Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (21 page)

           
"Mutton and pork, my
lord."

           
"Mutton," he said easily,
"and do not stint it."

           
She wore a stained, threadbare apron
over soiled gray skirts, and the sagging bodice gaped to display her breasts.
She bent over to give him fill! benefit of her bounty. He saw more than she
intended: flesh aplenty, aye, and wide, darkened nipples pinching erect under
his perusal, but also a rash of insect bites. Dark brown hair swung down in its
single braid. A louse ran across her scalp.

           
"My lord," the woman said,
"we have more than just mutton and pork."

           
She was certain of her charms. In
this place, he knew, no man would care about her filth, only the fit of his
manhood between her diseased thighs.

           
"Later," he said coolly.
"Do not press me."

           
The brief flash of dismay was
overtaken at once by enmity. She opened her mouth as if to respond, then shut
it tight again. He saw her reassess his clothing, the coin, then forcibly alter
hostility into a sullen acceptance. "Aye, my lord. Mutton and usca."

           
Kellin watched her walk away. Her
hips swung invitation as if by habit; the rigidity of her shoulders divulged
her injured feelings. He laughed softly to himself; he had frequent congress
with Midden whores, but not with one such as she. He did not think much of
acquiring lice as boon companions in exchange for a dip in her well-plumbed
womanhood.

           
As he waited for usca and mutton,
Kellin again assessed the room. His entrance, as expected, had caused comment,
but that had died. Men gambled again, paying him no mind except for the
occasional sidelong glance. Impatiently he pressed the tip of a fingernail into
the edge of the silver piece and flipped the coin on the table. Again and again
he did it, so that the coin rang softly, and the wan light from greasy candles
glinted dully on the sheen of clean silver.

           
The woman returned with a boiled
leather flask, no cup; and a platter of mutton. She thumped down the platter as
he tested the smell of the flask.

           
"Well?"

           
Kellin caught the tang of harsh
liquor through the bitterness of boiled leather. He nodded, then nipped the
coin in her direction. She caught it deftly, eyed his intent to discern if his mood
toward her had changed; plainly it had not, but she bobbed a quick curtsy in
deference to the silver. The overpayment was vast, but she accepted it readily
enough with no offer of coppers in change. He had expected none.

           
"Do ye game?" she asked,
jerking her head toward a neighboring table.

           
And so the dance commenced; Kellin
felt the knot of anticipation tie itself into his belly. "I game."

           
"Do ye wager well?"

           
Kellin drew the Cheysuli long-knife
and sliced into the meat. "As well as the next man."

           
Emerald wolf's-eyes glinted. She
marked them, and stared. "Would ye dice with a stranger?"

           
Kellin bit into the chunk of meat.
It was tough, stringy, foul; he ate it anyway, because it was part of the test.
"If his coin is good enough, no man is a stranger."

           
Indecisive, she chewed crookedly at
her lip.

           
Then blurted her warning out.
"You lords don't come here. The game is sometimes rough."

           
"Tame ones bore me." He
cut more mutton. Emeralds winked.

           
Her own eyes shone with avarice.
"Luce will throw with you. Will ye have him?"

           
Kellin downed a hearty swallow of
usca, then tipped the flask again. Deliberately, he said, "I came here for
neither the drink nor the meat. Do not waste my time on idle chatter."

           
She inhaled a hissing breath. Her
spine was stiff as she swung away, but he noted it did not prevent her from
walking to the closest table. She bent and murmured to one of the table's
occupants, then went immediately into the kitchen behind a tattered curtain.

           
Kellin waited. He ate his way through
most of the mutton, then shoved aside the platter with a grimace of distaste.
The rest of the usca eventually burned away the mutton's aftertaste.

           
A second flask was slapped down upon
the table even as Kellin set aside the first. The hand that held it was not the
woman's. It was wide-palmed and seamed with scars. Thick dark hair sprouted
from the back. "Purse," the man said. "I dice against rich men,
not poor."

           
Kellin glanced up eventually.
"Then we are well suited."

           
The man did not smile or otherwise
indicate emotion. He merely untied a pouch from his belt, loosened the puckered
mouth, and poured a stream of gemstones into his hand. With a disdainful
gesture he scattered the treasure across scarred wood.

           
His authority was palpable as he
stood beside the table, making no motion to guard his wealth. No one in the
tavern would dare test him by attempting to steal a gemstone.

           
Real, every one. Rubies, sapphires,
emeralds, and a diamond or two for good measure. All were at least the size of
a man's thumbnail; some were larger yet.

           
Kellin looked at Luce again. The man
was huge.

           
The imagery flashed into Kellin's
mind: A bull.

           
And so Luce seemed, with his thick
neck, and a wide-planed, saturnine face hidden in bushy brown beard. His eyes
were dark, nearly black. His crooked teeth were yellow, and he lacked his left
thumb.

           
A thief. But caught only once, or
the Mujhar's justice would have required more than a thumb.

           
On thick wrists Luce wore heavy
leather bracers studded with grime-rimmed metal. His belt was identical,
fastened with a massive buckle of heavy greenish bronze. His clothing was plain
homespun wool, dark and unexceptional, but in a concession to personal
vanity—and as a mark of his status—he wore a chunky bluish pearl in his right
earlobe.

           
In the Midden the adornment marked
him a wealthy man.

