D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (19 page)

  Garett worked his way wearily through the throngs that filled the High Market Square. No one moved aside for him, and he had to push and elbow his way along, muttering curses as he went. He was in no mood for festivities. More than anything, he wished for the relative peace of his apartment on Moon-shadow Lane. He wanted nothing more than his bed and a good sleep.

What was there to celebrate, anyway? he thought, glancing at all the happy cheering faces. Kentellen Mar was coining home. So what? The magister-to-be might be a decent fellow now, but after a few months on the Directorate, no doubt he'd become just as devious and petty as the rest of the directors. He’d have to, just to survive in the position. If the people truly loved him, they’d do everything they could to discourage him from the office.

A pretty young girl with blond hair that hung in curls over her shoulders and big, wide eyes the color of robins' eggs, danced into Garett’s path. She was barefooted. Her

dress was a clean but threadbare scrap, and the blue ribbon in her hair was pressed but faded with age. He guessed it was a hand-me-down from her mother or an older sibling. In the crook of her right arm she carried bunches of flowers. Smiling, she thrust a small bouquet up at him. “Buy some flowers, lord?” she sang sweetly. “Just two commons!”

Garett scowled, but still he found himself reaching into his belt and drawing out his purse. He took the bouquet and dropped the coins into her small hand. “I’m not a lord,” he told her gently.

“Thank you! Thank you!” she responded gleefully, dropping the coppers in a pocket. “Everyone’s a lord who buys my flowers!” Instantly she turned away to thrust another bouquet at someone else and make her exuberant pitch.

“You’ve got a soft heart,” a familiar voice said close to his ear.

Garett turned and gave Blossom a sidelong look. She’d changed out of the smelly uniform she’d worn in the sewers and taken time to bathe. It reminded him of how badly he stank and how filthy he felt. She looked fresh in a plain blue tunic and black trousers tucked into leather knee-high boots. The sword at her hip was the only indication of her status with the City Watch. In fact, she might have been any adventurer who had paid the city’s licensing fee to carry the blade.

“I thought you were going to bed,” Garett commented, eyeing her with new interest. He’d never really thought of Blossom as beautiful before. She was one of his officers. But out of uniform, with her usually braided hair flying loose in the wind, standing head and shoulders above almost everyone else in the crowd, she was quite a stunning woman.

Blossom shrugged as she looked around. “Who can sleep with all this going on?” she answered, surveying the nearest faces. “They’re pressed right up against the barracks walls.”

Garett understood her point. The High Market Square could hold as many as five thousand people. It had to be

nearing that limit already. Garett frowned to himself as he stared over the heads of the mob toward the Garden Gate. The Processional would be full of people, too, he realized. It was going to be tough getting home.

“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink, Captain,” Blossom offered, as if realizing the reason behind his frown. “No point in trying to make it back to the River Quarter now. You’ll just be swimming against the current.”

Garett thought about it and agreed. “We’ll still have to make it out the gate, though,” he reminded her doubtfully.

“Not necessarily,” she answered quickly. “You just follow me.”

With her intimidating size, Blossom had no problem turning northward and clearing a path through the crowd. People saw her coming and did their best to make way, and if she had to push a soul or two out of her way, nobody complained loudly enough for her to hear. She was known to the citizens of Greyhawk, even without her uniform.

Garett followed in her wake, both amused and amazed by the reactions of the people she passed. The men gave her looks, sometimes of lust and sometimes of anger, depending on how quickly they stepped out of her way and how roughly she shoved them. A few even dared to mutter curses, though not too loudly.

It was the women and girls in the crowd, though, that fascinated Garett most. They watched Blossom with open admiration in their eyes. To them, she was a kind of heroine. No husband would ever beat her, they realized. No brother or father would bully and order her to fetch their beer or fix their meals. He could almost hear their silent cheers every time a man stepped aside for her or every time she pushed one out of her path. And Blossom didn’t say anything to anyone. Either they moved or she moved them.

In no time, they were out of the High Market Square and headed back toward the Citadel. As Garett had predicted, the Processional was crowded as far as he could see. Banners had been draped across the road, and pennons were flying from every window and rooftop. From all directions came the music of street performers and minstrels. It was as if a great carnival had come to Greyhawk and taken over the streets.

