Terry W. Ervin (35 page)

I watched the elder peddler hand over coins to the officer before crossing the bridge into the city. At the sound of their mule’s clomping over the bridge, the two guards stepped aside.

I strode up to the table and met the wicked smile of the dark-faced officer after he marked on a ledger with a pencil and dropped the peddler’s coins into a small box at his feet. He squinted up at me. “Seven silver to enter the city.”

I read the ornately scrolled sign tacked down on the table. It listed the entrance tariff for merchants to be two silvers. Mercenaries, five silvers. All others were seven silvers.

I pointed to the line that read ‘Mercenary.’ “I’ll pay the posted five.”

The guard behind the officer stood up straight. His full height brought him to well over a head taller than me. The officer snorted a laugh. “It takes more than a bit of peasant armor and scavenged weapons to call oneself a mercenary.”

One of the things I’d learned was to never back down. If I did, chances are they’d take my money and deny me entrance. “I am what I say.”

“What lord do you serve?” He smiled, showing a gap between his large teeth.

“None. I seek entrance to find salt, strengthen the anti-corrosion spell on my blade, and enjoy myself.”

He asked smugly, “Who have you served?”

I reached into a pocket and pulled out the arm sash bearing purple and gold. “I served Keesee until three panzers, backed by ogres and zombies, smashed my battalion.”

“And you fled,” he sneered.

“The losing side rarely pays up,” I shrugged. “Why risk going south to reenlist?”

He pointed with his pencil. “Where’d you get the cut?”

“A trio of goblins ambushed me.”

“Dangerous to travel alone,” the officer remarked.

I shook my head. “More dangerous to travel in threes, I’d say.”

The tall guard cracked a smile and chuckled. I looked up at him, winked, and reached into my pouch behind my breastplate. “I’ll pay the posted five silver, and leave two copper to your tall friend.” I laid seven coins on the table. “It’s been a week since anyone’s laughed at one of my jokes.” I gambled that it’d be imprudent for the officer to deny a comrade money in favor of lining his liege’s pockets.

The officer accepted and waved me past.

Without looking back I crossed the bridge and held my breath to avoid inhaling the swirling stench of raw sewage, even though it was nothing compared to close combat with a zombie horde. I ignored the guards and walked into an open courtyard beyond the wall. Manure from goats, oxen, and horses littered the cobbled stone. From the courtyard, three wide streets lined by two-story limestone buildings led into the city. Wood shingle roofs grayed by decades of exposure to the sun matched the weather-worn exterior walls. Doors stood propped open while off duty soldiers loitered nearby or looked down from their barrack’s windows. I strode past, ignoring narrow side streets teeming with merchants, soldiers, oxen, carts and servants. Oily smoke filled the air from vendors selling smoked fish. While grumbles, chatter, and an occasional laugh reminded me of the King’s City, the smell of stale sweat and the rundown condition of the shops, apartments, even the pitted streets, stood in stark contrast. The smiles were false, and many eyes held despair, desperation, and fear.

I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but I stayed on the center road into the heart of the city. I instinctively reached for my sword when I saw two ogres towering above the crowds, bullying their way through. I reminded myself that Sint Malo was an open city. I hoped the congestion would thin as I moved away from the city’s main gate. It did. But with fewer people, I became less anonymous.

I reached an inner wall, much cleaner than the outer one and well guarded. The sentries standing next to the lowered portcullis looked less than friendly. I stepped off the main road and onto the porch of a candle maker’s shop. Shade from the tattered canvas awning provided relief from the sun. I’d reached Sint Malo a little after noon, and had been in the city for almost an hour. I watched the guards around the portcullis while pondering who I might ask directions to the Fertile Serpent, the tavern Road Toad said Belinda the Cursed frequented.

Stares from the woman working inside the candle shop, and the prodding of her weary husband to run me off their porch, helped me decide. I crossed the street to get a cup of tea from a bored peddler. With the day’s warmth, I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t have any buyers.

