Black Pudding

Eggs

Fresh Baked Bread

Fried Mushrooms

Choice of Bacon or Sausage

Choice of Ale of Cider

* Breakfast Menu, The Fighting Lion

☀

16th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

The Hunter’s Boon eventually led Trist to a locked wooden door, and from there the fiery cord proceeded down into the ground. “A cellar,” he realized, leaning against the wood. “Where are we, Acrasia? What does it look like?”

“The yard of an inn,” the faerie decided, after taking a moment to survey the dim of perpetual twilight. “Can you hear the horses over there, in the stable? Or smell them?”

“Aye,” Trist said. He sucked in a breath through his nose, and there it was: the sweet smell of manure. “They must be hiding in the wine cellar.” He thumped his fist against the door three times, then called in: “Margaret?”

“Who’s that out in the yard?” a man’s voice bellowed, coming up on Trist from behind. “We don’t hold with vagrants or beggars here. Be off with you, now.”

Trist winced. He couldn’t give the other Exarchs away, but he didn’t want the innkeeper to see his face, either. Two bloody holes where his eyes used to be would make for a quite distinct impression, and Avitus’ daemons would no doubt be searching the city for him. At the same time, no one who got a look at him by torchlight would mistake Trist for anything but a wounded knight - his armor was expensive, clearly well-used, and hadn’t been cleaned in days.

“Your pardon, innkeep,” Trist said, keeping his head down to conceal his eyes. “I will be on my way.” He kept a hand on the door, then found the stone wall of the inn’s first story, which he used to guide himself to the left, away from the cellar.

“Who are you?” the innkeeper’s voice demanded again, closer now. Acrasia must have decided not to be seen, or Trist guessed he would have said something to the faerie by now.

“Only a soldier,” Trist said, “Looking for a place to rest. I will trouble you no more.”

“A soldier for which side? We don’t want any trouble here,” the man continued, and he must have gotten a good look at Trist’s face then, for he gasped audibly. “Never mind, I can tell the answer to that from your eyes, lad. It isn’t safe for you here, the Baron’s men patrol the streets every morning.”

“Point me out of your courtyard, then,” Trist said. “I will find an alley somewhere to sit.”

“Not like that you won’t. Angelus save me, you can’t be any older than my daughter. May I take you by the arm?”

“You may,” Trist allowed, and stopped moving. A hand landed on his pauldron.

“Come inside, quick,” the innkeep said. “I can give you a bath to wash in, at least, and something to wrap those eyes.” He turned Trist about and began to lead him across the courtyard.

“Why?” Trist asked. “If they find me here, they’ll kill you, as well as me.”

“Least I can do for a man wounded in the service of the true king,” the innkeep said. “Mind the steps here, there are three of them. Up you go.”

“How could you tell?” Trist felt his way up the steps with his boots, and then they were inside, where the smell of fresh baked bread and ale filled the common room.

“If you fought on the Baron’s side, you wouldn’t be wandering the streets blind now, would you?” the Innkeep told him. “Welcome to The Fighting Lion. I’m Roger, my wife is Agnes, and we’ve hardly had a guest take a room in weeks, so don’t worry about being seen. Let me help you up the stairs.”

“No one wants to mark themselves by staying at an inn named after the royal arms, is it?” Trist asked.

“Not with a murderous git like the Baron sitting on the throne,” Roger confirmed. “Agnes! Draw a bath, would you?”

“We have a guest?” a woman called, and Trist heard steps on the wooden floor of the common room. “Oh!” the innkeeper’s wife gasped, at the sight of him.

“I apologize for my state,” Trist said, keeping his voice as calm and level as he could. He didn’t want to scare the poor woman any more than he already had. “If you need me to be on my way, I will leave.”

“Nonsense,” Agnes said. “Let me have a look at you.” She hissed and took him by the cheek, turning his head from side to side. “Been done long enough you’ve started to heal up, but your face is still covered in crusted blood. I’ll start water on the fire, you follow me husband up.”

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“I’ll help you get this armor off,” Roger offered, but Agnes interrupted.

“You will not, Roger Bowman,” she said. “You know the Baron’s men come around every morning, and they’ll ask questions if you aren’t down here. Get the boy upstairs, and then take a broom and sweep up the mud from his boots, so they don’t see it.”

“Right you are, love,” Roger said, and between the two of them, they managed to get Trist up onto the second floor of the inn and into a room. “We’ll bring up the water for a bath after the guards have come and gone,” Roger said. “I can help you unstrap everything after that.”

“My thanks,” Trist said. “Now do as your wife said, and get downstairs. I will not make any noise or trouble.” It was only once the door to the room had clicked shut that Acrasia made her appearance.

“I don’t trust him,” the faerie whispered in the empty room. “He’s hiding something. If he knew the others were in his basement he would have taken us there, wouldn’t he? What if he turns you over to Avitus, Trist? I won’t be spiked to a wall again, I can’t bear it.”

“You will not be,” Trist promised her. “A few guards I can fight, if I have to. And no matter what the man says, I will not be taking my armor off until they have come and gone. Now hush, and let me try to listen.”

