'You a friend of Clare Tweel?'
'Oh, yeah. Real close.'
'You're being catty.'
'He has a lot of friends. Lots of girls, too. Did you know he has a new one?'
'Really?'
'Yeah.' Her drink came and she took a sip. 'Her name is Helen. Helen Dardanian.'
'For some reason I'm supposed to be affected by this revelation?'
She smiled. 'I'm sorry. I don't want to make trouble for you. You're nice.'
'Does that make me a simp?'
'You're no simp. You took care of my date quick enough.'
'Then I'm a bastard.'
She giggled. 'A nice one.'
'That's reassuring. Want a lift home?'
'Yeah. Thanks.'
'Where?'
'The Tweeleries.'
Carney lifted the glass of neat Scots whisky that the bartender had set in front of him. 'That's where I'm going.'
He took a healthy belt. It went down like the stock market on Black Whit-Monday.
Eight
The Jaundiced Aye
There was a crowd that night. There was usually a crowd at the Jaundiced Aye, and it was always the same mixture of adventurers, poetasters, bohemians, ne'er-do-wells, and spottily employed cavaliers. Thrown into this pot was the odd hooligan, and one or two respectable burghers seeking a bit of slightly disrespectable diversion. For there was always good cheer and camaraderie to be had at the Aye, to say nothing of all the uproarious jokes and japes. And there was never a shortage of improvised sonnets or witty epigrams, available from any thin-faced scribbler for the price of a tankard of ale.
The young man with the blond beard made his entrance into this milieu, sniffed the air ? stale tobacco smoke, smells of fried fish and spilled beer ? and wished he were elsewhere. Nevertheless, he entered the tavern and shut the door. He was dressed in the manner of a young gentleman ? lace collar and cuffs, short-waisted doublet, trousers, boots with lace tops, and a proper hat. But he did not wear the costume well. Perhaps the problem was his slender frame, his narrow shoulders, or his oddly flaring hips. At any rate, he drew skeptical stares and the peremptory sneer or two.
All attention seemed to gravitate toward a pair of cavalier sorts at the middle table. One of them was huge, an anomaly in boot-hose nearly twenty-five hands tall, his head topped by a cloud of snowy white hair. The other was a youngish man who wore no wig.
Gathered around these two, a crowd of admirers hung on every word of the smaller of the pair, who had been regaling everyone with a tale of derring-do. Apparently it had all happened earlier that night.
'Tell it again, Eugene!'
Eugene waved disdainfully. 'It grows wearisome.'
'Again, please! How many of the Legate's men vanquished?'
A modest shrug. 'Twenty-eight… or nine. Thirty perhaps.'
'Between the two of you!'
'Imagine!'
Eugene raised his mug to drink. 'It was nothing.' He drank.
'Nothing, he says! Nothing since Shem prevailed against the Ashkelonians with the thighbone of a ram!'
The newcomer found himself an empty table toward the back. The barkeep eventually noticed and grudgingly came.
'Mulled cider with cloves and cinnamon, if you have it,' the young man said.
The innkeeper curled his lip. 'No spirits?'
'Oh, throw a shot of something in it, I don't care.'
'Anything to eat?'
'Nothing, please. Um, tell me. Who are those two, er, gentlemen that everyone's gathered around?'
'Troublemakers, I call 'em,' the barkeep said. 'Ragueneau's thugs will have their hides soon enough. I just hope it happens out in the gutter and not in here, where I'll have to clean up the mess. Cider. That all you want?'
'Yes, thank you.'
The barkeep left. The young man looked around. He didn't like the looks of some of the patrons. Some of these looked as though they didn't particularly care for him.
'It's not so much the heroic deed,' one of the crowd of rowdies was saying, 'as the manner in which the deed was done. While composing a ballade!'
'A trifle,' Eugene said. 'Something to occupy the mind so as not to let fear take hold. A simple trick.'
'Fear, bah! Hardly the babblings of a timorous versifier. Rather, the lays of a warrior-poet.'
'Recite it again!'
'Yes, we'd like it again!'
'Especially that part about _And as I end the envoi ? lunge through!''
'Yes, yes, that's the best part!'
'Gentlemen, please. I grow weary. The hour is late.'
'Lord Snowden, you tell us, then.'
The huge white-haired one shook his massive head. 'Hey, don't look at me. I don't know any poetry.'
'Tell us again how you killed three at one time. Forget the verse.'
'Well, okay. I took two and cracked their heads together, see. One of 'em was kinda little, so I used him like a blackjack and brained another guy.'
'Astounding!'
'Amazing!'
'Fantastic!'
'An astonishing story!'
Eugene scoffed, 'Fantasy and science fiction. He exaggerates.'
'No, there were witnesses. We've heard all the stories. You can't deny it, Eugene.'
'Please, a little less enthusiasm, I beg you.'
The blond-bearded young man's cider was delivered, and he drank of it. It was bland and weak, and tasted like dishwater. He made a face and looked toward the bar, trying to catch the barkeep's eye.
'Well, what have we here?'
The young man turned and found two cavaliers standing over him.
'Good evening,' he said pleasantly.
One said to the other, 'A Northern type, I warrant.'
'Yes, it has the look.'
'Pallild and phthisic.'
'Yes, how pale his beard, his face.'
'Tell me, young popinjay, what brings your sort here?'
'Uh, just out for a drink… gentlemen.'
The other looked to the one. 'It has a strangely lilting voice.'
'High enough to chant descants.'
'A coloratura, I'll wager.'
'A protege of the Legate, most likely. He's a patron of the arts, you know.'
