NOTE: This story occurs roughly six months before the events of Aurian and Jin, my novel (link in my profile, blah dee blah, you can guess the rest). For those who haven't read it, here's your setting:
Aurian Koch, young, broke, and generally clueless Innkeeper, has just speed-married the roving foreign mercenary Jin Grewler, mostly because he needs a good sword around and considers having someone to help with chores just an extra part of the bargain. He doesn't know anything about her, except that she's an ideal solution to his bandit problem and, miraculously, is willing to work for a changed name and an out-of-the-way place in the Borderlands. Has any of this set alarm bells ringing in his thick young skull? Sort of. But it's a bargain, and Aurian likes a bargain.
ONE
On the day Chevril Dorm, Elected Sovereign Lord of the Borderlands, died, Aurian Koch was doing what Aurian Koch generally did.
In less delicate phrasing: Aurian Koch was drinking.
He had purchased, after haggling some might term 'desperate', three full fifths of Beinbark brandy from the Drunken Dreams stall at market. Apparently, it had been a poor brandy year in Beinbark, and they were looking to offload as much substandard stock as possible: Aurian, whose taste in alcohol tended mostly towards whatever got him toasty, was more than happy to take substandard for smaller payment.
He felt, actually, fairly bad about what he had paid. What with the expense of his marriage license, and the cost of the wedding, his Drunken Dreams payment had been one chicken more than he was comfortable parting with. His shittiest chicken, sure. But still.
"Ach," the Drunken Dreams merchantmaster had groaned, seeing the mangy feather-shedding package Aurian held out to him. "Son, I thought you had a chicken for me. Not a communicable disease."
But the bargain had been struck, and the men had made their marks to it. The merchant went home one scrawny chicken richer, and Aurian Koch, after some adjustment for space in his cart, brought three clay jugs of Beinbark brandy back to the Inn.
His wife was waiting out front for him, ready to help take in the few supplies he had bought. They tucked the supplies away with little difficulty and now they sat at the bar together, whiling away the empty day. Jin had whiled away a good deal of the brandy already, and was now concentrating with listless boredom on a fresh tankard of beer.
They had been married a few weeks ago, and Aurian was still learning the little details about her. Little details, such as her last name.
He was failing to learn many of the little details less sudden newlyweds took for granted. Jin Grewler (now, through the magic of the Infallible Temple of the Godborn Divinity of Aithar All-Aspects, Jin Koch,) had so far been resoundingly silent on details such as where she was from, who she had been, who her parents were, what sort of life she'd lived.
All details, really, save three: her last name, her favorite type of beer, and how very, very good she was with a sword.
This last was the reason for Aurian's unlikely marriage.
Since he hadn't seen a single marauder since the knot had been tied, he was beginning to wonder if he'd made a mistake.
Jin wasn't bad. He liked Jin. But he had the Inn to consider, and the limited state of his funding. The marriage license, purchased on short notice as it had been, had amounted to Aurian's two best goats and a silver coin with a hole in it. That had been the only non-copper coin Aurian had left around the Inn, and the only two goats.
Business wasn't exactly booming.
He had been willing to make the investment, however. At the time, he'd have been a fool not to: Jin's hand meant protection, and protection meant no more bandits robbing him blind.
What he had neglected to think about was the fact that Jin drank her bodyweight in beer every week. Her smell came close to driving even the necromancers from the bar.
And, of course--she was terrifying. Grouchily, unattractively terrifying. And, while that certainly helped in keeping bandits away, it kept the very people Aurian had been hoping to attract away, too--the townsfolk, in general, liked their tavern wenches along the buxom and pink-cheeked lines, as opposed to the one-eyed, foul-mouthed, and flat-chested.
Jin was, currently, sitting at the bar next to him, slurping away at yet another flagon of his latest brew. Aurian couldn't help adding the half-copper the beer was worth to his rising tally of marriage expenses.
When the weight with which she slammed the tankard down on the table cracked the handle in half, he added that, too.
"Dearest," Aurian tried delicately. "I could really use some help mucking out the stable."
"Why? There aren't any horses in it." Jin fiddled with the broken tankard, pressing the handle pieces back together. "And aren't likely to be any, either. 'Round these parts all you get is bandits. And their horses can sit in shit for a while."
"It would be nice," he ventured again, "to have a clean Inn."
"Eh? This place is plenty clean."
"Not the seat you're sitting on."
"Oh. That's just 'cause I'm sitting on it."
Had the conversation developed into an argument, that would have been exactly the statement Aurian would have made. Something about the utterly careless way she said it made Aurian smile in spite of himself.
He liked her. He couldn't help it. She was uncouth, dirt-smeared, hideous to behold--but she was also funny. She wasn't self-conscious. And she was, in her own way, generous--when it came to doing chores around the bar, chores she saw the sense in, she was always willing to help out.
And there was the sword to consider. The sharp blade, slightly curved, at her hip--the promise it represented that Aurian's out-of-the-way Inn would never again be molested. That part of her, at least, was perfectly clean. And, even if the rest of her was more trouble than he needed--the sword was worth the price of a marriage license, and a name change for Jin.
"I'll wipe the stool off when my ass is done sitting in it," Jin promised cheerily. "When I'm done sampling this fine vintage. This is a good brew, my dearie. Very...light. Very refreshing."
"You mean you think I watered it."
"Well, didn't you?"
"Of course I did!" Aurian sighed. "I didn't even have the cash to make one full barrel. One. It was three quarters full, at best. Hells, I had to water it so that we could drink it."
"Eh." Jin shrugged. "You'll have a necromancer or two along from the Coven, eventually. A few coppers'll always show up if you give them time. Don't worry so. It's such a small thing, to keep you awake at night."
"Small? Small? Jin. This is my business. This is my whole life. Everything I have--the food I eat, the beer I brew, the roof over our heads and whether or not it leaks all winter--everything is dependent on this small thing. I don't need a few coppers eventually, I need them now. How can you even say something like that?"
She shrugged, drained the rest of her tankard. "I guess I don't know much about earning a living, love. I've always had my sword, and that's been enough." She looked around the common room--at the rickety tables, the blackened hearth. "To tell you the truth, I always assumed this was a front. I figured you made your money elsewhere."
"Where else," Aurian said patiently, "would the money come from?"
Jin waved a very general hand. "I don't know! Maybe you're a card cheat. Maybe you go into the village and fleece them there. Maybe you have a small gift. The Sight, maybe? Your father--"
She paused.
"What?"
"Your father must've taught you a secondary trade. That's all."
Aurian sighed. "I feel like he barely taught me this trade, some days," he admitted. "I can read and write well enough. He made sure I got an education, even if it was just the town school. I've made a few coppers here and there transcribing things and drawing up documents for the townsfolk, but hells. It's a long trek for them to come out here, and there are plenty of scribes in town."
The look in Jin's single eye was uncomfortable. "Cor," she said. "I didn't know it was so bad, Aurian. Please believe me. That marriage license--that must've been your last coin."
"It was," Aurian said bitterly.
Jin clucked. "I'm sorry, husband," she said. "For what it's worth. Truly I am. If you really want me to muck out the stables, I'll do it."
"It's probably not necessary," Aurian said, refilling his glass from one of the newly-purchased jugs. "You're probably right."
"But it would make you feel better."
"Maybe."
"Well, then," Jin said fondly. She ruffled his hair with a grimy hand. "Mucked out the stables'll be."