Blood of the Red

Chapter 9 - Shallo

Taverns are like beers. They come in all different flavours, they're presented in different containers, they each insist on a unique quality that recommends them over all others. And one serves just as well as another when it comes to getting drunk.

'Oak Tree tavern' the sign proclaimed. A solid and respectable name for a solid and respectable inn. Light spilled into the street from small puddle-windows in heavy oak frames. The muted rumble of conversation rose to an excited babble as the door swung open. A burly man staggered out, wrapped against the cold, with only his bald head exposed. Shallo watched him weave his way to the nearest alley.

Safe enough to piss in the shadows? A very upmarket part of town you've found yourself in. The man's sigh of relief followed her into the tavern.

Shallo resisted the urge to stand and take her bearings. She plunged on, into the throng, employing sharp elbows to win a path to the bar. Look local - you are local. Add dirt and you're poor. Be noisy and you'll not be noticed. Shallo raised a grimy hand, "A beer. A beer for this lady!" She shouted the words, blurring the 'r's to get that Glorsa drawl. The 'lady' got a snort from an old coot, nursing his ribs where her elbow caught him. The barkeep barely flickered at her shout. Well and good, Shallo, you're part of the crowd.

There were other women in the Oak Tree. A heavy-set matron kept the barkeep company behind the kegs, dispensing ale with a generous smile and a mean measure. At the tables toward the back, half a dozen wives made a circle, a twin to their husbands', swigging ale and 'Glorsa water' - gin and ale in equal measures. Seamstresses and fishwives probably. Not a scene you'd find in Sark or Conault, she mused. Across the water they hold the fair sex too delicate to actually enjoy themselves. Shallo snorted and called for ale again, louder this time.

"What'd they burn her for anyhows?" Heavy on the 'r's. The speaker, crowned with a black woollen cap he'd yet to discard, had his back to her, but the depth of his voice undercut the rise and fall of chatter.

"Dunno. Cos she wasn't nobody's wife, an' she keeps the new god, thas as I reckon it. Keep the old gods and you gotta be quiet. Keep the new one and you should stitch your lips!" Shallo could glimpse this one over the broad shoulder of the first, a hefty man gone to fat, red of face, red scalp showing through thin blonde hair. The beer had his tongue. "I spoke with her when our Lonny died last winter. She were a good woman."

"The Port Lords want t'keep the Red Masks happy. Want to keep 'em out of Glorsa," his companion rumbled back.

"What's they doing here then? That's what I wants to know." A third man, entirely hidden by Rumbler's back, joined in.

"Come over the water in a hurry they did. On the dawn tide." Red Face seemed keen to share, "In a terrible rush they was. Blood Guard all left for Thelim straightways. This here 'Jedax', the Red Mask, he stays long enough to burn Jenny Salter, then he's off to Thelim too. Something going on down there I says."

"Get away?"

Shallo's beer arrived with a thump and a fine shower of foam. She pressed a copper into the barkeep's palm. She left Rumbler and Red Face to their talk. The High Church might admit that Adam's light could be broken into colours and then remade. A secret that had allowed them to take the blood lords under their wing. An uneven marriage of faiths. But no church espousing one god is going to accept another pledged to a singular deity though. Especially not one foolish enough to claim a monopoly on truth.

Across the room the barkeep's wife had started to clear the stage against the far wall. A small blonde boy, lute in hand, descended the stairs from the inn rooms. He took deliberate steps, concentration stamped his earnest face, intent on delivering his charge safely to the chair that had been set out. The boy held her attention, there was something about him. Shallo didn't pay children any notice as a rule.