Inside, the candles were never bright enough, flea-ridden rats and strays scurried about the muck-ridden floor without too much to hinder them, and the stench that wafted indoors from the tannery and slaughterhouse outside was nothing short of abominable. Even so, among this den of disrepute, beauty could still be found. Not of the visual sort, and not certainly not of taste nor smell, for the kitchens barely cooked anything that could qualify as food. Rather, the beauty that came from within this sunken dive was the sound of music, sweet and gentle of ear.
The softly strummed notes of a zither thrummed through the stale and smelly air, each note a succession of audible pleasure, enough to bring one into content meditation and thoughtfulness. Music took you places, allowed your mind to escape the constraints of the world, to forget the burdens upon one shoulders as one's mind flew into the clouds, a bird free of troubled thoughts. The zither itself was a blessing on the ears, but the woman's voice that sang to it matched it equally for beauty, so much so that one might think the two could never be separate. The buzzing reeds of the shawm accentuating the zither's notes didn't carry the same tranquilly, but was a nice enough accompaniment nonetheless.
The one-eyed whore sat on an old chair, a scrawny woman of black hair with a twisted hunch in her back that caused her to lean over her zither in an odd way, her fingers plucking the strings with effortless ease. Her left eye was closed, her right eye a mangled socket that showed whoever had tried to cauterize it didn't have the damndest clue what they was doing, and was probably the same individual who'd cut it out in the first place. On the table beside her, a crippled halfling sat cross-legged on the table, gently blowing a shawm near twice his size, his right leg a ruddy stump, his left hand missing a digit, and it was easy to see him struggle when he reached for the fifth hole every so often.
Beside the musicians, three men sat around a beaten-up trestle, each looking as disreputable as almost every other patron of the ruddy alehouse. From their table, they watched the musical performance with amused disinterest, one of them scoffing into his drink. "Nice music. Can't say much about the spectacle," he said, grey eyes showing their mocking laughter. "Bit of an eyesore, eh?" Sif was a brawny fellow, as brawny as he was fat, his gut hanging over his table where he sat, with dirty trails of ginger hair hanging over his face.
"I'd gut the cunt who stabbed that woman in the eye," the second hissed, his lisp spitting out saliva with every third or so 's' that came out from his mouth. A sheer contrast of the huge Sif beside him, the lanky cutthroat known as Anash more resembled a stick than a man. "Woman with a voice like that don't belong here. An angel more like, she is."
"Aye, an angel who'd cut your balls off an' feed 'em to that mangy hound she got guardin' that room of 'ers, if ye so much as looked her way funny," Serrus replied from the chair opposite, his teeth chewing nosily on a piece of gristle. The meat stew they served at the Ewe's Udder should have probably been written up as 'meat surprise', because one would be very surprised to find anything in it that even half resembled meat. He spat a glob on the plate, glancing over to the skinny man across from him. "Course, that'd be if that 'alfling lover of 'ers didn't cut em' off first."
"Puh." Anash leaned over and spat a glob onto the floor, his eyes narrowing towards the stunted musician. "Look at 'im. Li'l bastard couldn't even reach." Sif spurted and coughed up ale in his laughter, while Serrus just grinned smugly, chewing that gristle more about his teeth.
"When you lot leavin', then?" Serrus asked, once he'd given up the prospect of chewing his meal to bits.
"Two days on the morrow," Sif replied, shifting on his chair so his extensive girth better rested on the table. Despite being fat, his arms looked quite capable of snapping that same table in twain.
"You should come with us, Belcaw," Anash encouraged. "There's plenty of work killin' and lootin' in the west, what with all that riotin' and rebellin' that's been going on in Thessil. Pick a side, any side! Who cares? I'd reckon either of 'em will be lookin' to hire mercs."
"You pick the one that pays that most, ya dumb twat, that's whatchya do," Sif said, in between his noisy gulps of ale. "I ain't no lordship's larder, I expect good coin for a day's work."
"Oh aye," Anash agreed, nodding. "Not only pay, but there'll be probably lots of lootin'. Lootin' and women, by the gods." His lips curved in a rapacious smile, eyes gleaming with predacity.
"There'll be lots of folks dyin' over there, more like," Serrus replied grimly. "Them Derry folk can be a stuck-up lot. Hells, they'll probably hang t'bloody both o'yers as traitors soon as y'reach the border, or summat."
There was moment of stunned silence from the other two, before Sif frowned. "You always were a sad-sack, Belcaw. Always looking at the glass being half full. Half full of shit, I mean."
"There's nowt sad 'bout bein' smart," Serrus replied. "Smart keeps you alive. Smart means y'get plenty o'work here roundabouts."
