"Anytime you have the coins, love," she breathed huskily. El-minster managed to get the back of his hand over his nose in time. Then his sneeze slopped beer down the side of his tankard, and nearly knocked her sideways to the floor.
Hoots and roars filled the corner. Budaera gave him a glare, and then softened it to an expression of sorrow when she saw that his distress and his stammered apology were genuine. She patted his knee and said, "There, there. 'Tis all a matter of im¬proving your technique—and that, I can teach you."
"If ye can afford her lessons," another girl cackled, and there were chuckles all around. El wiped his streaming eyes on the back of his sleeve and nodded thanks to Budaera, but she was al¬ready turning away to ask another girl where that coppery nail daub had come from, and how much it had cost.
Farl ran his fingers through the hair above his ear and drew his hand down to stare in delight at a silver coin in his fingers, as if he'd never seen it before. "Look at this" he said to Eladar. "Mayhap there's another!"
There was. He held them up in triumph, and said, "I'm ready, Budaera, an' I'm willing, an' I see you're free of guests at the m—"
"For two silver bits," she said in a flat, cold tone, "that's the way I'm staying, 'my love.' " The laughter of the girls galed around them; men with tall frosted flagons in hand drifted nearer to see what merriment was afoot... or abench.
Farl looked crestfallen. "I don't think there's anything more back there, but I didn't comb my hair this morn. ..." His look changed to hopeful, and he ran his hands through his hair again, then shook his head.
"Nay." One of the girls made a sound of mock sorrow, but he held up his hand. "Wait a bit, wait a bit—I've not checked all me hair, now have I?" Farl leered again and reached inside his dark shirt to scratch at his armpit. His fingers worked lustily, and then paused. Farl frowned, drew out an imaginary—at least, so
Elminster hoped—pinch of lice, and examined them critically. Then he pretended to eat them, licked his fingers daintily, and when he was done darted his hand into his shirt again, trying the other armpit.
Almost immediately his eyes grew round and wondering. Slowly he drew out—a gold coin! He sniffed at it, drew back in mock disgust, and then held it up with a laugh of triumph. "See you?"
"Now that," Budaera purred, leaning forward again, "is worth more than a sneeze. Have you another?"
Farl looked hurt. "Just how dirty d'you think my armpits are, anyway?"
Tinkling, genuine laughter surrounded them; the ladies were amused. El watched impassively, only a corner of his mouth crooked upward, as Budaera leaned forward until her darting tongue almost brushed Farl's ear, and breathed, "For just two sil¬ver bits more, I might be persuaded to make a pauper's excep-tion ... just this once...."
"For just two silver bits more," Farl said with elaborate dig¬nity, "I might be compelled to accept your generous offer, good lady. Now, if someone in this august company would be so good as to lend me the trifling sum of—ah, two silver bits?"
There were snorts and lazily rude gestures from the benches beside him. Elminster held out a hand; when he turned it over, two silver coins were stuck to his palm.
Rather dubiously, Farl bent and plucked them free, one after another. Elminster had used only a trifling touch of gum on each; by the time Farl presented them to Budaera with a flour¬ish, they were quite clean.
Budaera beckoned for the gold first. When she had it, she reached into her own armpit and made the coin disappear into the little scented safe pouch most of the ladies wore there. Then she took the pieces of silver, spun them briefly in the air in ex¬pert fingers, held up the last one, and kissed it, eyes on Farl's. "We have a deal, then, my lord of love."
She leaned forward, eyes suddenly full of mystery, and like a silent and watchful snake Elminster slid out from his seat be¬side Farl to give them room. Budaera purred wordless thanks to him as she moved her lithe body into the vacated space, and set to work.
Elminster stepped away, shaking his tankard in little circular movements to feel what little was left at the bottom of it—and froze. A slim finger was stroking him, ever so softly. He looked down—and caught his breath.
They called Shandathe "the Shadow" for the silence of her en¬trances and exits. More than once, El and Farl had agreed she must be an accomplished thief, or if she wasn't, was as accom¬plished at skulking as the best of them. Her large, dark eyes looked up past his belt buckle at Elminster—and he felt the need to swallow, his throat suddenly dry.
"Coins to lend, Eladar the Dark? Have ye—coins to spend?" Her voice was husky, her eyes hungry....
Elminster made a helpless little sound of need deep in his throat and dipped his hand to his sleeve, whose cuff was stuffed with gold pieces. "One or two," he managed, in a voice that was not quite steady.
