Opening his eyes, Max saw David Menlo standing over his bed and shaking him with as much strength as the small boy could muster. His face was pale and panicked as he shook Max again.
“I’m awake,” Max gasped, sucking air like a drowning man. “I’m okay … I’m awake.”
David backed away, giving his roommate space to recover. Max’s heart was pounding unbearably fast, each beat a painful, percussive jolt as sweat coursed down his body. Kicking his soaking covers aside, Max simply lay still for a moment and tried to gather his wits.
“I’ve never heard a scream like that,” David whispered. “That must have been some nightmare.”
“It was the wolfhound,” Max panted. “It’s always that damned wolfhound. What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” David replied. “But you don’t have classes. You can go back to sleep.”
“No,” said Max hurriedly. “No, I should get up. I have things to do.”
“No, you don’t,” said David mildly. “You’ve just returned from a long journey and earned a few days of rest. There will be plenty for you to do, Max, but not today. Let me buy you breakfast.”
“You don’t have to buy me breakfast. Let’s just go to the dining hall. I want to see Bob.”
“Alas,” said David, tossing Max a towel from a nearby hook, “the dining hall is for students and we no longer qualify. Besides, you won’t find Bob down there. He doesn’t work in the kitchens anymore.”
“What do you mean?” asked Max, propping up on his elbows. “Bob
“Not anymore,” said David sadly. “He retired from cooking and built a cottage on Crofter’s Hill. He spends most of his time up there now. I visited once, but he didn’t seem to like it. I haven’t bothered him since.”
Max was dumbstruck. His mind flashed back to the refugee Tam and the questions she’d posed to him:
Swinging his legs out of bed, Max wiped away the sweat with the towel. “Thanks for waking me,” he said, padding down to the lower level of their room to wash his face. Filling a basin, he closed his eyes and sank his face into the cold water. Slowly, the drumming in his temples subsided and the muscles in his neck uncoiled. Breathing deep, he gazed up at the room’s domed ceiling.
The stars beyond the glass were comfortably present. As Max watched, the constellation Orion was outlined in gossamer threads of tiny golden lights. Gradually, the outline dissipated. A moment later, the threads reappeared to illuminate the Little Dipper. It was such a soothing room, always quiet and contemplative. Beds on the upstairs level, a comfortable study below, and the clearest, most spectacular view of the heavens one could wish for.
“So … breakfast?” inquired David from the top of the stairs. “I’m partial to the Hanged Man, but there are some new places we could try near the east end. Lucia seems to like the Pot and Kettle. It’s your choice, of course, but the Hanged Man does have excellent coffee.…”
In truth, Max had no choice in the matter. As the pair wandered the cobbled streets of Rowan Township, they passed any number of suitable establishments, but David found fault with each. The Pot and Kettle was too crowded, the Trestle too sterile, the Black Dragon too snooty. When David recounted a recent case of food poisoning at the Cheery Turnip, Max finally gave up and suggested the Hanged Man.
“If you insist,” said David happily. “I’m sure they’ll be able to squeeze us in.”
The cafe stood alone, some thirty yards beyond even the humblest shops on the township’s northwest edge. As they approached, Max saw that the place was little more than a ramshackle bungalow of salvaged pine boards built around a withered ash tree. By way of a sign, a crude scarecrow dangled from a branch, its rickety legs blackened from smoke that billowed from a stovepipe chimney. Within an adjoining pen, a spotted sow sprawled listlessly on her side while a dozen chickens squawked and squabbled over scattered kernels.
“This is great,” Max deadpanned. “Much better than all those other places.”
“Oh, I know it doesn’t look like much,” said David, “but it’s got character! You can keep your Black Dragon with its polished brass and working bathrooms—I’ll choose the Hanged Man every time. Marta takes good care of me, and I daresay I’m her best customer.…”
Following his friend inside, Max concluded that David was not merely the Hanged Man’s best customer but its sole source of revenue. The cafe was empty, most of its chairs standing atop a half-dozen small tables arranged around the tree trunk. Coughing into his sleeve, Max peered through the oily haze and spied an enormous figure half sprawled and asleep at the farthest table. Reaching past Max, David rang a little triangle hanging from a hook.
“There he is, there he is,” the figure murmured, still unmoving.
“Take your time, Marta,” said David. “I’ve brought a friend today.”
“Have you?” replied the woman, her massive head rotating up from the crook of her forearm to blink at Max. “He’s pretty,” she muttered. “Tall. Lashes like a doe.”
“Um … thanks?” said Max as Marta rose heavily to her feet.
“Ain’t nothing,” she replied, tucking a wad of tobacco under a rubbery lip and tying back her mop of stringy red hair. “If I’d known David was bringing a lordling, I’d have washed up.”
“You look fine,” Max assured her.
“Ax,” she grunted, spitting a brown gob into a tin cup.
“Excuse me?” said Max, thoroughly confused.
The woman hooked her thumb at an appalling scar that stretched from her temple across what remained of her nose.
“Oh,” said Max, now wishing he were somewhere,
“That some kinda joke?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Ain’t no other guy,” she muttered, hefting up a sack of coffee beans. “Slipped while slaughtering a hog. The usual, David?”
“If you would,” David replied, arranging a pair of chairs around a nearby table.
“What about you?” rumbled Marta, pouring the beans into a long-handled roasting basket. “We got eggs, bacon, ham, chops, chicken, toast, and a bit o’ cream,” she added, nodding toward a stone jug. “Apples too.”
“Eggs and coffee sound great,” said Max. “Bacon, too, if it’s no trouble.”
“No trouble,” Marta grunted, seizing up a dented ax and lumbering toward the sow’s pen.
“Let’s skip the bacon,” uttered Max quickly.
Marta merely shrugged. While she set to preparing their meal, Max and David sat and talked, as they hadn’t in many months. Throughout breakfast, a great weight seemed to lift slowly from Max’s shoulders. There were no other customers, no one to stare at the famous pair and debate whether they were Rowan’s blessing or curse. Marta didn’t even seem to know who he was.
As they ate, Max shared stories from Zenuvia. He described its teeming bazaars and spice markets, the crystalline spires of maridian sealords, and the strange townships found throughout its archipelagos. When he shared an anecdote about a fox-faced kitsune in a Khoreshi opium den, David raised an eyebrow.
“What were you doing in a place like that?”
“Smuggler owned it,” Max replied, attacking his eggs. “The kitsune hung around the shop. She tried to teach me a song on her belyael. Turns out you really need six fingers to play that thing.”
“Guess I’ll stick to whistling,” quipped David, glancing at the stump where his right hand used to be.
The pair dissolved into laughter. Marta glanced up from kneading a mound of dough. “You two are worse’n a sewing circle,” she griped. “Giggle, giggle, snort, snort. Liked it better when David sat quiet with his coffee ’n’ toast.”
“I’m sorry, Marta,” said David, wiping a tear from his eye. “We’re not laughing at you. We just haven’t had a chance to catch up in a long time.”
“Not since I left for Zenuvia,” Max observed, tearing a hunk off the warm black bread.
“No,” said David thoughtfully. “Longer than that. In truth, it’s been years, Max. I couldn’t really afford to have friends while I was trying to rescue my family. I accepted it as part of the job, but until now I don’t think I really realized just how lonely I’ve been.”
“Well,” said Max, “thanks to you, your family’s back together. No need to be lonely anymore.”
