by Eric Ugland
“There,” Nadya said, “he looks right at home.”
“Yeah, and any time I get close to him I have to worry he’s going to bite me.”
“Are we really doing this again?”
“It’s a legitimate fear.”
“You’re a big elf,” she said, patting my shoulder. “You can defend yourself.”
“I’m getting a drink,” I said.
“Do you mind if I stay here?” she replied without looking at me. “I’d really like to see how Hellion adapts to his new surroundings. If he changes his appearance or something.”
“Yeah, fine. Do whatever you want.”
She smiled at me once again, and we remained that way for a moment. She was right in front of me, and I was starting to worry that she was waiting for me to do something. Then she just shook her head and turned away, strolling over to a large obstacle and clambering up it. She sat on top and pulled out a notebook.
“Go get your drink,” she said to me. “I’ll be fine here.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to understand why I was feeling awkward about whatever had just happened. But as soon as my stomach grumbled, I knew that going to get some food was the better thing to pay attention to.
Chapter 86
I made it all the way out to the street before I was interrupted. A posh carriage came to a stop, and the door opened. Rowland came out, practically bouncing down the steps with a peculiar type of glee. He was outfitted like a pompous noble, likely because that was basically what he was.
“My young protégé,” he said. “How lovely to see you here today.”
“Lovely to be here,” I replied. “I guess.”
“Certain amount of serendipity, wouldn’t you say?”
“Uh, not really? I don’t know, I guess, I mean, I live here.”
“Ah, but my visiting was the more arbitrary activity, my boy. It is odd that I am here on this particular day at this particular time. And fortuitous for you.”
“Because every time I see you is such a joy?”
“Ah, the sass of youth.”
“The small talk of age? What’s up?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is that the manner one talks to a man who just bought you a building?”
With a little flourish, he presented a leather pouch to me. Curious, I opened it to see a leather folder of papers along with a bunch of keys on a number of rings.
“And with that transfer,” Rowland said, “I believe we are back to equal footing. I have my, well, my ball, and you have your building. Such as it is. I must say, I was expecting to pay a bit more for the place, considering some of the upgrades and the condition of the building. But the owner seemed oddly desperate to sell. You might want to dig a little deeper on that man, see if there’s something we have yet to discover. A reason he wanted to sell.”
“Did he seem odd?”
“I suppose, to an extent at least. But anyone who chooses to live here, present company included, is just a bit odd in my book. So,” he gestured around at the place as if he was trying to both pull the word from the air and make it clear enough I didn’t need to have him tell me, “crowded. The aesthetics are just so paltry. Such an over emphasis on defense and war down here. Drives me mad. I feel as if I must be on guard at all times. Cower behind walls, board up my windows, that sort of thing. That grimelings or snipes might be making their way here to attack me. Just, ugh, so busy in the worst ways.”
“I guess,” I replied, trying to visualize my neighborhood in the way he did, but I couldn’t really see it that way. It didn’t strike me as busy, or crowded. I suppose that had something to do with coming from a much bigger city than Glaton. Being used to buildings with a hundred, or more, floors made six floors seem almost quaint in comparison.
“For the best if you like it,” he quipped. “Otherwise, what are you doing here? Anyway, I suggest taking a look at the place, since I certainly did not. The owner took the note off to the bank, and passed over the keys. Everything inside is yours. Which, I suppose, includes furniture. There are no tenants in place, which could be a plus. Anyway, congratulations on, well, owning it.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“A second topic, I suppose a vague corollary to first: we had a chat with a group calling themselves the Iron Silents.”
“They’re idiots, right?”
“More or less, yes. Rather daft. But did you know they own nearly every restaurant and tavern within Old Town? That’s why they were so desperate to buy yours, apparently. Bizarre plan if you ask me. But you didn’t bite. We spoke to them, at any rate, and let them know you are one of us. That you are under our protection and if they meddle with you in the future, they will have greater things to worry about. You should be free and clear of their meddling.”
“That’s awesome. Thank you.”
“Part and parcel of you being a member of our guild. And if you swing by, not today, or tomorrow for that matter, but later in the week, the payment for the goods you dropped off will be there. Should you be ready to collect. Which, given your new domicile, perhaps you’ll want to invest a bit. Redecorate.”
He tipped his hat my way, then stepped back in his carriage.
“Home,” he called out to his driver, then relaxed back into his cushions as he shut the door.
Rowland was an odd man.
I turned around and looked at my buildings.
The Heavy Purse and apartments, was on the corner of two streets. My new building was substantially bigger, and butted right up against, and then towered a bit over, my first building. The ground floor housed a bakery, but the main entrance to the rest of the floors was smack in the middle, so the bakery was, in a sense, split in two. It took a minute or two to sort through the keys until I got the one that opened up the bakery.
