The Hammer and the Blade

CHAPTER THREE

By the time Egil and Nix reached Shoddy Way, the downpour sounded like sling bullets against the cobbles. The flames of street torches sizzled, smoked, and danced in the rain.

Shoddy Way was a soup of mud and manure and the storm had mostly emptied the street. Only a donkey-pulled cart occupied the otherwise empty road, and it looked stuck in the mud.

The rain thumped like the beat of war drums off the colorful tents and canvas-covered booths of the Low Bazaar, which filled the plaza nearby. Braziers sizzled in the rain, the smoke carrying the smell of roasted mutton into the slate sky. Raucous laughter carried from one of the tents in the bazaar.

"Gods are taking a piss," Nix said.

Egil grunted agreement.

The simple wood plank sign that hung from rusted hooks over the front doors of the Slick Tunnel rattled in the wind. Weather and time had reduced the lettering to The unnel, but left intact the salaciously drawn image of a cave mouth.

"Needs a new sign," Nix said.

Egil harrumphed from the depths of his cowl. "Needs a lot of new things."

"But not new owners," Nix said, and thumped Egil on the mountain of his shoulder. "Got those, now."

"Aye," Egil said skeptically.

They eyed the building they now owned — two stories of crumbling bricks and warped wood, capped with a roof of cracked tiles. A sagging second-floor balcony overlooked Shoddy Way and would give a good view of the plaza and the Low Bazaar, but Nix wouldn't have trusted its worn brackets to hold his weight.

The building had been the home of a wealthy merchant once. But Dur Follin's rich had long ago moved across the Archbridge to the west side of the Meander, leaving the poor to the east and the very poor to the Warrens. Since then the building had changed hands many times, slowly collecting unsavory neighbors until Shoddy Way was a virtual treasure trove of drug dens, pawneries, and all manner of establishments engaged in illicit mercantilism.

A quartet of cloaked men pelted across the street from the bazaar plaza and pushed their way through Egil and Nix.

"One side, bunghole," said the tallest of the men. "It's pouring out here."

Nix resisted the urge to sink his punch dagger into a kidney. Scabbards poked out from under the hem of the men's weathered cloaks, and each wore a boiled leather jack. The mouthy one threw open the door of the Tunnel. Faint lantern light, laughter, conversation, and smoke leaked out onto Shoddy Way.

"I see manners haven't improved while we were away," Nix observed, his hands doing what they always did when someone bumped into him.

"Fak you," the last of the men said over his shoulder, and the door to the brothel and tavern Nix now half-owned slammed in his face. He stared after them, rubbing his nose. He turned to Egil.

"Are you as offended as I?"

Egil raised his bushy brows and his eyes went to Nix's hand.

Nix looked down and saw in his palm the small leather coin pouch he'd taken from the tall mouthy one.

"I had to lift it," Nix said. "He bumped into me. And rudely so. At that point it's a matter of principle."

"Principle?"

Nix hefted the purse and put the weight at twelve or thirteen coins. "Principle indeed. I'll say twelve. Terns and commons only. Not a royal to be seen, not from those jackanapes. Take odds?"

"From you? On that? Do I look like a fool?"

"I won't answer that so as to spare your feelings." Nix fingered open the pouch and examined the contents. "Nine terns and three commons. Scarcely worth the effort."

They had no need for more coin, so Nix sloshed through the mud over to the donkey cart and driver. The cart was sunk halfway up to the axle in mud. The donkey, ears flat, coat steaming, seemed to have given up trying to pull it, despite the entreaties of the cloaked driver, an old man with a creased face and a wispy beard. Three sacks of grain and a barrel lay in the back of the cart. The old man looked fearful as Nix approached. Nix donned his best "I'm harmless" smile.

"For your trouble, granther," Nix said, and tossed the coins onto the bench board of the wagon. Two silver terns spilled out and the old driver seemed dumbstruck.

"What is this?" the old man said, his voice cracked with age. The donkey shook the wet from his fur.

Nix winked at the man and gestured at the slate sky. "Must be raining coin. Best collect what you can before it stops."

The man looked up at the sky, then colored, perhaps realizing how silly he must have looked. He gathered the coinpurse, hands shaking. "Are you mad, goodsir?"

"I wonder sometimes," Nix answered. "The gods only know. Goodeve, granther."

"Orella keep and preserve you, goodsir."

"That's well done," Egil said, when Nix walked back to him. "I never made you one for alms, much less grace."

