Nix called after the three as thunder rumbled outside.
"Egil and Nix own the Tunnel now, you hear? You three are welcome to return, but next time bring your manners. Oh, and maybe leave the loudmouth behind? Done?"
Grumbles and an obscene gesture from the one he'd pricked under the chin were the only responses. Nix figured he'd get no better.
Nix turned, grinning, and looked around the room. Everyone save Tesha had already turned back to their drinks, conversation, stew, or work.
Again, no applause, no congratulations, no accolades, nothing.
"Come now, people," he muttered. He saw Tesha eyeing him, one hand on her hip, an irritated glint in her kohl-lined eyes. He made a "What?" gesture with his hands and immediately wished he hadn't.
Thunder boomed as she strode down the stairs. She walked up to him like she intended to put a blade in his innards. Instead, she jabbed a finger into his chest. "You won't improve my business, or yours, by bludgeoning the customers."
"What? But he said–"
"I know what he said. She is a whore, Nix. Hearing the truth offends neither her nor me. It goes with the work."
"True," Lis said, walking past him and up the stairs.
"But… he was disrespectful."
"So?" Tesha said. "That goes with the work, too. Do you beat everyone who's disrespectful to you?"
"Well not me, no, but Egil…"
"Don't do it again, Nix. I mean it. I can't have everyone who might be interested in one of my men or women worried about saying the wrong thing and getting crosswise of you and Egil. You want this place to make money, don't you?"
Nix found himself at a loss for words. He located some only by changing the subject. "You're quite lovely when you're angry. Did you know that?"
"And you're quite small of stature, angry or no," she said.
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked for the stairs. He stood there sputtering and she shot him a final withering glance before she ascended.
"I believe I'm in love," he said softly, watching the sway of her hips under her blue dress.
"You're always in love," Egil said, stepping beside him, and checking his fist, where he'd scraped it on the hiresword's teeth. The priest nodded surreptitiously at the four men who'd just entered. "You see those four who just came in?"
The men, all hard-eyed and armed, stood just inside the doors. They were eyeing Nix and Egil uncertainly, whispering among themselves.
"I see them," Nix said softly, then called to them, "And here are men of quality to replace the low men late of this establishment. Welcome, goodsirs."
The men pasted on fake smiles, gave half-bows, and went awkwardly for a corner table. Nix saw how they fell in behind the older, bearded man among them.
From their helmcuts and bearing, he made them as bodyguards, city watch, or soldiers. The bearded one caught Nix studying them, so Nix pasted on a fake smile of his own.
"Morra, see to those men," Nix said, waving to the serving girl.
"In a moment, luvs," Morra called to them, placing frothing tankards down at another table.
Egil took Nix by the arm and walked him toward the bar.
"Have to be watch," Egil said.
"Looks that way to me, too. We're not wanted by any authorities, though. Wait. Are we?"
Egil shrugged. "Pits if I know."
Nix wondered if his mouthiness at the Slum Gate had landed them in trouble.
"Well, even watchmen just want a drink sometimes, right?"
"Possible," Egil said. "Or maybe they're here on some other business not involving Egil and Nix."
"Are you referring to us in the third person now?"
"Shut up," the priest said, and tended to his tankard.
Kiir stood at the other end of the bar, her dress showing her curves to good effect. Nix sat and patted the stool next to him. She smiled and moved to take it, but Tesha's voice from the top of the stairs cut through the cacophony of the common room.
"Kiir, attend me here, please."
Nix tried not to look crestfallen, but doubted he succeeded. He took Kiir by the wrist as she turned to go. "Maybe we can speak later?"
"Speak?" she said, with a sweet smile and mischievous wink.
Nix chuckled and watched her as she walked off.
"Moments ago you loved Tesha," Egil said.
"I'm abundant with love," Nix answered wistfully. "A good thing, given the number of lovely women in this city."
Egil chuckled, frowned at the cut on his knuckle. "You're abundant in something, that's certain."
CHAPTER FOUR
Eating knives had scored the polished wood of the Tunnel's bar over the years, the lines like obscure runes, glyphs written by wastrels in the language of drunks. Nix and Egil sat there for hours, tended to by a taciturn Gadd, watching patrons enter the Tunnel sober and stagger out drunk, or weave up the stairs with an arm around one of Tesha's men or women.
They drank Gadd's ale under the gaze of Lord Mayor Hyram Mung, whose portrait hung from the wall behind the bar, next to the dram writ that authorized the Tunnel's existence. After a time, the Lord Mayor's beady eyes, doughy flesh, and double chins became too much to bear.
"Gadd, I want that portrait taken down," Nix said. "Get something more suitable."
Kiir stood beside him, sipping an apple wine. "He is ugly."
