Honor-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book III ]

13

Uachi pushed open the door of the ale house, his left hand on his dagger as he edged across the threshold. Within, the music and the nauseating sounds of frivolity were far worse. There were people crowded around tables, talking loudly over plates of food and mugs of ale. He stood for a moment, casting an eye over the place and wondering whether he had made a mistake in coming inside.

A woman in a dun dress and a splotched apron walked by him, carrying a mug of ale in one hand and a plate of roasted meat in the other. The scent of the food caught Uachi's nostrils, and he glanced toward the open cook fire at one end of the room, where a whole hog was being roasted on a spit. His stomach gave an angry, insistent twist.

Be there useful information here or not, he could at least fill his stomach. He could not remember the last time he'd had a proper meal.

There were hardly any empty seats, and loud laughter and arguments issued from nearly every table—all but one. Toward the back of the room in a corner, a single man sat at a table alone, his head lowered as he nursed a mug of ale.

Weighing his options in an instant, Uachi started toward the stranger. He did not relish the thought of inserting himself into one of the chaotic conversations at the crowded tables. The lithe man looked younger than Uachi's age of eight and twenty summers. At his side hung a slender sword.

Uachi pulled out the chair across from the stranger. "Do you mind company?" he asked, unshouldering his pack. He had noted immediately that this man wore no marke. While he was used now to living among the Starborn, he did not expect to be welcome, but whether the stranger would deny him a seat outright or not was worth asking.

The man looked up with a guarded expression. He gave Uachi a once-over, and his gaze lingered on Uachi's left cheek. After a moment, he said, "Not especially."

Dropping into the seat across from the man, Uachi flexed his toes in his sturdy boots. He let his pack fall to rest underneath the table. To be off his feet was a relief, and he was exhausted. The thought of heading back out into the night and resuming his journey was not a welcome one.

Uachi took a moment to observe the man before him. He was uncommonly handsome, with fine features that bordered on feminine. His eyes were of a strange color Uachi could not pinpoint in the low light of the ale hall—perhaps brown, perhaps green—but it was the stranger's hair that was the oddest of all. It was red. Uachi had met people with russet hair before, like Aun, the healer from Hanpe, but this man's hair was like nothing he had ever seen, and where it fell across his brow, it was as if his face were licked by tongues of fire.

There was something else, too: along the man's jaw was the shadow of an ugly bruise, fresh and purple. The man was gazing down into his ale cup, but, as if he sensed Uachi's eyes upon him, he cut his glance up with a challenge in the set of his mouth. "See something you like?" he asked.

"What can I get you?" asked a new voice, interrupting Uachi's reaction to the question.

Uachi looked up to see the woman in the apron standing at his side. He said, "Ale and a slice of yon pig."

The serving woman's cool gaze skated over Uachi's face and snagged, like the flame-haired stranger's had, on his marke. She raised her brows expectantly. Uachi waited, uncertain what she wanted of him. At last, she gave him an irritated sigh and said, "Well, ink-cheek? Show me your coin!"

With a frown, Uachi slid a hand into his purse and produced a coin, debating as he did whether he'd be set upon if he rose up and smacked this woman across her naked face. He held it up between two gloved fingers, and the woman clicked her tongue and snatched it away. Then she turned on her heel and strode off, pausing to exchange loud conversation with another patron awaiting service. By the smile she wore when she cursed at him, Uachi got the feeling she was better pleased exchanging insults with the unmarked man than she'd been to wait upon Uachi.