“How about The Tomb?” Blossom asked, naming a nearby tavern where many of the watchmen spent their off-duty hours. She rubbed her throat as she looked around disapprovingly. Despite the slate-gray sky that threatened rain at any moment, the celebration was only building.

“Fine with me,” Garett answered halfheartedly. Part of him still would have preferred to fight his way through the crowds to his apartment and fall into bed, but it had been a long time since he’d had a quiet drink with one of his officers, and longer since he’d visited The Tomb, where he’d spent many of his early hours with the watch before he’d risen through the ranks.

Side by side, they turned off the Processional and took a narrow side alley called Leaf Street, which ran through a carefully tended grove of trees, one of several such gardens in the Garden Quarter. Even here, the noise from the Processional and the High Market Square could be heard. Unless everybody stopped for a drink, Garett figured, Greyhawk would be very hoarse before Kentellen Mar ever poked his face through the Duke’s Gate.

At the end of Leaf Street stood a squat, windowless brick building, whose sign out front proclaimed it The Tomb. It stood opposite another, far more graceful structure, one of the most famous in Greyhawk, called the Lord’s Tomb, which contained the remains of the city’s founder, whose name was lost in antiquity. Some considered it sacrilege that a tavern called itself after such an important landmark. Garett didn’t care. And after a few beers, no one he knew cared, either.

Blossom held the door while he led the way inside. For good reason was it called The Tomb. He paused for a moment on the threshold while his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

“Come in or get out!” someone shouted gruffly. “But close the damn door!”

Garett hesitated the merest instant, and a piece of crockery shattered against the wall near his head. Hastily, he stepped inside and pulled Blossom after. He hadn’t forgotten the legendary temper of The Tomb’s owner, an amazingly fat half-orc named Kestertrot. Garett pulled the heavy door closed. Immediately, all the noise from outside stopped. Barely able to see in the smoky gloom, he took the three short steps down to the floor. A pair of dim lamps, suspended from the ceiling by old chains, provided the only illumination. Whether it was intended to or not, the place gave the impression of the caves where Kestertrot’s ancestors dwelled.

“I can hardly see!” Garett muttered good-naturedly as the owner waddled toward him.

Kestertrot harrumphed as he took Garett’s hand and shook it vigorously. Kestertrot was only half-orc, but he had all the features of his father’s race. Tiny eyes peered up brightly from a face that was mostly black, wiry hair, and his nose was almost the size of a fist. “Don’t blame me for your pathetic human eyes,” he answered gruffly. “I can see just fine. Been a long time, Starlen. Thought you didn’t like old Kestertrot anymore.”

The owner guided Garett and Blossom to a table in the far corner near the kitchen door. Half a dozen other men from the watch bent over their drinks and nodded quiet greetings as they passed. At another table, a mercenary, whose oily, double-pointed beard and tightly bound hair revealed him as Nyrondian, looked in Garett’s direction, lifted his nose, and glanced pointedly away. Garett refused to feel irritated. He’d been to Nyrond once. Never had he seen a nation with so little reason for believing itself superior to the rest of the world.

“Here, I think you should probably have these,” Garett said pleasantly, passing the bouquet of flowers to Blossom when Kestertrot had taken their orders for barley beer and

left them alone.

Blossom leaned her elbows on the table, cupped the bouquet between her hands, and inhaled the fragrance of the flowers. “Blossoms for Blossom,” she answered sweetly with just a hint of teasing in her voice. “But don’t get any ideas, Captain Starlen. We can never be more than just good friends.” She put on a small, coy smile, a delicate upturning of her lips that lent her a very feminine beauty. For a second time, Garett realized he just wasn’t used to thinking of his lieutenant as a woman, and it disconcerted him.

“If you couldn’t sleep,” he said quickly to divert the unexpected course of his thoughts, “why didn’t you join the celebration in the streets like everyone else? You might have caught a glimpse of Kentellen Mar.”

The smile faded, and a definite frown took its place. “Give me a break, Captain,” Blossom said in a low voice. “There’s not a man or woman with eyes in this city that hasn’t seen Kentellen Mar walking the streets on his way to court or wandering the grounds of the university or quaffing a drink in the River Quarter from time to time.” She rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “I swear, the man gets handed an office, and suddenly he’s a god.”

