“Oh, iss?” Indignant, he glared. “So it be luck, y’call it, that y’were robbed of y’man but the Pig Whistle never burned?”
Iddo, wiping ale-spill and listening, put up his chin. Molly waggled a finger at him, not looking away from the trader. “If yer minded to be hurtful, Denno Culpyn, I’ll show ye my door. The Pig Whistle’s done without yer ducats these past months. I’m tolerable sure we can muddle along again.”
Culpyn turned red behind his rough beard. “Mollykins, Mollykins…” He fished a copper nib from his purse and pressed it on her. “That for m’feggit rude tongue, m’darling.”
“Hah,” she said, but she slipped the nib out of sight then cuffed him, lightly. “Yer feggit tongue and yer dribbly manners. That be gravy on my counter!”
A guilty hunching of his shoulders, and he swiped the wood clean with one work-rough finger. “Y’be a scold, m’darling Molly. Can I sweeten y’mood with news?”
News was always welcome. In her own quiet, careful way she traded in news as much as ale and mutton pie and beds for the weary. “Fill yer belly, Trader Culpyn,” she said, pretending indifference. “I’ve a mort of folk to wink at this night. Eat yon pie, slosh yer ale, and could be I’ll sit and chumble-chop with ye after.”
Ignoring Iddo, who was rolling his eyes at Denno Culpyn’s cheer, she busied herself with Pig Whistle business. Darkness might’ve fallen outside but it was early yet, and her inn sold its ale and pies and stew until midnight. There’d be plenty more bellies to fill before she closed the low-ceilinged, raw-beamed public room and sent her overnight guests to their beds in the travellers’ dormer. Tankards to fill too, and refill with good ale. More cooked pies to pull from the warmery oven, new pies to push into the hot baking oven. Jokes to laugh at, questions to answer, gossip to marvel on, harmless, friendly fumbles to refuse without hurt feelings. She did it all with a smile, never forgetting her luck. Twice she dropped a hint to men prepared to pay her for news she told no other soul. In between serving ale and pies, counting coin and keeping order, Iddo hauled up two fresh ale kegs from the cellar and brought in huge armfuls of logs to keep the oven busy and the fireplace belching heat.
The inn’s door banged open and shut another dozen times after Culpyn’s blustery arrival. She was a queen of innkeepers, she knew all but four of the newcomers by name. Of those four, three she’d not laid eyes on before. Men far from their proper homes in Pruges, with oiled dark hair and inked skin the colour of acorns, they spoke Cassinian with little twists and odd mouthings that told her they spoke otherwise with greater ease. From their sober but well-made wool tunics and hose, she judged them traders, with goods for the selling in both Clemen and Harcia. But she didn’t ask. She minded her business. Their coin was plentiful, their manners polite enough, and that made them welcome no matter where they hailed from.
The fourth man she knew at once for a herald, even if it was his first time at the Pig. Though in truth, he was hardly a man. A youth, stringy with sinew and touched blue by the cold, dressed in mud-splashed leather leggings and battered leather riding boots reaching past his knees and a well-worn leather cloak to keep out the rain. She shoved him onto a stool in front of the fire, pinching him quiet when he tried to protest. Iddo fetched him a hot milk toddy, splashed generous with brandy. Beneath his discarded riding cloak the herald wore a dark red linen tabard over his green doublet, its stitched device of an arch-backed grey cat announcing to all and sundry that he served Harcia’s Lord Reimond, of Parsle Fountain.
“Pie, young ser?” said Molly, once his teeth had stopped chattering.
The herald handed her his emptied toddy mug. “Pie, yes. I’ve a cavern in my belly big enough for three bears.”
“It be a cold night for hard riding,” she said, flicking a look to Iddo so he’d fetch the pie. “Come far, have ye?”
“Far enough,” he said, grimacing. “I left my lord at first light, and come dawn I’m on the road again. You’ve a bed for me?”
Any duke or count’s herald was found a proper place to sleep in the Whistle, no matter who else had to be pushed out to the inn’s dormer. It was the common law, strictly upheld by the four quarrelsome Marcher lords.
“A soft bed, iss,” she said, nodding. “And a hot breakfast to see ye on the road. A silver ducat’s cost, young ser, as yer duke’s agreed.”
“Your man in the stable swore my horse would be well kept,” said the herald. His lips had coloured from blue to pink, and the cramped, shivering hunch was gone from his slight body. “Oats and hay and a blanket.”
