Rise of Empire (The Riyria Revelations #3-4)

Arista shook her head, saying nothing except words to urge her horse forward.

Signs were everywhere—nailed to porch beams or attached to tall stakes driven into the mud. They advertised things like ALE, CIDER, MEAD, WINE, NO CREDIT! and THREE-DAY-OLD PORK—CHEAP! But some were more ominous, such as BEGGARS WILL BE JAILED! and ALL ELVES ENTERING THE CITY MUST REGISTER AT THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE. This last poster’s paint was still bright.

Royce stopped at a public house with a signboard of a grotesque cackling face and a scripted epitaph that read THE LAUGHING GNOME. The tavern stood three stories, a good size even by Colnora’s standards, yet people still struggled to squeeze in the front door. Inside, the place smelled of damp clothes and wood smoke. A large crowd filled the common room such that Hadrian had to push his way through.

“We’re looking for the proprietor,” Royce told a young man carrying a tray.

“That would be Ayers. He’s the gray-haired gent behind the bar.”

“It’s true, I tell you!” a young man with fiery red hair was saying loudly as he stood in the center of the common room. To whom he was speaking, Arista was not certain. It appeared to be everyone. “My father was a Praleon Guard. He served on His Majesty’s personal retinue for twenty years.”

“What does that prove? Urith and the rest of them died in the fire. No one knows how it started.”

“The fire was set by Androus!” shouted the red-haired youth with great conviction. Abruptly, the room quieted. The young man was not content with this, however, and he took the stunned pause to press his point. “He betrayed the king, killed the royal family, and took the crown so he could hand the kingdom over to the empress. Good King Urith would never have accepted annexation into the New Empire, and those loyal to his name shouldn’t either.”

The crowd burst into an uproar of angry shouts.

In the midst of this outburst, the three of them reached the bar, where a handful of men stood watching the excitement with empty mugs in hand.

“Mr. Ayers?” Royce asked of a man and a boy as they struggled to hoist a fresh keg onto the rear dock.

“Who wants to know?” asked the man in a stained apron. A drop of sweat dangled from the tip of his red nose, his face flushed from exertion.

“We’re looking to rent a pair of rooms.”

“Not much luck of that. We’re full up,” Ayers replied, not pausing from his work. “Jimmy, jump up and shim it.” The young lad, filthy with sweat and dirt, leapt up on the dock and pushed a wooden wedge under the keg, tilting it forward slightly.

“Do you know of availability elsewhere in the city?” Hadrian asked.

“Gonna be the same all over, friend. Every boardinghouse is full—refugees been coming in from the countryside for weeks.”

“Refugees?”

“Yeah, the Nationalists have been marching up from the coast sacking towns. People been running ahead of them and most come here. Not that I mind—been great for business.”

Ayers pulled a tap out of the old keg and hammered it into the face of the new barrel with a wooden mallet. He turned the spigot and drained a pint or two to clear the sediment. Wiping his hands on his apron, he began filling the demands of his customers.

“Is there no place to find lodging for the night?”

“I can’t say that, just no place I know of,” Ayers replied, and finally took a moment to wipe a sleeve over his face and clear the drop from his nose. “Maybe some folks will rent a room in their houses, but all the inns and taverns are packed. I’ve even started to rent floor space.”

“Is there any left?” Hadrian asked hopefully.

“Any what?”

“Floor space. It’s raining pretty hard out there.”

Ayers lifted his head up and glanced around his tavern. “I’ve got space under the stairs that no one’s taken yet. If you don’t mind the people walking on top of you all night.”

“It’s better than the gutter,” Hadrian said, shrugging at Royce and Arista. “Maybe tomorrow there will be a vacancy.”

Ayers’s face showed he doubted this. “If you want to stay, it’ll be forty-five silver.”

“Forty-five?” Hadrian exclaimed, stunned. “For space under the stairs? No wonder no one has taken it. A room at The Regal Fox in Colnora is only twenty!”

“Go there, then, but if you want to stay here, it’ll cost you forty-five silver—in tenents. I don’t take those imperial notes they’re passing now. It’s your choice.”

Hadrian scowled at Ayers but counted out the money just the same. “I hope that includes dinner.”

Ayers shook his head. “It doesn’t.”

“We also have three horses.”

“Lucky you.”

“No room at the stable either? Is it okay to leave them out front?”

“Sure … for another … five silver a horse.”

They pushed and prodded their way through the crowd with their bags until they came to the wooden staircase. Beneath it, several people had discarded their wet cloaks on nail heads or on the empty kegs and crates stored there. Royce and Hadrian stacked the containers to make a cubby and threw the coats and cloaks on them. A few people shot them harsh looks—the owners of the cloaks, no doubt—but no one said anything, as it appeared most understood the situation. Looking around, Arista saw others squatting in corners and along the edge of the big room. Some were families with children trying to sleep, their little heads resting on damp clothes. Mothers rubbed their backs and sang lullabies over the racket of loud voices, shifting wooden chairs, and the banging of pewter mugs. These were the lucky ones. She wondered about the families who could not afford floor space.

How many are cowering outside under a boardwalk or in a muddy alley somewhere in the rain?

As they settled, Arista noticed the noise of the inn was not simply the confusing sounds of forty unrelated conversations, but rather one discussion voiced by several people with various opinions. From time to time one speaker would rise above the others to make a point, and then drown in the response from the crowd. The most vocal was the red-haired young man.

“No, he’s not!” he shouted once more. “He’s not a blood relative of Urith. He’s the brother of Urith’s second wife.”