“If you paid attention to your wife, you wouldn’t be muttering about her wanderin’ ways,” Smiles said.
“I paid attention to her. That was the problem. I watched, saw it all. That’s why she got nervous ‘n tried to poison me.”
“Riiiight.”
“Poison?” Ōbhin asked, blinking out of his thoughts. Night had descended and he realized they were walking on cobblestone streets passing rickety houses. The rank smell of sewage filled his nose, the effluent dribbling down gutters flanking the street and dumping into drains.
“She’d get this look, sometimes,” said Fingers. He clenched his left fist, his knuckles cracking one after the other. “Dark and distant. It always meant trouble. I ignored it, all day, I did. Went out to the field, broke my back to feed her. When I returned, I could see it as White as truth. She’d made a poisoned feast. Broke my heart. She was all smiles, you know, as she served it up. Like I’d be happy that she was tearin’ my heart out. Didn’t have a choice wot I did. I . . . left.”
“I suspect she didn’t poison you but did somethin’ nice.” Smiles shook his head. “Nice things confuse poor Fingers.”
“Nice?” He snorted. “We have different definitions of nice. If you’d seen her, you’d know. What she made that day was foul. I told her then and there I got a new job. Had to go to the city. To Kash. Couldn’t let her get me. Oh, no. She wanted freedom so she could marry the potter. I knew it. He was newly widowed, mind you, and she kept goin’ over there to ‘consolidate’ him.”
“He was grievin’,” Smiles protested.
Ōbhin worked his jaw. “You never can tell with a woman. They hide their emotions from you.”
“My Jilly don’t hide nothin’.” He turned around and called out. “You hear ‘em, Bran. You don’t want to end up like these two. Scared of their women. Scared to love ‘em.”
“Not scared of nothin’,” Fingers muttered.
“Except your sweet wife’s cookin’.” Smiles chuckled. “That’s more dangerous than facin’ a bloodfire, it seems to me.”
“Her food must be dreadful indeed,” Ōbhin found himself saying.
“Definitely,” Smiles said, clapping a friendly hand on Ōbhin’s shoulder. “And you would know.”
“Did you really kill Ni’mod?” Bran asked, a boyish eagerness in his voice.
The momentary stirring of camaraderie snuffed out. “Yes.”
Fingers grunted. “Cold bastard despite wot he was. Knew fish with more emotion in their eyes.”
“And wives, eh?” asked Smiles, nudging Ōbhin in the ribs as Fingers shouldered open the rickety door.
It opened into a common room lit by a pair of hearths on either end of the hall. Smoke drifted amid the bare rafters. A bouncer, his face shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, nodded to Smiles, the pair exchanging friendly greetings.
“Oy, landlord, a round of your finest,” Smiles called.
“Ain’t nothin’ fine here,” a man behind the bar grunted, his stained shirt stretched over a ponderous belly. He had a shadow of a beard following his jowls, his cheeks bright from his own wares. “You know that, Smiles.”
“Pretend.”
The landlord snorted and shook his head.
“Don’t think you’ll find us holdin’ grudges ‘bout Ni’mod,” said Fingers, pushing Ōbhin down into a chair. “Man said five words the entire time I knew him.”
“Creeped my Jilly out,” said Smiles as he slouched into the chair to Ōbhin’s right. “And not much scares her.”
“Spiders do,” Bran said as he took the seat across from Ōbhin, his eyes bright.
Smiles shuddered. “Who ain’t creeped out by them long-legged bastards? Their silk might be white, but they spin it with Black, or so my mother used to say.”
A smile crossed Ōbhin’s lips as a memory rose through him. “Carstin hated them. We were camped out near the Remnants when he screamed out with blood-curdling panic. He had Ust up on his feet yelling about an ambush while Whiner Creg was tripping over his blankets. He almost fell face first into the coals. Carstin was thrashing in his bedroll, kicking and screaming. I thought he’d taken a wound. I bolted upright and cracked my head right into a low branch.”
Smiles snorted.
“Ust was bellowing the way he does, and Hook was shouting at us to form up. Stars were dancing around my head while Carstin gathered his blankets and threw them in the fire.”
“Waste of a good blanket,” Fingers muttered. “Must’ve known my wife.”
“Doesn’t every man?” asked Smiles.
Ōbhin couldn’t help his grin. “Is that why your wife was throwing them out?”
Bran let out a braying laugh as the landlord came around with the tankards, slamming them on the table. The tails of the white cloth tied about his upper arm swayed, one end coated in congealed grease. Fingers snatched up his, knuckles red and swollen. He brought the drink to his mouth.
“So he burned a blanket because of a spider?” asked Bran.
Grinning, Ōbhin nodded. He hefted his tankard and took a sip of the sour beer. “Ust was shouting at Carstin, and he was trying to explain that a spider landed on his face and woke him up. Came down from the tree he was sleeping under. Handsome Baill asked why he freaked out. ‘When a woman throws herself at you, best to just give her what she needs.’”
Bran blanched. “A spider?”
“Carstin didn’t even bat an eye. He looked at Handsome Baill and said, ‘She was confused. Meant to slip in your blanket. You the only one of us with a pick small enough to mine her gold.’”
Smiles, in the process of taking a drink, burst into laughter, foaming beer spraying from his nose. Bran brayed louder, pounding his fist into the table. Fingers chuckled, a smile cracking his lips as he shook
