Crypt of the shadowking - Mark Anthony [4]
He considered going to see if the Sign of the Dreaming Dragon still stood on the very western edge of the Tor. He thought it likely he might find an old friend or two there. But Caledan was not certain he was ready for the memories that came with meeting old friends. Instead he guided Mista toward another inn called the Wandering Wyvern, where he knew he could find good drink and good rest.
Just then a shadowy form shambled from the dark maw of an alley, and Caledan's hand slipped to the knife in his boot. The form stepped into the dim circle of illumination below a sputtering torch. Seeing it was an old woman, Caledan relaxed. She was clad in tattered rags wrapped about her shapeless form, and her white hair was filthy and matted against her head. She didn't seem to see Caledan riding toward her, and she stumbled before Mista so that he was forced to rein the mare hard lest the old woman be trampled.
"Good evening, old mother," Caledan said as the haggard woman gazed up at him with dull, rheumy eyes. "Shouldn't you be home on as chill a night as this?"
The old woman shook her head, moving her lips silently, mumbling to herself as if she was trying to remember something. Then her eyes cleared for a moment, and her gaze met Caledan's.
"I have no home, sire," she said finally, her voice cracked and hollow. Caledan reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a gold coin, which he pressed into the woman's gnarled hand.
"Then find one with this, old mother, at least for tonight."
She looked at the coin for a moment as if puzzled by it and then nodded as she turned down the street. Caledan watched her as she shambled away, mumbling to herself. He shook his head as he nudged Mista onward. He didn't remember that the elderly had ever been turned out onto the city's streets before, either. It seemed there was a lot he didn't remember.
He soon found himself before the Wandering Wyvern. To his relief it looked much as it had on the day he left, a blocky, comfortable-looking building with the High Tower of the city lord looming above it. "I was beginning to think I had come to the wrong city, Mista," Caledan said to his mount.
In the small courtyard Caledan called for the stable boy, who appeared moments later, bleary-eyed and with straw in his hair, apparently having been asleep in the barn.
"I'm sorry, milord," the lad said. "We don't usually have travelers after dark."
'Take this," Caledan said, flipping a copper coin to the boy as the lad led Mista toward the stable. "And if you tell her several times over what a lovely horse she is, it's likely she won't even try to bite you."
"Aye, milord!"
The interior of the inn was comfortably warm, but there were few patrons, and most of these cast mistrustful looks at Caledan before huddling back down over their food or drink. Caledan took a place on a bench at one of the long wooden tables, and when the innkeep, a nervous little man, came to him, he ordered a plate of whatever food there might be in the kitchen and a mug of ale.
"I'm sorry, milord," the innkeep said fretfully, "but there's no ale served after sundown."
"What?" Caledan said, completely taken aback.
"It's in the rules." The innkeep gestured furtively toward a large, crudely drawn placard nailed to one of the walls. The placard was filled with line after line of writing scrawled too poorly to be legible at a distance, though the large words which headed it were clear enough. They read: Lord Cutter's Rules.
"Since when are there rules about drinking ale in Iriaebor?" Caledan asked with growing annoyance.
"Since that lout Cutter came, that's when," a rough voice growled next to Caledan. He turned to see a burly, red-faced man sitting nearby. The comment seemed to make the innkeep uncomfortable, for the nervous little man looked hurriedly about, as if to make certain no one was watching, and then disappeared into the kitchen. "Every day there's another of Cutter's rules come down from the tower," said the big man, who from his dress and size appeared to be a