The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [14]
Imareen's thin, straight figure rarely drew even the drunkest sailor's eye, but she was one of the fastest serving wenches in the city. She'd inherited her lashing tongue from their mother, and her skill with verbal abuse was legendary. Cooks and merchants feared her, and the small bit of power given her by Elkor himself sometimes went to her head.
But Elkor didn't increase her tenday draw at the tavern, and all the other serving wenches at the Brazen Trumpet got large tips. When Cerril had suggested that he and his band would reward her for pointing out potential robbery victims, Imareen had hesitated only momentarily. They'd been working together the last four months.
Imareen had let them know that a man-alone, deeply in his cups, and possessing at least a little in the way of gold or silver-was at one of the tables nearly an hour ago.
An hour, Cerril thought in quick anticipation, is more than enough time for a single drinker to get drunk.
Covering his excitement, Cerril whispered, "Stay here," to the others, then stepped out of the alley and crossed the street.
A dwarven wagon driver rattled across the street from around the nearest corner before Cerril got halfway across. Cerril had to scramble to avoid being hit. The stench of the sweating horses filled his nose.
The dwarf didn't mark his wagon with a lantern or a torch. That, plus the fact that the dwarf whipped the horses and cursed at them, led the young thief to believe the dwarf was about a bit of foul business as well.
The black markets throughout Alaghфn had increased since the Inner Sea War had taken place, and Cerril had occasionally managed to hire his group to hard-knuckled merchants as lookouts. The pay for the work they did was meager, but it also marked targets they considered and sometimes went back to rob.
Cerril's heart beat rapidly with anticipation as he joined Imareen at the back of the tavern. There was nothing better than being a thief in Alagh6n. At least, not to his way of thinking.
"Hurry, you damned child," Imareen chided.
That was their mother's voice, Cerril knew. The tone and the words rankled him, but he managed to ignore them for the moment. He jogged to the back of the tavern and joined his sister.
The fragrant aroma of pipeweed clung to Imareen's hair and clothing. Cerril enjoyed the smell, and when he had coins enough, he often indulged in the habit himself. Of course, if his mother found his small store of pipeweed she kept it for herself, chiding him for experimenting with such a vice-and she said all that with a plume of smoke wreathing her head.
Imareen emptied a slop bucket onto the alley. The splashing noise of the liquid striking the hardpan startled a cat rummaging through a pile of refuse behind the tavern. The feline leaped into the air and dashed up the sagging fence marking the alley's end. Despite her authority with the cooks and the merchants, Elkor still expected her to empty out the privies.
The stench of the slop filled the alley, turning the still air thick and tickling Cerril's nose into a sneeze.
"Listen to you," Imareen groused. "Honking like a goose and making noise enough to wake the dead."
Her foot remained in the back door so it wouldn't close on her. The rumble of men's voices and the ribald strain of dwarven drinking songs echoed out into the alley. Cerril doubted anyone inside the tavern could have heard him sneeze.
"Do you want to talk," he asked, "or do you want to divvy whatever we find in some man's pouch?"
Imareen didn't even hesitate. "Diwy, and you'd better not short me. 111 know if you do."
Cerril nodded. Both times he'd tried to make off with part of his sister's cut, she had known. If she could have made merchants realize the power she had to know a he when she heard it, she could have made a large stipend. However, her unnatural skill seemed only to work with Cerril.
"Who's the man?" he asked. "A stranger."
He said, "Strangers are good."