I stopped next to his two-wheeled cart. The man, hardly more than a boy with unruly hair the color of damp straw, smiled, showing brown teeth. “Cup of tea today, fine sir?” he asked, lifting a ceramic cup and long-handled ladle.

“That depends,” I said. “What kind do you have and what are you asking?” I eyed a line of three small sacks with tops rolled down, showing a variety of fragrant leaves.

He nodded toward the guards and gate. “If you’re looking for employment as a watchman or personal guard, don’t bother.”

“And why is that?” I asked, feigning insult.

“I’m sure you know your business,” he said. “But hundreds just like you are doing the same. The fat merchants and aristocrats have more than they need. You’d do better to enlist in Lord Corradin’s army.” He spat on the dusty ground. “Poor pay but steady food and a cot.”

I walked to the side of the cart and leaned back in the shade against the crumbling brick wall. I crossed my arms and asked the tea seller, “What kind of tea?”

“Mountain Mint, Sea Spice, Lemon Cinnamon.” He unscrewed the cap to the thumb-sized steel teaball, ready to stuff a pinch of crushed leaves into the hole-filled container.

I stood away from the wall and directed him to lift the lid off his pot heated by a small oil-fed flame. The water appeared clean, but carried a faint sulfur smell.

“Water’s drawn from the Blue District’s well,” he assured me.

“I see you have only a third of a pot left. Do most of your business in the morning?”

He nodded, again holding the ladle and cup. “And winter is better than summer. Sometimes—not often, a servant of Master Garnwald comes for tea as late as four in the afternoon. He pays me once a month, on retainer he says, to be here.”

I stared at the passing traffic, trying to determine what to do. Laborers bearing sacks and crates on their shoulders made up the majority. I decided the tea seller might know enough to help me. “You’re pretty young,” I observed, “for one so important to retain you.”

He took my question as an insult. With a sneer he asked, “You buying, mercenary?”

I adjusted the shoulder strap holding my crossbow. “How much for a cup of the Lemon Cinnamon?”

A quick smile returned to the seller’s face. “A wise choice, my finest brew. Ten iron.”

I held back from laughing at his request for half a copper. “Maybe,” I said, “if your water didn’t remind me of rotten eggs and you were serving me on a fine table with fancy white napkins.” I grinned. “No chipped cup, either.”

“I had to try,” he said. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

I reached into my pouch behind my breastplate and felt for the largest and thinnest of the coins. I held out a copper with King Tobias of Keesee minted on the front. “Fifteen irons in return.” When the tea seller nodded, I handed it to him.

I watched him count out the irons from a pine box, each stamped on both sides with a pentagram. “Never seen that mark on a coin before,” I said.

“Lord Corradin’s symbol.” He took several leaves and crushed them between his thumb and forefinger before stuffing them in the ball. “Where you from?”

“Most recently,” I said, organizing a story in my head, “the Doran Confederacy.”

The tea seller set the ball with its chain dangling over the side of the cup and ladled in some steaming water. He looked at my scarred cheek as he lifted the metal ball in and out of the water, counting under his breath. When he reached fifteen, he asked, “What kind of fighting you see?”

I took the cup and smelled the light-brown brew. The scent of cinnamon was far stronger than the lemon.

He pointed to a brown ceramic jar. “Sugar for two iron more?”

I shook my head and blew on the steaming tea. “Hot afternoon. I’ll let this cool.”

He replaced the lid to his water pot and dumped the damp leaves into a small pail. “Who’d you serve as a mercenary?”

“Lord Hingroar,” I lied, and while I waited for the tea to cool, I told him about the battle the night I met Road Toad. I told the story as if I were Road Toad, except that when we faced the panzers, we all retreated with Pops Weasel.

“I heard about them panzers,” the tea seller said. “More firepower than a hundred Crusaders they say.” After I nodded in agreement, he asked, “That where you got your scar?”

“Naw,” I said, and stuck with my story at the gate. “Three goblins tried to ambush me.”

“You killed them, right?” When I again nodded, this time with a grin, he spat. “Foul creatures. Thieves, every one of them.”

