The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [173]
Jill was too stunned to speak. Here was a woman actually taken in by her ruse! Although she was used to fooling men, most women saw through her acting at once. When the lass laid a hand on her thigh, she shrank away.
“Oho, shy, aren’t you? His bodyguard, the gerthddyn calls you, but I’ll wager it’s a bit more than that. Oh well, no offense, mind. There’s men like that, and they don’t go bothering me, so it’s up to their fancy, I always say.” She took Jill’s tankard and had an absentminded sip. “I always did wonder why the gerthddyn was so coy and shy like with us lasses.” She paused for a wicked little smile. “But you so young and all. Don’t you think you should try a slice off a different cut of meat, just once, like?”
Too flustered to speak, Jill looked desperately around and saw that they’d gathered an audience, a grinning ring of pirates and wenches. Someone suddenly whispered an alarm: Salamander was stalking in the back door.
“And what’s all this?” In a fine show of furious indignation, the gerthddyn shoved his way through the crowd. “You little bitch! Hunting on my preserve, are you?”
Slowly and dramatically, Salamander raised his hand and pointed at the tankard, which the lass was still cradling in her hands. Blue fire shot from his fingers, struck the tankard, and flared, making the ale steam and boil. With a scream, the lass threw the tankard onto the table and leapt up, tangling her dresses in the bench and tripping. The rest of the audience jumped back with oaths and shouts.
“You little slut,” Salamander said to Jill. “Bad as a lass, I swear it.”
In the crowd a couple of pirates were reaching for swords. Salamander let out a howl of laughter and waved his hand again. Thunder cracked and boomed in the tavern; smoke billowed; blue light shot through the sudden darkness. All the wenches screamed and ran for the door; the men fell back, shouting and cursing. Salamander swirled and tossed a convincing if tiny lightning bolt at the doorway. Screaming hysterically, the wenches ran back into the crowd.
“No one leave,” Salamander called out. “You foul-minded fools! You odiferous and fly-swarmed lumps of swine offal! Whom do you think to insult so boldly?”
With a graceful fling of one arm Salamander jumped up onto the table in the midst of a sudden swirl of purple smoke and began to laugh, the deep, musical ripple of delight that only someone with elven blood can summon. Gasping, white-faced, the pirates and wenches clung together in the curve of the wall. The lass who’d started all the trouble crawled away on her hands and knees to join them.
“So.” Salamander drawled the word portentously. “Swine! Turds! You thought me a babbling fool, did you? A mere plaything, beneath you in your sordid lusts and bloodshed! Hah! Would a weak man dare walk the evil streets of Slaith?” He paused for a dramatic glare at the crowd. “If I wanted, I could burn this stinking hellhole to the ground, and you bastard-born lice would crisp and fry along with it.”
In illustration, he shot a bolt at a barrel of ale, which burst into superficial flames. The wenches screamed again; the men surged forward; but as the fire burned through the wood, the ale rushed out and doused it with the acrid stink of singed hops.
“Does anyone doubt my powers?” Salamander went on.
In unison heads shook a no like grain bowing in the winds. With a cold, cruel smile, Salamander set his hands on his hips.
“Well and good, swine. Return to your paltry amusements, but remember what I am, and treat me with the deference I deserve.”
He jumped down from the table and sat down next to Jill. For a long moment the silence hung in the room like the last of the smoke; then slowly, one at a time, the pirates began whispering, turning back to their ale, or, in the case of the weaker souls, slipping out the door. Once the noise returned to a normal level, Salamander put his arm around Jill’s shoulders and pulled her close to whisper.
“This should infuse them with a deep if short-lived piety, huh?” He raised his voice again. “Wench! Come take this charred and