"Done," he said at last. "But if the food is bad or the bed lousy or the woman diseased, I'll throw you in your own pot and cut my breakfast off your ribs."
"'Twill not be needful, noble sir," whined the landlord. He waved a thin little slave boy over. "Take care of the gentleman's hengist."
Alfric sat down at a corner table and ate his meal alone. The food was greasy, but not bad. From the shadows he watched his fellow guests, sizing up their possibilities. That big spade-bearded fellow—he might be the head of a gang which would find an expert sword-swinger useful. And the little wizened man in the gray cloak might be a charlatan in need of a bodyguard—
He grew slowly aware of their own unease. There were too many sharp glances thrown in his own direction, entirely too many—too much whispering behind hands, too much furtive loosening of sheathed daggers. There was something infernally strange going on in Valkarion.
Alfric bristled like an angry jaccur, but throttled impatience and got up. Time enough to find all that out tomorrow—he was tired now from his long ride; he would sleep and then in the morning look the city over.
He mounted the stairs, conscious of the glances following him, and opened the door the boy showed to him. There he paused, and his hard jaw fell.
The room was just a room, small, lit by one stump of candle, no furniture save a bed. Its window looked out on an alley which was like a river of darkness.
It was the woman who held Alfric's eyes.
She was clad only in the usual gaudy silken shift, and she sat plucking thin chords from the usual one-stringed harp. Her rings and bracelets were ordinary cheap gewgaws. But she was no common tavern bawd—not she!