“It’s an important office,” Garett replied, also leaning back in his chair, willing to let a bit of friendly debate pass the time. “The people of Grevhawk think that, as magister, he’ll bring back an element of fairness that’s been missing from the judicial system.”

Blossom stared at him. A corner of her mouth turned upward in cynical amusement as she crossed one leg over the other and tilted her chair back on its two rearmost legs. “We both know the only reason Kentellen Mar was given the appointment is because Ellon Thigpen is a shrewd politician. He thinks he can use Kentellen’s popularity to consolidate his own standing with the citizens. And since Kentellen has no experience at all as a director, he’ll be grateful for his appointment, but out of his element, thus easy to manipulate.”

Garett regarded her. He knew well Blossom’s skill with her weapons and her dedication to her job as watchman. But his lieutenant also had a keen mind. “Perhaps not as easy as you think,” he suggested quietly.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she returned with characteristic bluntness. “It’s what Ellon Thigpen thinks.”

The kitchen door swung open, and Kestertrot appeared bearing a tray with two tall mugs of pungent barley beer. He set one down before Blossom, frowning at her wordlessly until she straightened up and placed her chair down on all four legs. Then he moved around to Garett and set the second mug before him. “’You stink,” the half-orc stated loudly enough for all in the room to hear. “"You’d think a captain of the watch could afford to bathe before visiting a decent establishment.”

Garett picked up his beer and blew away the foamy head. He was getting a little tired of people commenting on his personal odor. “I do bathe,” he answered with light sarcasm, “when I visit decent establishments.”

Kestertrot made another of his throat-clearing harrumphs as he tucked the tray under one arm and wiped his hands on his dirty apron. Then he turned and went back through the kitchen door. As soon as the half-orc was gone again, Blossom leaned her chair back on its rear legs and looked thoughtful. Slowly, she lifted her beer and brought it to her lips. The froth left a tiny white mustache, which she licked away.

The door to the outside opened. Bright sunlight streamed inside briefly, and another pair of watchmen came into The Tomb and found seats at a table. They had a familiar look of weary dishevelment. Garett recognized them in the poor light. Night-shifters assigned to the watch house in the Artisans’ Quarter. With an inward groan, he realized the likelihood that none of his men were going to get any sleep today for the noise of the celebrations.

“It’s going to be dicey tonight,” he muttered over his beer. “Half the city drunk and half the night watch asleep

on its feet.”

Blossom only nodded as she sipped from her mug and cast a glance around at her fellow watchmen. “I wish it were all over,” she said at last. She wore a strangely troubled expression. “I’ve had a bad feeling for days.”

Garett looked at her, puzzled by the sudden change in her voice. Abruptly, The Tomb seemed even darker than he knew it was, as if the wicks on the lamps had been turned down, though no one had gone near them. Even the air felt thicker.

“As if you were being watched?” he asked in a whisper, trying to sound casual. He remembered the sensation he’d felt on Kastern’s Bridge and in the sewers. He felt it again now, no matter how he told himself it was only in his mind,

“I don’t know,” she answered, looking away selfconsciously, refusing to meet his gaze. “But there’ve been moments the last couple of days,” she confessed, “when I felt almost on the verge of panic, like I just wanted to run as far away as I could.” She shook her head and took a long drink of her beer. “It’s completely irrational,” she added firmly, as if trying to convince herself.

Garett leaned forward and peered at her intently. “Blossom, you don’t, by any chance, have the blood of any magical races in your veins, do you?”

Blossom turned toward him, obviously startled by his question. Then she barked a short laugh, set her beer down, and lowered her chair to its four legs. “No, Captain,” she answered with a patient grin. “There’s no truth at all to the stories that I’m part giant. I’m completely human.”

Garett’s mouth drew into a tight line as he settled back again. It had been a dumb question, and he hoped she hadn’t taken offense. He was completely human, too, but there was still that odd, creeping sensation on the back of his neck. But when Blossom said she’d thought of running away, it had suddenly reminded him of Burge’s report that the elves and dwarves and ores had all left town.