She'd come and gone several times during the night, and each time Nix felt her absence as his imagination tortured him with what she might be doing while gone.
"And fat," said Lis, sitting beside Egil and facing the common room. "I hear his adjunct is handsome, though."
Kiir giggled.
"Gadd," Nix said. "Did you hear?"
Gadd, arranging his tankards and mugs behind the bar with the same care an alchemist might show to his alembics and beakers, looked a question at him.
Nix pointed at the portrait behind the bar. "Down. I want that down."
"Drink?" Gadd said, his eastern accent as thick as his eel stew. "Ale?"
"No, no, not a drink. I have one. The painting." Nix made an expression like that of the Lord Mayor in the portrait – eliciting another giggle from Kiir – and pointed at it. He made a downward gesture. "Down. I want it down. It irks."
Gadd pointed a thumb at the portrait, eyebrows raised in a question.
"Yes, yes, the portrait," Nix said. "Down."
"Mayor," Gadd said, and mimed the Lord Mayor's expression himself. "Nice picture."
Nix cursed while Egil and the women laughed aloud.
"This seems funny to you?" Nix asked. "Our tapkeep can't speak Realm Common."
"He seems to manage well enough," Egil said. "Besides, his ale is the best thing here. This place is a shithole. That hiresword had the right of that, at least."
Nix sighed. "Aye. But as you said, it's our shithole."
"Hey!" Kiir said.
"Take no offense, love. You and Lis brighten it immeasurably." Nix snapped his fingers. "Egil, maybe we could convert it to a temple of Ebenor? Get the Momentary God some worshippers who aren't angry whoresons?"
Egil's expression darkened under his thick eyebrows.
Nix had meant his words as jest, but they'd gotten ahead of his sense.
"That was in poor taste. Apologies, my friend."
"But…" Lis began, and trailed off. She bit her lip, fidgeting with a question unasked.
Egil sighed. "Ask," he said.
"No, no," Lis said, obviously embarrassed. She fidgeted more. "I don't–"
"I can see you have a question." Egil sipped from his tankard, put it down. "Ask so it's out of your head. I'll not have you fidgeting with it all night."
Still she hesitated.
"He's not as mean as he looks," Nix said to her. "He won't bite… at least not more than once."
Lis smiled, turned toward Egil, and dove in. "Your tattoo?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't understand. Why Ebenor? Why not Aster? Or Borkan? I thought Ebenor was… dead?
And he was a god for only a heartbeat, wasn't he?"
"He was a god for only a moment," Egil said, staring straight ahead. "But then, we're all gods for only a moment."
"I don't… What?"
Egil said, "Why do you wear the harp of Lyyra, Lis?"
Lis looked down at the cheap charm that hung between the pale mounds of her breasts: a harp, the symbol of Lyyra, Goddess of Sensuality and Pleasure.
"Oh, I don't know. It was a gift from a regular. I'm not really religious…" She colored. "I'm just trying to make this life bearable, I suppose."
"Me, too," Egil said, and frowned. He thumped his tankard on the bar. "Discussion of this kind rarely helps in that regard. Gadd, a refill if you please."
Lis looked over at Nix and Kiir as if for help or advice, but Nix had none to give. He knew why Egil had turned to the worship of Ebenor, and he never spoke of it. Lis looked back at Egil.
"Forgive my question," she said softly. "Your beliefs are none of my concern. I shouldn't have asked. I didn't mean to… pain you."
Gadd put another tankard before Egil. Still the priest did not look at Lis, nor at any of them. He stared straight ahead, his mind in the past, on tragedy.
"Life is made up of moments, Lis," he said, his normally gruff voice turned soft. "Some good, some… bad. In these days I'm just trying to have more of the good ones. Apologies for speaking harshly just now."
Lis must have heard the hurt in Egil's voice. She stared at him, sympathy in her eyes, then put her hand on his hairy arm. He seemed startled by her touch, but did not move his arm away. He looked down at her hand, tiny and pale on his massive, tanned forearm. After a time, he put his other hand over hers.
Nix felt as if he were seeing something private, sacred, and he found himself hoping that someone, sometime in his life, would touch him with the same sense of unabashed compassion Lis had just shown Egil.
"Yes, well," Nix said, treading lightly. "As we were discussing. Right. Well. So, do you think we should hire someone to run this place for us?"
Egil patted Lis's hand once before removing his own. "Like who?"
Nix turned around on his stool, studied the raggedy handful of men who still remained, as if one of them might be a candidate. He caught the four watchmen eyeing him as they talked softly among themselves. They hadn't touched their ales. Nix smiled falsely at them, turned back to the bar.
"I don't know."
"What about Tesha?" Kiir asked.
"She already mostly runs the place," Lis added.
Egil and Nix shared a look. Egil shrugged. The idea seemed reasonable to Nix, too.
