Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05 (9 page)

           
Brennan, just behind Hart, looked
over the room, judging rapidly. And muttered beneath his breath, "We
should have left the horses closer."

           
"And have them stolen?"
Corin, last in, asked it very quietly as he shut the door, then turned back to
face the room along with his brothers.

           
The Pig in the Poke was as unlike
The Rampant Lion as could be. It was unlike any tavern the princes had ever
been in before, and quite suddenly they came to the realization that their
lives had been sheltered indeed. A few lanterns, stinking of cheap oil,
depended from the roof-tree, which littered the floor liberally with debris and
divots hacked out with knives and swords. The candles were tallow, not wax,-and
next to useless, giving off a smudged, greasy flame that burned only
sluggishly.

           
Thick smoke climbed up the limbs of
the tree to hang in the air like a blanket. The common room stank of old ale,
stale beer and unwashed bodies, as well as desperation and hostility.

           
Hart indicated an empty table not
far from the door. It was stained dark from age and spilled liquor, sticky with
wine residue, scarred from weapons and spurs. Hart caught hold of a bench and
dragged it over the earthen floor made uneven and treacherous by divots and
hardpacked ridges. He sat down and placed his hands on the table; his fingers
twitched, as if needing the rune-sticks and dice.

           
Brennan and Corin followed a moment
later. And when at last the tavern-keeper came over, silence still ruled the
room.

           
He was not tall but incredibly broad,
brown-haired and brown-eyed, with wide, spatulate fingers. His tunic and trews
were spun of rough homemade yarn, rubbed with numerous flaws, and wine-stained.
There was little fat on his body, save for a belly that overflowed trews and
stretched the tunic tight.

           
He showed the resin-stained teeth in
his mouth, but it was not precisely a smile. "You be far from your
Keep."

           
"A man in search of a good game
will go as far as necessary," Hart said calmly. "Have you one to
offer?"

           
The tavern-keeper looked at each of
them, one at a time- His dark eyes were shrewd and judgmental. "Have I a
game to offer? Well, I might. Have you gold to offer?" The eyes were on
the lir-bands weighting three pairs of arms.

           
Hart wet his lips. "Oh, aye,
you may say so, and safely. Enough to play. Now—the game?"

           
Brown eyes couched in creases
stopped evaluating Brennan and Corin entirely, making Hart their sole subject.

           
The tavern-keeper said nothing at
all for several long moments, and then his unfriendly face loosened a bit.

           
Not a smile, in no way, but an
expression of comprehension as he saw how Hart's brown fingers tapped incessantly
against the dirty tabletop.

           
"Your beasts," he said, in
his lowborn dialect. "I'll not have any in here, where decent men are
drinking."

           
Corin straightened almost
imperceptibly on his stool.

           
One hand dipped below the tabletop
and stayed there, until an unwavering stare from Brennan, across the table,
made Corin take his hand away from his knife.

           
Brennan looked up at the
tavern-keeper. "They are lir, not beasts."

           
The man shrugged wide shoulders.
"Beasts, lir—what do I care what you call those sorcerous things from the
netherworld? All I know is, I won't have 'em in here."

           
"Then perhaps you should not
have us in here." Brennan stood deliberately.

           
Corin looked up at his waiting
brother, then shoved his bench back to rise. He stopped. He lingered there,
halfway, and looked at Hart. "Rujho—"

           
Hart made no move to join them, and
the tavern-keeper laughed. "Still wanting your game, are you?" He
nodded a little. "Aye, I can see it. So, it touches even the wondrous
Cheysuli." He turned. "Baram—this Cheysuli be wanting a game."

           
"Hart," Brennan said
quietly.

           
Hart shook his head. "Go, or
stay. I stay."

           
Brennan watched the man cross the
common room.

           
"Hart—no. This place stinks of
trouble. It stinks of murder!"

           
"Not so easy to murder a
Cheysuli, I think." Corin sat down again.

           
Briefly Brennan touched the linen
binding on his left arm, absently checking the knots Maeve had tied. Then, with
a muttered imprecation, he sat down once more.

           
"Three to one?" Baram
asked.

           
Brennan shook his head. Corin,
seeing Hart's intensity, indicated he would stay out of it as well. He and
Brennan both had seen their middle brother in such a state before; it was
better to let him play alone, against one or more opponents. He had little time
for those who merely dabbled.

           
"One to one," Hart said
intently, and the tavern-keeper set down the house casket.

           
Baram touched the casket with a
forefinger, then drew it away. He was black-eyed and gap-toothed, with a
hideous sear on his chin. "You," he said gruffly.

           
Hart picked up the casket and
upended it, pouring the dice into his left hand. There were no rune-sticks,
only ivory dice now yellowed with age and dirt. The marks on them denoting a
numerical system were mostly worn away.

           
Hart examined them, nodded briefly
to himself, poured them back into the casket. Ivory rattled as he set the
casket down. "The game," he said, and waited.

           
"Counting game," Baram
answered. He paused.

           
"Count?"

           
"I count."

           
"Throw thrice. Each. High two
of three wins." He shrugged. "Simple enow."

           
"Simple enough." Hart
nodded. "Throw."

