The Dead of Winter Part 6

"Junk beer's right," another man said, as Ahdio moved that way. "Is it true you've got that beer-drinkin' demon-cat you keep back there trained to take his leaks in the kegs?"

"No," Ahdio said with an easy grin, "just in the qualis." When the laughter subsided, he made his face serious and added, "But I'll tell you this. I accused my brewer of that, just this afternoon. I also put him on notice that I'm lookin' around for another supplier. I am. All right, how many?"

"Two for me; I just got here. Is it true that's your girl over there, Ahdio, all bundled up?"

"My cousin Phlegmy brews good brew, Ahdy!"

"Girl! I'm too old for girls, two-beers. You think I put this gray in my beard with chalk? Now who's been blabbing that I have a secret lady who dropped in tonight to watch me work?" /( worked, he thought. Good old Ouleh-all you have to do is ask her to keep a secret and it's the same as hiring thirty boys to shout the news!

Laughter and shouts followed him to the bar, and he made sure that he gave Ouleh a scowl. She bit her lip in the manner of a chastised child. While sitting on Tervy's knee with her hand inside the shirt of Frax, former palace guardsman.

Someone reached out and yanked at the hem of Throde's tunic, in back. Throde reeled and his tray tipped. A mug dropped off into someone's lap. That someone cursed and came up fast, drawing back a fist. One moment he was looking at Throde's whimpery face saying "Oh, oh, I'm sorry" while his peripheral hearing reported the steel-jingle sound of a battlefield; the next he was staring at Ahdio's chest and it was too late to arrest his swing.

His fist slammed into quintuply-linked chain that seemed to be backed by a wall of stone.

"Yaaowww!"

"You don't want to go hittin' my cousin's boy Throde, friend," the chainmailed stone wall said, while the subject of his pleasant-voiced address danced and clutched his wounded fist. Tears welled out of his eyes. "It wasn't his fault somebody grabbed his tunic from behind and don't ask who. Besides, that mug didn't hurt your jewels or you'd never uv got up so fast. Sit down now and I'll bring you a full one."

"You big-that really is chain! I'm hurt!"

Ahdio lifted his hand between them and doubled it into a fist the size of an infant's head. "What hurts?"

"My ... f ..." The fellow trailed off. Staring at the fist and glancing at his considerably smaller one, he sank slowly down into his chair.

"That'll teach ya, Tarkle," one of the injured man's tablemates said.

Having hurt his knuckles and arm and been backed down, Tarkle was happy to snarl and reach for that man-with his uninjured hand. That fast, an enormous fist came down onto the table between them with a bang. Unable to stop his movement, Tarkle rammed his outstretched hand into the knuckles and stove up three fingers. He repeated his previous yaow.

Ahdio said only, "Now d.a.m.n it-"

Lots of eyes watched while the table's complement sat in silence, with Ahdio bending over it and his fist resting in place. Slowly he straightened.

"Easy now, Tarkle, that beer's coming right up," he said, and turned to continue barward.

"Ahdio!" a female voice screamed. "Look out!"

At the same time as he reacted by hunching his shoulders and pushing his chin into his chest, Ahdio glanced in the direction of the cry. He saw the veiled lady, on her feet and pointing. Meanwhile he was pivoting, spinning, one tree branch arm straight out from his body. Fortunately only one man was on his feet behind him: Ahdio's forearm whacked into the side of Tarkle's neck. Tarkle went sideways over his own chair and onto his table. Its other occupants vacated their chairs with admirable speed even while Tarkle's wrist banged down on the table's edge. His knife vacated his fist. Throde's foot was on it before Tarkle's head whacked the table and bounced. While he was still disconcerted and seeing bright lights before his eyes, a huge hand closed on the back of his neck and hoisted him onto his feet. Never mind his watery legs; Ahdio walked him to the door. Along the way his other hand dropped to come up with another man.

"Gawk! Here! I didn't do nothin'!"

"Sure you did," Ahdio advised him in an equable voice. "You started this hothead off by yanking the hem of my cousin's boy's brand-new tunic. And a lovely good night to you both," he said, thrusting them out the door back-to-back with a twist and thrust of his arms. "Sorry, boys. Don't even think of coming back in tonight, mind."

"You-you sumb.i.t.c.h-"

"Yes, yes," Ahdio said, turning back into the doorway; "I never thought much of her myself."

Having demonstrated why he wore the mailcoat, he closed the wooden winter door against the cold, and with both hands swept back the thirty-one strands of dangling colored rope that for most of the year were the inn's only door. He was right in a.s.suming that no one in Sly's Place was looking anywhere but at him.

Standing there on the one-step entry platform he had installed to make it easy for comers-in to spot friends or empty tables, he gave them the full benefit of his lungs.

