The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [62]
The other strange thing is the ban on public singing, and the fact that everyone ignores the killing by the White Guards; it is as if the people do not want to have to acknowledge the guards’ power.
Finally he stands and heads for a doorway through which he has seen a number of outlanders pass and from which issue the muted sounds of a guitar and singing. Perhaps he may find out more there, and perhaps the White Guards do not patrol the taverns quite so thoroughly. Then again, he reflects, they may patrol the taverns even more thoroughly.
No one accosts him as he enters the smoky room and peers around at the tables. At one end of the stone-walled structure there is a low stage, and upon the stage is a single figure; a man who strums and plays a song of some sort.
. . . la, la, la, la-la, and the cat would play with the dog on the spring’s first day . . .
The notes are copper, if that. Creslin could do better, scarcely trying. A small table along one wall is vacant, although two empty mugs rest there. He edges forward.
“Careful there!” snaps a voice.
He turns to see a pair of young men, with a woman between them.
The man who spoke, his hair curled in ringlets, thumbs a knife. “Don’t like outlanders much. Maybe you ought to go back to the outlands, huh?”
Creslin’s eyes flick down at the man. “I’d rather not.” His voice is flat, like the wind before a storm.
The man looks away, and Creslin continues to the table, where he eases down his pack and slips it under the table next to his feet, the hilt of the Westwind blade within easy reach.
“What’ll you have?” The serving girl has already collected the two mugs as she speaks, and she smears a damp cloth across the wood.
“What is there?”
“You a singer?” She has a round face under black curls that tumble not quite to her half-covered shoulders, and a cheerfully hard voice.
“Not here,” Creslin laughs. “What do you have?”
“Too bad. They say the next one is better, though. What do we have? Cider, mead, red wine, mead . . .”
Creslin shrugs. “Cider, then.”
“That’s three.”
His face expresses amazement.
“You’re paying for the singing, bad as it can be. This is one of the few places that’s got a license.”
Creslin digs out the coins, puts them on the table but leaves them there.
“Fair enough. But no magic. They’d better be there when I get back.” The lilt in her voice indicates that she does not seriously believe he will cause the coins to vanish. Her hips brush him ever so slightly as she turns toward the trio he had dodged on his way in. “Ready for another?”
“Here . . .”
“. . .not yet,” adds a feminine voice.
“Fine.”
Only a few hands clap as the guitarist stands and departs the stage.
While he waits for his cider, Creslin slowly observes the others. Besides the three who sit two tables away, there is a table of four outlanders, garbed in varied livery, the wide belts and equally large swords proclaiming a familiarity with violence. Next to the outlanders sit two couples of indeterminate age. As his eyes continue their circuit of the room, Creslin picks out what appear to be two traders, three men in garb that he guesses may mark them as seafarers, although why a set of seafarers would be in Fairhaven is beyond him.
Five women, each with short hair and a belt dagger, sit at a corner table, and the entire corner seems shrouded in white. As quickly as he can, but without hurrying, he lets his study move onward. Another table contains five outlanders—one woman amid four men—but only two wear swords, and one of them is the woman.
“Here you go!” The professionally cheerful serving woman delivers a heavy brown mug.
Creslin smiles. “Here you go. No magic.”
“Thanks, fellow. They tell me the new guy is better, much better.” Her head turns toward the stage, where a stocky man is seating himself on a chair, cradling a guitar, and facing the audience directly.
“. . . better be better, for what these