Nix's mind turned to the Warrens, the coin he seeded there, but he kept his thoughts from his face. "Pfft. I know nothing of alms or grace. I just know that an old peasant can use the coin better than us, and certainly better than that hiresword who bumped me."

"That's truth," Egil said, and thumped Nix on the shoulder. "I'm thinking maybe you should've joined me in a priesthood."

"I didn't want to shave my head," Nix said. "It would foul my looks."

The great water clock of Ool rang the tenth hour, the deep notes audible across the city even over the rain.

"On the hour," Nix said, and gestured at the Tunnel's door. "Shall we?"

Egil shouldered open one of the double doors and they ducked inside.

The cavernous common room, originally a dining hall no doubt, opened before them. Blue smoke fogged the air, gathered in clouds near the ceiling beams. Heads turned and looked up at their entrance, though the loud thrum of conversation and clink of tankards did not so much as pause. They stood there for a long moment, Nix expecting a raucous greeting, hearty congratulations, and instead…

Nothing.

His smile fell down to his boot heels.

"Do they not know we own it?"

"Seems not," Egil said. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked around, disapproval in his furrowed brow.

A roll of thunder shook the building, summoned a collective "ahh" from the patrons, and dislodged a rain of plaster flakes from the walls.

"It seemed nicer before we bought it," Egil said.

Nix ignored him. "How could Tesha not tell anyone? We rescued this place from the Lord Mayor's revenue men. They should be applauding or something. Don't you think?"

"Tesha's a madam, Nix, not a street crier." His nose wrinkled. "What's that smell?"

"I know what she is," Nix said in a surly tone. "Even so, she should have told someone. And it's the eel stew."

"The stew? Really? How'd I not notice it before?"

"Maybe it was nicer before we bought this place, too."

Perhaps thirty patrons sat at the sturdy, time-scarred tables that dotted the wood-planked floor of the common room, all of them hard-eyed slubbers of one ilk or other. Small lanterns hung from the cracked walls or sat on the rickety tables, lurid light for a lurid crew. The stink of stale incense, sour sweat, and hasty sex clung to the warped floorboards.

A wide, sweeping staircase, probably once grand but now decrepit, led to the second-floor pleasure rooms. Three of Tesha's girls and one of her men lingered on the stairs, their poses professional and seductive, the dim light hiding the ragged hems of their threadbare clothing. Nix could not recall their names, though he knew their faces.

Morra the serving girl danced through the crowd, her face puffed and red under the tight bun of her brown hair, the tankards she bore sloshing with Gadd's ale. Her simple dress swayed on her thick legs. She saw Egil and Nix and acknowledged them with a tilt of her chin.

"Greets, loves," she said, as she hustled past them.

"Milady," Nix said, offering a half-bow, and Morra smiled sweetly over her shoulder.

Loud laughter sounded from one of the corner tables, where a group of teamsters in tell-tale green guild armbands huddled over their beers. The fattest of them gesticulated wildly with his pipe as he made a point about this or that.

In the dim corner near the raised stage sat the four hireswords. They were just sitting down, speaking quietly among themselves, the mouthy one wearing a sour expression and patting at his cloak. Perhaps he realized he'd "dropped" his coinpurse somewhere. Morra set the ales down before them and danced away to another table.

"I need a drink," Egil said.

Nix's eyes went to the curved bar, behind which Gadd ruled. To Nix's knowledge, the willow-thin, tattooed tapkeep spoke but a few words of Realm Common, but his subjects — tankards, cups, jiggers, and hogsheads — obeyed his every command.

Two more of Tesha's girls, Lis and Kiir, leaned suggestively on the bar. Nix nodded at Kiir, a lithe, red-haired lass whose pale skin reminded him of polished ivory. Both girls smiled at Egil and Nix.

"Kiir is pleasing to view, not so?"

"Aye," Egil said. "Strong girl, to look at her."

"Indeed."

"I wager she could take you in a grapple."

Nix grinned as the thought played out in his imagination. "I think I should like to find out one day."

Morra breezed by them again, this time with an empty platter.

"But maybe not today, yeah?" Egil said. "Today we drink. Come."

Egil pulled Nix toward the bar, but Nix held his ground a moment longer. "Wait."

"Wait what? I thirst."

"Gods, man! Look about you. This place is ours now! What are your thoughts?"

The priest looked around, stroked his beard, and said, "I think we bought the worst tavern in Dur Follin."

