short for his bony wrists and ankles, and at his fat-encrusted apron, which was long enough to trip him.
The boy flicked the crumbs off a nearby table. `Who will I say you be and where be you from?'
`Wolf, from the palace,' said Lem, giving up on speaking softly.
At the word `palace' everyone stared at him, and the serving boy scurried off, collecting empty tankards as he went.
`So you've something to barter,' said a man sliding along the bench until his nose was jammed against Lem's. `What might that be? I might give you more than the innkeeper, if it be a thing I desire.' He winked and tapped his large nose with a filthy fingernail.
Lem noticed that he had six fingers on both hands.
`I be Jessup Birdsnest, a Belem Merchant of unusual and unlikely oddities. I buy anything incredible and strange. A smoked human finger would be perfect, or a hangman's rope - used of course. A dragon's claw fetches top coin, as does an invisible feather from an invisible bird, made visible naturally. Perhaps you have a fairy wing, though they be hard to find nowadays, there being no fairies left on the peninsula. A piece of the High Enchanter's shadow would be worth a noble's fortune. So what do you have, boy? And how much do you want for it?'
`I'm looking for an oracle.'
The man slid away so fast he almost fell off the end of the bench. `I don't do business with oracles. Not in public inns anyway.'
The skinny boy returned at that moment. `What be wrong with public inns, Jessup Birdsnest?'
The Belem Merchant put his sixth finger to his nose and winked at Lem. `Nothing, Isaac Wartstoe! Public inns are fine places. And yours be one of the best.'
Lem followed Isaac around the tables towards the ale room's curtain at the back.
As they passed by Abel Penny, the fat man sniffed and a look of recognition crossed his face, so he stuck his leg out to trip Lem.
Lem jumped over it easily but nearly bumped into Isaac, just as the younger Wartstoe pulled aside the ale room curtain to reveal the innkeeper.
Petrie Wartstoe was as skinny as his son and so tall that he had to thrust his head forward to avoid knocking it on the ale room's ceiling. With his oblong face, yellow teeth, pointed nose and long black coat he looked like a scavenging funeral stork.
`Name of Wolf, eh? From the palace, eh? Haven't seen anyone from there for a long time. They don't like coming through Snake Tree Wood and they've nothing to barter. So what have you got? And don't try to rob me or I'll set my dog on you, and he has teeth as sharp as a cut-throat razor.'
Petrie Wartstoe kicked the wolfhound at his feet and the dog snarled showing his sharp teeth until Lem spoke to it gently, with his thoughts. It wagged its tail at him and told him a secret.
Lem nodded at the dog, then spoke to the innkeeper.`I want to
