The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [155]
“Ah, can I be of help to you, lad?”
“No doubt. I want to buy a jerkin.”
“Very well. I’ll measure you, and it’ll be about three days.”
“I need it now.”
The craftsman laid aside the piece he was working on; then slowly, carefully, as if he were afraid she would draw and swing at any moment, he got down from the table.
“I’ve no time to wait, hidesman.”
“Er, well and good, then, if you don’t demand a perfect fit. I’ve got one I was making for the miller’s son, and he’s about your size.”
“Bring it out.”
When the craftsman went to the back, he swept up the child and the puppies with him. In a few minutes he came back with the heavy leather vest, which had metal studs all down the sides. When she tried it on over her shirt, it was a little tight, but it would do. She threw six silver coins, about twice what it was worth, onto the table and strode out, leaving the craftsman shaking behind her. She took the jerkin to a public privy and put it on under her shirt this time, lacing it tight to flatten her breasts. Although it chafed, it would also protect her ribs against a casual knife. It was the best protection she could get, since the gwerbret’s men frowned on civilians wearing mail in the city streets. Then she went on to the Bilge.
In the sunny morning the narrow, filthy streets were nearly deserted. A gaggle of ragged children played at hurley with a bent stick and a torn leather ball; a couple of women with market baskets hurried past her on their way to the fishmonger’s down at the wharves. She saw one man, a white-haired beggar with no hands, sunning himself in a doorway. She strolled over to the ex-thief and dropped a silver piece in the wooden bowl beside him.
“Where’s the Red Man tavern?”
“That’s not a pleasant place, lad.”
“Do I look like a pleasant sort of man?”
He laughed, revealing brown stumps of broken teeth.
“Well, then, keep going along this here street until you come to a tannery yard. The stink’ll guide you. Then go around the tannery. You’ll see the Red Man’s sign down an alley to the left.”
As she walked on, Jill kept on a close guard. Here and there, she saw a leather drape move at a window, or a figure appear briefly at an open door. She suspected that already the old thief had pressed some child into service as a messenger and sent it to the tavern with the news that a silver dagger was on his way. Even though she was sweating under the heavy jerkin, she appreciated it more than ever. If their enemies wanted to, they could murder her here in the street without anyone bothering to interfere. She wondered again about Rhodry, if perhaps the gwerbret’s men had merely been led right past some place where he’d been hidden. In this tight-lipped little world, anything seemed possible.
To her surprise, the Red Man was clean, with newly whitewashed walls and a well-swept cobbled yard around it. The sign hanging out front showed a bright red giant wearing naught but an enormous erection as he stood on top of a hill with an uprooted tree in each hand. The image was somehow annoying, a bawdry gone sour. When she went inside, she found that the half-round tavern room was also clean, with fresh straw on the floor and scrubbed tables. All the shutters were closed, leaving the room dark except for the firelight from the hearth, where a spitful of chickens were being turned by a ragged scullery lad. Half a dozen men sat at one table; the rest were empty. Near the hearth one fellow snored loudly in the straw with a pair of dogs cuddled at his back.
The tavernman who came to greet her was Bardekian, a fleshy black man whose face and arms were covered with old scars, all of them long, thin cuts from some sort of sharp knife.
“We don’t get many silver daggers in here, lad.”
“I suppose you’re too good to be serving the likes of me.”
“Not too good, too cautious. You’re welcome to drink, but only a little. Listen, silver dagger, I know your kind. Two tankards, three—all is fine, no trouble. Then one more or suchlike, and somewhat snaps. There is the fight, there is the blood on my nice