The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [96]
What was not so familiar, awakening here in his broad bed in the low-ceilinged room at the end of the passage, was the clang and shriek of swords striking other swords inside his inn, in the-he looked over at the unshuttered end window, and saw only deep darkness-very heart of the night.
Worse than the sounds that had awakened him was another sound that should have been there, and wasn't: the gentle rise and snore-laced fall of Margathe's slumbrous breathing. He glanced quickly in his wife's direction, and saw a large and ominous silhouette on her side of the bed that could only be Margathe sitting up, very much awake.
Tonight she'd been asleep before his arrival-curses on travelers who liked to sit up half the night, drowsing over their cups but expecting fresh ale and even hot food at all hours!-and, as was her wont, had welcomed him to bed without waking by a volley of snorts, and the persistent warming of her cold feet on his backside, keeping him on the drifting edge of slumber for too long before proper sleep dragged him down.
Once, carrying out slops to the hogs behind the stables, he'd heard an old merchant describing them, all too accurately, to a younger companion: "Both large folk-like two trundling mountains, but Nortreen's the jovial and bustling sort, and his wife is pure viper venom. Always sour, doesn't miss a thing, rules her kitchens like a cruel swordsorn. Smile, say nothing you don't have to, and keep away from her-like her staff do, as much as they can manage!"
Nortreen had winced at that flat, pointed accuracy then. Half a score seasons later, the merchant's words were just as true. Margathe dreamed of a grander life in a baron's town, with coins in plenty and fine gowns and a life of hosting other fine-gowned ladies for afternoons of wines and gossip… and as she grew older and fatter and Nortreen had shown no signs of leaving the "ramshackle backwater" he saw as home and she saw as a step on a stair that they'd tarried on for far too long, her tongue had grown steadily sharper and her manner colder and more bitter.
The Flagon was his home, with his partners dwelling two baronies off and visiting once in the last seven summers. Fighting would mean broken furniture, broken heads, and mayhap even a fire! He had to get up and go see, but not, please the gods, under the driving lash of Margathe's tongue, and-
"Well, it's about time you woke!" Her voice stung like a lash. He flinched and ducked his head away, but every word descended on his head arrow-sharp: "Three above, I swear I could've been murdered thrice over before you'd hear or feel a thing! And there you lie, snoring like a sea turtle while our squalid roof burns down over our heads, and reavers hack apart every guest and stick of furniture in the place, brutalize my girls, and cook every animal in the stables in the flames, spearing the carcasses on their belt-knives! I wonder if you'd wake up if they trussed you up and hauled you out to the cooking-spit-or if the Risen King himself came in here with all his knights and shoved you out of bed onto the floor, so he could have his way with me!"
Nortreen's head was whirling at that last vision as he gave a wordless growl in reply and swung himself out of the bed, slapping his bare feet deliberately down on the cold floor rather than into his slippers, to jolt himself awake.
Still, he blinked at nothing and sat scratching for a few breaths, as the creaking of the bed subsided under him, mustering the will-and the energy-to heave himself upright and go to see what the trouble was.
"By the Three! We'd all be murdered in our beds before you even got up out of yours!" Margathe was truly angry now, fury no doubt born of the fear beneath. The bed creaked as she rose and stumped angrily to her boots by the firegrate.
"Must I do everything myself?" she snarled, hefting the poker in her hand. "You chose to stay here, Norr-you chose this over our bright future in town! This is your