"You what?"

"I blame you," Egil said matter-of-factly, and walked toward the bar. "Gadd, a draft! A big one!"

"Here, too!" called one of the hireswords. "And quicklike!"

"Coming, loves!" Morra called to the hireswords.

One of the teamsters spilled his beer and loosed a stream of swearing, much to the amusement of his comrades.

"For a man with a mystic eye tattooed on his scalp," Nix said, trailing Egil across the common room, "I fear you're not seeing the potential here. We can turn the place around, pretty it up."

Again Egil harrumphed. "Pretty it up? Putting a dress on an orlog, more like."

"Gods, you're in a mood tonight."

They bellied up to the bar, bookended by Kiir and Lis.

Gadd, his thin arms covered in a sleeve of patterned tattoos depicting mythological creatures from Vathar, filled a metal tankard from the tapped hogshead behind the bar and placed it before Egil.

"Make that two, yeah?" Nix said to Gadd. To Kiir, he said, "Anything for you, milady?"

She smiled shyly. "No, my lord."

Gadd grunted an acknowledgment and nodded with a vigor that made his waist-length topknot dance. The long-stemmed wood pipe he smoked, filled with fragrant leaf from the east, burned in a clay tray atop the bar. The smell of the blue smoke curling up from its bowl made Nix lightheaded. Gadd soon had a tankard of ale foaming before Nix.

"Here too, I said!" called the hiresword again, presumably to Morra. "Over here, you cow! I thirst!"

"Someone best take that slubber a beer before his voice irritates me further," Egil said.

Nix read the creases in Egil's brow the way an oracle read chicken entrails, and they told him the priest's ire was up. He really was in a mood.

Not good.

"Come now," Nix said. "Are you really that mad about buying this place? We agreed it was a good idea."

Egil merely harrumphed again.

"Something else, then?"

"A beer!" the hiresword called.

The lines in Egil's forehead deepened, Ebenor's eye in a squint.

Nix didn't see Morra so he grabbed a tankard of ale from Gadd and asked Lis, "Would you mind taking this to that oaf?"

"I'm not a serving wench," Lis said, pouting.

"I know, milady. But if I take it to him, I fear I'll stab him in the eye."

"That'd be a well-earned stab," Egil said.

"Please?" Nix asked, pleading with his eyes.

Lis sighed, shook out her long black hair, fluffed her breasts, and took the tankard in hand.

"You are the landlord, now," she said, and walked off.

Nix grinned at that. "Tesha did tell someone!"

"She told all of us," Kiir said. "She seemed put out by it, I'd say."

"Put out?" Nix said, frowning. "How so?"

Kiir seemed to realize she'd spoken out of turn. Her soft eyes looked everywhere but Nix's face. Her cheeks colored, visible even through her makeup. "Just that… well… I think she… There she is! Maybe you should ask her yourself."

Kiir grabbed Nix's tankard and took a long drink while Nix turned to watch Tesha descend the stairs. She wore a flowing blue dress with a tight-fitting bodice, and her dark hair hung in waves around her olive skin. Nix had heard that she'd been a harem slave once, owned by some minor sultan of Jafari, but he'd never dared ask. Her severe features did not invite familiar talk. Nix, who'd faced devils, who'd stared down three assassins hired by Kazmer the Flame to take Nix's tongue, acknowledged that Tesha intimidated him. She wasn't like most women he knew; or maybe she was, and he just didn't know women like he thought he did.

She slid down the stairway with the grace of an aristocrat. She spoke softly to the men and women in her employ who stood at the stair rail. Nix read her lips.

"Posture, ladies."

"Smile, Arno. Always smile."

Nix raised a hand to get her attention. He faltered like a boy when her eyes fell on him and her brow furrowed. He stood there like a statue, arm raised, no doubt a doltish expression on his face. He conjured the words he would speak, played them out in his mind — Milady, Tesha. You certainly are a lovely sight.

Shouts from the loudmouth hiresword ruined his fantasy.

"Even the whores serve tables here! Maybe it's not the shithole I took it for."

His three fellows laughed and Lis, who had just set down the tankard of ale at their table, donned a fake smile while two of the men pawed at her backside.

"Where do you think you're going?" the hiresword said loudly, jumping up from his chair and boxing in Lis against the table. He took her by the wrist, none too softly. "I might want more than a beer."

From the stairs, Tesha said, "Lis, please come see me. Goodsir, if you'd like-"

The hiresword turned and glared up at Tesha. "What? Am I not good enough for a whore's company?"