           
They played through quickly, with
nothing said past what had to be said. Brennan watched uneasily as other men in
the tavern came closer to watch, leaving their own games behind. Corin drank
wine and watched the dice as they rattled and danced on the table.

           
After some time spent trading coin
back and forth between them—Hart's twenty-five gold crowns, Baram's
inconvenient assortment of coppers and silver royals—

           
Hart leaned forward. "Not good
enough," he said. "Shall we make it more interesting?"

           
Baram looked at the pile of coins
glinting by Hart's elbow. Their winnings were evenly split, with neither man
showing dominance over the dice. "Aye," he said at last.

           
Hart tapped his pile.
"All."

           
Baram grunted. "Throw."

           
Hart threw tens, fives, twos; Baram
twelves, eights, threes. Brennan watched the pile of coins in front of Hart go
into Baram's pocket.

           
Hart frowned a little, tapped
fingers on the table, nodded to himself. "Again," he said intently.

           
The Homanan slowly shook his head
and pointed a crooked finger. "No gold, shapechanger. Nothing left to
wager. Don't throw on promises. “

           
Hart tapped his right forefinger on
the table. The sapphire signet flashed in the smudgy light. "I have
something left."

           
"No," Brennan said
sharply.

           
Baram looked at the ring, at
Brennan, at Hart. And he laughed. "Done," he said, and threw the
dice.

           
Six throws, and the ring was
forfeit. Baram put out his hand.

           
"No!" Brennan's own hand
flashed down to catch Hart's, preventing him from stripping off the ring.
"You are mad," he said flatly, "mad to think I will let you pay
a debt with this. This ring signifies your title."

           
"I can get another." Hart
tried to withdraw his hand from Brennan's grasp and did not succeed.
"There must be hundreds of these stones in the treasury, Brennan; I can
have another made."

           
"No." Brennan looked at
Baram. "Will you take gold in place of this?"

           
"Gold?" Baram considered
him silently a moment.

           
"D'ye mean to make good his
wager for him, then?"

           
"I do."

           
"Now?" Baram asked.
"Right now?"

           
Grimly, Brennan nodded. "I have
the coin,"

           
"No." Baram's eyes went
back to Hart, and he grinned his gap-toothed grin. "You said gold,
shapechanger," he gestured toward the lir-bands on Hart's arms, "so
I'll be taking those."

           
"Kureshirin!" Corin cried.
"Do you think—"

           
"No." Brennan's sharp
gesture cut him off. He sat very still on his stool. "I have gold crowns
in my belt-purse, Homanan, and that is what I will pay you with. Nothing
else."

           
Baram's determination was manifest.
"I want those bracelets, shapechanger—and no man here can say I didn't win
'em fairly."

           
Hart's color was bad. "These—“
he stopped, wet his lips, touched his left armband in something very like a
caress. He started over. "These were never at stake," he said,
"never. I owe you, aye, and you will be paid—but not with these."

           
Brennan unlaced his belt-purse and
threw it onto the table. It landed with a heavy thump and a satisfying clink of
gold. "There. More than enough to cover what he owes you."

           
Baram's hand shot out, scooped up
the purse, hid it somewhere on his person. "Now," he said, "I'm
paid. But I'm still waiting for those, and there're enough of us here to see
that you give 'em to me."

           
“Try," Hart suggested, and
before anyone else could move, including his brothers, he caught the table and
overturned it.

           
Casket, cups and winejug flew in
Baram's direction.

           
Corin ducked, rolled off his stool,
came up with knife in hand, knowing Brennan's ban on edged weapons no longer
held true. Not at all; Corin saw the glint of a knife in Brennan's hand across
the way. But be had no more time to watch for either brother; men were coming
for him, and he saw steel in their hands.

           
Oh, gods, he thought, I will have to
slay a man.

           
"Brennan—behind you—" Hart
shouted, and then he had no more time to shout at his brother. Baram himself
was on him with a long-knife in his hand.

           
A stool, on its side, rolled at
Brennan's heels. He tripped, as he was meant to; staggered back, trying to plant
his feet and regain his balance—a man, no two—reaching for him from behind—

           
Sleeta—he cried within the link,
gods, Sleeta, I never thought. Corin felt the wooden wall at his back. Shoulder
blades, leather-clad, scraped; he pressed back, back, wishing he could somehow
slide through the cracks in the boards.

           
There was no more choice left to
him, none at all; he bled from a cut across the back of one hand, and the two
Homanans came at him again.

           
Hart twisted aside, caught Baram's
wrist. As the Homanan struggled, cursing. Hart wrenched his arm back until the
cords in Baram's neck stood up. Cords gave; the knife fell out of his hand.

           
The stench of spilled oil and greasy
flame filled the common room. Someone cursed; another called that there was
fire.

           
From outside the tavern came the
scream of an angry mountain cat.

           
"Kill them, kill all of them!”
the tavern-keeper shouted. "Kill them before they shift their
shapes!"

           
Brennan, outnumbered, was slammed
down against the floor. Beneath him, a wooden cup jammed against his spine, so
that he writhed away from the pain; the knife was knocked out of his hand.