My room was directly above that used by Tadeusz and his wife. The cooks lived out, the waitresses were fourteen-year-old girls, and it happened that at the time there were no overnight guests. The only men in the inn were Tadeusz, the guard, and myself when the innkeeper's wife screamed. I was shocked sober in an instant.
"Guard!" Tadeusz shouted.
"Shout all you want. Your aging guard has been detained," a sinister, gravelly voice said.
There were more shouts, accusations, and then screams as I flew for the doorway, down the hall, and down the steps. I was wearing the embroidered outfit given me by Count Lambert, and my glove-leather boots made my approach fairly quiet, at least compared with the commotion coming from the innkeeper's room.
A beefy stranger was guarding the doorway. He had a long misericord, and I belatedly realized that I had left my sword belt in my room.
I am not a master of the martial arts, but I had taken the standard military courses in unarmed combat. The important thing is to hit hard and fast. Hesitation can get you killed.
The thug came at me with a clumsy overhand swing. I blocked his dagger with my left forearm and kneed him hard in the groin. He bent over, presenting the back of his head to my clenched fists and his face to my knee.
I took advantage of this opportunity; his nose and teeth gave way with a crunching sound. He fell heavily to the floor, still gripping his knife. I don't like people who pull knives on me in dark hallways, so I stamped hard on his knife hand. Too hard. The bones smashed, and splinters of knuckle bones were driven through the thin soles of my boot, lacerating my foot. Pain shot up my leg.
I picked up the misericord and limped into the room, ducking my head to get through the doorway. "What the hell goes on here?" I inquired.
Two Mafia types were in the room beside the Wrolawskis. The leader of the pair grinned evilly and said, "Just a bit of guild business, stranger. Get out and you'll live longer."
Tadeusz was bleeding from the nose and mouth. His wife's dress was torn, exposing bruised, aging breasts.
"They're from the whoremasters guild!" Tadeusz said, contempt and fear in his voice.
"If your business was honest, you'd come in the daytime," I said. "Now I'm telling you! Get out fast and you'll live."
The leader signaled to his subordinate, and the man came at me with a wide-bladed dagger. He used the same stupid overhand attack as his associate in the hallway.
The misericord is a long, narrow, thrusting weapon designed to pierce chain mail. I blocked the thug's attack as before, but this time at the expense of a slash in the embroidery on my cuff. Gripping him by the shoulder with my left hand, I aimed a gutting thrust at the man's stomach. He pulled his body back, and my knife continued upward, catching him between the chin and neck. The thin blade went entirely through his brain, and a few centimeters of it stuck out from the top of his head.
Over the man's shoulder, I saw the leader hauling back to throw a knife at me. With my hands still on the shoulder and the grip of the knife, I yanked the body upward as a shield. The dead man was much lighter than I had expected, or perhaps the fury of combat increased my strength, but in all events I bashed the thug's head into a low roof beam. The misericord stuck in the wood, and the corpse hung there, the leader's knife in its back.
The leader came at me with his fists, but his sort of hoodlum lives more by fear than by fighting ability. Equally weaponless, I hit him twice, hard, in the stomach.
"Sir Conrad!" Tadeusz shouted.
Suddenly the Mafia type froze, rigid. I was too furious to stop; grabbing him by the shoulder, I chopped viciously with the edge of my right hand, once on each side of the neck, breaking both collar bones.
"Sir Conrad?" the man gasped, his arms hanging unnaturally low.
"Yeah." I was breathing hard.
"The noble knight that killed Sir Rheinburg with a single blow?"
"Among others." I was returning to normal.
"I knew him, sir."
"You look the type."
"We had heard rumors that you were associated with this inn, but the whoremasters guild felt-"
"Well, you felt wrong." The noise had awakened the waitresses, and they were clustered wide-eyed around the doorway. One had a blanket wrapped around her, but the rest were naked.
"Those girls are servants, not whores," I said. "We have nothing to do with the whoremasters guild."
"Yes, sir. That is obviously true, sir."
"So?" I said.
"I may live, sir? I may leave?"
I had to think for a minute. "Yeah. You can live. But you damn well owe us for damages."
"Of course, sir. We always pay our just debts."
"Tadeusz," I said. "What do they owe you for what they've done to your property, for the injury caused to you and your wife?"
"Who can say, Sir Conrad?" the innkeeper said. "But is this wise?"
"Name a number!"
"Perhaps five hundred pence?"
"Good," I said. "Okay, whoremaster. You owe us five hundred pence, not to mention the mess you've made on the floor and the fact that your thugs cut up and bled all over my best outfit. Get out!"
"As you command, Sir Conrad Stargard." He left with as much dignity as he could muster.
"Are you insane, Sir Conrad?" the innkeeper said. "Now they will come back!"
"I doubt it. That kind knows when it's licked."
"But they will! Girls! Quickly! Run to Sir Conrad's room. Bring back his weapons and armor!"
Six naked teenagers scurried off, the one with the blanket having dropped it in the blood pooling under the body that was still stuck to the beam.
"At least bring my wine!" I shouted. I dropped heavily into a chair. The action was over, and I was starting to get the shakes.
I got my wine, but shortly six pretty, nude girls, at Tadeusz's insistence, were stripping off my outer clothes and lacing me into padded leather and chain mail.
"This is stupid. They won't be back," I said, but I was wrong.
Once I was fully armed, we searched out and found the inn's guard. He had a huge knot on the side of his head and was bound, gagged, and furious. He smiled at the corpse stuck to the ceiling, and when the other thug started moaning, he took particular pleasure in tying the man up.
"Yes," the guard said, gripping his sword. "Let them come back."
"Hey," I said. "If you people are that worried, why not send for the count's guardsmen?"
"Certainly, Sir Conrad," the innkeeper said. "But who would dare go out into the night?"
"Oh, hell. I'll do it myself," I said. "And have these girls get some clothes on. They act like this really is a brothel!"
"And leave us defenseless?" one of the girls squealed.
"Shit." I sat down and took a long pull of wine. There was nothing for it but to wait until they all calmed down and went back to bed. Anyway, my injured foot was throbbing.
The girls were passing out knives from the kitchen, which was absolutely stupid. If you don't know how to use a weapon, you are much better off without it.
In their excitement, they had forgotten my instructions to get dressed. Or perhaps running around naked with knives seemed more adventurous to them. Mrs. Wrolawski, who usually kept them in check, was sitting, stunned, on her bed.
She hadn't even made an effort to cover her bruised breasts. Her husband was sitting in the other chair in a blue funk, blood still dripping from his nose. The guard was looking for an excuse to kill somebody, the girls were working out a set of heroic passwords, the body was still stuck to the ceiling, and my foot hurt.
Damn, what a lunatic night! My mother told me I should have gone to the beach.