           
A good thief, then. And undoubtedly
dangerous.

           
Kellin smiled. He understood why the
girl had gone to Luce rather than to another. She intended to teach the
arrogant lordling a very painful lesson in payment for his rudeness.

           
He untied his belt-purse, loosened
the mouth, then dumped the contents out onto the table. Gold spilled across
stained wood, mingling with the glitter of Luce's stones. With it spilled also
silver, a handful of coppers, and a single bloody ruby Kellin carried for good
luck.

           
The pile of coins and lone ruby
marked Kellin a rich man also, but it did not begin to match the worth of
Luce's treasure. He knew that at once and thought rapidly ahead to
alternatives. Only one suggested itself. Only one was worth the risk.

           
The bearded Homanan grunted and
began to scoop the gemstones back into his pouch. "A poor man, then."

           
"No." Kellin's tone was
deliberate, cutting through the faint clatter of stone against stone.

           
"Look again." With an
elegant gesture he pushed the long-knife into the pile.

           
He heard the sibilance of indrawn
breaths.

           
Luce's presence at Kellin's table
had attracted an audience. The huge man was among friends in the Midden; Kellin
had none. Even Teague, ostensibly there to guard him, slouched at the back of
the crowd and appeared only marginally interested in Luce and the lordling who
was not, after all, so rich a man as that—except he had now raised the stakes
higher than anyone might expect.

           
The fingers on Luce's right hand
twitched once.

           
His eyes, dark and opaque, showed no
expression.

           
"I'll touch it."

           
"You know what it is,"
Kellin said. "But aye, you may touch it—for a moment."

           
The insult was deliberate. As
expected, it caused a subtle shifting among the audience. Luce's mouth
tightened fractionally in the hedgerow of his beard, then loosened. He picked
up the knife and smoothed fingers over the massive pommel, closed on the grip
itself, then eventually tested the clean steel as an expert does: he plucked a
hair from his beard and pulled it gently across the edge. Satisfied, he twisted
his mouth. Then it loosened, slackened, and the tip of his tongue showed as he
turned the knife in poor light. Emerald eyes glinted.

           
Luce wet thick lips.
"Real."

           
Kellin's hands were slack on the
table top. Compared to Luce's bulky palms and spatulate fingers.

           
Kellin's were almost girlish in
their slender elegance. "I carry no false weapons."

           
Near-black eyes flicked an assessive
glance at Kellin. "Cheysuli long-knife."

           
"Aye."

           
Flesh folded upon itself at the
comers of Luce's eyes. "You'd risk this."

           
Kellin shrugged in elaborate
negligence. "When I dice, there is no risk."

           
Thus the challenge was made. Luce's
brows met, then parted. "This is worth more than I have."

           
"Of course it is." Kellin
smiled faintly. "A Cheysuli knife cannot be bought, stolen, or copied .. .
only earned." Idly he rolled his ruby back and forth on the splintered
wood. "Be certain, Homanan—if you win that knife from me, you will have earned
it. But if it concerns you now that you cannot match my wager, there is
something else you may add."

           
Luce's eyes narrowed.
"What?"

           
"If you lose," Kellin
said, "your other thumb."

           
The tavern thrummed with low-toned
growls of outrage and murmurs of surprise. In its tone Kellin heard the
implicit threat, the promise of violence; he had challenged one of their own.
But the audacity, once absorbed, was worth a grudging admiration. It was a
wager to measure the courage of any man, and Luce had more pride than most to
risk. They believed in him, Kellin knew, and that alone would move a reluctant
man to accept a wager he would not otherwise consider.

           
Luce set the knife down very
deliberately next to Kellin's hand. It was a subtle display of fairness that
was, Kellin believed, uncommon to the Midden, and therefore all the more
suspect, but was also a salute to Kellin's ploy. The handsome young lordling
was no friend to them, but no longer precisely an enemy. He understood the
tenor of their world.

           
Luce smiled. "A wager worth the
making, but over too quickly. Let's save us the knife—and the thumb—for
last."

           
Kellin suppressed a smile,
"Agreed."

           
"One more," Luce
cautioned, as Kellin moved to sweep the coins into his pouch, "if you lose
the knife, an answer to a question."

           
Easy enough. "If I can give
it."

           
Luce's gaze did not waver.
"You'll tell me how you came by such a knife."

           
That was unexpected. Kellin was
accustomed to those in better taverns recognizing him and therefore knowing he
was Cheysuli. But Luce clearly knew nothing at all about him, least of all his
race, which suited him perfectly. "It is important to you?"

           
Luce bent and spat. "I have no
love of the shapechangers," he said flatly. "If you got a knife from
one of them, it can be done again. I want to find the way. Then I would be on
equal ground."

           
It was puzzling. "Equal ground?
With the Cheysuli?"

           
Luce hitched massive shoulders.
"They're sorcerers. Their weapons are bound with spells. If I had a knife,
I'd share in the power. If I had two, I could rule it."

           
Kellin smiled. "Ambitious, for
a thief."

           
Luce's eyes narrowed. "A thief,
aye—for now. But these men'll tell you what my ambition earns them." One
meaty hand swung out to encompass the room. "Without me they earn scraps-
With me, they earn feasts." His stare was malignant. "The Midden is
mine, lordling, and I'll be keeping it so. It'd be easier done with Cheysuli
sorcery."