(eng) Mercedes Lackey - Valdemar 20 by Exile's Honor

Author:Exile's Honor [Honor, Exile's]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

11

OUTSIDE the tavern, a storm raged, effectively ensuring that no one would be leaving or coming in any time soon. Water poured off the eaves of the tavern in sheets, like a waterfall, as the gutters overflowed. The rain spouts added to the mess, spouting like geysers, sending a torrent of water over the cobbles. It was cold out there, the temperature had plummeted, and the rain felt like icewater.

Inside the tavern, those who were stuck here nursed the last dregs of their drinks and contemplated another. Or perhaps, a nice pigeon pie or a good slice of mutton. . . . The innkeeper, anticipating the needs of his customers, had started a kettle of mulled cider, even though it wasn’t the season for any such thing, and the spicy scent began to drift through the inn, turning heads and sharpening appetites. It was unexpectedly cozy in here, with a small fire going, just enough to take the chill off the air. And the ambiance was a million leagues away from the atmosphere in the last tavern Alberich had been in.

Alberich had come out of the secret room at the back of the stables here at the Companion’s Bell, only to find that the storm which had been threatening all day had finally broken. Since he was effectively trapped here and starving, he decided to make a virtue of necessity and avail himself of the little private room reserved for Heralds and their guests.

Of course he was starving; he’d left before suppertime, and you just didn’t eat what was offered in, say, the Broken Arms. Not unless you wanted to have an intimate and detailed knowledge of the inside of the privy, sooner or later, when your stomach objected to what you’d put there. Granted, the indoor water closets at the Collegium were fine things, but not as a place for an extended stay.

He’d already had his fill of watching people tonight; on the whole, he’d rather just sit back on a comfortable settle alone, and watch the storm. Here, once he was out of that secret room where he changed his identity from that of a Herald to any one of half a dozen personae he wore in this city and back again to a Herald, he felt almost as secure as at the Collegium itself.

It wasn’t only the wretched neighborhoods he prowled, as a cheap thug-for-hire, as a ne’er-do-well of dubious reputation, as a sell-sword. No, he had some respectable personae as well; he was a small merchant in imported knives, he was a votary of some obscure god whose cult was so tiny that no one had ever heard of it (for good reason, since it didn’t exist), he was an honest caravan guard. . . .

But most of his time was, admittedly, spent in places most Heralds never saw but the city constables and Guard were all too familiar with. And most of it was spent accomplishing very little but waiting for one or another of his patiently-laid traps to catch something.

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