The inside of the inn was almost as crowded as the street. The main public room, just inside the front door, was more than twenty feet on a side, but, except for a narrow path that led from the door to one end, across the hearth, down along the row of barrels, and then to the back corner where a stair and two doors led to other rooms, the floor was completely covered with blankets, displacing all the expected tavern furnishings. These blankets were neatly laid out in rectangles about two feet wide and six feet long, and on each one a man or woman sat or stood or lay, each with his or her personal possessions stacked at one end. Some had nothing but a spare tunic, while others had large, unwieldy bundles. Virtually all wore the green and brown of the Ethsharitic armies.
Startled and confused, Valder followed the path across the hearth and paused at the first barrel. The innkeeper emerged from one of the doors.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Ah... a pint of ale, for now.”
“That’ll be four bits in silver,” the innkeeper warned.
Valder stared at him in astonishment, forgetting the crowded floor for the moment in the face of this greater shock. “What?”
“Four silver bits, I said. We’ve only got half a keg left, and no more due for a sixnight.”
“Forget it, then. What about water?”
“A copper a pint — no change for silver, either.”
“That’s mad! You’re selling ale for the price of a fine southern vintage and water for the price of the best ale!”
“True enough, sir, I am indeed. That’s what the market will bear, and I’d be a fool not to get what I can while these poor souls still have their pay to spend.”
“It’s theft!”
“No, sir, it’s honest trade. The gate and the market are so jammed, and the roads so full, and the ships so busy with passengers, that I can’t get supplies in. We have a good well out back, but it’s not bottomless and yields only so much in a day. I understand that the taverns nearest the gate are only accepting gold now.”
“And your rooms?”
“All taken, sir, and the floor here as well. I’m an honest man and I won’t lie about it; there is nowhere left to put you that won’t block my path. They’re sleeping four to a bed upstairs, with six on each floor, and a blanket and a space down here would cost you a full silver piece, if I had any left.”
“It’s all mad. Where are all these people coming from?”
“It is mad, sir, I won’t argue that. It seems as if the entire army of Ethshar is jammed into Westgate. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s the end of the war that’s done it, of course, and I’m sure we’ll never see anything like it again. If prices come back down, I’ll retire a wealthy man at the end of the year — but who’s to say what prices will do when once they’ve started changing? The army doesn’t set them any more, so I need to charge what I can get.”
“I have money, innkeeper, but I’ll be damned to a northerner’s hell before I’ll pay a silver bit just for water.”
“A copper piece will do.”
“I don’t intend to pay that, either.”
The innkeeper shrugged. “Please yourself. I have, all the trade I need without you.”
“Isn’t there anywhere in the city that still charges honest prices?”
“I have no idea, really. There might be some poor fool somewhere. If so, he’s surely drained his every barrel dry by now.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that,” Valder said, knowing even as the words left his lips that they sounded foolish. He turned and, in a petty display of temper, marched directly across the array of blankets and back out into the street, ignoring the angry protests from those he stepped over.
CHAPTER 20
To Valder’s surprise, he found the situation to be exactly as the proprietor of the Overflowing Chalice had described it. In fact, each door closer to the Westgate Market brought another jump in prices. The inns and taverns that actually faced on the market were indeed accepting nothing smaller than a gold bit, even for water, let alone bread, cheese, or ale. Valder estimated that his entire accumulated pay, which he had thought ample to live on for two years or more, would scarcely buy a good dinner and a night’s lodging at the Gatehouse Inn — which was, oddly, not in the actual gatehouse or even adjoining it. The gatehouse itself was in the base of one of the two towers and was still manned by the army, as were the rest of both towers and the wall. Taverns and inns faced the gate from across the broad market square, and the Gatehouse Inn was at their center.
Strangely, the north and south sides of the market were completely open, marked only by a drop in the level of the ground, and Valder could see the city wall stretching off into the distance. Paralleling it, but a hundred feet or so in, was a broad, smooth street, also stretching off out of sight. In the rough depression between the wall and the street were no buildings, no structure of any sort, but more blankets like those in the Overflowing Chalice — hundreds upon hundreds of them, each with its occupant. These, Valder realized, were the veterans too poor — or too frugal — to pay for space in an inn or tavern. Several, he noticed, were crippled or wounded, and most were ragged and dirty.
After he had inquired at a dozen or so inns without finding food, drink, or lodging at a price he was willing to pay, Valder found himself standing in the middle of the market square, surrounded by the milling crowds. To the north and south were the homeless veterans on their pitiful blankets; to the east were the incredibly priced inns; to the west was the gate itself, fifty feet wide and at least as tall, but dwarfed by its two huge towers. He suddenly felt the need to talk to someone — not a greedy innkeeper nor a wandering, aimless veteran, but somebody secure and sensible. Without knowing exactly why, he headed for the gatehouse.
The towers, of course, were manned by proper soldiers, still in full uniform, and Valder found himself irrationally comforted by the sight of their polished breastplates and erect carriage. Three men were busily directing the flood of traffic in and out of the gate, answering shouted questions and turning back everything but people on foot, but a fourth was obviously off duty for the moment. He was seated comfortably on a folding canvas chair, leaning up against the stone wall of the gatehouse.
Valder made his way over and leaned up against the wall beside the soldier. The man glanced up at him but said nothing, and Valder inferred from this that his presence was not unwelcome.
“Has it been like this for very long?” Valder asked, after the silence stretched from sociable to the verge of strain.
“You mean the crowds? It’s been going on for two or three sixnights, since they announced the war was over. Nobody knows what to do without orders, so they all come here, hoping somebody will tell them.”
“It can’t keep up like this, can it?”
“Oh, I don’t think so — sooner or later everyone will have come here, seen what a mess it is, and given up and left again.”
“I expect a good many will stay; I’d say this is going to be a very large city from now on, even more than before.”
“Oh, no doubt of that; they’re already laying out new streets wherever they can find room inside the walls.”
“Is anybody doing anything about all these people?”
“Not really — what can they do? We have orders to keep out horses and oxen, to reduce the crowding in the streets, and Azrad did have free blankets issued, so that nobody would have to sleep in the mud, but that’s about it. There just isn’t anything to do with them. There’s plenty of land outside the walls if they want to go farm it, and I suppose there will be work for builders and the like, but beyond that, I don’t know what’s going to happen to them all. I stayed in uniform for a reason, you know; the army may be rough at times, but it’s secure, even in peacetime. Someone’s got to watch the gates and patrol the borders and keep order.”