“How much?” Alric asked.
Ayers laughed. “I’m not charging you—I can’t charge you. I’d be strung up. You get settled in and I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”
Alric grinned. “See? I told you it was worth coming. They are very friendly here.”
“For her,” Ayers said, nodding in Arista’s direction, “nothing in this city has a price.”
Alric frowned.
“That is very kind,” she told him. “But given our situation, I think five rooms will still be best.”
“What? Why?” Alric said.
“I don’t think we want to leave Magnus or Gaunt unsupervised, do you?”
Hadrian, Royce, Myron, and Gaunt took one room. Wyatt, Elden, Magnus, and Mauvin took the second, and the boys took the third. Alric insisted on his own room, which left Arista alone as well.
“Relax as long as you like,” Ayers told them. “Feel free to come down and enjoy the hearth. I’ll roll out my best keg and uncork my finest bottles. If you choose to sleep, I’ll send Jimmy to knock on your doors as soon as the meal is ready. And I just want to say, it’s a great honor to have you here.” He said the last part while staring at Arista.
She heard Alric sigh.
Wyatt lay on one of the beds, stretching out his sore muscles. Elden sat across from him on the other bed, his huge head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. The bed bent under the pressure. Wyatt could see the ropes drooping down below the frame. Elden caught Wyatt’s look and stared back with sad, innocent eyes. Like Allie, Elden trusted him. He gave the big man a reassuring smile.
“Stop! Don’t touch that!” Mauvin shouted, and every head in the room turned. The count was hanging his cloak on a string with the other wet clothes. He glared at Magnus, who had a hand outreached toward the pommel of Pickering’s sword, which was sheathed and hanging by a belt slung over the bedpost.
Magnus raised a bushy eyebrow and frowned. “What is it with you humans? And you call us misers! Do you think I’ll stuff it under my shirt and walk off with it? It’s as tall as I am!”
“I don’t care. Leave it be.”
“It’s a fine weapon,” the dwarf said, his hand retreating, but his eyes drinking it in. “Where did you get it?”
“It was my father’s.” Mauvin advanced to the end of the bed and grabbed his sword.
“Where did he get it?”
“It’s a family heirloom, passed down for generations.” Mauvin held the sword in his hand gingerly, as if it were an injured sparrow needing reassuring after its narrow escape from the dwarf. Wyatt had not noticed the weapon before, but now that his attention was drawn, he saw that it was an uncommonly attractive sword. It was elegant in its simplicity; the lines were perfect and the metal of the hilt shone bright. Almost imperceptible were fine decorative lines.
“I meant, how did yer family come to have it? It is a rare man who owns such a blade as this.”
“I suppose one of my ancestors made it, or paid for it to be made.”
The dwarf made a disgusting noise in his throat. “This was not made by some corner blacksmith with a brat pumping a bellows. That there, lad, was forged in natural fires in the dark of a new moon. Your kind didn’t touch it for centuries.”
“My kind? Are you saying this is dwarven?”
Again the noise of reproach. “Bah! Not by my kin—that blade is elvish and a fine one at that, or I’ve never worn a beard.”
Mauvin looked at him skeptically.
“Does she sing when she travels the air? Catch the light around her and trap it in her blade? Never grow dull even if used as a shovel or an axe? Cut through steel? Cut through other blades?”
Mauvin’s face answered the dwarf. The count slowly drew it out. The blade shimmered in the lamplight like glass.
“Oh yes, she’s an elven blade, boy, drawn from stone and metal, formed in the heat of the world, and tempered in pure water by the First Ones, the Children of Ferrol. No finer blade have I laid my eyes on save one.”
Mauvin slipped it back and frowned. “Just don’t touch it, okay?”
Wyatt heard the dwarf grumble something about having his beard cut off; then Magnus moved to the bed on the other side of the room, where he was too far for Wyatt to hear. Mauvin still held the blade, rubbing his fingers over the pommel; his eyes had a faraway look.
They were strangers to Wyatt. Mauvin, he knew, was a count of Melengar and close friend of King Alric. He had also heard that he was a good sword fighter. His younger brother had been killed in a sword fight some years back. His father had died recently—killed by the elves. He seemed a decent sort. A bit moody, perhaps, but all right. Still, he was noble and Wyatt had never had many dealings with them, so he decided to be cautious and quiet.
He kept a closer eye on the dwarf and wondered about the “misunderstandings” the empress had spoken of.
How do I keep getting myself into these situations?
Poor Elden. Wyatt had no idea what he made of all this.
“How you feeling?” Wyatt asked.
Elden shrugged.
“Want to go down for the meal, or have me bring you back a plate?”
Again a shrug.
“Does he talk?” Mauvin asked.
“When he wants to,” Wyatt replied.
“You’re the sailors, right?”
Wyatt nodded.
“I’m Mauvin Pickering,” he said, putting out his hand.
Wyatt took it. “Wyatt Deminthal, and this is Elden.”
The count looked Elden over. “What does he do on a ship?”
“Whatever he wants, I should think,” Magnus muttered. This brought a reluctant smile to everyone’s lips, including those of the dwarf, who clearly had not meant it as a joke but gave in just the same.
“Where are you from—Magnus, is it?” Wyatt asked. “Is there a land of dwarves?”
The dwarf’s smile faded. “Not anymore.” He clearly meant that to be the end of it, but Wyatt continued to stare and now Mauvin and Elden were doing likewise. “From up north—the mountains of Trent.”
“Is it nice there?”
“It’s a ghetto—dirty, cramped, and hopeless, like every place they let dwarves live. Satisfied?”
Wyatt regretted saying anything. An awkward silence followed until the tension was broken by a pounding at the door and a cheerful shout: “Meal is ready!”