“Gwatkin’s a good man for horses,” she said. “And his lad is the same. Don’t ye fret on that. Now if ye be warmed enough, I’ll set ye at the counter for yer pie and ale.”
Denno Culpyn, eating his steady way through a bowl of stew, gave the Harcian herald a friendly nod. “Ser.”
Returning the nod, the herald eased himself onto a stool beside the trader. “Good eve.”
“Might ye be travellin’ all the way south to Eaglerock, and the duke of Clemen’s castle?” Culpyn enquired, politely enough.
The herald hunched his shoulder. “I don’t speak of my lord’s business.”
Molly caught Denno Culpyn’s interested eye and frowned him to silence. Last thing she needed was word going back to the great men of Harcia that their heralds couldn’t sup ale or eat a pie under her roof without some stranger sniffing and sidling where he had no right. The Pig Whistle stood handy at the biggest crossroads in the Marches, where all four of the Marcher lords’ domains touched borders. Men of every stripe and allegiance passed her front door from sunup to sundown. It was the biggest and best inn for a dozen leagues around, but that didn’t mean she could afford to cause offence.
“Young ser,” she said to the herald, “I’ve mutton pie and chicken. Which would ye like?”
“I’ll take one of each,” said the herald. “And some hard cheese, and your largest tankard of ale.” He slipped off the stool, his gaze insolent and daring. “For five nobles, mistress innkeep. Not a silver ducat.”
She swallowed, hard. “Five nobles. On account of the botheration. Aye.”
“And I’ll sup in my room.”
“Of course, young ser. Iddo?”
“Follow me,” said Iddo, displeased and nearly grunting. As the herald traipsed out in Iddo’s wake, Molly rounded on Denno Culpyn and thrust her hand at him.
“Mollykins, m’sweet!” Culpyn protested. “I was only being friendly!”
“Being nosy is what ye were,” she retorted. “And it’s half a silver ducat ye cost me.”
“Ye do know he’ll likely pocket those five nobles he wrung from ye?”
If the herald did or didn’t, that wasn’t her trouble. She frowned at Culpyn, fiercely. Grumbling, the trader fished in his purse and counted out five small silver coins.
“It’s mercy y’should have on me, Moll, all the troubles I’ve seen.”
“It’s mercy I’m showing ye, Denno,” she said, plucking the nobles from his reluctant grasp. “Have I sent ye to sleep in the stable with yer mules?”
“One mule I’ve got to m’name, Moll. That’s how far yon curs’t pirate sunk me, and him never to be found for hanging, they say, on account of foul, secret sorceries and dark conjurations that keep him and his sharkish men hidden from the world.”
She couldn’t care less about such fanciful nonsense. “Any more moaning off ye, Denno, and I’ll have mercy on that mule of yers, and set ye to sleep in a ditch!”
Heaving a sigh, Culpyn poked his spoon into his stew. “Y’be a hard woman, Molly.”
“And don’t ye forget it.”
A raised hand from one of the Pruges traders at their table against the end wall turned her away. She fetched their empty tankards, brought them back to the counter and started filling them with fresh ale.
“See, Moll, y’do me wrong,” said Denno Culpyn, worse than any dog with a bone. “I was only going to say to the young ser that if he do be heading Eaglerock way, he’ll
find it slow riding when he’s still leagues from the city gates. The countryside down south be cragged bellyful with folk, on account of Clemen’s upheavals.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Y’know of that?”
Iddo’s hands were big enough to carry three foam-topped tankards, but hers weren’t. She loaded a wooden tray and hefted it. “I’ve heard a thing or two.”
“Iss, m’sweetie Mollykins, but I’ll noddle my pot if ye heard—”
Only a fool collected whispers in the open. “Denno Culpyn, y’feggit, be I look to ye a woman on the snatch for a gossip?”
Leaving him to scrape his stew bowl clean and sputter heart-wounded protests, she served the Pruges traders their ale, gleaned a mite of useful tattle from them, then made sure to seeing her other customers were happy. She threw a few casts of dice at one table, laughing when she lost, offering one free ale to each man for her forfeit, and tarried at another to ask woodsman Rankin how fared his son, caught beneath a falling tree and hobbling yet. She settled an argument between the Bevver brothers, who brawled at the hint of a whisper of a slight, drank the good health of fur-trapper Lange for his wife’s first babe-quickening, and let it be a brave and bonny boy, aye! Forester Lugo pulled out his whittled pipe and cheered the room with reedy music. Feet tapped, hands clapped, and for a time the world’s many woes were drownded.
