Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [33]
But they did serve ale, cheap ale at a cheap price, and that was the Swamp Rat's chief attraction, along with its location, as far as the local farmhands were concerned. I ordered a light ale, which Hesketh Pratt, the owner and sole worker, presented with less than a flourish, but with a smarmy smile on his ratlike face. He was the perfect man to own a tavern called the Swamp Rat. With the first sip of my ale, I knew that its lightness was due to added water. Shortshanks had been right on that count.
After I had removed a small bug from the surface of my glass and taken a few more sips, Grodoveth and Tobald entered. Tobald smiled and hailed me. "Ah, young Jasper! Had enough of the old rat race in town, have you? Rat race? Eh?"
I smiled and nodded. "One more before home and sleep, Mayor. I pray little fuzzy things don't haunt my dreams."
Tobald chuckled and sat nearby with Grodoveth, who had been watching me with an emotionless face. I in turn sat and watched Grodoveth, by way of a smoky mirror over the bar. There was little else to do. The Swamp Rat's patrons were sturdy farmer types whose conversation this night mostly consisted of:
"Hear about that, what's 'is name, that feller whut died." "Devo, was it?"
"Nah, 'T’wasn't that… ah, Dovo."
"Aye. Quite a thing." "Aye. Murdered he was." "Aye. Quite a thing."
"Don't know what this world's comin' to." "Aye. Don't know." "So how's the barley?"
It could go on like that for hours. At least I had one stroke of luck, if you can call it that. I learned that Farmer Bortas, one of those who Shortshanks told me had seen Dovo's fake ghost, was sitting in the corner with two other rude tillers of the soil. I went over and introduced myself as Benelaius's servant. His crinkly old eyes lit up.
"Benelaius's lad, are ye? Sure and it's good to have a wizard in our midst, a fine gentleman like that, though I never met 'im mysel'. You met 'im, Rob? Will?"
Rob and Will clutched their pipes firmly in their jaws and shook their heads. "Don't cotton to wizards mysel'," Will stated out of a corner of his mouth. "Seems unnatural, like."
"Aye," agreed Rob.
I figured the only way to get into all of their good graces was to buy them drinks, so I made the offer and they accepted, ordering a pitcher of Shadowdark ale, the most pricey beverage the Swamp Rat served.
"Thankee, young man," Farmer Bortas said heartily, but the two others merely nodded their thanks, apparently not "cottonin'" to wizards' servants either.
"So I understand," I said, getting to it, "that you saw this phony ghost that this fellow who got killed was playing?"
A cloud gathered on Bortas's face. "Aye, I saw it all right-or I saw him, the cheap faker! Scared me and my good wife out of a week's sleep, it did. She still wakes up screamin', '0, 'tis the ghost, 'tis the ghost!' and I has to tell her no, it ain't the ghost, he's back in the swamp. Now I guess I'll be tellin' her there weren't no ghost to begin with."
"What was he-this Dovo chap-doing when you saw him?" I asked.
"Hauntin'. My wife seen 'im first. She grabs me by the arm and says real sharp, 'Look!' and I look and there he is. T’was about a quarter mile west of here, where the road curves down closest to the swamp. His face is all green and glowin' and he starts moanin' and walks toward us slow like, swingin' his axe back and forth. Fair gave me the willies, it did. How's I to know it wasn't real? So's I put the whip to old Ned and we tuck off down the road and didn't slow down till we gets here. We runs inside and tells 'em all what I seen, and a whole bunch of us goes back to where I seen it-Rob 'n Will, you was both there, wasn't you?"
"Aye," said Rob and Will in unison.
"But there weren't nothin' there. Not a blessed thing. Like that man just sunk into the very earth."
"You searched around then?"
"Oh aye, we searched-just to the edge of the swamp, mind. It took enough gumption just fer us to go that near the swamp at night. But we found nary a thing."
"Was he carrying anything