“There.” Ashnak nodded. A bottleglass-windowed coffee-house stood on the corner across from the temple. In the last glare of the setting moon, and the new flaring of torches about the piazza, he could spell out its name: At the Sign of the Dancing Orc.
The roughly drawn picture was of an orc, its feet waving as it dangled from a noose.
Lugashaldim growled deep in his throat. Ashnak, suddenly scenting the SUS orc marines, waved his silk kerchief in front of his masked nostrils and walked to open the door of the coffee-house.
“Stand aside!” A young flaxen-bearded dwarf with a torch straight-armed Ashnak away from the door. He hesitated, wrung his wrist, and stared up at the broad-shouldered, masked figure. “’Ere, you’re a strong cove, ain’tcha? No matter. Way for Mistress Betsy Careless! Way for Captain Mad Jack Montague! Make way, I say!”
Ashnak trod back on Lugashaldim’s foot. He bowed, getting his balance better this time. The dwarf—a boy hardly more than forty, dressed in ragged blue velvet—cackled, and kicked open the coffee-house door. A sedan-chair creaked as its bearers let it thump to the ground, and Razitshakra and the two masked grunts were forced to step back from the figure seated astride the sedan-chair’s roof, wildly waving a broadsword.
“Ho! Little Cazey!”
The dwarf leered and bowed to Ashnak. “That’s me, sir. Laurence Casey, not at your service, but at his.”
The Man leapt down and flung open the sedan’s door. “My lady! Accompany me, I pray!”
The dwarf filled his lungs and bellowed through the open door: “My Lord Mad Jack Montague, Earl of Ruxminster! His paramour, the very gay and sprightly Betsy Careless! Make way!”
Ashnak let the noble bully and his cyprian clear the door and then led his orc marines inside, under cover of their noise. The low-ceilinged room hung heavy with pipe-weed smoke and the fumes of coffee brewing. Ashnak slitted his tilted eyes and gazed around—mostly Men, dwarves, and halfings, in silk breeches and frock coats: some reading broadsheets, all with bottles of arrack or brandy at their elbows; the yellow lamplight gleaming on the exposed breasts of whores; the noise of raucous singing filling the air.
Lugashaldim chuckled. It was not visible behind the domino-mask, but Ashnak guessed the albino orc to be grinning. “This is all right, General. A home away from home, you might say.”
“Quiet, marine. Ashnak pointed to a table, hobbling over and taking a seat in one of the alcoves. The oak settle was hardly comfortable, but the partitions screened him from other patrons. The other four seated themselves along the table.
“An’ what would you gentlemen—and lady—be wanting?”
Ashnak glanced up, then lowered his vision. A tiny halfling child, no more than knee-height and dressed in ragged shawl and robe, licked her diminutive finger and poised a pencil over a scrap of paper.
“Bring me the day’s broadsheets,” Ashnak ordered, “and your best Java coffee; a bottle of arrack; no companions, for the meanwhile; and speech with the landlord when it shall be convenient.”
The halfling child bobbed its head and scuttled away. Lugashaldim, half-buried in the flounces of his lace cravat, said in an amazed tone, “You’ve done this before, General?”
Ashnak made to draw off his gloves and thought better of it. “I know how to behave in polite society.”
Squat and wide-shouldered, Lugashaldim leaned out of the partitioned alcove, peering through the fug to the back rooms. Greasy playing-cards were being slapped down on a stained tabletop; whores in cotton lace took frock-coated Men and dwarves up the back stairs; and Mad Jack Montague had his head buried in the bosoms of Betsy Careless.
A voice said, “Mighty curious, ain’tcha—gents?”
Ashnak leaned back against the oak partition, removing his masked face from the direct lamplight. His wig wobbled precariously. The big orc looked up through the velvet mask’s slits at a broad, black-haired man in leather apron and bag-breeches.
“Mine host?”
“I be Jan Tompkyns, ay. Who might you be?”
White wig powder trickled down Ashnak’s forehead under the mask, irritating his wide nostrils. Under the table, he prized his cramped feet out of the court shoes, flexing taloned toes. Every muscle tense, about to spring—
“I am the Lady Razit—Rasvinniah,” the orc marine Razitshakra said in a bored tone, taking the day’s broadsheet from the little halfling bar-girl, flicking it open, and peering over her spectacles. “Landlord, you will have heard of Rasvinniah, the famous blue-stocking, and her circle of Wits. We are come to view the Abbey Park and your fine establishment.”
Ashnak recovered his dropped jaw in time to nod, firmly, when Jan Tompkyns looked at him.
“Then your ladyship is perhaps composing a poem, dedicated to the Dancing Orc and its customers?” The Man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Which you will read, tonight, to yonder other Wits—I mean my journalist friends from the Spectator broadsheet.”
“Of course.” Razitshakra inclined her head. The feathers decorating her wig brushed cobwebs from the ceiling.
“Then I bid you good evening, and pray you enjoy my house.” The landlord stomped off.
“Poem?” Ashnak demanded. “Poem?”
Razitshakra flourished the bar-girl’s pencil and began to scribble on the back of one of the roughly printed broadsheets. “I’ve been reading some good books lately. A marine should be fully trained in all skills, General.”
“Poetry! It should take three marines for a mission of that nature,” Ashnak grumbled. “One who can read, one who can write—and one to keep watch over those other two dangerous subversives.”
“I’ll allay the landlord’s suspicions, sir. Trust me.” Razitshakra thrust the pencil-point up her nose and sniffed. “Now let me think…”
“Dance wiv me, governor?” A female Man, her ears pointed enough to make Ashnak suspect that she was half-elven, leaned over the table and thrust her breasts into the big orc’s masked face. “Come on! Blind Dick’s about to play ’is fiddle. Dance with Poor Meg or be called a coward forever!”
The whore’s hand slipped beneath the table top and groped Ashnak’s groin. Her eyes widened.
“’Ere! You are a big boy, ain’tcha? Come upstairs with me, mister. Only two silver shillings. We’ll dance the dance you do on yer back.”
Ashnak placed her hand back up on the table. He pitched his voice high, with difficulty making his accent genteel. “Can’t you see I have drink and companions? I’ll call on you when I need you; for now, begone!”
The piping of a whistle and the sawing of a fiddle filled the air of the Dancing Orc. A raucous lavatorial song broke out in one corner, soon drowned out by the competition of a dozen Men singing of the skills of one Bet “Little-Infamy” Davies. Ashnak took a mouthful of the arrack, scowled, and turned his attention to the steaming pot of coffee. There was a silence at the table broken only by Razitshakra’s furious scribbling and one of the other marines’ scratching through the thick cloth of his frock coat for fleas. Despite this attempt to blend in, there was, Ashnak felt, still something unmistakably military about the party.
His tilted eyes narrowed, searching the room. Plenty of patrons with the signs of the Thieves’ Guild on them, but which to approach?