"Hello," he said.
"You're looking well." Banality seemed to be the only basis of conversation here.
"So are you."
The two other girls looked at him with something like wonder. They had not shown anything like it the last time he had encountered them. "We heard that you rescued the Queen and destroyed the Serpent Tower," one of them said. Her voice sounded quite squeaky. Her eyes were wide. She seemed to be expecting him to perform another of these prodigies at any moment.
"We heard you are going to be knighted by the Queen or made a Duke or something."
Handsome Jan glared at him. He never liked not being the centre of attention. Rena did not say anything.
"That would be up to Her Serenity," he said, and cursed himself for sounding like a pompous ass. He felt suddenly unbalanced surrounded by these people from his old life, having just come from the new.
"We are honoured that you still choose to slum with us," said Handsome Jan. Yes, definitely jealous.
"Don't be a wanker," said Rik.
"I'm not the one who is a wanker," said Handsome Jan. Rik wondered if he wanted to start a fight. He had not been prepared for this sort of reception. "I'm not the one who is the fancy boy of a Terrarch noblewoman either."
"You're just jealous because I've achieved your highest ambition in life." Rik could see that the shaft had hit home from Jan's expression. Was that really it?
He noticed that Rena was glaring at them both now. What was she jealous about? She was hardly in a position to judge Rik. She was the one who had taken up with a Terrarch noble first. Then he noticed that most of her glare was aimed at Jan. His remarks had offended her as well. Not surprisingly, when he considered her circumstances. He guessed she must be living with Sardec.
"I heard you got an invitation to the coronation," said Toadface. He licked his lips, long tongue flickering out almost to his nose.
"I have," he said, because he knew it would annoy Handsome Jan, and he was pissed off with him. "I'll be seated right beside the Lady Asea."
Rena gave him an appraising look, a cold one. Perhaps he had been boasting to annoy her too. He was not the penniless soldier boy he had been when they first met. He was someone in the world. That was the theory at least. At moments like this, he felt just as much an impostor as he did when confronting the Terrarch nobility. He wondered if he was ever going to be at ease in this world and decided it was unlikely.
"I'm off to see Weasel and the big man," he said. Just to be flashy he gave them the most courtly bow Asea's Master of Protocol had taught him, directing it mainly at Rena. A moment later he was striding down the street to the Forager's new barracks. He badly needed a drink.
"My kind of place," said the Barbarian, surveying the Nag's Head with a proprietorial air. He rubbed his huge hands together and then scratched the bald crown of his head. It certainly was his kind of place, Rik thought. He doubted he had ever seen uglier whores or tasted rougher vodka, but at least the beer was strong and the music not too loud. Over in the corner a sad faced woman played Wanderlander tunes on a violin while a waif who might have been her daughter sang soft words. It was not like back home in Talorea. She would have been booted out of a tavern like this in Sorrow. The Kharadreans seemed to have a melancholy streak to their temperament. Rik supposed that they had a lot to be melancholy about.
Weasel nodded. "Good game going on in the back. They're keeping a seat warm for me."
"I hope that big girl over there will keep her seat warm for me, if you know what I mean," said the Barbarian, elbowing Rik in the ribs, just in case he had not spotted the innuendo.
"How is life at the Palace?" Weasel asked.
"Getting enough?" The Barbarian leered. Rik ignored him.
"It's fine but a bit dull."
"That why you decided to give the Nag's Head your custom?" Weasel asked. Rik was getting a bit sick of his old comrades being suspicious of him.
"No, I thought I would find out what was going on with you."
"We're honoured," said the Barbarian.
"Don't you start! I got enough of the sarcasm from Handsome Jan."
"What do you expect, Halfbreed," said Weasel. He looked serious for a moment. He was capable of seriousness when he wanted to be, and was far smarter than the Barbarian. There were times when Rik suspected that Weasel was smarter than he was. "You're a Terrarch now."
"You think so?"
"As far as most of the lads are concerned, yes. They hear all these stories — breaking into the Serpent Tower, rescuing Princesses, shagging witches, and it makes them nervous."
"How about you?"
"The only thing that makes me nervous is when the Barbarian here starts thinking."
"I'm glad to hear it. We've cut a few throats together."
All three of them looked warily about. They had done much more than that in their time. They had committed acts that would get them burned at the stake if the Inquisition ever learned about them. The Barbarian laughed. "Time for a meat pie," he said. "They're really good here. Hot and juicy, just the way I like them."
Weasel and Rik looked at each other and silently mouthed the words they both knew he was going to say. "Just the way I like my women."
"Better watch out — I hear that some strange ingredients been finding their way into those pies."
"Just stories," said the Barbarian. He downed a full glass of vodka in one and bellowed for another. "Doubt anybody is collecting corpses for pies. The ghouls are beating them to it."
Rik shot him a look. As a child, Rik had thought ghouls the most terrifying creatures imaginable. Tales of the monsters had always circled the orphanage. A vivid image sprang immediately from those days, of a creature horribly lean with grey mould-blotched flesh, sharp-toothed, eyes burning with an unspeakable hunger. And the worst thing was that you could become one. It was a disease that could be transmitted by their bite. "What’s that?"
"You'd better get out of the Palace a bit more, Halfbreed," said Weasel. "Parts of the city are over-run with the corpse-eating bastards. The Quartermaster says we're going to be going on a ghoul hunt soon."
“There are so many of them?”
“I don’t imagine they are running through the Palace gardens, but packs of them are haunting the graveyards.”
"Why do you think that is?" said Rik. "Way I always heard it, you get to be a ghoul by eating the flesh of dead men. It’s not like we besieged Halim long enough for mass starvation to break out."
"Maybe you should ask your girlfriend. She would know."
"Maybe I will."
"Let me know if you find out anything interesting. It might be worth something to the right people." Weasel paused for a moment considering. "That's if you're still interested in our sort of money."
Rik was. Not because he needed the money, he realised, but because he needed the connection to his old friends and the life they represented. You never knew when you might need to disappear back into the mass of humanity.
“What’s new with the Quartermaster?”
“He’s keeping his hand in. See that fat guy with the handlebar moustaches over there?”
“The one with all the bodyguards? Black hair — looks dyed.”
“The very same. His name is Uri. He’s big in the local gangs. We’ve been doing some business on the black market with him.”
“For the Quartermaster?”
“Aye. He tells us some interesting stuff sometimes, when he wants to. The sort of stuff it might be useful to your Lady A and her cronies, if you catch my meaning.”
“Want to introduce us?”
“If you like, only I hope you’ve still got a head for vodka, because those lads like to drink.”
“Somehow I will survive.”
“Let’s go over and say hello then. One word of warning.” Weasel looked serious.