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The Prince had suggested it. ‘We can’t stay at the same wayhouses as Makon, it isn’t safe.’ He was quite right: sabotage was even more likely on the road. And so they had come to this small local inn, with its narrow interior and single leg of lamb over the fire. Outside, their horses stood with nosebags still hitched to the wagons; the barn was occupied, full of their soldiers shaking out sleeping rolls for the night.
Inside, the men (it was all men) were seated in two haphazard groups of about eight, with an additional fellow sitting alone in a poorly-dyed blue woollen cloak with an uneven weave pattern, two others drinking wine alongside a penned gaggle of geese in the corner.
Charls thought with a pang about the braised beef with melting onions at the larger waystation that he knew well. It was immediately obvious that this inn did not cater to the merchant class. It probably did not cater to outsiders from a different village.
‘Veretian,’ was the first word spoken as they passed, and the tone was unpleasant enough that Charls would have left if the Prince hadn’t already found his way to a table. Charls sat across from him, uncomfortably close to the man in the blue cloak, which on closer inspection was of untreated wool, obviously home woven. They had now been brought very low, Charls thought.
‘Lamb’s edible,’ said the man in the blue cloak.
‘Thank you, stranger,’ said Charls, his Veretian accent ringing out awkwardly, too loud.
There was in fact a smell of roasting lamb that filled the tavern, but it did not quite give it a comfortable feel, considering the hostility of the men and the presence of the geese in the corner.
‘You’re not going to sit in my lap this time?’ Lamen settled comfortably on the bench.
The Prince said, ‘Charls will faint.’
‘I don’t think it’s quite the mode for a young cloth merchant,’ said Charls.
‘Are you sure the lamb’s edible?’ said Guilliame to the man in the blue cloak.
Charls sniffed the wine. It was double strength, he learned, coughing. At least it was wine and not one of the fermented spirits of the northern regions. He tried to appreciate the rustic charm of dining here, even as he was aware that these hostile men were all drinking double strength wine as well.
Still, there was always a bright side: it was only necessary to drink half the wine, and perhaps this man in the blue cloak would have some colourful local knowledge. He opened his mouth to speak.
Charls didn’t see how it happened. He heard an Akielon in a wool chiton say, ‘Watch it,’ and suddenly Prince was soaking wet. The contents of the Prince’s cup had been dumped into the Prince’s lap.
Double strength wine soaked into silk of exquisitely uniform warp, staining it forever, then dripping down the bench onto the floor.
‘Too many Veretians in here
,’ said the man, and spat near the wine puddle.
Lamen was rising calmly from his chair, a process that the man didn’t notice until he found himself looking up.
‘The Veretian Prince is about to be crowned.’ Lamen’s voice was friendly enough. ‘You should talk about his subjects with respect.’
‘I’ll show you respect,’ said the man, and turned away—only to turn back and swing a punch at Lamen’s jaw.
‘Lamen, the Prince’s dinner!’ said Charls, his incautious words unheard as Lamen shifted, evading the punch, so that the man staggered into their table, upsetting everything. Lamen then took the man by the scruff of his chiton and flung him back out into the tavern.
With a crash, the man landed in the middle of a seated group of men several steps away, sending wine cups and cut meats flying. All of the seated men leapt to their feet.
‘This is all a misunderstanding,’ said Charls, faced with eight dripping Akielons. ‘We’re not here looking for any trouble. We’re just—’
He ducked as a metal stake to which was tied a freshly-hunted brace of rabbits was thrown with worrying accuracy at his head.
‘Look out!’ The Prince dragged the man in the poorly-dyed wool cloak to the floor to avoid it. At the same time, shaking off his fall and pieces of food and wine from the table, the original harasser made it to his feet, and launched himself at Lamen.
The resulting explosion of violence turned the tavern into a roiling mess of fighting. A group of Akielons swarmed Lamen. A group of Akielons swarmed each other. ‘Blame me for the doings of a Veretian?’ progressed quickly too, ‘You’ve been grazing your cows on my land, Stavos, and don’t you deny it!’ The goose pen was broken open and geese streamed out at knee-level, hissing and pecking.
The Prince pulled the man in the blue cloak to safety behind the biggest overturned table. From that vantage, the Prince started throwing olives. They plinged off the heads of the struggling Akielons and caused no real harm, but contributed to the general confusion.
Charls pressed himself to the wall and tried to keep out of the fray, and then he saw Guilliame in the remains of the goose pen, with one of the Akielons advancing on him.
‘Guilliame!’ Charls leapt over a stool, picked up a pitcher of wine and smashed it over the attacker’s head, wincing at the cost of the broken ceramic. He hurried Guilliame to safety behind the overturned table, where the man in the blue cloak crouched alongside the Prince.
‘Charls,’ he introduced himself.
