Exile's Valor

They were, so far as he could tell, not highborn. But they definitely were prosperous; their gowns were all new, of good quality, and they wore a moderate amount of silver jewelry. Middling well-off merchant or craft families, he guessed; the younger ones had probably persuaded their families to let them see the players, and the older ones had come along as chaperones, and they all had fallen under the spell of the handsome leading man. They were already planning their next outing to see him perform.

A Herald always got noticed, even in Haven, and when he entered the room, they all looked up and at him. He concentrated very hard on his words, and his accent. This was not the time to sound like a foreigner. If Norris went to the effort of trying to track back who betrayed him—Alberich just wanted to be “a Herald.” He gave a little bow, and said, “Your pardon, my ladies. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your party—”

One of the older ones giggled; it was one of the young ones who called out, “Oh, that’s quite all right, Herald, you weren’t interrupting anything. We were just talking about the play we’ve been to.”

“The play be hanged!” said one of the tipsier ones. “It’s that actor Norris’ way of filling out tights that we were talking about!”

Some of them laughed hilariously, some with embarrassment, and Alberich smiled. “He’s a fine actor, that one,” he said agreeably. “Very impressive indeed. I think all of us managed to get to one or more of his performances during the Ice Festival.” Then he added, as if the idea had suddenly struck him, “He wouldn’t be waiting for any of you, would he?”

Oddly enough, it was one of the drunker ones who caught the implications of that last question, which slipped right by most of them. “What d’ye mean, waiting for one of us?” she asked, not quite slurring her words. “Y’mean, now? Right now?”

“Why, yes,” Alberich replied, feigning surprise. “I saw him just across the street, lingering in the doorway, as if he was waiting for someone to come out of the Bell—”

Well, that was all he needed to say, and the only thing he needed to do was to press himself against the wall to get out of the way of the avalanche of gowns heading for the door.

They piled past him and rushed for the front exit. A moment later, and there was something like a little chorus of squeals as they tumbled out into the street. “Is that—” “It is!” “It’s him!”

:You wicked, wicked man!: Myste chortled, as the sounds became a bit inarticulate and much louder.

There was a single, masculine voice, saying desperately over the torrent of giggles and little shrieks, “Ladies! Ladies!” and the owner was clearly getting nowhere.

Alberich strolled out to the door, and stood there with his face in shadow, leaning against the doorpost with his arms crossed, enjoying the havoc he had created. Norris was in the center of a tight knot of women, all of them breathlessly telling him of their admiration at the tops of their lungs, all of them trying to elbow each other aside to get closer to him. He looked like a very desperate man at the moment.

:Oh, this is choice,: Myste said. :I can’t resist.:

From overhead and to the right came her familiar voice. “Will you please be quiet?” If Alberich hadn’t known Myste so well, he would have been certain that she was angry, not trying with might and main to hold back gales of laughter. “People are trying to sleep!”

Her window slammed shut.

Then Myste’s plaint was joined by several other, genuinely irritated voices, calling down to the gaggle of women surrounding to shut up! and go away! and I’ll get the constables on you, see if I don’t!

And it wasn’t long before a constable did appear, and suggest to Norris (as the apparent center of the disturbance), that “It would be very nice, sir, if you and your friends were somewhere else right now.”

And there was nothing else that Norris could do at that point, except to bow to the inevitable. He was going to be stuck with these women for the next candlemark at least. And the only way he was going to get rid of them was back at his own inn, where he knew the ground, and could slip away from them under the guise of attending to nature’s call or something of the sort—or getting one of the cast to find one of his regular bawds to come down and drag him back to his room. The one thing that would embarrass them enough to go away even in their present state of intoxication would be the presence of a real whore.

But it would have to be done there, not here—

Somehow, perhaps by sheer force of personality, he got the group moving, and away they went, still surrounding him on all sides, chattering like a flock of noisy little birds, and he with the look of a man being nibbled to death by ducks.

When they were all out of both sight and hearing, he Mindcalled up to Myste. :I think you can come out now.: