Demontech: Onslaught (17 page)

Spinner nodded sharply and snapped his fingers in understanding. “That’s what that noise is,” he muttered.

“What noise?” Haft asked.

“The rumbling. I’ve heard of this but never seen it. I’ll wager there’s a troll hut out back where we couldn’t see it when we came to the inn.”

“A what?”

“A troll hut. A troll lives there. That’s what makes these lights. This is troll-light.”

Haft looked at the ceiling as though noticing the light for the first time. “I’ve never seen lumination like this before,” he said. “Now explain to me, what is troll-light?”

Spinner didn’t answer immediately. He was too busy wondering how even a country inn as grand as The Burnt Man could afford the services of a magician who was a trollmaster.

“Yes, sirs?” an unexpected voice said from their side, interrupting Spinner’s thoughts of the troll hut and its magician, and distracting Haft from the question. It was Doli responding to Spinner’s finger-snap. Spinner noticed she didn’t lean forward when she curtsied, so the deep scoop of her pale blue blouse did not compromise her modesty. “Are you ready to order your dinner?” she asked.

Haft quickly drained the rest of his beer and thrust the empty flagon at her. “Refill,” he said, smiling. He belched contentedly.

At this mention of food, Spinner realized that, yes, he was getting hungry. But she had easily spoken to them in Frangerian. Too readily and easily, he thought. How did she know a language that could hardly be spoken by anyone local? “Do you always speak Frangerian?” he asked.

“No sir,” Doli replied. “But we get many foreign visitors here, so each of the girls is required to speak at least two languages in addition to Skragish.” She looked around and seemed to make a calculation before saying, “The serving maids here now speak eleven foreign languages among us.”

“That’s a lot of languages.” Another puzzle. From where did this place get so many foreign customers that its staff had to speak so many languages? Spinner wondered. The Burnt Man was hardly located in a center of international commerce, like, say, the inns of New Bally—and even the inns there didn’t have serving maids who spoke so many languages. “Do you speak Apianghian?” he asked in that language.

“Oh, no sir. But we do have someone who speaks a language that sounds like that one.”

“Is she here now?”

“No sir.” Doli gave him a crooked smile. “But she will be this evening.”

Spinner nodded, wondering about Doli’s odd smile.

“How about Ewsarcan?” Haft asked in his native tongue.

Doli seemed to think about that for a moment, to roll the sounds of Haft’s words about in her mind, then said, “I think Honni speaks that,” and turned to call to one of the other serving maids.

“Never mind,” Haft said, switching back to Frangerian. “I was just curious. Maybe later I’ll want to talk to Honni.”

Spinner looked at the posted menu. “What’s the house specialty?” he asked.

“That’s Burnt Man pie, sir.”

Spinner didn’t want to know what Burnt Man pie was. He ordered the venison stew.

“I always like to try new things,” Haft said. “I’ll have the special.”

“Yessir, Burnt Man pie is—”

“Don’t tell me, let me be surprised,” Haft said, and did his best to look cosmopolitan.

To Spinner, Doli said, “More beer for you, sir?”

Spinner hefted his flagon; it felt half full. “I’m fine,” he said.

Doli gave her straight-backed curtsy again, and hurried to the kitchen.

“Burnt Man pie?” Spinner said.

“Sure, why not? I’m in a foreign country. That’s one reason I went to Frangeria. I wanted to travel to strange countries. Meet exotic people. Eat new kinds of food.”

“That’s three reasons.”

Haft shrugged.

In a moment Doli was back with another flagon for Haft. He took it from her hand and drank deeply, then settled back to relax. In a few minutes she returned with their dinners. The aromas wafting from the bowls set them both to salivating, and they attacked the food. Burnt Man pie turned out to be a pork pot pie.

“It’s a bit salty for my taste,” Haft offered. “I don’t think I’ll get it again.”

Later, when they were sated, the innkeeper showed them to their room, and guided them to the bath as soon as they dropped their belongings on the beds.

