Ōbhin strolled down the street, his hand on his sword hilt.
Chapter Twenty-One
Confusion wreathed Avena as she followed Ōbhin through the streets of Kash. They were heading north towards the river, entering a seedier district. She could smell the mix of salt and sour mud on the air, making her nose itch. The clouds above grew bleaker, a low rumble of thunder echoing around her. The world grew darker despite it being near noon.
She’d followed him for a quarter of an hour. He moved cautiously. It was like he was following someone himself. He would wait at intersections and peer around corners. He stood out in his armor, easy for her to follow after.
She became more and more aware that, though plain, her dark-blue dress was out of place with the poor garb around her. She had lace at the cuffs and a pattern of polished, red beads along the neckline and down in a plunging V towards her breasts. It was a tad ornamental, and maybe a little immodest, but it didn’t show any flesh. It wasn’t like the scandalous dresses she’d seen young noblewomen wear, flaunting their motherly attributes.
Or like the woman lounging at the street corner where Ōbhin stopped. Rogue reddened the woman’s cheeks and stained her lips. Her dress was a pale pink-orange, faded and frayed at the hem. It was open at the square bodice, showing off the low-cut chemise the woman wore beneath, the thin linen leaving little to the imagination.
The woman spoke to Ōbhin, gaining his attention. Embarrassed heat spread to Avena’s ears. Is he just renting a wife?
After a moment, the whore scowled and turned away as Ōbhin marched off.
Relieved she wasn’t wasting her time, Avena hurried after, her heeled shoes striking the cobblestone streets. The pavers were worn and crumbling, buckling up in places. A wagon clattered by, axle groaning at the shoddy conditions. She passed a jewelchine lamp. The glass holding the diamond was surrounded by bands of heavy iron, ugly and thick, clearly later additions.
Avena swallowed at the rough men who moved around her. She glanced down at her skirt; the slight bulge of her binder strapped to her calf reassured her. She ignored the speculative looks. It was still noonday. Even in the poorest parts of Kash, a woman could walk without fear of having her head rapped by a sap and robbed, and maybe violated, while she lay face down in the gutter.
She pressed on, skirts swirling. If any did try . . . Her fingers itched to rip her binder out now. To stalk down the street with it out to leave no doubt she was a woman who could thump their heads back.
Ōbhin reached the next intersection. He peered around it, leaning against a building whose whitewashed exterior grayed and peeled, revealing rotting wood beneath. The air held moisture. She could hear the flow of the Ustern River that bisected Kash in half. Gulls cawed. In an alley, one fought with a rat over a piece of trash, flapping white wings tipped in black feathers. She grimaced at the size of the rat.
It’s as big as some cats, she thought and shuddered. A tingle raced up her spine. She was grateful to the ratters that roamed Dualayn’s estate. Frisk and Baby Lynx were fierce cats who kept the pests at bay.
Ōbhin moved on. She headed for the corner. The air grew cooler. Wetter. The wind carried the moisture from the river. They were near the estuary where the ocean warred with the Ustern for dominance. During high tides, waves would flow upriver. She peered around the corner. Ōbhin marched to a public house, three stories tall with bubbled and smoky windows set in it. A sign hung out front with a gray finger thrust upward, only . . . its shape was almost like a mushroom. Skinny.
Her cheeks warmed at the disgusting sign; its name printed in bold letters proclaimed it the Gray Pillar Tavern.
One of those dark-red women lounged out front, her dress half-unlaced, her heavy bosom almost spilling out. She had long, brown hair and a boil at the corner of her lip. She leered at a sailor walking down the road with the swagger of the salt in his step.
Ōbhin didn’t go to the tavern, but to the alley running beside it. Thunder cracked above. A drop of rain landed on Avena’s forehead.
*
A light drizzle fell as Ōbhin entered the alley running along the tavern’s side. He glanced at the dingy window. The glass was cheap, full of bubbles and warped in places, distorting the image. He rubbed his glove on it to cleanse some of the grime and peered into the common room. A pair of sailors diced at one table while at the bar, several old men, shoulders sagging and lips puckered from lack of teeth, sipped at flagons of ale. They appeared to be arguing, the one in the middle turning back and forth.
Through the mostly empty room, he watched Whiner Creg cross it to a backroom. He opened a door and slipped in without a word. Ōbhin moved down the alley, disturbing a pair of squeaking rats that scurried down the building’s side. One vanished beneath a pile of rotten lumber. Another alley ran behind the tavern. He moved to the first window he found and peered in.
Through the brown dirt, he spotted Creg nodding to Hook, who was standing up. Ust’s second-in-command brandished his namesake before him. It thrust from a leather cap over the stump of his left wrist. The rusty implement had a dull gleam in the spurting lantern hanging from a bare rafter. The tavern looked
