Page 1 of Dishonor Among Thieves
ChapterOne
If there was anything that turned my stomach faster than the smell of rotting fish, it was the sound of a man’s desperation. I’d hoped an inn with more animal heads on the walls than customers in the chairs might sell something a little less pungent than fish head soup this late in the season. Too bad the men here sounded luckless, and the food…meatless.
I tucked my chin to my chest and held my breath as bowls of something fishy, steaming, and questionably less than fresh passed by high over the head of an overworked woman.
“Heads up, toes in!” she bellowed.
Bits of brownish muck splashed from the bowls onto her tray as she stepped past salt-warped chairs and boots.
“The one that trips me, tips me!” Her rhyme earned brash laughter from a few who must have heard the warning before and were already moving their feet.
The crowd of customers was small but boisterous. Men with yellowing teeth clinked their mugs of ale. Bits of partially chewed bread flicked onto their beards like embers popping from a dying fire. I scanned the crowd, taking in everything. And everyone.
In a dark corner, a man touched his nose to the neck of a girl whose flush and giggle suggested she was not yet his wife. Two older women sat together on a bench, slurping as though competing to see who could finish her ale first. A half-asleep man, tufts of gray hair sprouting from his ears and nose, nearly fell off a backless chair at the bar.
“Oy! What you havin’ tonight, gentlemen?” The buxom barkeep looked over two men sitting across from each other at a small table.
The taller one had his back to me. The hood of his dark cloak was tugged back, revealing hair that looked black in the firelight. His long hair didn’t necessarily mark him as wealthy, but I knew no laboring men whose hair looked expensive and well-kept. The second man at the table wasn’t nearly as refined looking, but his booming voice and strange accent drew me in. I hung back in the shadows watching, taking it all in. After both men had placed their orders, the barkeep grabbed her tray and headed back to the bar.
I followed after her, wedging myself between mister hairy ears and a younger man who seemed intent on counting every bubble of foam in his mug of ale.
“Excuse me, miss!” I worried one of my last precious quarter-pennies between two fingers, the firelight reflecting on the dull edges of the coin.
The girl pointed at me, then jerked a thumb toward the back. “Whatcha need, sweetie? I got a line of hungry men ahead of ya. Ya gotta speak up if you wanna get noticed.”
Getting noticed was the opposite of what I wanted. But I nodded and gave her a gracious smile. “You’re too kind, thank you. My lord back there. The gentleman with the long hair.” I flicked a glance over my shoulder. “Did he order the fish head soup?”
“Aye, he did. One for him and one for his friend.” She waggled her brows. “He’s pretty, that one is.” I assumed she meant the one whose face I hadn’t yet seen. His companion wasn’t a man that even a barrel full of ale could make “pretty.”
I nodded. “The pretty one, yes. He’s so very sorry for the trouble, but he’s asked that I change his order. Do you have any meat?”
“Do we have any meat? Of course we do! What’s he fancy? Sausage? We got a real pretty sausage plate…”
The fact that she’d called both the man and the sausage pretty gave me pause, but I figured a plate of anything would be more substantial than late-season soup.
“That’ll be perfect. Just perfect,” I said, smiling and looking down at my hands. I tapped the bit of coin against the bar. “Should he give this to you now? Or do you prefer it after the meal?” I held my breath, knowing what I’d do if I were her. Take the money now. The promise of future money was never as good as a coin in the hand. But I was fairly certain this woman was nothing like me.
She crowed with laughter and waved me away. “Go on, now. I’ll fix your lord right up.” She winked at me. “Maybe then he’ll toss more than a quarter-penny my way.”
I nodded at her predictable logic and the flirtatious suggestion in her voice, then stuffed the coin back into my traveling pouch. “May I wait here?” I asked, leaning against the bar. “The gentlemen are…” I rolled my eyes and mimicked the movements of their jaws as they talked.
She shouted at the drowsy man who was about to tip over and pounded against the bar with her fist. “Vigi, go find a chair with a back. I’m not going to lift your arse off the floor if you fall. Let the girl here…” She lifted her brows at me. “What’s yer name, girlie?”
I debated giving her a fake name but then provided just my nickname. As small as the shire of Fish Head End was, it would be impossible to track me down anywhere in the Realm of Tutovl with just that. “Brex.”
“Vigi!” she crowed. “Give Brex here yer seat. Go on, now!”
The man blinked his swollen eyes and dug a finger deep into his fuzzy ear canal, then shrugged a shoulder before stumbling to his feet. I nodded my thanks and sat, trying not to cringe at the damp heat of the stool that seeped through my thin dress and cloak. The girl behind the bar nodded at me.
“Whatcha drinking, Brex?” she asked. “Ya fancy an ale?”
My shoulders sagged in genuine relief. “Ale would be fantastic.” She sloppily filled a mug and dropped it on the bar, then took off to deliver more bowls of soup.
I sipped my ale, trying not to smirk. The gentleman with the blue-black hair had no idea he would be paying for my drinks, but if his fine cloak and manners were any indication, he had more than enough means.Only from those who can spare it, I reminded myself. And it wasn’t really stealing. Or even lying—not really. I was benefitting from a bit of misinformation. Nothing more than that.
Now, what I planned to do with the plate of sausages once they arrived… Thatwas,in fact, stealing.
“Look a’that,” the barkeep preened when she returned. She set a steaming meal before me. “Told ya they was pretty!”