“I haven’t seen any in the city,” I said. “Only ogres.”

“They come out at night. Mean as a pack of rabid rats.” We watched the traffic as I sipped my tea. “Why’d you come to Sint Malo?”

“To meet someone,” I said. “At the Fertile Serpent. And to get some supplies.”

“Done with fighting?”

I shrugged. “Depends. Know the best way to get to the Serpent? And the best market for food supplies?” When he looked anxiously at me, I disappointed him. “I shared with you some firsthand news, and tactics of the Necromancer King’s forces. Not many have faced three panzers and survived. Conversation sure to lure customers tomorrow morning.” I drank a long sip of tea while he thought. “And,” I guessed, “I already paid you an iron more than what’s common.”

“Brown District,” he said. “Worse than goblins walk those streets at night.” He pointed to the left. “Follow this street as it circles around, then shoot off to the right just past the gallows. You’ll see a square tower five times taller than the Merchant District’s wall.” He nodded to where the guards moved aside as the portcullis lifted. “It’ll have three blue stripes on the side. Blue District. Plenty of good markets there. Best in the morning.” He stopped to watch a black carriage drawn by two white mares exiting the Merchant District.

“Then, simply work west, toward the sea. There’s a tangle of streets and alleys before reaching the Warehouse District. That’s Brown District—between the Blue and Warehouse. Right along where the warehouses start the Fertile Serpent is.” He shrugged. “Haven’t been there in some time. But there’s a sign with a snaky serpent coiled on a pile of yellow eggs.”

I handed him his cup after drinking the rest of its contents. “Thank you. Good tea.”

“You’re okay, for a mercenary,” he replied. “You can find just about everything around the Warehouse District. Ale, gambling, wenches, or a knife in your back.”

“I’ve spent time in some pretty foul places,” I assured him. “I’ll watch my back.”

“You know your business.” He set about wiping the used cup with a gray rag as I made my way toward the Blue District.

I leaned against the white post supporting the porch roof of Uncle Orville’s Boarding House. I slipped a wooden marker into my pocket that identified claim to my crossbow and other equipment stored at the boarding house. The peddler who’d sold me dried beans mentioned Uncle Orville’s. The old woman I’d purchased the two wool blankets from recommended it as the best place in the Blue District. From the old woman I also bought a russet under tunic for Lilly and a long linen shirt with full sleeves. The unevenness of its dark green dye didn’t matter to me and I doubted it would bother Lilly either.

What worried me was what to do if I didn’t find Belinda the Cursed at the Fertile Serpent tonight. I hadn’t crossed paths with anyone I trusted to ask about her. I hadn’t expected to pay for admittance to Sint Malo and the cot rented for the night cost two silver and three if I wanted the evening meal. At least Uncle Orville’s had a guard, a retired soldier named Moth, who admitted paying tenants at any hour of the night. His widespread bug eyes explained how he got his name.

Roos and Lilly expected me to find them tomorrow afternoon. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be around Lilly tomorrow night when the moon rose, but knew I should. Roos seemed settled on what he called ‘her curse.’ Would Lilly have control? I didn’t know what I’d do if she didn’t.

I rehearsed Moth’s more detailed directions to the Fertile Serpent. I’d washed up but didn’t clean my armor because I figured the Serpent was like the One-Eyed Pelican, and being too clean would attract attention. I’d rather attract flies than unwanted eyes.

Looking at the sun and stepping off the porch, I decided to get moving. Meeting a cursed woman in a less than reputable tavern frequented by dangerous customers, in a cruel city’s roughest district…it turned my stomach so much that I regretted eating a half loaf of bread while talking to Moth. Bad as my situation was, I wondered how Road Toad and Prince Reveron had made out. The prince’s magic may have been able to throw off the hounds, but with his injuries, how fast and far could they travel?

I made my way down the narrow streets, looking as dangerous as I could. I frequently glanced over my shoulder, not to see if someone was following me, but to examine the lay of the buildings for my return to the boarding house. I tried to imagine how they would look at night.