The door banged open and closed again, quickly. Molly saw who it was and rapped her knuckles on the counter. “Iddo! Phemie’s here. Keep these rascals tidy while her and me talk out back.”
“Moll,” said Phemie, sliding her heavy leather satchel from her shoulder to the kitchen’s worn flagstones. “I’m parched for tea, besom.”
“Besom yerself,” she said, grinning. “T’aint me the wizened old healer woman.”
Phemie wrinkled her nose. “Old is as old does. I be not fifty yet.”
“And ye’ll see that a mort of years afore me, ye will.”
“Tush! And ye call yerself my friend!”
Making the tea, Molly chuckled. “There be pie, if ye want one. Or stew. Help yerself.”
Comfortable in the Pig Whistle’s warm, rich-smelling kitchen, Phemie cast her eye over sleeping Benedikt, gave a pleased nod, then ladled beef and barley stew into a bowl. Fragrant, meaty steam wafted from the cast-iron pot.
“Busy night.”
“Busy enough,” she agreed, feeling her belly gurgle. “I’ll sleep well, it be sure, once the door’s bolted for the night.”
Phemie wasn’t idly called the best healer in the Marches. “Ye should be eating of yer own stew, Molly,” she said sternly, perched on the edge of a stool. “Yer cheeks be wanting good colour, hen.”
“That’s yer old eyes, playing tricks.”
Phemie’s bowl was half-emptied already. “Cheek me, besom, and that’ll be my old hand playing tricks on yer arse. Ye said ye’d be finding another girl to help out. Where is she?”
“Dancing in the woods with the faeries,” Molly retorted, and dripped honey into Phemie’s mug of tea. “What be the use of finding another girl? She’ll up and dance off with a passing peddler, like that Tossie did. Iddo and me manage, Phemie. Now, did ye bring the tooth posset for Benedikt?”
Phemie swallowed the last of her beef and barley. “I brought ye the posset and a warning. There be spotted tongue in the eastern Marches. Best ye keep an eye on folk coming in from that direction.”
Spotted tongue? Curse it. “Have ye told Lord Wido?”
“Word be sent,” said Phemie. With her stew bowl empty, she blew on the tea to cool it for drinking. “To him and Lord Bayard, for Harcia. T’aint so dire yet. I’ve caught three men with it, none so bad the knife was needed. But ye do recall the last time the spot paid us a visit.”
She surely did. Nigh on thirty Marcher folk with their tongues sliced out of their mouths. Four had been children, ruined for life. Traders. They brought more than spices and ivory and fine fabrics from foreign lands, they did.
“I’ll see Iddo looks at every new tongue till ye say the danger’s passed.” She pulled a face. “But folk won’t be pleased.”
“Then I’ll have old Gadifer drop his jaw and wag his stump at them who complain till they see reason,” said Phemie. “Or do y’want the Pig Whistle burned to the ground like the lords burned the Jangling Bell for letting spotted tongue go by?”
“No!” Molly snatched up Phemie’s used bowl and spoon and stowed them in the big oak tub for washing, later. “Flap yer lips on that misery, would ye? When Bamfry hanged himself for seeing his doughty Bell a bonfire?”
“Bamfry were a weak-kneed gromble,” snapped Phemie. “And that yer not. Ye’ve lost a sight more than Bamfry ever did and here ye be, proud and strong and thriving.”
Molly sniffed. Her friend’s kind words touched her, but she was never one for being mawkish. “So ye brought me a remedy for Benedikt’s teething, and news I ain’t pleased to hear. What else?”
Knowing when to leave well alone, Phemie hoisted her leather satchel onto the big kitchen bench and hauled out the pills and powders and possets a good inn kept to hand for the comfort and succour of its guests. Molly stowed them with care in her doctoring chest, locked it again, then handed over the six nobles good innkeeping cost her.
“Will ye stay the night?” she asked, as Phemie packed up her satchel. “There always be room for ye.”
“Can’t,” said Phemie, regretful. “I be on my way to a first birthing at Deep Pond. The goatman’s wife, with twins, poor soul. She’s skinny as a lizard through the hips, so I’m like to be kept there nigh on a week. That’s if the birthing don’t kill her. Send word to me there if you see a spotted tongue.”
