Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [10]
"Coming in tomorrow," Shortshanks grumbled back. He didn't like being called "dwarf." In fact, he didn't like being called anything.
"It better," Barthelm said. "The welcoming dinner is Beef and Oysters Barnabas, and Westgate's the only wine to go with it."
Closer to the dwarf than Barthelm, I overheard Shortshanks's muttered comment as to what liquid Barthelm could drink with his Beef and Oysters Barnabas. I wasn't the only one, from the titters that swept down the bar. But Shortshanks didn't crack a smile. Dwarves, sullen and cranky as they are, are miserable choices for tavern keepers, but Shortshanks had come into possession of the Bold Bard by inheritance. It had been left to him by its former owner, a jolly gnome whose will said he bequeathed it to Shortshanks solely in the hopes that it would finally make the dwarf smile. It didn't work.
"Better watch your tongue, dwarf," said Barthelm, not as angry as he would have been had he actually heard the comment, "or I'll take my business to the Swamp Rat."
As he whirled round on the merchant, Shortshanks's expression changed from one who has bitten into a pickle to one who has just sucked up the entire barrel of brine. "The Swamp Rat?" the dwarf said with as much disgust as he could muster. "Aye, go there! Serve your fancy guests with sour cider, watered wine, and ale as flat as a duergar's head! I've known horses to make a better brew than Hesketh Pratt serves. And give my curse to Fastred's ghost on your way!"
With that final riposte, Shortshanks turned back to polishing his bar glasses, no doubt wishing they were gems from dwarven mines.
Barthelm, for once, contained his anger. He knew, as we all did, that he had touched a sore spot. Before Hesketh Pratt opened the Swamp Rat, Shortshanks's tavern was the only game in town for those who wanted an informal atmosphere in which to drink, since the Silver Scythe and the Sheaf of Wheat concentrate more on Ghars's definition of "fine dining," which basically means food that won't bite back. But the Swamp Rat had taken away much of Shortshanks's business, or at least it had until the ghost came along.
"Pretty full place tonight, Shortshanks," called out Tobald, the mayor of Ghars, as he strode into the tavern with a big, burly man I recognized but could not name.
Shortshanks, true to dwarven form, did not acknowledge Tobald's merry hail, but Tobald went on anyway, seating his slightly overweight frame in his usual booth and inhaling deeply the scent of tobacco smoke and rich ale with his red, bulbous nose. "That ghost must be good for business, eh? Scared the willies out of me, I'll tell you. I'll not ride that swamp road at night if I can help it."
Shortshanks gave a grunt, and that was good enough for Tobald, who began to speak cheerily to his companion.
"Who's that with Tobald?" I asked the tailor.
"You don't know Grodoveth?" he said, and the name rang a bell. "He's Azoun's envoy to this region. Brings the king and Sarp Redbeard news of everything between Thunder-stone and Wheloon." Sarp Redbeard of Wheloon was our local lord, if over sixty miles away as the crow flies can still be "local."
The tailor leaned in closer to me and spoke so softly that I had to struggle to hear in the noisy tavern. "Related to the king, and yet he rides about from one small town to the next like any other low-grade civil servant. Funny one, you ask me. Pretty short, too."
"He looks quite tall to me," I said, eyeing Grodoveth.
"Not in stature," the tailor said wearily, "in temper. The royal crest had come off his cloak, and he had me sew it back on. This on a Sunday morn and me with a head that feels like an ore's been waltzing on it all night. So I sewed it a little crooked… just a little… and you'd have thought I had questioned his mother's honor. He threw the cloak back in my face and started to draw his