Mary Gentle - Grunts

The halfling child bobbed its head and scuttled away. Lugashaldim, half-buried in the flounces of his lace cravat, said in an amazed tone, “You’ve done this before, General?”

Ashnak made to draw off his gloves and thought better of it. “I know how to behave in polite society.”

Squat and wide-shouldered, Lugashaldim leaned out of the partitioned alcove, peering through the fug to the back rooms. Greasy playing-cards were being slapped down on a stained tabletop; whores in cotton lace took frock-coated Men and dwarves up the back stairs; and Mad Jack Montague had his head buried in the bosoms of Betsy Careless.

A voice said, “Mighty curious, ain’tcha—gents?”

Ashnak leaned back against the oak partition, removing his masked face from the direct lamplight. His wig wobbled precariously. The big orc looked up through the velvet mask’s slits at a broad, black-haired man in leather apron and bag-breeches.

“Mine host?”

“I be Jan Tompkyns, ay. Who might you be?”

White wig powder trickled down Ashnak’s forehead under the mask, irritating his wide nostrils. Under the table, he prized his cramped feet out of the court shoes, flexing taloned toes. Every muscle tense, about to spring—

“I am the Lady Razit—Rasvinniah,” the orc marine Razitshakra said in a bored tone, taking the day’s broadsheet from the little halfling bar-girl, flicking it open, and peering over her spectacles. “Landlord, you will have heard of Rasvinniah, the famous blue-stocking, and her circle of Wits. We are come to view the Abbey Park and your fine establishment.”

Ashnak recovered his dropped jaw in time to nod, firmly, when Jan Tompkyns looked at him.

“Then your ladyship is perhaps composing a poem, dedicated to the Dancing Orc and its customers?” The Man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Which you will read, tonight, to yonder other Wits—I mean my journalist friends from the Spectator broadsheet.”

“Of course.” Razitshakra inclined her head. The feathers decorating her wig brushed cobwebs from the ceiling.

“Then I bid you good evening, and pray you enjoy my house.” The landlord stomped off.

“Poem?” Ashnak demanded. “Poem?”

Razitshakra flourished the bar-girl’s pencil and began to scribble on the back of one of the roughly printed broadsheets. “I’ve been reading some good books lately. A marine should be fully trained in all skills, General.”

“Poetry! It should take three marines for a mission of that nature,” Ashnak grumbled. “One who can read, one who can write—and one to keep watch over those other two dangerous subversives.”

“I’ll allay the landlord’s suspicions, sir. Trust me.” Razitshakra thrust the pencil-point up her nose and sniffed. “Now let me think…”

“Dance wiv me, governor?” A female Man, her ears pointed enough to make Ashnak suspect that she was half-elven, leaned over the table and thrust her breasts into the big orc’s masked face. “Come on! Blind Dick’s about to play ’is fiddle. Dance with Poor Meg or be called a coward forever!”

The whore’s hand slipped beneath the table top and groped Ashnak’s groin. Her eyes widened.

“’Ere! You are a big boy, ain’tcha? Come upstairs with me, mister. Only two silver shillings. We’ll dance the dance you do on yer back.”

Ashnak placed her hand back up on the table. He pitched his voice high, with difficulty making his accent genteel. “Can’t you see I have drink and companions? I’ll call on you when I need you; for now, begone!”

The piping of a whistle and the sawing of a fiddle filled the air of the Dancing Orc. A raucous lavatorial song broke out in one corner, soon drowned out by the competition of a dozen Men singing of the skills of one Bet “Little-Infamy” Davies. Ashnak took a mouthful of the arrack, scowled, and turned his attention to the steaming pot of coffee. There was a silence at the table broken only by Razitshakra’s furious scribbling and one of the other marines’ scratching through the thick cloth of his frock coat for fleas. Despite this attempt to blend in, there was, Ashnak felt, still something unmistakably military about the party.

His tilted eyes narrowed, searching the room. Plenty of patrons with the signs of the Thieves’ Guild on them, but which to approach?

“Are you done, my lady?” The black-haired landlord, Jan Tompkyns, loomed over the table. A gaggle of peruked Men in stained velvet coats hung at his elbows.

Razitshakra rustled the broadsheet, peered at her scribble, cleared her throat, and announced modestly: “An Ode to Jan Tompkyn’s Hostelry”:

One periwigged Man clapped his hands and the rest began to applaud, more in relief than appreciation.

“‘Tis well done!”

“Ay, you cannot say it isn’t. We are indebted to you, my lady.”

“If you are inclined to publish,” an elderly, prune-faced Man hung back and addressed Razitshakra as the rest departed, “I can offer you reasonable terms, and the anonymity due to a Lady of Quality…”

“I—” Razitshakra brought her fan up to cover her masked face, wincing. Ashnak, who had clawed her under the table, nodded affably at the Man.

“It is her pastime only, sir.”

It was unnecessary to show the decorated hilt of his short-sword. At Ashnak’s bass-voiced comment, the Man bowed and hurriedly departed to his comrades on the far side of the coffee-house. Ashnak drew breath, about to speak, and the landlord returned and leaned over and planted a jug of arrack and five mugs on the table. His black-browed face had cleared.

“Welcome, sirs and madam, welcome. I do apologise for my suspicions, but we have Justices come here in disguises searching out vice, and then it is myself and my wife who will be whipped at the cart-tail for keeping a bawdy-house, do you see, girl? Please drink this on the house.”

Ashnak, still leaning back out of the lamplight, said confidentially, “we are not Justices, sir, I warrant you. The very opposite, in fact. I hear the Guild knows this tavern, landlord. To tell the truth, we need to hire a servant or two—servants who shall know how to thieve, but not from their employers…”

Jan Tomkyns straightened, wiping his hands down his leather apron. Tall for a Man, he would have topped Ashnak only by half a head if they had both been standing; and Ashnak huddled into his cloak and coat so as not to have it noticed that he was himself four times as heavily built as the landlord.

“Ah, sir, now I appreciate…yes. The custom is for the house to recommend, and a small fee—why, thank you, sir. Very kind. Now let me think…Do you see her, yonder?”

Ashnak noticed one of his silk gloves had split, showing the granite-coloured skin and talon beneath. He tucked his large hands up into the cuffs of his frock coat. He peered through the smog. A female halfling sat alone in an opposite nook, her crimson cloak hood drawn up, shadowing her face.

“She is a thief?”

“What, Magda, sir? Lord, sir, no! But she’s the mother of two of the most ingenious thieves in the kingdom, and if you speak with her, I’m sure you can come to terms.”