The bathing room was lit by oil lamps that gave it a warm, cozy glow. They lay back in the tubs for a long time to let the steaming water leach the dirt from their pores and the road-ache from their bones. While soaking and almost half asleep, Spinner wondered briefly why he didn’t hear the low rumble from the troll hut. When they got out and dried themselves on fat towels, they were surprised to find that someone had laundered their clothes. He heard the troll’s rumbling again.

“The troll here works hard,” he said when he saw their clothes were clean and dry, and warm to the touch.

“You’ll have to tell me about this troll,” Haft said.

Spinner wondered about that again. But he was tired. “Let’s sleep on it,” he said.

“Great idea! We’ll be fresher for the evening’s entertainment,” Haft said gleefully.

They slept for two hours and awoke refreshed. They dressed quickly. Except for their belt knives, they left their weapons in the room.

The common room was filled almost to capacity with men. The only women immediately visible were serving maids, of whom there were a good many more than had been present earlier. It was a lively and raucous bunch. Everyone was drinking, and many were eating as well. The lights were dimmer than they had been earlier. Spinner looked at the ceiling and saw that only every third row of panels was aglow. The stage alone was brightly illuminated. The bearskin had been removed from the wall behind it and replaced by a curtain.

Two brightly clad entertainers, a juggler and a tumbler, were on opposite sides of the small stage. The juggler twirled knives from hand to hand, while the tumbler flipped and rolled between the front of the stage and its back. Every few seconds the juggler threw a knife in the direction of the tumbler; the knife always seemed to just barely miss. They formed so straight a line on the wall behind the tumbler, they might have been positioned there with a carpenter’s level. As he threw the knives, the juggler replaced them from a stack on a small table at his side. The customers didn’t seem to pay much attention to the entertainers, so Spinner assumed they weren’t the entertainment of which Master Yoel had boasted.

The serving maids wound their way through the crowd with trays heavy with flagons, carafes, bowls, and plates. They seldom flinched at or objected to the pinching fingers or groping hands they passed. Most of them seemed not to hear the bawdy remarks cast in their direction, though a few laughed and made remarks back. Like the serving maids on hand in the afternoon, they wore blouses with wide, deeply scooped bodices, but their skirts were shorter and not puffed out with multiple petticoats—the better to make their way through the mass of men and tables.

Spinner didn’t see Doli. He wondered how long it would take before they were located by a serving maid who could understand one of the languages he and Haft spoke. Then he realized the lack of a common language would likely not prove any barrier to ordering beer, and wondered again why the inn required serving girls who were adept in a variety of languages.

“Iyii-ee,”
Haft said when he saw the crowd. “Let’s find a table and get some beer.”

“Where’d they all come from?” Spinner mused, looking around at the mass of men in the room. He shook his head; he could find out later. He followed Haft.

The common room was crowded, but they found a small, unoccupied table. Almost at once, a serving maid with an empty tray under her arm appeared at their side. She rattled off rapid-fire words in three or four languages, then looked at them expectantly. None of the languages was familiar to either of them. The girl had to bend over to hear and be heard, and Spinner couldn’t help but see even in the dim light that there was no undergarment beneath her blouse.

Haft grinned and pointed at the flagons being raised by the men at an adjoining table. The girl nodded and left.

Haft looked almost mortally offended; for all the reaction the girl made, he might as well not have had his hand caressing her haunch when he ordered the beer.

Spinner looked about the room at the other men. More than half of them were dressed roughly and had the dusty look of men fresh off the road. A few were soldiers, most in the Skragish army. But some wore uniforms of other armies, not all of which Spinner recognized. He wondered how men of so many armies came to be gathered in an out-of-the-way inn in a sparsely populated area of rural Skragland. Some of the uniformed men also noted the Marines’ uniforms; they nodded and tipped their flagons or mugs. Spinner saluted them back.

A surprising number of the men in the room were merchants or other tradesmen. Judging by the richness of the gold and gems displayed on their fingers, hanging around their necks, or festooning their coats, some were very rich merchants. Spinner thought it odd that such men would crowd themselves into the common room of a country inn, no matter what the promised entertainment.

He decided then that he’d like another look at the stable and corral. They must be filled. A short reconnaissance of the forest surrounding the valley glen would have to reveal many trails, perhaps even roads, that made no obvious entry into the large clearing around the inn.

