Shadowmarch by Tad Williams

Author:Tad Williams [Williams, Tad]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Fantasy, C429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9780756407650
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2012-11-05T13:00:00+00:00

*

Matty Tinwright woke in his little room beneath the roof of the Quiller’s Mint with a head that felt as though it were full of filthy bilgewater. Notwithstanding his two years’ residence above the tavern (and thus his presumed familiarity with the room’s confines) he managed to strike his head on a beam as he stood—lightly, only lightly, praise to Zosim, godling of both drunkards and poets (a useful coupling since one was so often the other)—and fell back on the bed, groaning.

“Brigid!” he shouted.”Damned woman, come here! My pate is broken!” But of course she had gone. His only solace was that she must be back in the inn tonight, since she was employed downstairs, and he could tax her then with her cruelty for deserting him. Perhaps it would result in a row or a show of sympathy. Either was acceptable. Poets needed excitement, the rush of feeling.

It was increasingly clear that no one was going to bring him anything. Tinwright sat up, rubbing his head and making self-pitying sounds. He emptied his bladder into the chamber pot, then staggered to the window.

If it had been earlier or later in the day, he would have dispensed with the pot as an unnecessary intermediate stage, but Fitters Row was crowded. It was caution rather than courtesy that led him to empty the pot carefully in a place where no one was walking: only last month a burly sailor had objected to being pissed on from a high window and Tinwright had barely escaped with his life.

He made his way down what seemed like an endless succession of stairs to the common room. The bench where Finn Teodoros and Hewney had kept him up past midnight with their cruel drinking game was empty now, although there were silent men sitting on a half dozen of the other benches, laborers from Tin Street drinking an early lunch. Matty Tinwright couldn’t understand how the poet-clerk and the playwright could both be twenty years his senior and yet hold so much drink, forcing him to match them to preserve honor and thus giving him this 1head like a broken pot in a bag. It was dreadful the way they carried on, and terrible the way they led a young man like Tinwright into bad habits.

There was no sign of Conary, the proprietor. The potboy, Gil—boy in name only, since he looked to be at least a decade older than Tinwright—sat on a stool behind the plank, guarding the barrels. He had an odd, distracted look on his face at the moment, but he was no bright spark at the best of times. He had already been at the Quiller’s Mint when Tinwright had first arrived, and in all that time had never said anything remotely interesting.

“Ale,” the poet demanded. “I must have ale quickly. My stomach is like a storm at sea—only the sunshine that is pent in the brewer’s hop can quiet this tempest.” He leaned on the counter, belched sourly. “Do

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