darkness of a night when there was no moon?
They entered the inn through a stone portico giving onto a small courtyard, faded frescos of birds on the walls, well-scrubbed flagstones, a lemon tree in a pot dying quietly in the corner. The smell of spice and bread and beer; laughter from a room opening off to the left, accompanied by the thrum of a lyre and a clapping of hands. A musician, maybe even a troop. Tobias nodded approvingly. Good distraction. People less likely to notice or remember them if there was a good story and a song to look forward to.
He accosted a young woman scurrying past with a tray of clean tea bowls. Cleared his throat and greeted her in three words of his best Literan. She sniggered and he switched hastily to Immish: ‘The innkeep, if you please, miss. We’re in need of rooms.’ She nodded, scurried off and returned with a thin middle-aged man with bright, cold eyes.
‘Rooms, you’ll be needing, is it?’ the man asked him, looking their tattered clothing over with a practised eye. ‘We’re a bit crowded right at this moment, I’ll be telling you.’
Tobias smiled at him, produced a small leather purse. ‘We have gold. Not much else, mind. This here— ’ indicated Marith with a jerk of his head ‘ —this here is Lord Marith Cotas. Not much, he looks at the moment, I grant you – we were waylaid by bandits on the road ten days out from Reneneth. Bastards took almost everything. But he’s rich. And I’m clever. So we’ve still got enough gold on us for rooms.’
The innkeep hesitated. ‘Been rumours of bandits out in the borderlands. Roads are bad at the moment. Not good for trade, so not good for me. But few dare the desert road anyway, now. Your lord’s a fool, travelling with so few men.’
Marith frowned, a dark look in his eyes. Seemed about to say something.
‘My Lord realizes that,’ said Tobias hastily. ‘Maybe best not to rub it in any further, yeah? Regardless: rooms. We’d like rooms and baths and a hot supper.’ He jingled the purse again. ‘Five dhol?’
‘Six,’ the innkeep said in a grudging voice. ‘I’ve got two rooms, but one’s small. Might be best if Your Lordship had that one, I’m afraid, less he wants to share with his servants. I can get baths drawn, though we’ve only got two so you’ll have to take turns. Food served after the evening bell, there’s music tonight too, you’re lucky.’
They were led upstairs. ‘My Lord’s’ room was tiny, an attic gable at the back of the building with a fine view of a scrubby field. The innkeep shifted awkwardly on his feet as he showed Marith in. Barely room for a bed. ‘Can’t move one of my other guests for less than ten,’ the innkeep said shortly. ‘My Lord.’ Tobias, Rate, Alxine and Emit had a larger room, two beds and floor space for two more, overlooking the stable yard. Rate took a big lungful of the stinking air and grinned. ‘Smells like home. What say we dice for the beds?’
The bath was drawn up by the same young woman they’d encountered in the courtyard, clanking up and down the stairs with pails of steaming water till Marith felt vague guilt. She was far too small and slim for heavy lifting. The water was hot and scented with herbs, lemon thyme and basil, sharp and sweet. The soap was lye, but clean. There was even oil for the hair. Marith sank back into the water with a deep sigh. Hadn’t had a bath like this for months. The feel of the hot water was wonderful. The girl smiled shyly at him and offered to stay and wash his hair, but he turned her down, then called her back and asked her to bring him a jug of wine.
His clothes were given a quick clean while he was bathing. His cloak looked wretchedly tatty still, but was a shade closer to its original rich red; his boots and belt, being good leather, had responded well to being polished. The silver buckle of his belt shone. Between a good wash and a proper shave, the cleaner clothes and the wine, he came downstairs feeling more like himself than he had done for a long time. Looked more like himself, too, he realized as he caught sight of his face in a small bronze mirror on one of the landings. If you ignored the heavy scarring to his left hand. The thought made him shiver. His eyes were itching, his skin beginning to burn. Last night had been the first time he’d been in a tavern since Skie had picked him up. Tonight would be worse.
Music and laughter were pouring out of the common room. He took a deep breath and walked in. A large clean room with more faded frescos decorating the walls. Two musicians, a lyre-player and a piper, playing at one side of the room. The girl was sitting already half in the lap of a laughing man in a fine red tunic. The inn the previous night had been small, rural, relatively harmless. This room made him shiver again, despite the warmth of the wine in his head. That had been foolish too. Last night hadn’t gone so badly, considering how it might have ended. Tonight he needed to be more careful. So much more careful. Which was so much more difficult …
Tobias, Emit and Alxine were already sitting at a table, also scrubbed clean.
‘My Lord.’ Rate rose as he entered and indicated a seat beside him with a gloriously overblown flourish.
‘Would Your Lordship care for a drink?’ asked Emit in a particularly servile voice.
Marith felt himself flinch despite himself. ‘Perhaps a cup of wine,’ he said. The others were drinking the pale, sweet beer they favoured in Sorlost. ‘How’s your room?’ he asked, trying to find something to say to them. Strange how playing himself was so much more difficult than playing whoever he’d been for the last few months.
‘Stinks,’ said Emit shortly.
‘Bigger than yours,’ said Rate. ‘As the serving girl has already pointed out.’
Tobias was just rising to order food when a bell sounded, loud and low and sad. The room fell suddenly silent, the musicians stopping playing, voices breaking off in the middle of a word. A long pause, a silence that hung in the air. Everything and everyone very still. Marith felt something between a laugh and a scream well up inside him. A dim confused memory of a silence like this.
On and on, drawn out painfully, tense as knives. Suddenly, finally, the girl laughed loudly, a high-pitched squealing sound. Something broke in the air. The bell tolled again. The drinkers turned back to their drinks, muttering. The musicians started to play.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Emit asked.
‘Twilight,’ said Tobias. ‘The bell marks the moment between day and night. Considered a dangerous time.’
‘Seserenthelae aus perhalish,’ murmured Marith. ‘Night comes. We survive.’ Carin used to say it sometimes, his voice deep and solemn; they’d both laugh. It had all seemed almost funny, back then.
‘Speak bloody Literan, now, do you?’ Emit growled. Marith blinked back to the present. They were all staring at him. Speak bloody Literan, now, do you? Oh gods. He was getting careless. Slipping. Letting out things they shouldn’t know. But it was so hard to think here. Shadows. Laughter. Carin. Ah gods, Carin … Pain, clawing at him. Something screaming, just out of reach. He rubbed his eyes and tried to smile at them. ‘Plain as day I’m highborn. You didn’t think I’d be well educated as well?’
‘Speak the lingo, know the customs …’ Emit was glaring. ‘I’m starting to wonder about you, boy …’
‘My Lord,’ said Alxine, trying for levity. ‘I’m starting to wonder about you, My Lord. He can recite dirty poetry too.’
‘Course he can,’ said Rate. ‘Basis of a good education, dirty poetry. “My love is like a lily fair, With lice around her pubic hair”. But can he recite dirty poetry in Literan?’
‘Actually,
