Executioner's Daughter

Chapter 2B: Consequences

As the last hours of daylight tinted the sky a pale orange, she took them slightly west off course. Hans saw the blocky outlines of a village. As they neared he corrected himself. The community barely qualified as a village. A handful of buildings centred around an inn and bakery with a miniscule farm lying on the outskirts. She pointed to the small inn, a gentle smoke wafted from its chimney into the night-air. “Rent a room and wait for me in the dining hall. If anyone mentions pay, just show your badge.”

When he nodded, Bellona made a beeline for the farm without a backward glance.

“Just show my badge, huh?” Hans repeated to himself as he approached the inn. He stopped at the door. There was a crude carving of a horse etched in the wood. He could hear the hearty laughter and rowdy chatting of men, the slamming of metal against wood and even a faint snore. He leaned on the door and pushed it open with his shoulder. All eyes were upon him and the chatter ceased for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity. The patrons took in his light breast plate, the leather gauntlets with built-in knuckledusters, the lance and his leather boots. One man pretended to shiver in fear and his companions chuckled. Hans widened his awareness so that he saw everything but still focused on the innkeeper behind on the counter.

“Two rooms please,” he said.

“This here’s a quiet place. We dun wan’ any instantgators,” the innkeeper moved slightly so that his body shielded a young woman behind him. She shared the innkeeper’s pale hair and long nose. The resemblance between them was apparent but it looked better on the girl.

“I just want to order food and lodging for one night for me and my companion,” Hans pulled off his gauntlets and showed his ‘badge’; a tattoo on the back of his left hand. It depicted two axes, crossed, the blades turned inwards towards a four-spoke wheel.

A solemnity came over the innkeeper.

“Two of you!” he shook a follow-up comment out his head. “Fine. I’ll have yer room-“

“Separate rooms,” Hans said quickly. The innkeeper clenched his jaw.

“-rooms ready. Have a sit down.”

Hans complied. He pulled back on his gauntlets. Since the diners had seen nothing climatic, they returned to their meals and conversations, though they kept stealing glances at him. Hans knew one man had glimpsed his tattoo while he had been talking to the innkeeper and he had immediately made a hasty retreat out the front door without finishing his supper. Hans had heard of the fear that Executioners received from outsiders and even from the capital where they were more commonplace, but for someone to have left without finishing an apple pie because one had shown up in the same room as him? The discrimination was more serious than he thought.

                The inn door swung open. If the innkeeper’s face had been dismayed by the appearance of an Executioner, it  nearly fell to the floor at the sight of the newcomer. Hans shifted discreetly in his chair for a better view. The first thing Hans noticed as the newcomer stretched the kinks out of his neck was the pearl-holstered pistol hanging from his hip. The man was also tall and barrel-chested and had a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Holbein,” the gunslinger approached the counter.

“Grant, ye hev a two year old bill,” the innkeeper responded. ‘Good evening’ never made it into the innkeeper’s book of greetings, formal and otherwise.

Grant snorted, “I pay eventually, don’t I?”

“Only once in a blue moon and barely enough for half a sip o’ ale.”

The gunslinger reached into his pack, jerked out three dead rabbits by their ears and dropped them unceremoniously on the counter. The innkeeper’s daughter, just returning from the kitchen, stared at them with an open mouth.