Kendra said, “How much?”
“Two meals a day, your choice of which. It will cost a full copper a day for each of you.”
Kendra said, “I meant, how much did you pay him to clear out of that room for us? From here, it looked like a full Chamberlain Coin, far more than you’re asking us to pay for the room, which is bad business. That makes me wonder.”
His cheeks turned even redder. He said, “It was indeed a full Chamberlain, but he wouldn’t accept less. But there are no more rooms in the city for you, so you should be thankful.”
“But why did you do it?” she persisted. “Or maybe I should ask if you will you do the same for the next person who wishes to stay here?”
He shrugged innocently as if excusing the action. “Just good business for me, not a bad thing, as you suggest. You see, after you’re gone, I’ll tell the tale of how the woman who released the dragon from Mercia insisted on staying only here at my fine establishment, and nowhere else. Your fame will draw in more clients to my humble inn. I will say that you loved the good food and the clean room, and I may even suggest this is the only place you ever stay when in the Port of Mercia. With that true story to spread along the waterfront, I can raise my rates, serve a better clientele, and make more money.”
Long before he’d finished, both Kendra and I were laughing. He would earn back ten times what he paid to vacate the room in the first month. It was as he said, just doing business. The cost of advertising. Kendra placed her hand on his shoulder and pulled him closer. She took his hand in hers and gave him a few coins, one of which was a Chamberlain to replace his cost, as she said, “We pay our own way in full. You can tell your tales before we leave as well as after, and we will even agree to support them—only if the cleanliness is as you say, and the food is as good.”
He showed us the room, a space no larger than my smallest clothes closet in the palace. It was barely wide enough for two to sleep on the floor side by side, and then only if nobody opened the door. On the positive side, nobody would sneak into our room while we slept, and he was correct about the cleanliness. The straw was yellow and fresh, the blankets, three of them, were aged, but clean and without signs of insects.
“The food?” Kendra asked him after inspecting the room. “We are hungry.”
“As much ‘endless stew’ from the pot you can hold, or chicken soup with rice and whatever vegetables my cook could get her hands on. There is also hard-bread.” The innkeeper smiled. “And wine or ale, but you pay for them by the mug.”
“Hard-bread?” I asked, having only heard the term once before.
“Baked just for me, right down the street to my specifications. You’ll break teeth trying to gnaw it, unless you let it soak in the stew or soup, first.”
I grinned at him. “I think I may have had the same bread at an inn near Crestfallen.”
“A nasty sort of an innkeeper up there, was he? Bad temper and dirty hands?”
“He was.”
“That would be my younger brother. Is he doing well?”
“He sold me four tired horses while I paid for royal stallions, if that answers your question. Then he claimed to the other patrons that I’d beaten him on the haggling so badly his children would go hungry.”
The chubby innkeeper laughed, slapped his knee and waddled off to serve his other customers while we found a table in a corner. I watched the eyes in the room watching us. More specifically, I watched for eyes not watching us. We were celebrities. Everyone knew us, or about us, and we were strangers. They were curious. So, any not looking our way were suspect—and trying to hide from me. None were, and I relaxed as much as a body can with all eyes in a room full of watching people.
Kendra said, “How much of that story you told the innkeeper was true?”
“Half.”
She flashed me one of the smiles most men in the kingdom would die for. We both asked for white wine when the barmaid came our way. She was maybe thirty, dark-haired and pretty in an ordinary sort of way. That means, she was not the redheaded girl I was searching for, so she was ordinary in comparison. The one I sought, I’d seen for only a fleeting moment, but knew we’d get along like the best of friends. Nearly any of the other women in the port would pale in comparison.
Asking about the redhead was not something proper to do, especially not with Kendra sitting with me. However, if Kendra knew of my quandary, she would take it upon herself and ask, then devise a reason to leave the two of us together. That would be great, until tomorrow when we intended to climb that mountain of stairs, giving my sister all the time in the world to remind me of what a favor she had done for me, and how I owed it to her to share all the details.
There are some things better done alone. We had asked for the chicken soup with rice, and of course hard-bread. It arrived, and the soup was as good as the innkeeper said, not considering we hadn’t had a full meal in four or five days. A few fried meat pies and whatever apples and such we carried had been our meals while sitting in the cold night air, and even in the snow at the top of the mountain pass.
Now we sat in a warm, smoke-filled inn with a warm fire, at a table with steaming hot soup and hard-bread and wine in front of us. He might have served last week’s stew with nothing else, and we would have eaten like a pair of sows. The white wine was actually very good, a rare occurrence outside of the palace. Here, it was sweet and strong. The effects took hold after only a few sips. I motioned for a refill.
Kendra tried to eat the small round loaf of bread the size of her fist, to my amusement. She couldn’t bite into it and tried pounding it on the edge of the table to break the crust open. More than one person smiled at her failing efforts.
I placed mine in the bowl, at the edge where I could still scoop out spoons full of soup as it soaked. She eyed me and watched. After allowing her to wait and watch long enough, I lifted my hard-bread and took a massive bite that caused soup and wet bread to drip down my chin to my chest.
It tasted wonderful, warm and full of unknown spices. What was even more wonderful was the stealthy approach from behind of a young woman. She leaned over my shoulder and used a white napkin to wipe the excess soup away. Her wild red hair tickled my nose, as strands stuck out every which way, refusing to be contained.
My tongue refused to cooperate and speak, my mind went blank, and I knew I had to say something impressive, words that would make her wish to spend unlimited time with me that evening.
I stammered, “H-hi.”
CHAPTER TWO
T he girl with the wild red hair smirked as she finished wiping spilled soup off my chest and chin. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to finish the task, and why should she after I’d nearly made her swoon with my elegant oration and kingly table manners. Kendra was smiling at me, but my eyes had no time to look at her. The girl leaning over my shoulder paused and spoke, her lips very near my ear.
“Hi, yourself,” she said in a husky voice.
Those were the two prettiest words ever spoken.
That is until Kendra stood and said a few pretty ones of her own, “Well, it’s been a long day. I should excuse myself for the night. Don’t stay up all night, Damon.”
She disappeared into the hallway with the doors leading to the sleeping rooms. I asked the girl standing at my side, “When do you get off work?”
She said, “I did when I saw you come in. I asked the innkeeper. He agreed that I should keep you happy and entertained. He said it was good for business.” She sat in Kendra’s chair and said pointedly, “I love white wine.”