Not that anyone in the Arms was going to do any business. That sign over the door wasn't there for a joke. That was what made and kept the Arms so popular; when you walked in here, you knew you'd come out with your purse no lighter than the cost of your food and drink. The women wouldn't try and get you drunk so they could talk you into paying for wine for them either. The wenches here weren't hired for their looks, gods knew — absolute harridans, most of 'em. They'd been hired because they knew the liftin' lay, and how to spot someone at business. One whistle from one of them, and the miscreant would find himself on the street with his own arms looking just like the ones on the sign. It was a good dodge for the wenches, for certain-sure; a young thing, plain though she might be, would still have an excuse to come sidling alongside of a fellow with a bit of an invitation. An old hag wouldn't; and though her fingers might still be wise, they weren't as nimble as a young thing's, so if she tried the old dodge of stumbling into a fellow, the odds were that he'd be clapping his hand to his belt pouch before she could get into it. And if he didn't, and she got it, her feet wouldn't carry her as far or as fast anymore. The older you got in the trade, the likelier it was you'd be caught that fatal third time, and unless she got herself a gaggle of littles to teach the trade to — taking everything they lifted, of course — there wasn't much an aging woman could do to turn a penny. There weren't a lot of women who learned the high roads or the ketchin' lay, professions that could keep you going for a long time, so long as you were limber enough to climb or bold enough to cosh.
Not that Skif held with the ketchin' lay. Bazie'd turned up his nose at it; didn't take a mort of skill nor brains to take a cosh to a fellow's head and make off with his goods. And the Watch and the Guards didn't give a third or even second chance to anyone caught at that trade; caught once, you saw ten years of hard labor for the Guard.
The women Skif knew didn't hold with the ketchin' lay either, though he wasn't sure what the difference was between laying a fellow out with a cosh and taking his goods when he was drunk dead asleep. Whatever, that was still another trade, and an old hag couldn't ply it either.
So it was good business all around for “Pappa” Serens. He had the reputation now, and always had himself a full complement of cheap serving wenches, seeing as he gave them all bed space, drink, board, and a couple of coppers now and again. They got free access to the cheapest beer after closing, as much as they cared to drink, and to the dregs of every barrel and mug of whatever price during the hours of custom, so long as they didn't get drunk. Every one of Serens' four “girls” had her own pottery pitcher back in the kitchen, and no mug belonging to the tavern ever went back out to the custom without being drained — every drop — into one of those pitchers. Since by this point in their lives what they were mostly interested in was a warm bed and enough drink to knock them out every night, nobody was complaining about the low wages. The drinking killed them off, of course, but the moment that one was carried out the door on a board, another came in on her own two feet to replace her.
Serens supplied a unique commodity for this part of the city. You could go to a dozen taverns to lift skirts, to a dozen more for a cheaper drunk than you got here, even to a couple for a bigger meal at the same price. The Arms, however, was the only place Skif knew of where you could set yourself down without worrying about fingers at your belt pouch, have beer that wouldn't choke you and a meal that wouldn't sicken you, and talk about anything to anyone, unmolested. The wenches were ugly, but they kept their mouths shut, and their eyes on their own business. There were occasional fights, but it was generally some young bullyboy trying to prove something, it usually went outside, and the older, wiser sell-sword he'd picked would settle him down quick enough. And if it didn't go outside and racketed among the benches, Seren himself, big as a bull and quick as a stag, would settle it, and The Broken Arms would have another gutterside advertisement of how the proprietor treated those who broke the rules.
Tonight, with waterfalls pouring from the clouds outside and the wind in the right direction so that the chimney drew properly instead of sending smoke into the room, there wouldn't be any disturbances. Everyone was too comfortable to want to find himself out in the dark and rain. Skif could stay here tucked up until closing. And he would; right now his doss was a stable garret, cheap enough and cool enough even by day, now it was summer, but boring. Worse, with the rain pouring down; it'd lull him to sleep and mess him up. He slept by day, not by night, and he didn't need to find himself starting to nod in the middle of a job because he'd let his sleeping and waking patterns get messed up.
Besides, if he wasn't going to be able to work tonight, he might as well see if he couldn't pick up something interesting.
In the months since the fire, he'd made some progress finding out who was responsible — not anywhere near as fast as he'd have liked, but not so little that he was disappointed. He'd traced the money and responsibility up the line from the immediate “landlord” to whom they'd paid their rent, through two middlemen, both of whom were worse off for the loss of the building and neither of whom actually owned it. There, he'd come to a dead-end, but someone had given orders it be burned and someone had carried out those orders, and there weren't too many who were in the business of burning down buildings. Skif had, he thought, identified them all.
He had no intention of going up to any of them and confronting them about it. In the first place, there was nothing he could offer in the way of a bribe or a threat to get them to talk. In the second place, doing so would likely get him dead, not get him answers. So he was taking the slow and careful path, much though it irked and chafed him; coming here as often as he could to listen to their talk. For here was where all dubious business was conducted, and here was where the one who was really responsible might come to commission another such job.
In point of fact, as luck would have it, one of Skif's targets sat not a foot away from him tonight, making it absurdly easy to pick out his words from amidst the babble all around him.
So far it had been nothing but idle talk of bets won and lost, boasting about women, tall tales of drinking bouts of the past. On the other hand, the man hadn't been talking to anyone but his cronies. He was a professional, and well enough off by the standards around here; he didn't have to spend his evening in the Arms. He could get himself a woman, have a boy deliver a good tavern meal to his room, or find a better class of place to drink in. So maybe, just maybe, he'd come here tonight to make a contact, or even a deal.
When he got up to ask someone at one of the two-person tables if he'd move to the seat he had just vacated — for a monetary consideration — and take his comrade with him, Skif felt a thrill of anticipation and apprehension. He was meeting someone!
The door at the front of the tavern opened and closed, and there was a subtle movement in the crowd. It
