Fail touched his arm. “Ney, lad. There’s no call for that.”
“That’s a Hanzish warship.”
“So it is. That’s nothing unusual. Remember, we’re at peace with Hansa and the Reiksbaurgs.”
Neil’s mouth dropped open, closed, then opened again. “Peace? When they pay Weihand raiders hard silver for Liery scalps and ears, and their privateers sink our merchantmen?”
“There’s the real world,” Fail said, “and there’s the court. The court says we’re at peace with them. So don’t you go pulling steel if you see a Reiksbaurg, and keep your tongue still, you hear?”
Neil felt as if he’d swallowed something unpleasant. “I hear, sir.”
Even as they docked, darkness dropped like an ax. Neil set his foot upon the cobbles of Eslen in a most unfamiliar night.
The docks bustled with men and women half seen by lamplight. Faces came and went—beautiful, sinister, innocent, brutal—all mere impressions, appearing and vanishing like ghosts, going to and from ships, greeting and parting, slinking and carrying burdens. Gutted fish, hot tar, burning kerosene, and ripe sewage perfumed the air.
“The upper gates of the city are closed by now, so we’ll be rooming at an inn,” Fail told him, as they pressed through the dockside crowd and crossed a long plaza where young girls and hard-looking women cast provocative glances at them, where blind or legless beggars crouched in shadows and wailed for assistance and children skirmished in mock combat between the legs of pedestrians and the wheels of carts.
Buildings three and four stories tall crowded at the edges of the plaza like giants crouched shoulder to shoulder, playing at knucklebones, spilling cheery light, woodsmoke, and the scent of roasting meat into the cool night air.
It was to one of these giants they made their way, proclaimed the Moonfish Inn by a gilded sign that hung over the doorway.
“Be a good lad,” Fail said, “and see our horses are stabled here. Give the hand a copper miser, no more or less, for each horse. Then change from your armor and meet me in the common room.”
“On my word, Sir Fail,” Neil told him.
The ale-and-cod pie was good—much better than the shipboard fare—but Neil hardly noticed it. He was too busy watching. Never had he seen so many strange faces and clothes or heard such a confusion of tongues. Two tables away, a group of dark-skinned men in colorful robes spoke guttural nonsense. When the serving girl brought their food, their mustached lips curled in what seemed like disgust, and they made strange signs at her back with their fingers before taking their food. Beyond them, two tables of men similar in complexion seemed to be taking turns making flamboyant speeches to one another and drinking wine in unwise haste. They wore somber doublets and bloodred hose and long, silly-looking swords.
There were peoples he recognized, too—blond-shocked Schildings, with their rough fisherman’s hands and quick laughter; sea rovers from the isles of Ter-na-Fath; a knight from Hornladh and his retainers, wearing the yellow stag and five chevrons of the house MaypHal. Neil asked about that one.
“Sir Ferghus Lonceth,” Sir Fail told him.
“And him?” Neil pointed at a large man with dark red hair cut short, a neatly trimmed beard, and a sable tabard. His device was quartered—a golden lion rampant, three roses, a sword, and helm. Six men sat at his table, all with the northern look about them. Some might have passed for Weihands, and Neil took an almost instant dislike to them.
“I don’t know him,” Fail admitted. “He’s too young. But his device is that of the Wishilms of Gothfera.”
“Hanzish, then. From the ship.”
“Yes. Remember what I said,” the older man cautioned.
“Yes, sir.”
About that moment, one of the men from the Hornladh knight’s table arrived.
“Chever Fail de Liery, my master, Sir Ferghus Lonceth, begs the quality of your company.”
“I would cherish his company,” Fail said. “We shall join you, yes?”
“Is it not more meet that my master joins you? After all, in seniority and fame, you are most certainly first, and entitled to the board of your choosing.”
“That may be so, lad,” Fail replied. “But there’s only two of us and eight of you, and you have the more room at your table. Seniority is all well and good, but in the inn, let us be practical, yes?” He rose, then turned to Neil. “Neil, be a good lad and invite the Wishilm knight to join us.”
“Sir,” the Hornladh squire said, “I invited him on behalf of my own master, and he did disdain the invitation.”
“And he may disdain mine. But it shall not be said that I lacked the hospitality to invite him,” Fail replied.
Neil nodded, and walked to the Hanzish knights’ table.
When he arrived, he stood there politely for a moment or two, but they all ignored him, laughing and joking in their own language. Finally, Neil cleared his throat.
“Pardon me,” he said, in Hanzish.
“By Tyw! It can speak!” one of the squires said, a giant of a fellow with a broken nose. He turned devil-filled blue eyes toward Neil. “I’ll have another pint of ale, wench, and be quick!”
They all laughed at that.
Neil breathed slowly and smiled. “My master, Sir Fail de Liery, requests the quality of your presence.”
“Fail de Liery,” the Hanzish knight suddenly mused. “I don’t know any such knight. There is a doddering old man by that name, but I’m quite sure he was never a knight. You, boy. What do you do for him?”
“I’m his squire,” Neil said evenly. “And if you have not heard the fame of Sir Fail de Liery, you have no ears for the hearing, or wits to hold what you hear.”
“Master! That sounded like an insult,” one of the Hanzish squires exclaimed.
“Did it?” Wishilm said. “It sounded to me like the fart of a cock-a-roach.”
Blue-eyes wagged a finger at him. “My master will not dirty his hands with you, I assure you. He fights only worthy knights, which it is plain you are not. Your insults are meaningless to him.”
“But not to us,” another of the Hansans put in.
“I have promised my master I shall not draw steel, nor disrupt the hospitality of this house,” Neil told him.
“This man is a coward!” the fellow bellowed, loudly enough to stop conversation all around the common room of the inn.
Neil felt a sort of trembling in his hands. “I have made you an invitation, and you have not accepted it. Our conversation is done.” He turned and walked toward where his master and the Hornladh knight sat.
“Don’t walk away from me, you!”
Neil ignored him.
“Well done, lad,” Sir Fail told him, offering him a place on the bench next to him. “It would be shame on the both of us were you to brawl in a public house.”
“I would never shame you, Sir Fail.”
“Let me introduce you. Sir Ferghus Lonceth, this is my protégé, Neil MeqVren.”
Lonceth clasped his hand. “I took him for your son, sir! Is he not?”
“He is like a son to me, but no, I cannot claim that honor. His father was a warrior in my service.”
“It’s good t’meet you,” Sir Ferghus said, still gripping Neil’s hand. “MeqVren. I’m afraid I don’t know that house. Are they allied with the clan Fienjeln?”
“No, sir. My clan has no house.”
An instant of silence followed that, as they politely struggled with the concept of a squire with no birth claim to knighthood.
“Well,” Sir Ferghus said, breaking the silence. “You are most welcome in our company. The recommendation of Sir Fail de Liery is better than the blood of ten noble houses.”
As they drank, Neil thought that perhaps some of Lonceth’s squires did not agree but were too polite to say anything.
“Tell me, Sir Ferghus,” Sir Fail said, once the toast had gone around. “I’ve heard little of your illustrious uncle. How does he find Paldh?”
The two knights talked for some time after that, and the squires, as was meet, stayed quiet. Most of Lonceth’s men drank heavily. Neil, as was his custom, did not.