Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett [9]
She leaned on the bar.
“Pint, please,” she said, and watched glumly as the man gave a scowl of acknowledgment and turned to the big barrels. It’ll be sour, she knew, with the slop bucket under the tap tipped back in every night, and the spigot not put back, and…yes, it was going to be served in a leather tankard that had probably never been washed.
A couple of new recruits were already knocking back their pints, though, with every audible sign of enjoyment. But this was Plün, after all. Anything that made you forget you were there was probably worth drinking.
One of them said, “Lovely pint, this, eh?” and the boy next to him belched and said, “Best I’ve tasted, yeah.”
Polly sniffed at the tankard. The contents smelled like something she wouldn’t feed to pigs. She took a sip, and completely changed her opinion. She would feed it to pigs.
Those lads have never tasted beer before, she told herself. It’s like Dad said. Out in the country, there’re lads who’d join up for an uninhabited pair of breeches. And they’ll drink this muck and pretend to enjoy it like men, heyup, we supped some stuff last night, eh, lads? And then next thing—
Oh, lor’…that reminded her. What’d the privy be like here? The men’s one out in the yard back at home was bad enough. Polly sloshed two big pails of water into it every morning while trying not to breathe. There was weird green moss growing on the slate floor. And The Duchess was a good inn. It had customers who took their boots off before going to bed.
She narrowed her eyes. This stupid fool in front of her, a man making one long eyebrow do the work of two, was serving them slops and foul vinegar just before they marched off to war—
“Thith beer,” said Igor, on her right, “tastes of horthe pith.”
Polly stood back. Even in a bar like this, that was killing talk.
“Oh, you’d know, would you?” said the barman, looming over the boy. “Drunk horse piss, have you?”
“Yeth,” said Igor.
The barman stuck a fist in front of Igor’s face.
“Now you listen to me, you lisping little—”
A slim black arm appeared with amazing speed and a pale hand caught the man’s wrist. The one eyebrow contorted in sudden agony.
“Now, it’s like this,” said Maladict calmly. “We’re soldiers of the Duchess, agreed? Just say ‘aargh.’”
He must have squeezed. The man groaned.
“Thank you. And you’re serving up as beer a liquid best described as foul water,” Maladict went on, in the same level, conversational tone. “I, of course, don’t drink…horse piss, but I have a highly developed sense of smell, and really would prefer not to list aloud the things I can smell in this murk, so we’ll just say ‘rat droppings’ and leave it at that, shall we? Just whimper. Good man.” At the end of the bar, one of the new recruits threw up. Maladict nodded with satisfaction. The barman’s fingers had gone white.
“Incapacitating a soldier of Her Grace in wartime is a treasonable offense,” he said. He leaned forward. “Punishable, of course, by…death.” Maladict pronounced the word with a certain delight. “However, if there happened to be another barrel of beer around the place, you know, good stuff, the stuff you’d keep for your friends if you had any friends, then I’m sure we could forget this little incident. Now, I’m going to let go of your wrist. I can tell by your eyebrow that you are a thinker, and if you’re thinking of rushing back in here with a big stick, I’d like you to think about this instead: I’d like you to think about this black ribbon I’m wearing. Know what it means, do you?”
The barman winced, and mumbled: “Tem’prance League…”
“Right! Well done!” said Maladict. “And one more thought for you, if you’ve got room. I’ve only taken a pledge not to drink human blood. It doesn’t mean I can’t kick you in the fork so hard you suddenly go deaf.