"Sour beer's all that's left," the landlord said, more as defense than apology. The spare man sloshed a kettle of brew onto the table, a stump-footed little creature of tin. Cold scraps and stale bread were the only choices left for dinner.
As they ate, the senior rogue let his eyes wander lest he notice the poor pickings before him. Since he was bored with the study of guardsmen, whose lives offered no imagination, Pinch concentrated on the non-Ankhapurans in the hall, a whole two tables' worth. It was clear from their seating-one table near the door, the other by the fire- that the two groups traveled apart. Those by the door Pinch had seen when he first arrived. The other party could only have arrived while he was stabling his mount.
There was a worth in studying the other guests, after all. If any were wealthy, there was always profit to be had in visiting their rooms before the dawn.
The two men seated near the door were garbed in hard-used traveling clothes, the type favored by old hands at the caravan trade-long riding cloaks waterproofed with sheep fat, warm doublets colored with the dried salts of sweat, and thick-sided boots stuccoed with yellow mud. Practical clothes for practical men with no obvious vanities that would mark them as good coneys to be snared.
The men themselves were as hard as their clothes. The first, who always kept an eye to the door, Pinch dubbed the Ox. He was huge, with a belly that rolled out beneath his doublet and quivered with any shift of his frame. The trembling flesh ill-concealed the, massive muscles of the man, though. Every time he reached for the capon that sat on the table between the two men, his swollen biceps threatened to burst the stitching of his doublet's seams. Though his face was clean shaven, it was nearly obscured by a wild mass of hair that hung in snarls and tangles.
The other man Pinch quickly dubbed the Lance-the Ox and the Lance, they were. The Lance was no more slender than Therin, though his shaved head made him look thinner. What truly distinguished him was that every move was a sharp strike using the minimum of effort for the maximum of gain. The Lance didn't tear at the capon, he dissected the choice meats from it with complacent ease.
It wasn't their dress or their frames that raised a caution in the rogue, though. There was a way about them that only those in the trade, for good or ill, would recognize. The way one always watched the door while the other discretely scanned the room; the way neither let both hands be filled at once; the way they held themselves on their chairs.
"Maeve, Sprite," Pinch whispered as he casually tore at a chunk of bread, "those two, what do you make of them? Hellriders?"
The halfling feigned a stretch as he leaned back to get a better look at them. "In disguise and come this far? Not likely."
Maeve set down her drink. "Hellriders is mean ones, Pinch, but I ain't never heard of them coming after someone on the road."
"Maybe not." The rogue stroked the rim of his mug. "Can you read them, Maeve?"
"Here? With all these people?"
Her leader nodded.
The wizard rolled her eyes in exasperation. "It ain't wise to use powers when you might get caught."
"Maeve, you know you won't. You're too good," Pinch flattered.
The woman harrumphed but was already digging out the material she needed. Pinch and Sprite pulled their chairs close to screen her from the others. The mystic words were a chanted whisper, the gestures minute tracings in the air. An onlooker would have thought her no more than a person distracted by her own inner dreams.
Without really looking at them, Maeve turned her unblinking gaze on the two men. This was riskiest part of the process, Pinch knew. A stranger staring at you the way Maeve did was always cause for a fight. When at last she blinked, Pinch was just as happy no one had noticed.
"You've got them dead on, Pinch. They're in the trade and none too happy tonight." Maeve smiled as she turned back to her dinner. "Got their nerves up, what with a room full of our handsome escorts. Don't know what they make of us, but they've set their eyes to the other company here. Ain't no more but some terrible thoughts I won't say in public."
Sprite sniggered. "Wouldn't have been on you now, would they? Or was you just hoping?"
Brown Maeve swivelled away from the halfling with a snap of her greasy, unwashed hair.
"Heel your dog, Sprite-Heels," Pinch rumbled. "You're none too sweet scented yourself.
"Maeve, pay this ingrate no mind. Those that count know your quality." Pinch put a soothing hand on Maeve's shoulder. "Now, dear Maeve, can you read me the other table?"
Her face a sulky pout, Maeve let her blank gaze wash for a moment toward Pinch, only to be warned off by the fierceness of his glare, shadowed by the curve of his tender smile.
"The other table, Maeve," he directed.
The witch-woman sighed and lolled her gaze where he nodded.
Meanwhile the old rogue studied their target. It was a small table by the fire, where sat a lone traveler, unusual enough in a countryside where few traveled alone. That wasn't the least of it, either, for the traveler was a woman-not unheard of, but just that much more distinguishing. The inn was in the land between lands, an area just beyond the reach of anyone who could claim it, and thus had been laid claim to by highwaymen and beasts of ill renown. The lone traveler who stumbled into this void was prey for any stronger ravager.
Ergo, Pinch reasoned, this lone woman was not weak, but possibly foolish.
"She's saying her words over dinner," Maeve puzzled out.
"Invoking what church? And what's her business?"
The sorceress stared owl-like before giving up with a sigh. "No good, that is, Master Pinch. She's got a most fixed mind. What only I got was an image of her roast chick and the thanks to some faceless power. Kept seeing it as a glowing orb, she did."
"Sound like any you know, Sprite?"
The little halfling's grasp of odd facts was a surprising source of answers. If he knew, it wouldn't be the first time he'd remembered some chestnut of useless lore to their mutual benefit.
This time Sprite-Heels shrugged. "Could be any number of trifling sun gods, let alone the big ones like Mask or the Faceless Ones."
Pinch leaned forward and looked at the woman with false disinterest. "What about that temple we did?" he asked softly.
"Not from what Maeve said. Scared, Pinch? She's probably just some wandering nun, set herself to doing good deeds on the road."
The human rapped his mug against the table in irritation. "She's more than that."
"He's right, you nasty little Sprite," Brown Maeve crowed. "She's tougher than some gentry mort. Got that from her, for certain."
"What more can you do, Maeve?"
Pinch was answered with a resigned slump. "No more, love. Spell's all spent."
Sprite, trying to restore himself to the pair's good graces, offered, "I could pinch her, see what we'd learn."
Her clothes were commonplace, sturdy, dusty, and dull, the mark of one with much sense but little coin. Pinch shook his head. "I'll not be your snap for the strike, halfling. Not worth getting caught. Have you forgot the rules? Never lay your coin on a lean horse or-"
"— your knife to an empty bung," Sprite finished. "I know the old rules. I just thought it would help."
"Ain't you two just the pair. Worried you're being hunted and worried you'll get caught when here we are, out where there ain't nobody and nothing! Not that we ain't got enough worries, what with your Lord Cleedis and all his soldiers, or do you two need to go searching for more?" Maeve snapped her words at them and then punctuated her tirade with a stiff drink. "One night in a decent place to sleep and all you pair do is peer at every stranger and guess which one's going to gut you. I'm telling you-you, Sprite-Heels, and you Master Pinch- to just quit peering under the bed sheets and drink!"