One half looked to be the main kitchen area, which, with windows facing out to the front, was something of a show kitchen at present. The other half was the storefront itself, with a spot to buy bread and treats, as well as coffee and tea. There were a number of small two-top tables spread through the open space. The whole place had a real homey vibe. It smelled delightful. Like bread. And flour. Which, you know, made sense considering it was a bakery.
A bakery that looked like it had been open earlier that day. There was still bread, and other baked goods, in the display racks. I walked around to the area behind the counter, and, being that I was still pretty hungry, I grabbed a hard roll and took a bite.
Fine.
Nothing amazing, but, you know, bread. Great for the price, I suppose.
I walked around to the kitchen area. It was indeed a kitchen. Not a whole lot to it. Huge tables in the middle for working the dough, and large ovens along the wall it shared with The Heavy Purse. I wondered if there was any sort of heat transfer into the pub. There was a big double door at the back, the sort of thing that looked like it might have been large enough to roll a wagon into. The floor in front of it was made of a much rougher stone, almost like a slab of the street had been brought inside. And directly above that was a large metal track with a big hook and a block and tackle. It looked like a winch sort system that could potentially be used to lift heavy things onto and off of wagons. Pretty cool.
I went through the double doors and found myself outside, in a courtyard. There was a large grassy area and a tree to one side, and something like a paddock on the other. This wasn’t a huge space, but there was a barn and what I can only really describe as a three-story carriage house. Tall walls went around the place, though there was a large archway big enough to facilitate wagons coming and going.
I walked through the archway into the alleyway that ran behind the building. There was only one exit, on the far end of the block, but I could see a few similar back areas attached to some of the other buildings on the block. This was how deliveries would be made, I supposed.
Inside the carriage house was, in fact, a carriage. Though calling it a carriage is being very generous. It was more like a large wagon. One w
all was filled with all sorts of tack, all the straps, pulleys, whatever, that a wagon needed. Or, rather, that a horse needed in order to pull a wagon. On the other side of the place was a staircase, going up to the second floor. I darted up the stairs, listening for any sorts of creaks or groans, but it seemed like the place was pretty well built. A door was at the top of the stairs, and that led to a nice little living quarters. It had a living room and kitchen on the first floor, and a bedroom on top. Quaint, but definitely not for me. The windows looked out onto the alley or the courtyard. And it was just really quiet. I wanted a view of the streets. See that there were people about. Or at least just have the illusion of people.
I went through the stables, which were empty save some hay. I had enough stalls for eight animals, and, from the smell of it, there’d been animals there recently. At least the seller had certainly been kind enough to muck the stalls out before I took ownership. While I stood there, a bird of some sort flew out of the rafters. I was tempted to climb up and take a peek for a nest, but there was too much to see before something like that. The stalls were large, at least as far as I could tell. I had no real concept of how big stalls should be to house a horse, but these seemed like they’d do the job.
Back into the main building, I wondered if there was a way to add in a mudroom or something to provide a stopgap for people who were coming from the stable or the yard into the kitchen portion of the bakery. Cleanliness was not exactly of importance in Vuldranni for some reason. But still, I could dream.
I had to go back outside to get onto the stairs. Going up to the second floor, I opened one apartment, and then the other. Very basic, both in terms of furnishing and layout. Both two-bedroom flats. Continuing on upstairs, it was the same story until the final apartment on the top floor. That was the only one that was completely empty. Just a little dust in the corner.
So now I had seven empty apartments. And no idea what to do with them.
Chapter 87
Stomach growling, I shouldered my way through the crowd in the Heavy Purse until I got to the bar. There, I saw something that made me smile. There were two empty stools, which I thought was a bit odd until I saw small little reserved signs. One of which had my name on it.
“Hey,” I said to no one in particular, “that’s me!”
“Congratu-fucking-lations,” came the reply of a drunk dude to my left.
I shrugged, and then decided to pick his pocket.
A successful pick pocket! You’ve snatched six silver and a key.
I dropped it on the ground.
I took my reserved seat, marveling at the penmanship on the tag.
“Evening,” Shae said, sauntering up right in front of me, leaning on the bar. She’d cleaned up nicely, having gotten clothes that weren’t mine to wear. Her hair was pulled into a pony-tail that was big and bouncy. A bit like a cheerleader, but with more volume. It moved a lot when she moved. As did some other parts of her, much to the enjoyment of the crowd. Her smiling at me caused several gents, and a few ladies, to make mad faces in my direction.
“Having fun here?” I asked.
“It’s, uh, sure.”
“So, no.”
“I wouldn’t say this is a dream job.”
“But Titus treats you okay?”
“He’s great. Everyone is great here. I mean, minus the drunks.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of universal.”
“Do you like my outfit?”
I gave it another appraising look, a little more overt this time. “Sure, you look great.”
“You have a lot of women’s clothing in your apartment.”