Carefully, he got down onto the wooden floorboards, and pressed his ear to them.

“-haven’t had any guests here in weeks, Aldo,” Roger said below, his voice carrying through the floor. “Serving you lot a bit of breakfast and ale is the high point of my day.”

“I told you, you’ve got to change the sign over,” a second man, the kind who was a loud-talker, responded. “No one’s going to stay here until you do. How about ‘The Cock and Stones?” More than one voice was raised in laughter. “You’ve certainly got balls enough for it.”

“I bought this place on the coin I won fighting the Caliphate,” Roger said, once the chuckles had died down. “Named it then, and I’ve done well for near twenty-five years. Raised my daughter here. Would be bad luck to change it.”

“Bad luck to keep it,” Aldo said. “And I’ve got orders, Roger. I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t have to do it, but I must. While you get our breakfast ready, my men will search your inn. Every room and the cellar.”

“What? Why?” Roger asked, and Trist could detect a note of panic in the man’s voice.

“Orders,” Aldo repeated. “That spitfire of a daughter of yours broke out last night. I’ve got an extra two squads outside, but I held them back on account of how you always looked out for me Ma and I when I was a lad. But it’ll be my head if we don’t search the place. I hope for your sake, Roger, she ain’t here. And for hers.”

“I won’t let you,” Roger protested. “I’ll take my old sword down off the wall before I do!”

“Do that, and these lads’ll cut you down,” Aldo said calmly. “You and Agnes just get us our breakfast, and do nothing else.”

“Damn them all,” Trist muttered, rolling up from the floor carefully. He couldn’t do anything about the Exarchs in the cellar, but Margaret was as smart as any knight he’d ever met, and she could handle herself. Trist was in far less a position to be fighting off three squads of guards. “Is there anywhere to hide in this room?” Trist asked.

“Under the bed,” Acrasia said, after a moment. “But all it takes is one look to find you there.”

“I have a plan for that,” Trist said. “Lead me to it.”

It was a nerve-wracking few moments: Trist couldn’t see where he was going, or any of the furniture in the room, and he knew that the slightest creak of a floorboard, the knock of armor against a bed frame, could give everything away. At the same time, if he took too long about getting situated, the guards would be in the room anyway, and the whole endeavor would be a moot point. Finally, he squeezed himself under the bedframe and the mattress.

“Anything sticking out?” he asked Acrasia.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Back in the sword then,” he suggested. In the meantime, he unspooled an orange thread of fire from his core, and focused on stirring it to life, thickening the shadows about his body, to conceal himself in darkness. It was hard to tell how well it was working, without a functioning set of eyes, and Trist was just considering asking Acrasia to come back out and take a look at the results for him when the door swung open, and two sets of boots clumped in across the floorboards.

“It’s just like the last three,” a man’s voice complained, not more than three feet from the bed under which Trist hid.

“Check it all anyway,” another, nasally man’s voice returned. “It’ll be our necks on the block if you fuck this up, Hal.”

Grumbling and cursing under his breath, Hal moved about the room, throwing open the doors of what sounded like a wardrobe, and swinging up the lid of a chest. In another time and place, Trist might have been fascinated by how his mind connected the familiar sounds to physical objects, but as it was he tried not to breathe.

“Nothing, just like I said,” Hal whined.

“Under the bed, too, you daft bastard,” the second man insisted, and Trist really did hold his breath.

“It’s ain’t your bad back, now is it?” Hal kept up his complaining, but from the sounds of it he did get down on his knees on the floor. “See? Nothing. Let’s finish this up, I want my breakfast.”

Trist didn’t allow himself to breathe until the count of ten after the door had swung shut, and by then his lungs felt like they’d been filled with stones.

“Auberon’s Boon,” Acrasia whispered in his ear. “Not one you use often, but quick thinking.”

“It was either that or open a portal,” Trist reasoned. “But I have no idea where I could have it take me to.”

“You’ve never been in this city before, then,” Acrasia asked.

“Never,” Trist confirmed. “We shipped wood here, but we never visited Lutetia ourselves. Farthest we ever traveled was Rocher de la Garde.”

“Will they find the other Exarchs, do you think?” Acrasia wondered.

Trist chewed on it for a moment. “I would put coin against it,” he said finally. “Margaret is smart. They have three Exarchs there, all well accustomed to working as a team. I could not even tell you what all their Boons do. There must be something they can use to conceal themselves, or as a distraction.”

“If you’re wrong, the first thing we’ll hear of it is the yelling,” the faerie said. Trist wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his longsword, there under the bed, and listened. If Margaret and the others were found, he would do his best to help them. He had to: He’d promised the ghost of Tor De Lancey that he would protect Enid, and that was an Oath that Trist intended to keep.

The silence stretched on, filled by nothing but the chatter of Aldo and the other guards enjoying their breakfast below. Finally, Trist heard the men get up to leave and bid Roger and his wife farewell. He counted to one hundred in his head, then started over again, wanting to make sure the men were all gone before he moved.

With a thump, the door to the room opened. “Who’s in there?” a voice called in.