"Kiir, attend me here, please."
Nix tried not to look crestfallen, but doubted he succeeded. He took Kiir by the wrist as she turned to go. "Maybe we can speak later?"
"Speak?" she said, with a sweet smile and mischievous wink.
Nix chuckled and watched her as she walked off.
"Moments ago you loved Tesha," Egil said.
"I'm abundant with love," Nix answered wistfully. "A good thing, given the number of lovely women in this city."
Egil chuckled, frowned at the cut on his knuckle. "You're abundant in something, that's certain."
CHAPTER FOUR
Eating knives had scored the polished wood of the Tunnel's bar over the years, the lines like obscure runes, glyphs written by wastrels in the language of drunks. Nix and Egil sat there for hours, tended to by a taciturn Gadd, watching patrons enter the Tunnel sober and stagger out drunk, or weave up the stairs with an arm around one of Tesha's men or women.
They drank Gadd's ale under the gaze of Lord Mayor Hyram Mung, whose portrait hung from the wall behind the bar, next to the dram writ that authorized the Tunnel's existence. After a time, the Lord Mayor's beady eyes, doughy flesh, and double chins became too much to bear.
"Gadd, I want that portrait taken down," Nix said. "Get something more suitable."
Kiir stood beside him, sipping an apple wine. "He is ugly."
She'd come and gone several times during the night, and each time Nix felt her absence as his imagination tortured him with what she might be doing while gone.
"And fat," said Lis, sitting beside Egil and facing the common room. "I hear his adjunct is handsome, though."
Kiir giggled.
"Gadd," Nix said. "Did you hear?"
Gadd, arranging his tankards and mugs behind the bar with the same care an alchemist might show to his alembics and beakers, looked a question at him.
Nix pointed at the portrait behind the bar. "Down. I want that down."
"Drink?" Gadd said, his eastern accent as thick as his eel stew. "Ale?"
"No, no, not a drink. I have one. The painting." Nix made an expression like that of the Lord Mayor in the portrait — eliciting another giggle from Kiir — and pointed at it. He made a downward gesture. "Down. I want it down. It irks."
Gadd pointed a thumb at the portrait, eyebrows raised in a question.
"Yes, yes, the portrait," Nix said. "Down."
"Mayor," Gadd said, and mimed the Lord Mayor's expression himself. "Nice picture."
Nix cursed while Egil and the women laughed aloud.
"This seems funny to you?" Nix asked. "Our tapkeep can't speak Realm Common."
"He seems to manage well enough," Egil said. "Besides, his ale is the best thing here. This place is a shithole. That hiresword had the right of that, at least."
Nix sighed. "Aye. But as you said, it's our shithole."
"Hey!" Kiir said.
"Take no offense, love. You and Lis brighten it immeasurably." Nix snapped his fingers. "Egil, maybe we could convert it to a temple of Ebenor? Get the Momentary God some worshippers who aren't angry whoresons?"
Egil's expression darkened under his thick eyebrows.
Nix had meant his words as jest, but they'd gotten ahead of his sense.
"That was in poor taste. Apologies, my friend."
"But…" Lis began, and trailed off. She bit her lip, fidgeting with a question unasked.
Egil sighed. "Ask," he said.
"No, no," Lis said, obviously embarrassed. She fidgeted more. "I don't-"
"I can see you have a question." Egil sipped from his tankard, put it down. "Ask so it's out of your head. I'll not have you fidgeting with it all night."
Still she hesitated.
"He's not as mean as he looks," Nix said to her. "He won't bite… at least not more than once."
Lis smiled, turned toward Egil, and dove in. "Your tattoo?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't understand. Why Ebenor? Why not Aster? Or Borkan? I thought Ebenor was… dead? And he was a god for only a heartbeat, wasn't he?"
"He was a god for only a moment," Egil said, staring straight ahead. "But then, we're all gods for only a moment."
"I don't… What?"
Egil said, "Why do you wear the harp of Lyyra, Lis?"
Lis looked down at the cheap charm that hung between the pale mounds of her breasts: a harp, the symbol of Lyyra, Goddess of Sensuality and Pleasure.
"Oh, I don't know. It was a gift from a regular. I'm not really religious…" She colored. "I'm just trying to make this life bearable, I suppose."
"Me, too," Egil said, and frowned. He thumped his tankard on the bar. "Discussion of this kind rarely helps in that regard. Gadd, a refill if you please."
Lis looked over at Nix and Kiir as if for help or advice, but Nix had none to give. He knew why Egil had turned to the worship of Ebenor, and he never spoke of it. Lis looked back at Egil.
"Forgive my question," she said softly. "Your beliefs are none of my concern. I shouldn't have asked. I didn't mean to… pain you."
Gadd put another tankard before Egil. Still the priest did not look at Lis, nor at any of them. He stared straight ahead, his mind in the past, on tragedy.
"Life is made up of moments, Lis," he said, his normally gruff voice turned soft. "Some good, some… bad. In these days I'm just trying to have more of the good ones. Apologies for speaking harshly just now."
Lis must have heard the hurt in Egil's voice. She stared at him, sympathy in her eyes, then put her hand on his hairy arm. He seemed startled by her touch, but did not move his arm away. He looked down at her hand, tiny and pale on his massive, tanned forearm. After a time, he put his other hand over hers.
Nix felt as if he were seeing something private, sacred, and he found himself hoping that someone, sometime in his life, would touch him with the same sense of unabashed compassion Lis had just shown Egil.
"Yes, well," Nix said, treading lightly. "As we were discussing. Right. Well. So, do you think we should hire someone to run this place for us?"
Egil patted Lis's hand once before removing his own. "Like who?"
Nix turned around on his stool, studied the raggedy handful of men who still remained, as if one of them might be a candidate. He caught the four watchmen eyeing him as they talked softly among themselves. They hadn't touched their ales. Nix smiled falsely at them, turned back to the bar.
"I don't know."
"What about Tesha?" Kiir asked.
"She already mostly runs the place," Lis added.
Egil and Nix shared a look. Egil shrugged. The idea seemed reasonable to Nix, too.
"She is competent," Egil said.
"More than competent, from what I've seen. And she runs the… workers, so she's already halfway there. We could give her free room and board, halve the price of rent and board for her workers, and for that she runs the whole place for us. We just take the profits."
Kiir squealed, embraced Nix, her rapid motion filling the air with the scent of her perfume. "We'll go tell her."
"Wait, we're just…" Nix said, but too late. They were off.
"… talking," he finished.
"Looks like done is done," Egil said, and chewed his mustache. "Could work. Tesha, I mean. She'll need some muscle, though, else how can she deal with bungholes like that hiresword?"
"She's got her own ideas about that," Nix said, thinking of the dressing-down Tesha had given him. "Besides, we'll be here often enough, and when we're not, our names still carry weight. And if it came to it, we could hire someone."
Egil waved a hand in the air to disperse the aromatic smoke from Gadd's pipe. Nix slid the ash tray down the bar, away from them.
"It's a marvel the man can understand any Realm Common at all, inhaling all that stink."