"She is competent," Egil said.
"More than competent, from what I've seen. And she runs the… workers, so she's already halfway there. We could give her free room and board, halve the price of rent and board for her workers, and for that she runs the whole place for us. We just take the profits."
Kiir squealed, embraced Nix, her rapid motion filling the air with the scent of her perfume. "We'll go tell her."
"Wait, we're just…" Nix said, but too late. They were off.
"… talking," he finished.
"Looks like done is done," Egil said, and chewed his mustache. "Could work. Tesha, I mean. She'll need some muscle, though, else how can she deal with bungholes like that hiresword?"
"She's got her own ideas about that," Nix said, thinking of the dressing-down Tesha had given him. "Besides, we'll be here often enough, and when we're not, our names still carry weight. And if it came to it, we could hire someone."
Egil waved a hand in the air to disperse the aromatic smoke from Gadd's pipe. Nix slid the ash tray down the bar, away from them.
"It's a marvel the man can understand any Realm Common at all, inhaling all that stink."
Egil said, "I thought you wanted to be a landed gentleman, maybe get a seat on the Merchants' Council. Respectability, you said."
"Oh, I do. And we'll still be respectable. Or at least more than we are now. But… being respectable seems like a lot of work, doesn't it? Am I wrong?"
Egil laughed, raised his tankard in a toast. "You're not. It does seem like work."
"You know, maybe we should change the name from the Slick Tunnel to the Shithole? Embrace the truth, as it were. Some might find it amusing. What do you think?"
"I think my ale cup is empty again."
"That it is." Nix gestured to the tapkeep. "Ales around, Gadd."
That, Gadd understood, and they were soon staring at full tankards, listening to the sound of the common room behind them.
"Those four slubbers still watching us?" Nix asked.
"I believe they are," Egil said. "Been watching us the whole time. I guess they are here for us. What do you suppose they want?"
"The fun's in finding out, yeah?"
Egil drained his cup as he stood. "Yeah."
"Try not to throw anyone else bodily from the premises," Nix said, loosening his falchion in its scabbard. "Tesha frowns on it."
"Well enough."
They stalked across the common room. The four men saw them coming, nudged each other. Expressions tightened, and hands went low, near hilts. The men slid their chairs back from the table to give them room to stand, pushed back capes to give unfettered access to blades.
Mindful of Tesha's admonition, Nix faked a smile, an expression he'd worn both while seducing women and while putting a span of steel into a man's gut. Egil simply wore his usual surliness. False expressions weren't in the priest, no matter the circumstances. If Egil wanted someone dead, that someone would see it coming well in advance.
Out of habit, Nix and Egil spaced themselves at two paces, wide enough to ply their weapons without getting in each other's way, should it be necessary. Nix hoped it wouldn't, but it paid to be prudent.
"And how do you fare, goodsirs?" Nix asked.
"Uh, fine," said one of the younger men, and the older shot him a glance that said "shut up."
"Is the ale to your satisfaction?" Nix asked.
The three younger men, perhaps puzzled by the mundanity of the question, looked to the older bearded man, whom Nix made as their leader.
"It's quite good," said Beard. "Surprisingly so."
"Excellent," Nix said, and nothing more. He and Egil stood their ground in silence, near enough to the table to make their presence an irritant. Nix kept his smile and Egil his frown, the two of them comfortable with the other men's growing discomfort.
"Something else?" Beard finally asked.
"I don't know," Nix said pointedly. "Is there something else?"
The man seemed to take his point. He pushed his tankard away, looked to his fellows, back to Nix, then put his hands on the table where they could do nothing foolish.
"Right. So, you're Nix Fall and Egil of Ebenor?"
"And you're Dur Follin Watch, yeah? That bit at the Slum Gate–"
The man shook his head. "Isn't my concern. What makes you think we're watch?"
"If not watch then what?" Nix asked.
"Do you answer every question with a question?"
"Do I, Egil?" Nix asked the priest.
"What of it if you do?" Egil answered.
Nix looked at Beard. "Do questions bother you?"
One of the other three men smiled, probably the youngest. Beard did not. He looked from Egil to Nix and shook his head as if to clear it of confusing thoughts.
"No. Look. I mean, listen, we work for someone who's interested in your… services. We've been waiting for the right time to approach you. You were either fighting or surrounded by women 'til now."
"You speak of it as if that's a bad thing," Nix said.
More smiles from the other three.
"And I wanted to take your measure," Beard said.
"Really? And how'd you go about that?" Nix asked.
"And since when's it take four armed and armored men to make a job offer?" Egil growled. He let his hands fall to the hafts of his hammers.
"Does seem less than gentlemanly," N
ix observed solemnly.
"Just tell me if you're interested," Beard said, his voice tinged with impatience. "The terms are generous."