"That's not what I meant at all," said Tesha.

Nix stood up, thinking to impress Tesha by diffusing the situation.

"Here's an idea," he called. "Why don't you just take your hands off of her, retake your seat, and enjoy another drink with your crew. It's on the house."

Tesha pursed her lips and stared daggers at him. He had no idea why.

The man did not release Lis. He cocked his head, squinted his eyes. "Don't I know you? Ain't you Nix Fall?"

Nix bowed, pleased to be recognized. "Indeed, I am. I see my reputation precedes me. Now-"

"This doesn't involve you now, does it, Nix Fall? So maybe you should close your hole, shouldn't you, Nix Fall." He shook Lis by the arm as he spoke. "This is between her and me."

"There is no you and me unless you pay," Lis said, still playing her role. She tried to sound playful, but Nix could see the hiresword's grip caused her pain.

"We'd like to settle up here," said the fat teamster, as he and his companions rose and edged away from their table, out of the verbal line of fire.

"Friend, just let it go and go back to your tankard, yeah?" Nix said. "You don't want this to go bad, do you?"

The hiresword sneered. "Maybe I do. Would you wet your blade over a whore, Nix Fall? This whore?"

"Nix…" Kiir said behind him.

On the stairs, Tesha, still staring at him, raised her eyebrows and shook her head.

"Maybe I would," Nix said philosophically. "I've bloodied an edge over less. But that's neither hither nor yon, since she's more than that to me. It happens she's a rent-paying tenant. My rent-paying tenant, since I own this place."

A few murmured comments, one soft "huzzah" from one of the teamsters.

The hiresword guffawed. "You own this place? Ha! You lose a wager or something? I heard you was called 'lucky.' This place is a shithole."

The slam of Egil's tankard on the bar, as loud as the report of a blunderbuss, cut short the chuckles of the hiresword's companions. All eyes turned to the priest. The stool groaned with relief as Egil rose.

Rakon sat his horse, blinking in the drizzle, Rusilla's slouched form before him in the saddle. The eunuch sat a horse beside him, his ham hands clutching Merelda's limp form to prevent her from falling off the mount. Rakon's men stood around an uncovered, horse-drawn wagon. All but Baras, the head of Rakon's personal guard, had cloak hoods drawn against the rain.

"That's it there, my lord?" Baras asked, pointing at the decrepit building across the street.

Rakon squinted through the drizzle at the sign that hung over the building's door. He couldn't make out the faded writing, but the image limned on the board looked like a dark tunnel.

"That's it," Rakon said.

"And they're inside, this Egil and Nix?"

"They are," Rakon said. Or so his informant had told him.

Baras nodded. His face wrinkled in a question but he did not give it voice.

"What is it, Baras?" Rakon asked.

Baras looked up at Rakon, droplets of rain adorning his beard. "My lord, why are we bothering with these two? I don't see-"

"We'll need them when we reach Afirion," Rakon said.

"Yes, but these two men are thieves by reputation. There are others-"

"No," Rakon said sharply. "It must be these two. Now do as I've said, Baras. No more questions."

Baras stiffened. "Aye, my lord."

"I need them alive. Bring them to the warehouse in the docks, the one we've used before. I'll meet you there."

"Aye, my lord."

"It may be a shithole, slubber," Egil said to the hiresword, "but it's our shithole. And you and yours are no longer welcome in it."

Nix smiled, pleased to see Egil taking some pride of ownership. "I'm glad to hear you own up to-"

The hiresword let Lis go and put a hand to his blade hilt. His three companions pushed back their chairs and stood.

"Is that right?" the hiresword said to Egil. "You mean to kick us out? Of here?"

He chuckled darkly and his comrades echoed him. The chuckles died, however, as Egil walked toward them, shoving empty chairs out of his way as he went. Nix fell in behind him, seeing how it would go.

"This is our place," Nix hissed. "Whatever you break is our lost coin."

The priest seemed not to hear him and went nose to nose with the hiresword. "I'm not kicking you out. I'm telling you and them to leave. If I was kicking you out, my boot'd be in your arse."

Anger colored the man's pockmarked face. His mustache and stubble twitched. With his narrow chin and large nose, he reminded Nix of a river rat.

"Ain't you a priest or something?" the man said, his eyes flicking over the scalp tattoo.

"Or something," Egil said. "Now, get out."

