work.'
'True,' Lis said, walking past him and up the stairs.
'But… he was disrespectful.'
'So?' Tesha said. 'That goes with the work, too. Do you beat everyone who's disrespectful to you?'
'Well not me, no, but Egil…'
'Don't do it again, Nix. I mean it. I can't have everyone who might be interested in one of my men or women worried about saying the wrong thing and getting crosswise of you and Egil. You want this place to make money, don't you?'
Nix found himself at a loss for words. He located some only by changing the subject. 'You're quite lovely when you're angry. Did you know that?'
'And you're quite small of stature, angry or no,' she said.
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked for the stairs. He stood there sputtering and she shot him a final withering glance before she ascended.
'I believe I'm in love,' he said softly, watching the sway of her hips under her blue dress.
'You're always in love,' Egil said, stepping beside him, and checking his fist, where he'd scraped it on the hiresword's teeth. The priest nodded surreptitiously at the four men who'd just entered. 'You see those four who just came in?'
The men, all hard-eyed and armed, stood just inside the doors. They were eyeing Nix and Egil uncertainly, whispering among themselves.
'I see them,' Nix said softly, then called to them, 'And here are men of quality to replace the low men late of this establishment. Welcome, goodsirs.'
The men pasted on fake smiles, gave half-bows, and went awkwardly for a corner table. Nix saw how they fell in behind the older, bearded man among them.
From their helmcuts and bearing, he made them as bodyguards, city watch, or soldiers. The bearded one caught Nix studying them, so Nix pasted on a fake smile of his own.
'Morra, see to those men,' Nix said, waving to the serving girl.
'In a moment, luvs,' Morra called to them, placing frothing tankards down at another table.
Egil took Nix by the arm and walked him toward the bar.
'Have to be watch,' Egil said.
'Looks that way to me, too. We're not wanted by any authorities, though. Wait. Are we?'
Egil shrugged. 'Pits if I know.'
Nix wondered if his mouthiness at the Slum Gate had landed them in trouble.
'Well, even watchmen just want a drink sometimes, right?'
'Possible,' Egil said. 'Or maybe they're here on some other business not involving Egil and Nix.'
'Are you referring to us in the third person now?'
'Shut up,' the priest said, and tended to his tankard.
Kiir stood at the other end of the bar, her dress showing her curves to good effect. Nix sat and patted the stool next to him. She smiled and moved to take it, but Tesha's voice from the top of the stairs cut through the cacophony of the common room.
'Kiir, attend me here, please.'
Nix tried not to look crestfallen, but doubted he succeeded. He took Kiir by the wrist as she turned to go. 'Maybe we can speak later?'
'Speak?' she said, with a sweet smile and mischievous wink.
Nix chuckled and watched her as she walked off.
'Moments ago you loved Tesha,' Egil said.
'I'm abundant with love,' Nix answered wistfully. 'A good thing, given the number of lovely women in this city.'
Egil chuckled, frowned at the cut on his knuckle. 'You're abundant in something, that's certain.'
CHAPTER FOUR
Eating knives had scored the polished wood of the Tunnel's bar over the years, the lines like obscure runes, glyphs written by wastrels in the language of drunks. Nix and Egil sat there for hours, tended to by a taciturn Gadd, watching patrons enter the Tunnel sober and stagger out drunk, or weave up the stairs with an arm around one of Tesha's men or women.
They drank Gadd's ale under the gaze of Lord Mayor Hyram Mung, whose portrait hung from the wall behind the bar, next to the dram writ that authorized the Tunnel's existence. After a time, the Lord Mayor's beady eyes, doughy flesh, and double chins became too much to bear.
'Gadd, I want that portrait taken down,' Nix said. 'Get something more suitable.'
Kiir stood beside him, sipping an apple wine. 'He is ugly.'
She'd come and gone several times during the night, and each time Nix felt her absence as his imagination tortured him with what she might be doing while gone.
'And fat,' said Lis, sitting beside Egil and facing the common room. 'I hear his adjunct is handsome, though.'
Kiir giggled.
'Gadd,' Nix said. 'Did you hear?'
Gadd, arranging his tankards and mugs behind the bar with the same care an alchemist might show to his alembics and beakers, looked a question at him.
Nix pointed at the portrait behind the bar. 'Down. I want that down.'
'Drink?' Gadd said, his eastern accent as thick as his eel stew. 'Ale?'
'No, no, not a drink. I have one. The painting.' Nix made an expression like that of the Lord Mayor in the portrait — eliciting another giggle from Kiir — and pointed at it. He made a downward gesture. 'Down. I want it down. It irks.'
Gadd pointed a thumb at the portrait, eyebrows raised in a question.
'Yes, yes, the portrait,' Nix said. 'Down.'
'Mayor,' Gadd said, and mimed the Lord Mayor's expression himself. 'Nice picture.'
Nix cursed while Egil and the women laughed aloud.
'This seems funny to you?' Nix asked. 'Our tapkeep can't speak Realm Common.'
'He seems to manage well enough,' Egil said. 'Besides, his ale is the best thing here. This place is a shithole. That hiresword had the right of that, at least.'
Nix sighed. 'Aye. But as you said, it's our shithole.'
'Hey!' Kiir said.
'Take no offense, love. You and Lis brighten it immeasurably.' Nix snapped his fingers. 'Egil, maybe we could convert it to a temple of Ebenor? Get the Momentary God some worshippers who aren't angry whoresons?'
Egil's expression darkened under his thick eyebrows.
Nix had meant his words as jest, but they'd gotten ahead of his sense.
'That was in poor taste. Apologies, my friend.'
'But…' Lis began, and trailed off. She bit her lip, fidgeting with a question unasked.
Egil sighed. 'Ask,' he said.
'No, no,' Lis said, obviously embarrassed. She fidgeted more. 'I don't-'
'I can see you have a question.' Egil sipped from his tankard, put it down. 'Ask so it's out of your head. I'll not have you fidgeting with it all night.'
Still she hesitated.
'He's not as mean as he looks,' Nix said to her. 'He won't bite… at least not more than once.'
Lis smiled, turned toward Egil, and dove in. 'Your tattoo?'
'Yes.'
'Well, I don't understand. Why Ebenor? Why not Aster? Or Borkan? I thought Ebenor was… dead? And he