Two men came into the Pig Whistle as Phemie went on her way. Torbyn Groat, one of Lord Bayard’s riding men, charged with keeping peace along the Marches’ roads. The other was Lord Jacott’s farm steward, Hamelen, come in as he’d said he would. Heart thumping a little harder, Molly caught Iddo’s eye. Unhurried, he collected four empty tankards and joined her behind the counter.
“Trouble?” he said, his voice low.
Oh, she did love Iddo. He was her man of oak, her iron spine. “Spotted tongue, Phemie says. Coming in from the east.”
No need to say more. Iddo put the tankards on the counter and made his way to the newcomers, genial and unbending. She couldn’t hear what he said, but she saw the men startle, then let him look into their open mouths.
“Spotted tongue?” said Denno Culpyn, frowning. “That be curs’t news, Moll. I’m clean, I swear, but so y’don’t have to ask…”
Coming close, she inspected his open mouth. “Clean as a whistle. I be obliged, Denno.”
Iddo was coming back, Torbyn at his heels. Hamelen had settled near the door, in place of the Bevver brothers. They must have tumbled home while she was in the kitchen with Phemie.
“Ser,” she greeted Torbyn. “Peace to ye, and welcome. Tell Iddo what ye be after and he’ll see ye well supped. And can I make known to ye the good trader Denno Culpyn, come back to us after many adventures? Denno be full of a pirate tale, so he is, and eager to tell it.”
She’d raised her voice on that, loud enough to stir the interest of the tables nearest the counter. As men turned their way, in the mood for a rolic, she cocked a hinting eyebrow at the trader.
“A pirate tale, aye!” Culpyn said, leaping up from his stool. “Tell me, friends! Have ever y’met a man what can swear t’ye true he’s three times faced the pirate king Baldassare and lived to tell of it?”
And that was that. Not even Lugo’s piping made for better entertainment. Leaving Culpyn to his energetic mummery, and Iddo to tend Torbyn and the bar, she fetched a mutton pie from the kitchen, where Benedikt slept on, drew a fresh tankard of ale and carried both to the table by the door.
“Molly,” said Hamelen. He’d pulled a dice-pouch from his belt and was clacking the carved and painted horn squares between his scarred, nimble fingers.
She put down the ale and pie. “Good eve, Hamelen. How goes Lord J
acott in these tumbled times?”
“His lordship goes well,” said Hamelen, tossing the dice aside. “Though the times, they do be tumbled.”
“Have ye good news for me, Hamelen? It’s sorrowed I’d be if I had to buy the Pig Whistle’s mutton elsewhere.”
Lord Jacott’s farm steward winked. “Have a seat, Molly. We can natter mutton and geese and duck while I feast on yer pie.”
“–and there the curs’t young barnacle stood, I tell ye, black as moonless night and thrice more the danger, even though he be scarce old enough to grow his beard! And if I dared ye to tell me what happened next, ye never could. So I’ll tell ye free and easy, so I will. Friends, best y’pin back yer ears and believe every word…”
Hamelen snorted into his tankard. “Now there be a rascal.”
“And a rogue,” she agreed. With a swift slip and slide of her fingers, she plucked a sealed letter from her apron-pocket and passed it to him, sleight-handed. “But harmless.”
The letter vanished inside his workman’s wool doublet. “Another ten dressed chickens, yes?”
She smiled. “And five more I’ll pay for, Hamelen. And three geese and six duck. Yer last pigeons were scrawny. I’ll hold till summer for the next. And I’ll have three sides of mutton. Not too fatty, mind. Now, what news from Clemen? Be the naughty whispers true?”
“True enough,” said Hamelen, who traded Lord Jacott’s farm produce… and other things on the side. “Clemen’s council tried to keep it secret but servants talk, and a lordling from Harcia rattled roundabout coin in the right places. B’aint a man-at-arms in Clemen be paid so much not a one would hold out his hand for more.”
Molly felt her belly tighten. So. Rumour had it right. Duke Harald was dead. And his duchess. And his son. All slain beneath their own roof where they’d thought to be safe. A terrible business, surely, whether the duke was loved or not.
“Be there a new duke?”
Digging into his pie, Hamelen shrugged. “There be a man claiming so, by right of Berold’s blood.”
Ah. That would be Duke Harald’s bastard cousin. Roric. A sure recipe for mischief, him, not being pure of birth. If other claims were shouted, trouble would soon follow.