City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [63]
‘Afternoon,’ Randur greeted him, while Rika and Eir remained motionless by the door. ‘Me and the girls are passing through and need a room for the night. You got any?’
‘Might have. You got coin?’
‘Enough.’
‘You got a room then, lad. So what you lot drinking?’
Half-turning to Eir and Rika, he said, ‘I’ll have half an ale and the girls—’
‘Kapp Brimir!’ It was a high-pitched voice, and certainly not a happy one. Randur shot the room a furtive glance. Who knew his real name?
‘Kapp! I know it’s you.’ A girl burst out from the kitchen, a brunette with big eyes and a big scowl. She marched right up to him then slapped him across the face.
‘Ow!’ he spluttered.
‘You think you can just walk off and leave me after that one night we had? You promised you’d take me with you to Villjamur. You and all your lines – it was just to get into bed with me, wasn’t it? You boys just want to have your fun and vanish into the night. Ha! Well I’m not having any of that.’
Randur backed off slightly, palmed the air to calm her down. This performance wasn’t exactly not attracting too much attention. ‘I . . . I—’
Another slap, this time on the other cheek, nearly knocking him over, a cloud of flour following the arc of her hand.
‘I bet you can’t even remember my name.’
This was true.
And just how the hell was he supposed to recall every girl he’d slept with? No, concentrate. He glanced back towards Eir, who stood glaring at him with her arms folded, before looking away.
Bugger . . . Randur, this is not looking good.
Back to face the girl – what was her name? ‘I meant to tell you . . . I was called off on an emergency. My sword skills were urgently required.’
‘And yet still the lies pour forth from his rancid mouth!’ She reached out again towards him.
As Randur flinched, closing his eyes, she tipped the ale he had ordered over his head before marching off to the kitchen. He peered sheepishly around the bar, the liquid dripping off his face.
‘Hope you’re going to pay for that drink, lad,’ the landlord grunted. ‘Isn’t a charity I’m running here. That’ll be a hundred Drakar.’
*
The room contained four small beds, two on either side of the room. A dreary brown carpet was peeling away from the floor, and save for half a dozen unlit candles, there wasn’t much else. A far cry from the glamour of the Imperial Residence that he was used to, but he reminded himself that this was better than camping outdoors.
While he stared out of the window, across a back garden filled with barrels, Rika remarked, ‘She called you Kapp?’
‘You what?’ he replied.
‘Kapp? I thought your name was Randur Estevu. So which one is it?’
‘My name is not really Randur.’ He glanced to Eir, who already knew the story. With a thin smile, she nodded, a gesture that said, Go on.
‘You’ve been rather coy about your past so far,’ Rika said. ‘With good reason, it seems.’
He’d been careful not to show himself as more than a simple island boy who came fresh to the city. There was no need for Rika to have known, no need to make things complicated, but now was the time to relieve himself of his lies.
‘I came into Villjamur with papers stolen from a dead man. The real Randur was a young man the same age as me, and when he was found murdered at the docks my dodgy uncle from Y’iren managed to get hold of the documents allowing this Randur into Villjamur. Kapp was my true name, but I took his identity, became Randur. I had plans to fulfil. I wanted to speak to the great cultists of the city – I needed their help in saving my mother’s life. But that’s another story, one I’m not going to repeat now. Was this deception such a bad thing?’
Details about his sleeping with dozens of rich women then stealing their jewellery to fund these great