Swords & Dark Magic - By Jonathan Strahan Page 0,7
and clean, boiled water. Is there a drygoods here? How about a blacksmith? Anyone work leather and hide? Is there a whetstone? Anyone selling blankets?”
Swillman had begun shaking his head with the very first query, and he kept shaking it until the man ran down.
“None of that?”
“None. Sorry, we’re not on, uh, any road. We see a merchant once a year, whatever he don’t sell elsewhere by season’s end, we can look at.”
Slim drained her tankard in one long pull and then, after a gasp, she said, “Widow Bark’s got some wool, I think. She spins something, anyway. Might have a blanket to sell. The stable burned down, we got no horses anyway. We got pigs, and sheep a walk south of here, near the other end of the valley, but all that wool down there goes into the next valley, to the town there—to Piety.”
“How far away is Piety?” the bearded man asked.
“Four days on foot, maybe two on horseback.”
“Well,” the breather demanded, “where can we sleep?”
Swillman licked his lips and said, “If it’s just a dry roof you’re looking for, there’s the old keep on the hill.”
They’d dug one of the pits too close to a barrow, and from one end of the rectangular trench old bones tumbled out in lumps of yellow clay. Graves and Snotty stared down at them for a time. Splinters and shards, snapped and marrow-sucked, and then Graves scooped up most of them with his shovel.
“We’ll bore a hole in the mound,” he said.
Snotty wiped his running nose and nodded. “I’m thirsty.”
“Let’s break, then.”
“They going up to the keep?”
Graves lifted the mud and bones and tipped the mess onto the ground opposite the back pile. “I expect so.” He set the shovel down and clambered out, then reached back to pull the boy out of the hole.
“They was looking at us as they went past.”
“I know, boy. Don’t let it bother you.”
“I don’t. I was just noticing, that’s all.”
“Me too.”
They went over to broach the second cask of water, shared the single tin cup back and forth a few times. “I shouldn’t have had all that ale earlier,” said Graves.
“You wasn’t to know, though, was you?”
“That’s true. Just a normal day, right?”
Snotty nodded. “A normal day in Glory.”
“I’m thinking,” mused Graves, “I probably shouldn’t have put up the rags, though. Soldiers can count that high, mostly, if they need to. Wonder if it got them thinking.”
“We could find out, when we get back to the bar.”
“Might be we’re not done afore dark, boy.”
“They’re soljers, they’ll stay late, drinking and carousing.”
Graves smiled. “Carousing? That’s quite the imagination you got there.”
“Taking turns with Slim, I mean, and getting drunk, too, and maybe getting into a few fights—”
“With who?”
“With each other, I guess, or even Swillman.”
“Swillman wouldn’t fight to save his life, boy. Besides, he’ll be happy enough if the soldiers pay for what they take. If they don’t, well, there’s not much he can do about it, is there?” He paused, squinting toward town. “Taking turns with Slim. Maybe. Have to be blind drunk, though.”
“She shows ’em her ring and that’ll do.”
Graves shot the boy a hard look. “How you know about that?”
“My birthday present, last time.”
“I doubt you is—”
“That’s what her tongue’s for, ain’t it?”
“You’re too young to know anything about that. Slim—that wretched hag, what was she thinking?”
“It was the only present she had t’give me, she said.”
Graves put the cup away. “Break’s over. Don’t want them t’drink up all the ale afore we get there, do we?”
“No, sir, that’d be bad.”
The sun was down and the muggy moon yet to rise when Flapp went off with Slim into the lone back room behind the bar.
Huggs snorted. “That man’s taste…can you believe it?”
Shrugging, Wither drained her tankard and thumped it down on the bar. “More, Swilly!” She turned to Huggs. “He’s always been that way. Picks the ugliest ones or the oldest ones and if he can, the ugliest oldest ones if the two fit the same whore.”
“This time he’s got it all and no choice besides. Must be a happy man.”
“I’d expect so.”
Captain Skint had gone to one of the two tables in the bar and was working hard emptying the first cask all by herself. Dullbreath sat beside her, mouth hanging open, staring at not much. He’d taken a mace to the side of his head a week back, cracking open his helmet but not his skull. Hit that hard anywhere else and he’d be in trouble. But it was just