habits?'
The ship's captain replied with a rapid string of curses, most of which Li also missed. He understood the captain's final words well enough, though. '-passenger who wouldn't let me rest until we docked!'
'A passenger for Spandeliyon? ' asked the dockmaster. 'At this time of year?' Captain Steth's response was another incomprehensible rattle of blasphemy that sent the dockmaster running into his shack. He emerged with a torch, shouted back at the captain, and began lighting lanterns at the dockside. The ship turned, slowing to a glide in the icy black water. Li swayed with the heavy bump as it nudged against the dock. A rope was thrown down to the dockmaster, who looped it around a mooring post, and the ship swayed out then shifted back, restrained. More ropes were thrown down and made fast, and slowly the ship settled into a gentle rise and fall beside the dock. A port in the ship's rail was swung open and a gangplank run out. Li picked up his pack and made his way over to the plank and down onto the dock. None of the crew got in his way.
Steth was already down and talking to the dockmaster. Both men looked up as Li stepped into the lantern light. The dockmaster's eyes went wide then narrow, and he shot a glance at the captain. 'You didn't say he was an elf! Bringing an elf-blood to Spandeliyon? You are mad!'
Li's jaw tightened. His smooth skin, fine features, and tapered eyes had earned him this reaction elsewhere in the west, though not with this hostility. The captain saved him from having to explain himself-he dealt the dockmaster a sharp blow to the back of his head. 'He's not an elf!' he hissed. 'Haven't you ever seen a Shou before, Cul?'
The dockmaster managed to look startled once more. 'From Thesk? Like one of those eastern Tuigan horde riders?'
Li drew a sharp breath, stood straight and returned the dockmaster's gaze. 'I am not a barbarian,' he said, forming the thick syllables carefully. 'I come from the Great Empire of Shou Lung.' More eastern, he added silently, than your uncivilized mind could possibly comprehend and far greater than you could believe. 'I require directions. I need to find a wine shop.'
'What?' Cul glanced at Steth once more, but this time the captain shrugged and shook his head. The dockmaster looked back to Li and licked his lips. 'No wine shops here,' he said slowly and with great volume as if that would make him easier to understand. 'No wine shops. There is a wine merchant in-'
The dockmaster used a word Li didn't recognize, but pointed in the direction of the tall houses and fortress Li had seen from the ship. The wealthier part of Spandeli-yon. A wine merchant for the rich people, Li guessed. He frowned.
'No,' he said. He spoke clearly, but kept his voice at a normal pitch. Let this old goat sound like a backward fool if he insists, he told himself, but I will not! 'Not a wine shop.' He searched his memory for the proper word. 'A taven.'
'A taven? ' The dock master blinked. 'Oh, a taverril The man tried to hide an unpleasant smile and failed miserably. Li frowned again. He swept the wide sleeve of his waitao aside and undipped the scabbard that hung at his belt. He held it loosely, casually, but making certain that Cul could see both it and the protruding hilt of the heavy, curved dao within. If the man's empty eyes had gone wide before, they practically bulged out of his head now. His hand twitched for a knife sheathed at his belt, but Steth caught his arm.
'Yes,' said Li calmly. 'A tavern.'
The captain answered for the dockmaster. 'You could have asked me,' he growled. Li just gave him a blunt glance. Steth grunted. 'Fine.' He nodded to his left. 'Go that way and you'll find the Eel.' He nodded right. 'That way is the Wench's Ease.'
There was an unspoken warning in his voice: both taverns were dangerous places. Li wouldn't have expected any less. 'Which one is most close?' he asked. Steth shrugged.
'Both about the same.'
A cautious man lets his weapon precede him, Li thought. He gestured with his sword hand-to the right. 'This one, this 'wencheese'-how will I find it?'
'Wench's Ease,' the captain corrected him. 'Walk until you find a tree. It's the only one in dockside. There's a sign.'
'I don't read your language.'
Cul found his voice. 'Don't need to. There's a picture of pretty wench on the sign,' he said in a greasy tone. 'You'll see that.'
'If I don't,' Li told him, 'I will come back and you can guide me yourself.' He turned right and began to walk.
Behind him, he heard the dockmaster mutter, 'Arrogant bastard, isn't he? '
'Cul, you don't know the sweet chum half of it,' answered the captain.
Li didn't look back, but just stared into the shadows ahead and let their voices fade behind him. His scabbard he kept out and ready. The cramped streets seemed empty, but that could change all too quickly. Spandeliyon was so far proving itself to be nothing more than he had expected-nothing more than he had been warned to expect. He clenched his teeth. The surface of the street under his boots was barely frozen mud, treacherous in the thin moonlight. He should, he supposed, be grateful for the cold. It killed whatever stench might have oozed out of the mud in warmer weather and kept the people of the town indoors by their smoking fires.
In that, at least, he actually found himself envying them. A fire would be a blessing. As, he thought, would a torch. He should have demanded one of the sniveling dockmaster. But then again, he should also have asked more about the picture on the sign he sought. 'Wench,' he murmured to himself, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the word.
The snow was beginning to fall more thickly by the time the street opened up into a small courtyard and Li spotted the tree the captain had mentioned. It was actually much larger than he had been expecting, an old giant stripped naked by winter. A small knot of figures clustered around its base, two of them holding up a third. Li almost called out to them for directions before one of them shifted and he saw what they were doing. The third man had been hung from the tree's branches-the other two were busy stealing his boots. And his stockings. And his pants. Li sucked in a sharp breath of disgust.
The thieves must have heard him. One looked up, yelped at the sight of an armed man, and slapped his partner. Both fled, leaving the dead man turning slowly in the cold air, pants dangling loose around his knees. Li averted his eyes as he passed.
Only one of the buildings around the tree bore any sign at all. Not that a sign seemed truly necessary-light and song seeped through gaps around the door. Some of the light splashed across the sign above as well, revealing a lurid painting of a laughing woman so buxom she almost spilled out of her bodice. Li guessed that he had found out what 'wench' meant. He averted his eyes again, shifting his gaze to the ground, apparently the only safe place to look.
It wasn't. The snow and muck between tree and tavern had been churned up, as if by many feet. The hanged man's killers had emerged from under the sign of the wench. His hand squeezed the scabbard of his dao and he glanced up briefly at the corpse dangling from the tree. 'May the Immortals grant me better luck in this place than they did you,' he said. He reached out and opened the tavern door.
There was nothing better than a good song to loosen hearts-and more important, Tycho thought, throats. He grinned to himself as he sawed his bow across the strilling. The dark ale of the Wench's Ease was flowing as smooth as bait on a hook. Even Lander and his men were drinking and singing along with the tavern regulars. Muire and her serving maids were busier than they had been in a tenday and if Muire was happy enough at the end of the night, there might even be a little extra coin for him. All he needed to do was keep the mood up. 'How about another?' he bellowed over the din.
A cheer came back to him. Tycho sent a ripple of music dancing out from the strilling then scraped the bow slowly, drawing the crowd's attention to him. 'Ahhh,' he rasped sadly as his audience fell quiet, 'the wizards of Thay, they have a way with magic and with spells. They shave the hair on their head and they dress all in red, and they're dour like clams in their shells.'
The bow scratched a string for emphasis. A few people laughed and Tycho flashed them a smile. 'But there's a reason they're bald-ed, and dress like they're scalded and all have the humor of rocks.' He paused and the crowd leaned forward in anticipation. 'That isn't a pimple…' He winked at one of the serving maids. '… you see on their… dimple…'
'It's pox!' he yelled and the crowd joined in, banging tables and singing lustily. 'It's pox, it's pox, they've got