Her eyes danced. "One or two, my lord? I'm sure I heard ye say three or four . .. aye, four gold. One for each of the delights I'll give thee." She licked his hand, the lightest of velvet touches in his palm. Elminster trembled.
Then he was shoved rudely aside. Whirling, he found himself looking into the cold grin of a burly bodyguard in livery. The man held up spiked gauntlets in warning, and El saw another body¬guard beyond him. Between them, in his own little ring of light provided by a small oil-lamp held above him on a curving pole by a weary servant, stood a short, pouty-looking man in flame-or¬ange silks. His reddish hair fell in well-oiled ringlets to stain the silken shoulders of his open-fronted shirt. On his hairless chest was a lump of gold as large as a man's fist: a lion's head frozen in an endless, silent snarl, as it hung on a heavy gold chain. Rings of many gems and metals glittered and flashed on his fingers— two and three baubles to each digit, El noted with disgust, and all of it real.
He exchanged glances with Farl over Budaera's shocked face, and then the man thrust his codpiece, adorned with an open¬work ivory and gold sheath that made it look like the figurehead of a very decadent Calishite pleasure-barge, right into Shan¬dathe's face.
"Too busy, my little lass?" he drawled, and snapped his fin¬gers. The servant with the lamp put a purse in them, and the man lazily spilled a dozen or so gold pieces down the front of Shandathe's gown. "Or have you time enough for a real man ... with real gold to spend?"
"How many years does my lord want to spend with me?" Shandathe breathed in reply, lifting her hands in welcome. The man grinned tightly, and gestured to his bodyguards. They reached out brutal spiked hands to clear the corner, ignoring the sudden, shrill protests of the other ladies.
One laid hold of Budaera's ankle, and hauled her off Farl to a hard landing on the floor. She squealed in pain, and anger rode high in Farl's face as he rose from the bench.
"Just who in Hastarl do you think you are?" he addressed the perfumed man. The bodyguard reached a menacing hand toward him, and Farl snapped his own fingers like the man's master had done, and as if by a spell a dagger gleamed in them. He waved it warningly at the bodyguard's eyes, and the man hesitated.
"Jansibal is my name," came arrogant tones that obviously expected the name to awe everyone within hearing. "Jansibal Otharr."
Farl shrugged. "Heard of any testers of cheap scent by that name, El?" he asked. Elminster waved a dagger of his own under the nose of the bodyguard who'd shoved him, and slipped out from under the man's gauntleted hands.
"No," he said calmly, "but one rat looks quite the same as an¬other." That did bring little gasps and indrawn hisses of breath from around, and a little silence fell. The dandy's face turned dark with anger, and his fingers tightened in Shandathe's hair as she knelt in front of him. Then a sick, lopsided, sneering smile slid onto Jansibal's face, and Elminster felt a little chill inside. This man meant their deaths, here and now. The bodyguards drifted nearer.
"This sounds like the sort of insult that a man of honor"—the loud, new voice that had broken in from behind them dropped little commas around that last word, and Jansibal paled in recognition and fresh anger—"can answer only with a formal duel, not a distressing brawl that will cost him at least two body¬guards."
Jansibal and his men spun around—to find another dandy, as well-garbed as the first, eyeing them with dancing amusement in his eyes. He, too, wore silks, with crawling dragons embroi¬dered on his puffed sleeves. A flagon was in his hand—and to ei¬ther side of him stood men in matching livery, slim swords in their hands. The needlelike blades were aimed at the crotches of Jansibal's bodyguards. A hush spread across the dark taproom, and men craned their necks to watch.
"Fair even, Jansibal," the newcomer said calmly, rubbing at the thin beginnings of a moustache with the lip of his flagon. "Laryssa spurn you again? Dlaedra insufficiently impressed with your—ah, rampant glory?"
Jansibal snarled. "Get gone, Thelorn! You can't strut in the safety of your sire's shadow forever!"
"His shadow stretches longer than your father's, Janz. My men and I but stopped for a drink . . . but the appalling stench drew us to this corner to see what had died. You really must stop wearing that stuff, Janz; some chambermaid's likely to empty a pisspot out a window to try and wash your stink away!"
"Your yapping tongue carries you ever closer to a waiting grave, Selemban!" Jansibal spat. "Now begone, or I'll have one of my men spoil that pretty face of yours with a few shards of glass!"