The man looked over at Nix. "Is this slubber serious?"

Nix rubbed his chin and made a dramatic show of studying Egil's face, the furrowed brow, the narrowed eyes, the way his chest rose and fell. Egil's eyes never left the hiresword's face.

"Hmm. Not yet, I'd say, but-"

The man whirled back on Egil, spraying spit as he spoke. "Then tell him to stop wasting my fakkin' time, eh? And maybe get out of my face? I want to get drunk and then laid."

"Ah, don't we all," Nix said, nodding sympathetically.

"You'll do neither here," Egil said, and Nix heard the promise of violence in his tone. The priest stood half a head taller than the man, and several stones heavier.

"Shite," Nix said, and shook his head regretfully.

"What now?" the man said.

" Now he's serious."

The man seemed bemused. "What are you two, a comedy troupe?"

"No, but I'm flattered you'd think-"

"Apologize," Egil said.

The hiresword blinked. "To her? For calling her a whore? Fine, apologies to milady the whore."

He made an exaggerated bow in the general direction of Lis.

"I think that resolves it, then," Tesha said from the stairs, clapping her hands once. "Let's all go back to-"

"We done?" the man said. The way he leaned in toward Egil suggested that matters had not ended.

"No," Egil said. "Now apologize to me for calling my place a shithole."

"Your place!" Nix exclaimed. "This is our place. And I knew you'd come to see the potential-"

"You're pushing now just to push," the man said.

"Isn't that what you were doing when you stood up and started shouting about whores and shitholes?" Egil said, his deep voice low and dangerous. "When you bumped into Nix and me outside? Pushing just to push, right? You and your boys used to havin' the run of places, are you?"

The man's lower lip trembled. "You know what? Fak you, Egil the Priest and Nix the Lucky. Yeah, I know your name, too." He spat on the floor. "I was trying to be cordial, but this is too much now."

"You were trying to be cordial?" Nix said. "Really? You need lessons."

"Too much now, is it?" Egil said.

"It is," the man said, his tone hard. "Far too much."

The man's three comrades nodded, muttering agreement.

Nix saw how things would go and sighed. To the man, he said, "Friend, I'd wish you well, but I'm not one for fruitless wishing. I think maybe those lessons I mentioned are forthcoming."

The man licked his lips. The lump in his trachea bobbed up and down as he swallowed. "And who's going to teach it? This priest?"

"Don't kill him," Nix said to Egil.

"Ha!" the man said. "There's four of us and-"

The smack of Egil's backhand across the man's cheek nearly knocked him to his knees. The onlookers gasped, even Tesha.

Snarling, red-faced from embarrassment and the blow, the man reached for the hilt of his blade as his three companions did the same.

Egil lunged forward, seized the man's wrist before his blade showed half its steel, and punched him in the jaw hard enough to mist the air with spit, blood, and at least one tooth. The man hit the floor like a poleaxed bull. Meanwhile, Nix bounded forward to the nearest of the man's companions while clearing his punch dagger of its wrist sheathe. He put its point under the man's chin before the man had cleared his own sword.

The two remaining hireswords got their weapons out and backed off a step, bumping into their table. They took half-hearted fighting crouches, looking around nervously. Sweat glistened on their foreheads.

The man at the end of Nix's dagger glared at Nix but dared not move. Nix winked at him.

"Your friend there forgot that I'm called both lucky and quick. But I wager you three will not soon forget that, and you can remind your loudmouthed friend of that when his senses return, yeah?"

The man bared his teeth. Nix pricked him with the blade.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," the man agreed.

"You show respect to the workers here from now on," Egil said, loud enough to be heard by everyone. He grabbed the semi-conscious man by an ankle and dragged him toward the doors. The other two men made no move toward the priest.

The hiresword groaned, his eyes rolling, his hair collecting bits of the filth from the floor as Egil pulled him along. Bloody drool dripped from the corner of his mouth.

"Go on, now," Nix said to the other two. "Follow. And give your blades a home before I lose my smile. This is all done now, unless you're stupid. This goes any further and my friend will start plying his hammers rather than his fists."

The pair shared a glance, looked at Egil, who pulled their friend along as if he weighed no more than a child, and scabbarded their blades. As one they headed for the doors, mumbling inaudibly. Nix took his blade from under his man's chin and pushed him after them. He realized he had the man's coinpurse in his off hand. He must've lifted it. One day soon he'd have to break himself of the habit, lest it land him in trouble.