“Your beer, sirs,” a voice said in Frangerian. It was Doli. She bent at the knees and hips rather than at the waist to put down their flagons, exposing herself no more than she had at dinnertime. “Master Yoel has instructed me to put this on your account,” she added when Spinner pressed a copper coin into her hand. “You don’t have to pay now.”

“That’s not for the beer,” Spinner said. “It’s for you. I thank you for your service.”

“Oh, no sir, we don’t accept gratuities from the guests,” Doli said, and tried to press the coin back into his hand. “It’s against the rules.”

“Do the rules say you are supposed to keep the guests happy?”

She gave him a suspicious, almost wary, look. “Yessir.”

“It pleases me to give gratuities for service well performed.”

“Thank you, sir.” Doli stopped trying to return the coin and it disappeared into her clothing. Spinner couldn’t be certain in the low light, but he thought she blushed. After making sure their needs had been met, she went off to take care of other customers.

Haft leaned close. “What’s the matter with you? She didn’t even bend over and give us a peek. I think if I patted her arse she’d slap my face. She’s no fun. What are you giving her money for?”

Spinner held his mouth close to Haft’s ear to answer. “There’s something strange going on here,” he said. “Maybe I can learn something about it from her.”

Haft leaned back and looked around. “What’s strange? I don’t see anything strange. This looks like—” His voice jerked off as Spinner grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him close.

“Quiet,” Spinner snapped. “I don’t know. A lot of little things don’t add up. If there is something wrong here and you go around yelling about it, we could wind up in serious trouble. So keep it down.”

Haft reached up and pulled Spinner’s hand off his neck. “No need to get so rough about it.” He turned pointedly toward the stage.

Spinner stared at him for a moment. When he was sure Haft wasn’t going to say anything else he shouldn’t, he also looked at the stage.

The juggler and tumbler were finished with their act. They bowed to desultory applause and disappeared behind a curtain that blocked the view of the doorway behind the stage. No sooner had they left than a troop of five midget acrobats cartwheeled onto the stage, accompanied by a round of laughter. The stoutest of the midgets stood on the stage, while two others clambered onto him and stood facing each other on his shoulders. A fourth climbed up and stood on those two. The last one eeled to the top, where he made a handstand on the fourth one’s upstretched arms; the hand stander’s feet brushed the ceiling.

Haft laughed and clapped and cheered at the acrobats along with a significant number of the other customers. Still, fewer than half of them seemed to be paying attention to the stage. Almost all were drinking, though.

Spinner drank slowly, pondering all the things he found to wonder about at The Burnt Man. He didn’t notice when the acrobats left the stage and the snake charmer came on. He hardly noticed when a sudden change in the tenor of the shouting announced the appearance of a flutist and three dancing girls. So far as he was concerned, the fire eater might as well have not appeared. Nor did he much notice the few times Doli exchanged his empty flagon for a full one; certainly he didn’t notice how much more often Doli replaced Haft’s empty with full.

It wasn’t until the lights went out on the stage and silence fell over the room that the music of finger cymbals and a tambourine drew Spinner’s attention.

The darkened stage was bare, and the music came muted from behind the curtain, the quiet in the room an expectant hush. Spinner blinked with recognition at a stringed instrument that softly joined its voice to the finger cymbals and tambourine, an instrument he hadn’t heard in a very long time.

There was a rustling of cloth, the curtain opened and someone slipped through. The singing of the tambourine and finger cymbals was no longer muted. The stringed instrument sang in a stronger voice. Spinner’s breath caught in his throat. The entire world seemed to have stopped, as though waiting to learn what the music was about. Then the music stopped, the stage lights came back up, and Spinner found himself looking at the most beautiful woman in the world.

She stood, a motionless figure of dynamic gracefulness about to erupt into movement. Her feet were wide apart and pointed sharply away from each other, her hips cocked far to one side, her torso curved in an impossibly sinuous S. Her face was in profile, her arms stretched languidly above her head. She held a tambourine in one hand; the other was poised to beat a tattoo on it. She wore tiny cymbals on the lesser fingers of both hands, but the cymbals were as motionless as she, and as silent as her audience.