"Food's in short supply here, then?" asked Dex.
Tenk shrugged. "When isn't it? Ah, you scoff what you can." He hugged the bag closer to him. "Bit o' meat when you can find it."
Sheppard smiled, trying to keep the man at his ease. "That right? We thought that things in the, ah, capital would be different. Plenty of food and wine, servants and shiny silverware…"
Rifko laughed even harder than before. "What's that you say? Oh, maybe that's so up yonder in the palace, but down here…" He pointed at the cobbled street. "Down here, laddie, a man is lucky if he sees clean water and a fruit without a speck of mould on it once a month!"
"And that's no wonder!" came a new voice, high and strident with agitation. Sheppard turned to see the gangly youth with the headband coming closer, stabbing a fistful of papers at Rifko's chest. "Nobles take it all, every fig from our lips! What they throw to the pigs after a feast could feed a downcity family for a week!"
"Here, now!" snapped Rifko. "We don't want none o' your red-talk!"
"How many have to die from the bone-rot before we stand up and say no more?" The youth thrust a leaflet at Sheppard and John took it on reflex. The paper was rough and poorly cut, printed with bright red ink that came off on his fingers. The Ancient text was a mystery to him, but the presentation was clearly angry about something. The kid's fierce demeanor made it clear what that was. "Poverty and disease run in our streets! Daus is a traitor to Halcyon who feathers his nest while we all starve-"
"Enough of that!" snarled the older man, shoving the agitator away. "Be off with you, before the peace officers come and strip us all for just being near you!" Rifko shook his head, turning away. "Blathering fool!"
Ronon watched the youth stumble away, a thunderous look on his face. "Does that happen a lot?"
"Too much these days," noted Rifko. "Fair gives me a headache it does." He nodded in the direction of a doorway. "I feel the need for an ale to settle my nerves. Care to join me, country lads?"
"Sure," said Sheppard, "lead the way."
They found a table in the corner of the room where they could get a good look at the comings and goings inside the decrepit pub. Rifko was clearly a regular, evidenced by the way the barkeep greeted him and the nods that came from other drinkers as they wandered through.
"Bet this is a new sight to you, eh?" said the man, pointing at the gas lamps dangling from a ceiling brown with tobacco smoke. "I hear there's only candles and lanterns to be had in the country."
"Nice place," said Sheppard, surveying the room. "The last tavern we went to was kinda dead."
"Literally," said Ronon, taking a seat.
Rifko brought a battered steel jug and three metal mugs to the table and poured out a dark, bitter brew. "On me," he grinned. "Consider that a proper greeting from the Magnate himself."
Sheppard contented himself with a sip, but Dex downed the tankard in one. "It's good," noted the Satedan, pouring out some more.
Rifko blinked, and studied Ronon as if noticing him for the first time. "They breed you lads big out on the farms, don't they?"
John took in the men and women around them. They had the look about them of people who were used to a life of hardship, the kind of beaten-down faces that accepted their lot with grim determination and dogged tolerance; but beneath it all there was a faint, directionless tension, the ghost of unspent anger. The same expression was reflected in the kitesmith's eyes. "Rifko," he began, "let me ask you something. These battles that the nobles are always fighting. Do you think it's right?"
"Right?" The man sipped from his mug. "War is war. If we didn't put up a fight, the Wraith would cull us all, wouldn't they?"
"I'm not talking about fighting the Wraith. I'm talking about the Dynasts fighting each other."
Rifko eyed him. "What do you mean?"
"Wouldn't life be better if the nobles didn't spend all that time killing each other's troopers? I mean, how much does it cost to feed and arm all those soldiers? Wouldn't it be better if they spent some of that money on keeping people housed, or with food on their tables?"
Sheppard saw a moment of indecision in Rifko's eyes, but he covered it with another swig of beer. "Look, that's how it goes. It's the way it's always been. The nobles have their little tussles and men like thee and me are always open for paid service to `em, should we want it. Keeps things stable."
"Peace is more stable than war," said Ronon in a low, intense voice. "The Magnate could have that if he wanted it."
"Aye, well…" Rifko gave a mirthless chuckle. "His Lordship likes to keep the little pups nipping at each other, so they say. Stops them from biting the big dog, if you catch my meaning."
"Daus makes the barons fight among themselves so they can't threaten him. Yeah, we've seen that," noted Sheppard.
"What was all that about `bone-rot'?" added Ronon.
The man frowned. "You not have the bane out in the hills, eh? Count yourself lucky, then. I don't reckon there's a single family in the city that hasn't lost one of their number to that accursed sickness. Comes up on the weak, it does. Not a fair way to die, oh no."
"And your government doesn't do anything about it?"
Rifko leaned closer and spoke quietly. "See here. Now there's barely a man who wouldn't want a better life… What kind of fool would say no to that? But there's not a jot a kitesmith or a countryman can do about the set of things. I hear talk now and then of lower echelon barons with thoughts turned to moderate ways, of elections, public works and democratic votary, but nothing comes of it!" He shook his head. "And I doubt anything ever will. So we live our lives, try to make the best of it."
"One thing is certain," said Dex, "there'll be no change while Daus is on the throne."
"Aye." Rifko looked into his beer.
Sheppard produced the leaflet the youth had forced upon him. "But what about all this? Someone's clearly not taking things lying down."
The other man's face went pale and he snatched at the paper, tearing it from the colonel's hands and knocking over his beer mug. "You shouldn't be showing that in a place like this!" He crumpled the leaflet in his fist, squeezing it into a roll and jerked a thumb at a grand portrait of the Magnate over the bar. "This isn't a basement smoke-den for mouthy kids and fire starters! Them noisy red-bands out there just make things worse for all of us!" Rifko's face colored and his voice rose. "Maybe you two oughta head back to the countryside-"
"What's all this ruckus?" said the barkeep, approaching with a hard glint in his eye. "Rifko Tenk, what is that you've got in your greasy mitt there?"
"It's nothing," began Sheppard, but the burly tavern owner slammed a fat hand down on the table and trapped the errant pamphlet beneath it.
"Red paper." His voice was a growl. "In all my years, Rifko, after you've been warned not to talk out of turn about his Lordship, you brought a red paper into my pub?"
"It's not like that," said the kitesmith.
The barkeep stabbed a thick finger at Rifko's face. "I let you off the other times, seeing as how you had a skin-full then. But you're sober now and you're bringing this filth into my establishment!" Before anyone could react, the tavern owner backhanded Rifko on to the floor.
Sheppard and Ronon were on their feet in an instant. "Hey!" snarled the colonel, "there's no need for that! The paper is mine, I didn't know what it was."
"I don't recognize you!" barked the barkeep. "You got the look of a troublemaker on you, though! Betcha both bomb chuckers and sneak thieves too!"
"No, no…" Rifko was saying thickly, struggling to get up. "No trouble…"
But they were past the point of no return now. In his peripheral vision, Sheppard saw other figures moving from their tables, ready violence in their tense poses. Voices were rising around them