"I love thee too, Jansibal. Which of your two men is it to be? My six would dearly love to know." From behind him, another pair of men in livery glided forward, blades raised and glittering in the little dangling lamp that a trembling servant still held aloft on its pole.
"I'll not fight a duel with all these blades of yours around," Jansibal said, drawing himself up. "I know your liking for conve¬nient 'accidents.'"
"While you grandly slash at someone with that blade you've dipped in sleep-venom? Aren't you tired of such deceits, Janz? Doesn't using them remind you, every even', that you're a worm? Or is it so much part of your lovely nature that you don't even notice?"
"Shut your lying mouth," Jansibal snarled, "or—"
"Or you'll get away with your little trick, yes? And stab all these lads and lasses around to work off your little rage, no doubt. And what would you be doing with them once they were asleep? Robbing them, of course—you have such expensive habits, Janz—but perhaps a little idle butchering ... or worse? I've noticed the ladies raising their rates down your street, Janz...."
Jansibal snarled wordlessly and charged forward. There was a flash of light and a spray of scattering sparks as the blades of the two nearest bodyguards met some invisible shield of magic around the charging dandy—and then Jansibal came to a sud¬den halt as Thelorn Selemban, moving without apparent haste, drew a blade and pointed it at Jansibal's nose. Tiny white light¬nings spiraled along the steel as its own enchantment cut through Jansibal's shield. Around the two nobles, their body¬guards surged forward, blades out and up.
"Hold, men of Otharr and Selemban, in the name of the king!" came a sudden deep bellow from behind them all, in the direction of the bar. The liveried men halted as their masters stiffened—and the crowd around parted as if before a drawn sword.
A man with a short-trimmed, graying beard came into view, a tankard in his hand. "Swordmaster Adarbron," he identified himself flatly. "I'll report any deaths or bloodletting here to the magelords when I see them this night.... And I'll also let them know if either of you disobey me, my lords. Now order your men out of this place, and back to your homes—now!"
He stood hard-eyed, and the two dandies saw men drift up to stand at his back. Off-duty armsmen, to be sure, faces not quite masking their glee. If the dandies defied the swordmaster, the soldiers would do their level best to 'accidentally' slay or maim them both—and none of their bodyguards would leave the tav¬ern alive.
"My men have had enough to drink anyway," Thelorn said easily, but a vein was working near his jaw. He did not look in Otharr's direction as he said almost gently to the men around him, "You may go. I shall follow after I drink to the health of this excellent and dedicated officer—whose word I utterly support, for the honor of Athalantar."
"For the honor of Athalantar," half a hundred men muttered in reply, waving their flagons and tankards halfheartedly. Unim¬pressed, the swordmaster watched the men go. Then, ignoring Thelorn Selemban's smile, he shot a cold look at Jansibal Otharr, and said, "My lord?"
Sullenly, without a reply, Jansibal waved a hand at his men. Then he turned back to the Shadow, who still knelt fearfully in the alcove, and said coldly, "My lords, I was occupied before Se¬lemban took it upon himself to interrupt. If you'll excuse me—?"
"Through there," Elminster murmured, pointing, "is rather more private. I'm sure the folk who were sitting here before thy enthusiastic men shoved them aside would like to resume what they were doing before thy interruption, too, my lord."
The dandy snarled at him, promised death again in his eyes, but the swordmaster said firmly, "Take the young man's advice, Otharr. He but tries to rescue your family name . .. and remind you of a few simple basics of courtesy."
Otharr did not look around, but his shoulders stiffened, and he turned without a word, fingers firmly wound in Shandathe's hair so that she gave a little shriek and then hurried along on her knees to avoid being dragged.
Elminster took a step forward, but the noble had already halted to fling the curtain wide. "A light in here," he ordered curtly. The young alcove-lass unhooded a slow-wick lamp and blew it into brightness before slipping hurriedly away.
The curtained pleasure-alcove normally cost six gold fal¬cons—but before the fury of the noble and the watchful gaze of the swordmaster, the young girl did not tarry to try for the price ... and the bodyguards who stood to defend her and her demand kept to the walls and held their silence. Jansibal Otharr sur¬veyed the cushioned, draperied bed that almost filled the niche, nodded in satisfaction, and curtly waved Shandathe to the bed. The curtains fell into place behind them with an angry switch.
