The group’s final member was a woman, tall and aristocratic, clad in a gown of fine green velvet embroidered in gold. Her black hair was trimmed and curled in a style that had gone out of favor years ago, and that, added to the shoddy workmanship of the embroidery and her dusky complexion, marked her as just as much of a foreign barbarian as the two soldiers.
“Where is he?” The sailor’s final bellow reached Sterren’s ears quite plainly. The innkeeper’s reply did not, but the finger pointing toward the curtained alcove — toward Sterren — was unmistakable.
That was a shock. It was obvious that the foursome meant no good for whomever they sought, and it appeared they sought him. He did not recognize any of them, but it was possible that he had won money from one or all of them in the past, or perhaps they were relatives of some poor fool he had fleeced, come to avenge the family honor.
He tried to remember if he had won anything from any barbarians lately; usually he avoided them, since they were reputed to have violent tempers, and the World was full of gullible farmers. He did not recall playing against any barbarians since Festival, and surely nobody would begrudge anything short of violence that had happened during Festival!
Perhaps they were hired, then. In any case, Sterren did not care to meet them.
He ducked back behind the curtain and looked about, considering possibilities.
There weren’t very many.
The alcove was absolutely simple, composed of three gray stone walls and the curtain, the plank floor with betting lines chalked on it, and a beamed wooden ceiling, black with years of smoke, that undoubtedly served as a floor for an upstairs room. There were no doors, no windows, and no way he could slip out. No hiding places were possible, since three wooden chairs were the only furniture. Smoky oil lamps perched on high shelves at either end provided what light there was, as well as the fishy aroma that combined with stale ale in the tavern’s distinctive stench.
No help was to be had in here, that was plain, nor could he hope to rally the tavern’s other patrons to his aid; he was not popular there. Gamblers who usually win are rarely well-liked — especially when they play for stakes so low that they can’t afford to be lavish with their winnings.
Sterren realized he would have to rely on his wits — and those wits were good enough that he knew he would rather not have to rely on them.
They were, however, all he had, and he had no time to waste. He flung back one end of the curtain and pointed at the door to the street, shouting, “There he goes! There he goes! You can still catch him if you hurry!”
Only two of the foursome paid any heed at all, and even those two treated it only as a minor distraction, giving the door only quick glances. The two immense soldiers did not appear to have heard him. Instead, upon seeing him, they turned and marched heavily toward him, moving with a slow relentless tread that reminded Sterren of the tide coming in at the docks.
The other two, the sailor and the foreign noblewoman, followed the soldiers; the sailor flicked his forefinger, and the trail of sparks vanished.
Sterren did not bother ducking back behind the curtain; he stood and waited.
It had been a feeble ruse, but the best he could manage on such short notice. As often as not, similar tricks had been effective in the past; it had certainly been worth trying.
Since it had failed, he supposed he would have to face whatever these people wanted to do with him. He hoped it wasn’t anything too unpleasant. If they had been sent by one of his creditors he could even pay — if they gave him a chance before breaking his arm, or maybe his head. Even if someone demanded interest, there was no one person he owed more than he now had.
The quartet stopped a few feet away; one of the soldiers stepped forward and pulled aside the curtain, revealing the empty alcove.
The sailor looked at the bare walls, then at Sterren. “That was a stupid stunt,” he said in a conversational tone. His Ethsharitic had a trace of a Shiphaven twang, but was clear enough. “Are you Sterren, son of Kelder?”
Cautiously, Sterren replied, “I might know a fellow by that name.” He noticed the tavern’s few remaining patrons watching and, one by one, slipping out the door.
The spokesman exchanged a few words with the velvet-clad woman in some foreign language, which Sterren thought might be the Trader’s Tongue heard on the docks; the woman then spoke a brief phrase to the soldiers, and Sterren found his arms clamped in the grasp of the two large barbarians, one on either side. He could smell their sweat very clearly.
It was not a pleasant smell.
“Are you Sterren, son of Kelder, son of Kelder, or are you not?” the sailor demanded once again.
“Why?” Sterren’s voice was unsteady, but he looked the sailor in the eye without blinking.
The sailor paused, almost smiling, to admire the courage it took to ask that question. Then he again demanded, “Are you?”
Sterren glanced sideways at the unmoving mass of soldier gripping his right arm, obviously not in the mood for civilized discourse or casual banter, and admitted, “My name is Sterren of Ethshar, and my father was called Kelder the Younger.”
“Good,” the sailor said. He turned and spoke two words to the woman.
She replied with a long speech. The sailor listened carefully, then turned back to Sterren and said, “You’re probably the one they want, but Lady Kalira would like me to ask you some questions and make sure.”
Sterren shrugged as best he could with his arms immobilized, his nerve returning somewhat. “Ask away. I have nothing to hide,” he said.
It must be a family affair, he decided, or his identity wouldn’t be a matter for such concern. He might talk his way out yet, he thought.
“Are you the eldest son of your father?”
That was not a question he had expected. Could these people have some arcane scruples about killing a man’s first heir? Or, on the other hand, did they consider the eldest of a family to be responsible for the actions of his kin? The latter possibility didn’t matter much, since Sterren had no living kin — at least, not in any reasonable degree of consanguinity.
Hesitantly, he replied, “Yes.”
“You have a different name from your father.”
“So what? Plenty of eldest sons do — repeating names is a stupid custom. My father let his mother name me, said there were too damn many Kelders around already.”
“Your father was the eldest son of his mother?” This made no sense to Sterren at all. “Yes,” he said, puzzled.
“Your father is dead?”
“Dead these sixteen years. He ran afoul of-”
“Never mind that; it’s enough we have your word that he’s dead.”
“My word? I was a boy of three, scarcely a good witness even had I been there, which I was not. But I was told he was dead and I never saw him again.” This line of questioning was beginning to bother him. Were these people come to avenge some wrong his father had committed? He knew nothing about the old man save that he had been a merchant — and, of course, the lurid story of his death at the hands of a crazed enchanter had been told time and time again. It would be grossly unfair, in Sterren’s opinion, for his own death to result from some ancestral misdemeanor, rather than from one of his own offenses or failings; he hoped he could convince these people of that.