"You," he said, and the man turned. Nix tossed him the purse and the man fumbled it. "You dropped that."

The man collected the purse, what was left of his dignity, and shuffled for the door.

Egil opened the door and tossed the hiresword out onto the rain-soaked walkway, nearly hitting a group of four other men just about to enter.

"Pardon us," Egil said to them. "Rubbish drop."

The four newcomers wore mail shirts, metal caps, and long blades. They waited off to the side while the three remaining hireswords filed out.

Nix called after the three as thunder rumbled outside.

"Egil and Nix own the Tunnel now, you hear? You three are welcome to return, but next time bring your manners. Oh, and maybe leave the loudmouth behind? Done?"

Grumbles and an obscene gesture from the one he'd pricked under the chin were the only responses. Nix figured he'd get no better.

Nix turned, grinning, and looked around the room. Everyone save Tesha had already turned back to their drinks, conversation, stew, or work.

Again, no applause, no congratulations, no accolades, nothing.

"Come now, people," he muttered. He saw Tesha eyeing him, one hand on her hip, an irritated glint in her kohl-lined eyes. He made a "What?" gesture with his hands and immediately wished he hadn't.

Thunder boomed as she strode down the stairs. She walked up to him like she intended to put a blade in his innards. Instead, she jabbed a finger into his chest. "You won't improve my business, or yours, by bludgeoning the customers."

"What? But he said-"

"I know what he said. She is a whore, Nix. Hearing the truth offends neither her nor me. It goes with the work."

"True," Lis said, walking past him and up the stairs.

"But… he was disrespectful."

"So?" Tesha said. "That goes with the work, too. Do you beat everyone who's disrespectful to you?"

"Well not me, no, but Egil…"

"Don't do it again, Nix. I mean it. I can't have everyone who might be interested in one of my men or women worried about saying the wrong thing and getting crosswise of you and Egil. You want this place to make money, don't you?"

Nix found himself at a loss for words. He located some only by changing the subject. "You're quite lovely when you're angry. Did you know that?"

"And you're quite small of stature, angry or no," she said.

And with that, she turned on her heel and walked for the stairs. He stood there sputtering and she shot him a final withering glance before she ascended.

"I believe I'm in love," he said softly, watching the sway of her hips under her blue dress.

"You're always in love," Egil said, stepping beside him, and checking his fist, where he'd scraped it on the hiresword's teeth. The priest nodded surreptitiously at the four men who'd just entered. "You see those four who just came in?"

The men, all hard-eyed and armed, stood just inside the doors. They were eyeing Nix and Egil uncertainly, whispering among themselves.

"I see them," Nix said softly, then called to them, "And here are men of quality to replace the low men late of this establishment. Welcome, goodsirs."

The men pasted on fake smiles, gave half-bows, and went awkwardly for a corner table. Nix saw how they fell in behind the older, bearded man among them.

From their helmcuts and bearing, he made them as bodyguards, city watch, or soldiers. The bearded one caught Nix studying them, so Nix pasted on a fake smile of his own.

"Morra, see to those men," Nix said, waving to the serving girl.

"In a moment, luvs," Morra called to them, placing frothing tankards down at another table.

Egil took Nix by the arm and walked him toward the bar.

"Have to be watch," Egil said.

"Looks that way to me, too. We're not wanted by any authorities, though. Wait. Are we?"

Egil shrugged. "Pits if I know."

Nix wondered if his mouthiness at the Slum Gate had landed them in trouble.

"Well, even watchmen just want a drink sometimes, right?"

"Possible," Egil said. "Or maybe they're here on some other business not involving Egil and Nix."

"Are you referring to us in the third person now?"

"Shut up," the priest said, and tended to his tankard.

Kiir stood at the other end of the bar, her dress showing her curves to good effect. Nix sat and patted the stool next to him. She smiled and moved to take it, but Tesha's voice from the top of the stairs cut through the cacophony of the common room.

"Kiir, attend me here, please."

Nix tried not to look crestfallen, but doubted he succeeded. He took Kiir by the wrist as she turned to go. "Maybe we can speak later?"

"Speak?" she said, with a sweet smile and mischievous wink.

Nix chuckled and watched her as she walked off.

"Moments ago you loved Tesha," Egil said.

"I'm abundant with love," Nix answered wistfully. "A good thing, given the number of lovely women in this city."

Egil chuckled, frowned at the cut on his knuckle. "You're abundant in something, that's certain."