She appraised Rune with a knowing eye, a little disappointed that it wasn't a paying customer, but willing to see what Rune wanted. "Ye be a musicker, boy?" she asked, and Rune nodded. "Come wi' me, then," she said, and turned on her heel to lead the way through the crowd, her striped skirts swishing jauntily with every step. There evidently wasn't any prohibition here about fondling the help, and the many pats and pinches the girl got made Rune very glad for her boy's garb.
She pushed past two swinging half-doors into what could only be the kitchen; it was hot as the inside of a bake-oven and overcrowded with people. On the wall nearest the door stood a pair of dish-tubs on a tall bench or narrow table, with a draggle-haired girl standing beside it and working her way through a mountain of mugs and bowls. Rune's guide heaved her own double-handful of wooden mugs up onto the table with a clatter, then turned to the rest of the room. It was dominated by the bake-ovens at the far end, all of them going full blast; three huge windows and the door open to the yard did little to ease the burden of heat the roaring fires beneath the ovens emitted. There was a big table in front of the ovens, with a man and a woman rolling out crust for a series of pies at one end, and cooling loaves stacked at the other. Another table, next to that, held a man cutting up raw chickens; beside him was another woman slicing some kind of large joint of cooked meat. A third table held six small children cleaning and chopping vegetables. There were other folks darting in and out with food or the dirty dishes, and a knot of people at the oven end.
"Mathe!" the serving girl shouted over the din. "Mathe! Sommut t' see ye!"
A short, round, red-faced man in a flour-covered apron detached himself from the clump of workers beside the ovens, and peered across the expanse of the kitchen toward them. His bald head, shiny with sweat, looked like a ripening tomato.
"What is it?" he yelled back, wiping his brow with a towel he tucked back into his waistband.
"Musicker!" the girl called, a bit impatiently. "Wants a job!"
Mathe edged around the end of the table by the oven, then squeezed in between the wall with the windows and the children cleaning vegetables to make his way towards them. Rune waited for him, trying not to show any anxiety. The serving girl watched them both with avid curiosity as Mathe stopped a few feet away.
The owner planted both fists on his hips and stood slightly straddle-legged, looking her up and down with bright black eyes. As keen as his eyes seemed to be, however, she got the feeling he didn't realize she wasn't a boy. Plenty of young men wore their hair longer than hers, and her thin face and stick-straight body wasn't going to set any hearts aflame even when she was in skirts. Certainly the serving girl had made the same mistake that the gate-guard had made, and she wasn't going to correct any of them.
"Musicker, eh?" Mathe said at last. "Guild?"
She shook her head, wondering if she had doomed herself from the start. What had the gate-guard said about jobs she could take? There had been something about inns-
"Good," Mathe said in satisfaction. "We can't afford Guild fees. From country, are ye? Singer or player?"
"From down near Beeford. I'm a player, sir," she replied. "Fiddle, sir."
"Got permit? When ye come in?" he asked, "Where's yer chit?" These city-folk spoke so fast she had to listen carefully to make out what they were saying.
Wordlessly she showed him her scrap of wood. He took a quick glance at it.
"Today, hmm?" He examined her a moment more. "You know 'Heart to the Ladies'?" he asked, and at her nod, said, "Unlimber that bit'a wood and play it."
She dropped her pack on the flagstone floor and took Lady Rose out of her traveling bag, tuning her hastily, with a wince for her in this overheated room. She set the bow to the strings, and played-not her best, but not her worst-though it was hard to make the music heard in the noisy kitchen. Still, the serving girl's foot was tapping when Mathe stopped her at the second chorus.
"Ye'll do," he said. "If we c'n agree, ye got a one-day job. Here's how it is. We got a reg'lar musicker, but he took a job at a weddin'. We was gonna do wi'out t'night, but music makes the beer flow better, an since here ye be, I don't go lookin' a gift musicker i' the mouth."
He chuckled, and so did Rune, though she didn't get the joke, whatever it was.
"Now, here's the bargain," Mathe continued, wiping the back of his neck with his towel. It was a good thing he was mostly bald, or his hair would have been in the same greasy tangles as the dishwasher girl's. "I feeds ye now; ye plays till closin'. Ye gets a place by th' fire t' sleep-this ain't no inn, an' I'm not s'pposed t' be puttin' people up, but you bein' on yer three-day chit th' law'll look 'tother way. Ye put out yer hat, I get two coins outa every three."
That wasn't as good a bargain as she'd been getting on the road, but it sounded like he was waiting for her to make a counteroffer. She shook her head. "Half, and I get bread and stew in the morning."
"Half, an' ye get bread'n dripping," he countered. "Take it or leave it, it's m'last offer."
Bread and butter, or bread and honey, would have been better-but butter and honey could be a lot more expensive in the city, where there were neither cows nor bees. "Done," she said, putting out her hand. They shook on it, solemnly.
"All right, then," he said, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. "Beth there'll show ye where t'set up, and gi' ye the lay'a the land, an' she'll see to yer feedin'. Don' touch th' girls 'less they invite it, or m'barkeep'll have yer hand broke. Oh, one other thing. I don' let me musickers get dry, but I don' let 'em get drunk, neither. Small beer or cider?"
"Cider," Rune said quickly. The last thing she needed was to get muddle-headed in a strange eating-house in a strange city, and although small beer didn't have a lot of punch to it, drinking too much could still put you under the table, and if it was this hot all night, she'd be resorting to her mug fairly often.
Mathe had given her an interesting piece of information. So inns didn't necessarily take sleepers here? That was worth noting. She reckoned that would suit Stara just fine-it would mean less than half the work . . . but this place wasn't called an "inn," it was something called a "public house." They must be two different things-
"Good lad," Mathe replied with satisfaction. "Don't talk much, sensible, and ye drive a good bargain. Ye'll do. Now get 'long wi' ye, I got my work t' tend."
Beth laughed and wrinkled her nose at him, and Rune picked up her pack and followed the serving girl out. Her hips waggled saucily, and Rune wondered just what constituted an "invitation." Certainly the girl was trying to see if this new musician could be tempted.
Too bad for her I'm not a boy. I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint her if she wants a sweaty-palm reaction.
There was just enough of a clear path behind the benches and tables to walk without bumping into the customers. They edged around the wall until they came to a corner with a stool and a shelf very near the bar, and the massive bartender presiding over the barrels of beer and ale; his expression impassive, statue-like.
"Here," Beth said, gesturing at the stool, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder. If she was disappointed that Rune hadn't answered her flirtations, she didn't show it. Maybe she was completely unaware she'd been flirtatious. Manners could be a lot different here than what Rune was used to. "This be where ye set up an' play. We likes country-tunes here, an' keep it lively. If they gets t' clappin', they gets t' drinkin'."