“The previous owner left it,” I said. “Didn’t seem right to toss it all, so I just left it.” Which was a bit of a lie. I hadn’t really bothered to go through the place carefully, so it was news to me that I still had a full wardrobe of Etta’s clothes.
“They don’t fit perfectly,” she said with a frown, “but close enough until I’ve got some money.”
“Were you—”
“Shae!” Titus called out. “Get his order and move on!”
“We’re kind of busy,” Shae said to me. “Hungry?”
“I am.”
She winked, and sashayed away.
“Stool taken?”
Nadya was right at my side.
“Nope,” I said.
She hopped up and spun around to face the bar.
“You get Hellion settled in?” I asked.
“I suppose,” she said. “He never moved. Just sort of sat there.”
“Like a chest.”
“Yeah. Almost looks like it belongs there.”
Shae came out from the kitchen laden with a heavy plate of food. She gave a big smile at both me and Nadya, and put the plate in front of me.
“Hi Nadya,” Shae said, all sunshine and rainbows.
“Shae,” Nadya replied abruptly. Not quite cold, but certainly not happy.
“Hungry?”
“Sure.”
“Great!”
And then Shae was on her way again.
“She’s got a job here now?” Nadya asked.
“Yeah.”
“Is she living here?”
“In the bar? No.”
“So she’s living with you.”
“She’s staying here, yeah.”
“With you.”
“Well, she was in my apartment last night, but I spent the night in, uh, well, where Hellion is now.”
“That obstacle course? Where’d you sleep?”
“I didn’t. I had some training to do.”
“You just skipped a night of sleep?”
“It happens.”
“That’s not good for you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
“I have odd sleeping patterns, okay? It drove my parents nuts.”
“Ah, you slipped up! A bit of your past emerges.”
“I’m an open book.”
Nadya laughed. “I’ve never met someone who talks so little about themselves.”
“Hi pot, looks like you’re black too.”
“What?”
“You straight-up made a whole other persona so you wouldn’t have to talk about yourself.”
“I did not.”
“What’s your last name again?”
“Can we not use that here?”
“See?”
“I have a reason to be private. You won’t even tell me where you’re from.”
“Sure I will. A hamlet. Down south.”
“Named Denmark?”
“No, that was a bad joke.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I said it was bad.”
I’m not sure what else she might have dragged out of me, but Shae delivering another plate of food saved me.
“Titus wants to chat in the back,” Shae said.
“Now?” I asked, my fork halfway to my mouth with my first bite.
Shae nodded. But before I could complain or come up with an excuse to why I couldn’t go, she was off, working the bar. Titus’ wife was also out tending bar, and I was impressed that the two women already seemed to be working seamlessly together.
I frowned at Nadya.
“Sorry,” I said. “Can you keep an eye on this?”
She smiled, speared a potato from my plate, and popped it in her mouth.
“Sure,” she said.
I shook my head and began weaving my way through the crowd. It wasn’t shoulder to shoulder, but there wasn’t much room left either. The place could do with an expansion, and now I had the space to do it, but I wasn’t sure how to get an HGTV thing happening in Glaton.
It was refreshingly quiet in the back. Titus sat on a crate with a book in his hands, but it was unopened. He was just staring at the wall.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Someone else bought the building,” Titus said. “Some damn noble swooped in, bought the place, and—”
“Not true. I bought i
t.”
“But—“
I held out the deed.
Titus took the paper and read it over.
“Holy balls, you did it?”
“I mean, it’s not like it was hard. I was just in the right place at the right time with the right object to trade for the building.”
“Must have been some object.”
“Certain things are valuable to certain people. He was the only one willing to buy it from me, but he had to have it. So, we traded.”
“Thank the gods,” Titus said. “I don’t want to be, I don’t know, improper, but—”
He stood up and embraced me. A big ol’ hug.
“Uh,” I said, feeling the guy shaking, trying to hold in his sobs, “you okay, man?”
“It’s just, there are things happening, and I thought, I was worried. I have small children at home, and my wife and I are, well everyone is scared. In the city, I mean. At least, those of us with children. I didn’t want to say anything to you about it, I didn’t know if you knew, or maybe you knew and just weren’ talking about it, but we were worried that we would be too far from our family if something happened. And now, we aren’t. We can bring the children here, and live next door.”
“Wait, so what’s going on in the city?”
“So you don’t know? Children are going missing.”
“How many?”
“Many of them. I don’t know.”
“More than usual?”
“Yes. Very much so. What rent will you charge?”
“Uh,” I stammered, caught off guard. I’d been thinking about the missing children, and I hadn’t been prepared to discuss anything like business terms anyway. “I guess same as here.”
“Free meals and taxes?”
“How about whoever lives in these buildings gets fed, and you pay taxes?”
“What apartment do I get?”
“How much room do you need?”
“We have only ever had a two-room apartment — that’s probably all we need.”
