Or maybe there was just a commonality of habit, and a shared manner of expression among all the peasants, he told himself.
It didn't matter, though, since in the end, Belrigger, his father, was alive.
That thought stayed with Entreri throughout the day. It followed him down the streets of Memnon, and all the way to the port. It haunted him under the bright, hot sun, and followed him, wraithlike, into the shadows.
Artemis Entreri had willingly, eagerly, stepped into mortal battle with the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden, but returning to his old home soon after sundown proved to be the most difficult challenge he had ever accepted. He used every trick he knew to get around to the back of the shack unnoticed, then quietly pried off a few planks of the back wall and slipped inside.
No one was home, so he replaced the planks and moved to the darkness of the back corner and sat down, staring at the door.
Hours passed, but Entreri remained on alert. He did not start, did not move at all, when at last the door swung in.
An old man shuffled in. Small and bent, his steps were so tiny that it took him a dozen to reach the table that was only three feet in.
Entreri heard flint hit steel and a single candle flared to life, affording the assassin a clear look at the old man's face. He was thin, so thin, emaciated, even, and with a bald head so reddened by the unrelenting Memnon sun that it seemed to glow in the faint light. He sported a wild gray beard and kept his face continually squinting, which jutted out his chin and made the facial hair seem even more pronounced.
He pulled out a small pouch with his dirty, trembling hands, and managed to dump its contents on the table. Muttering to himself the whole time, he began sorting through copper, silver, and other shiny pieces that Entreri recognized as the polished stones that could be found among the rocks south of the docks. The assassin understood, for he remembered well that some of the people of the neighborhood would venture there and collect pretty stones then sell them to the folk of Memnon, who paid for them as much to get rid of the annoying vagabonds as anything else.
Entreri couldn't be sure of the man's identity, but he knew that it certainly wasn't Belrigger. Age could not have bent his father so.
The man began giggling, and Entreri's eyes opened wide at the sound—one he had heard before. He rose without a whisper and moved to the table. Still unnoticed by the wretch, he slammed his hand down on the coins and stones.
"What?" the old man asked, falling back and turning on Entreri.
That wild-eyed look… the smell of his breath…
Entreri knew.
"Who are you?"
Entreri smiled. "You don't remember your own nephew?"
"Damn yourself, Tosso-posh," the man said as he entered the house an hour later. "If you're to shit yourself, then stay out of…" He was carrying a lit candle, and moved right for the table, but stopped just short as the door was pushed closed behind him—obviously by someone who had been standing behind it as it opened.
Belrigger took a step forward and spun. "You're not Tosso," he said as he took the measure of Entreri.
Entreri stared at the man for a few moments, for he surely recognized Belrigger. The years had not been kind to him. He looked drawn and stretched, as if he had been getting no nourishment other than the potent liquor he no doubt poured regularly down his throat.
Entreri looked past the man, to the far back corner, and Belrigger followed his lead and glanced back that way, bringing his candle around to illuminate the space. There lay Tosso-posh, face down, a small pool of blood around his midsection.
Belrigger spun back, his face a mask of rage and fear, but if he meant to lash out at the intruder, the sight of a long red blade leveled his way seemed to dissuade him more than a little.
"Who are you?" he breathed.
"Someone who just settled a score," Entreri answered.
"You murdered Tosso?"
"He's probably not dead yet. Belly wounds take their time."
Belrigger sputtered as if he simply couldn't find the words.
"You know what he did to me," Entreri stated.
Belrigger began shaking his head, and finally managed to say, "Did to you? Who are you?"
Entreri laughed at him. "I see that you hold no familial loyalty. I am hardly surprised."
"Familial?" Belrigger mouthed, and then his eyes went wider still as he asked again, "Who are you?"
"You know."
"I grow tired of your games," Belrigger said, and started as if he meant to leave. But the red sword flashed, tip coming in under his chin and stopping him in his tracks. With a slight twist of his wrist, Entreri forced the man back to the table, and then Entreri came forward and turned the blade again, angling Belrigger for a chair, where he fell back into a sitting position.
"Words I have heard before," Entreri said, and he pulled the other chair over and sat closer to the door. "Usually followed by the back of your hand. I would almost invite that slap now."
Belrigger seemed as if he could hardly breathe. "Artemis?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Have I changed so much, Father?"
After another few moments of gasping, Belrigger finally seemed to find his composure. "What are you doing here?" He glanced over the side of the table, at Entreri's fine sword and dress. "You escaped this place. Why would you come back?"
"Escaped? I was sold into slavery."
Belrigger snorted and looked away.
Entreri slammed his hand upon the table, demanding the man's full attention. "That notion amuses you?"
"It does nothing for me. It was not my decision, nor my care!"
"My loving father," came Entreri's sarcastic reply. To his surprise, and outrage, Belrigger laughed at him.
"Even Tosso didn't find such nerve as that," said Entreri, and his mention of Belrigger's dying friend sobered the man.
"What do you want?"
"I want to know of my mother," said Entreri. "Is she alive?"
Belrigger's mocking expression answered before the man ever spoke. "You went to Calimport, yes?"
Entreri nodded.
"Shanali was dead before you arrived there, even if the merchants drove their horses furiously," said Belrigger. "She knew she was dying, you fool. Why do you think she sold off her precious Artemis?"
Entreri's thoughts began spinning. He tried to recall that last meeting, and saw the frailty in his mother in an entirely new light.
"I actually pitied the whore," Belrigger said, and even as the word left his mouth, Entreri came forward with frightening speed and smashed him hard across the face.
Entreri fell back into his own seat, and Belrigger stared at him threateningly, and spat blood on the floor.
"She had no choice," Belrigger went on. "She needed coin to pay the priests to save her miserable life, and they wouldn't even take her diseased body in trade for their spells. So she sold you, and they took her coin. And still she died. I doubt they did anything to try to stop it."
Belrigger fell quiet, and Entreri sat there for a long while, digesting the surprising words, trying to find some way to deny them.