"Like what?" Anash spat. "Guarding caravans and pretty ladies? Piss on that for a laugh."
"Guardin' caravans always means y'get paid instead of gettin' shafted, innit," Serrus argued. "An' most them pretty ladies got more money than they know what t'do with. Y'work well for 'em, they'll give y'more than enough."
"You ever fuck one of them pretty ladies?" Anash's grin came back, ever unappealing. "Gods, I could do me a pretty lady right about now. I'd stick her over this table and rape her in them pretty skirts til' she bled dry."
Serrus leant back in his seat, a near amicable smile over his features. "You ever let a day go by without thinkin' 'bout that tiny penny y'call a wick sittin' in them trousers, ya Lothie dog?"
Anash scowled. "Maybe I'll cut yours down to size, Granger. See if y'cunny bleeds barley n'grass, like some pig of a drover's wife."
"ENOUGH, you two," Sif growled, pounding a fist onto the table to stifle the hostile tensions in the air. "You sound like a pair of bloody fishwives whinging about the weather." He let out a sigh, glancing over to Serrus. "You coming with us or not, Belcaw?"
"Nah." The sellsword gave a lazy shrug. "Already got m'self some work, as it so 'appens."
"Oh aye? Doin' what?" Anash asked, tones still icy.
"Removal job," Serrus replied. "Some fat sewin' girl wants me t'kill a bunch of werefolk out in them woods. One of 'em took her 'and."
Again, there was the stunned silence, and Sif blinked, eyes wide. "Werewolk?" he said, near aghast. "You mean those werewolves folks say are lurking about?" He cocked his head to the side. "Have you gone soft in the head? Here you are, going on to me and Nash about being safe and smart, but now you're gonna charge out like on of King Chewdry's finest to slay some monsters?"
Serrus shrugged again, kicking his feet up onto the table. "Ain't so much hard, is it? They're just big stupid dogs, walkin' 'bout on two legs an' howlin' at the moon. Figure I could least lop one or two of their heads off."
"They're werefolk, Belcaw, not a bunch of bleedin' mountain goats. This lady paying you well?"
My coin is sparse, but my promises are iron. "Well enough," Serrus replied. "Nice retainer, at least. Ain't so much the job though, is it? It's me bloody reputation. Get solid feet down, complete a job, more likely t'get some better ones in this town down the track. That's how I see it."
"You're a bloody madman, is how I see it," Sif replied. He drained the last of his ale, snorting loudly. "Werewolves. Shit, next thing you'll be telling us you're off slaying dragons."
"Wait," Anash said. "Didn't you say it was some sewing mistress or something?"
Serrus rolled his eyes. "Nash, I swear on me wife's fookin' grave, y'talk about rapin' girls one more time--"
"Fuck off, I ain't humping no fat girl. Y'said it was a sewing girl? A seamstress?"
Serrus nodded. "Aye. What of it?"
Anash snorted. "They already got that wolf, so I hear. Some folks killed it, down near the Broken Dagger. Stabbed it dead, they did. Some girl, I think. A girl an' some squire boy."
Sif raised his eyebrows, then glanced to Serrus, grinning. "Well now, no need to be troubling yourself over some fat seamstress, Belcaw. Looks like some bint and a knight's boy already did the job for you."
"Shut up," Serrus dismissed, glancing to Anash. "When'd y'hear this?"
Anash shrugged. "Few days ago. Tarren told me, said he was down there last week. Word from the tender was this werewolf had a crack at 'em one night, so they just killed it, then let it bleed out it out on the lawn like some stuck pig."
"Hah!" Sif bellowed. "Well, whaddya know? Guess you'll be coming along with us to Thessil, ay Belcaw?"
"Feck off," Belcaw spat, swinging himself off the table and making his way out. "It's a pissin' bloody day in hells when I'm the last to find out someone else's beatin' me to a bloody contract."
He could still hear Sif and Anash's raucous laughter ringing in his ears an hour later when he found a messenger with quill and ink, where he penned a note for delivery, writing with a left slant that was remarkably neat for a man of his disposition:
Ms Gloria,
Word from the mill is that some girl and squire boy killed the wolf that ate your hand outside the Dagger last week.
I don't appreciate getting shafted by others when I'm perfectly bloody capable of doing a job myself, and doing it well. I've just spent a bloody cog-load fixing my damned crossbow, buying some new mail and whetting my sword to prepare for the task of killing off these werewolves you asked me to dispatch.
My contracts are binding, unless circumstances force me to personally withdraw, upon which I always reimburse the retainer to whoever I got the job from in the first place.
If we still have a job on as arranged, then disregard this note and please let me know what the bloody hells is going on with this whole werewolf business.
S.B.
P.S. And before you ask, no, I didn't fence your bloody ring.