"Now that is enough trouble for one night! Settle d.a.m.n it down! Throde: one round of Red Gold for everyone at True Brew prices. That includes you and me."

To the sound of applause, Ahdio returned to the bar. His customers made plenty of room. To Throde he spoke quietly: "Take care of our mysterious patron and her escort for the rest of the night, Throde."

The youth nodded. Anyone else might have said "You're not going to thank her?"

but not Throde. Looking at the floor, he said, "I'm sorry, Ahdio. Thanks."

"Going to have to get you a club to wear in your belt, or bra.s.s knuckles. But forget the apology-I saw it all. Not your fault at all. Here. First one's for you. Next one's for me. Going to be an edgy night, Throde. Who the blazes is that woman?"

Throde had no answer. He served the veiled lady's table. She had two gla.s.ses of wine only, without ever showing her face; her companion put away several beers.

There was no further trouble. Nevertheless, Ahdio was right: it was an edgy night. Avenestra, the teenaged girl in the skintight top and slit skirt, left with Frax and came back an hour or so later, alone. By then, about half of the patrons had departed Sly's Place, in various stages of inebriation. Avenestra went to the bar for a beer, specifying lots of foam, and approached that table by the wall.

"You a Bey behind that veil?" she asked, licking at the foam boiling above her blue-glazed mug.

"No," the blue-green veil said. "I'm Ahdio's girl. Just came in tonight to watch him work. Sure knows how to settle fights, doesn't he?"

"Uh-huh." Avenestra licked foam. "You sure better treat him right, Ahdio's gurl.

He sure does have friends." And she moved off. Less than three-quarters of an hour later, she left with another man.

"I'd say she's about fourteen," the veiled Jodeera quietly murmured to Wints.

"About," Wints said.

"One more round before closing!" Ahdio called. "One, I say one more round and that's it. How about savin' wear and tear on our legs and puttin' hands in the air, dear friends?"

Wintsenay's hand went up, with many others. Ahdio and Throde went to work moving fast. No, Throde told his employer, he had not heard the veiled lady's voice.

"Just drink this one right down, Wints," his hooded and veiled employer said.

"When the last of these sc.u.m is leaving, you leave too. I'm staying."

"Milady ..."

"Just get up and amble out with the last of them, Wintsenay."

"Yes'm."

The last round was served, and quaffed. More men left. Ouleh was long gone. The veiled lady had long since become the only woman in the place. Keeping an eye on her without seeming to, Ahdio announced closing. Throde went into the back room and returned with his broom, a reminder that could not be overlooked. Sweetboy meandered into the main room, yawning, glancing hopefully at the bar. More people straggled out. Ahdio helped one. Throde helped one. The last two, companions, rose. They hoisted their mugs to Ahdio and then to the woman whose face or even hair they had never seen, and drained their cups. With considerable pride, both departed without support.

"Not right out in front now, boys!" Ahdio called after them.

Looking a little nervous, teeth worrying his lip, Throde watched both men all the way out the door.

Ahdiovizun stared at the veiled lady. Throde looked at her, at Ahdio. Who knew where she was looking, under hood and behind veil?

"My lady ..." Ahdio began, and broke off as she rose to her feet.

He and Throde stared as she tossed back her hood, then unclasped the cloak, and with one hand pulled her veil straight out until it dropped free. Her hand fell to her side, carrying the veil. She said nothing. Neither did Ahdio. He stared, mouth open. He dropped one big hand to the back of a chair as if he needed support.

"Not," he said in a very low voice, "possible!"

"Oh," Throde said, with feeling, as he looked upon the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld.

The unveiled lady gazed at him while he and Throde stared at her. She said nothing.

"Throde," Ahdio said, and his voice sounded funny to his helper, "let's leave the tables and sweeping up till tomorrow. Go ahead home, and don't forget to be careful out there tonight."

Swallowing hard, looking at him, Throde stood blinking. He had never seen Ahdio look this way before. The big man looked ... stupid.

Also impatient. "Throde!"

Throde jerked as if awakening, and headed for the back room with his unused broom. The whole night had been truly unique, a succession of new experiences adding new knowledge to Throde's store. It had not ceased. No woman had ever stayed behind this way, not both sober and clothed. And saying absolutely nothing; she was merely ... being here. Nor had Ahdio ever behaved in such a way. Throde had often thought that his huge, tough and yet kind employer should have a woman; even women, in the plural. Yet he had never envisioned such a woman as this; never dreamed that she might be such a beauty as this veiled-as this now unveiled lady.

He set the broom in its place and made sure the back door was locked as well as barred. Then he swung his big hairy cloak about himself, pausing only long enough to lift the hood and close the clasp. Taking his staff, he headed for the front door. He walked between the man and the woman without looking at either, but noticed nevertheless that they remained as if frozen in place, gazing at each other in silence. As he reached the hanging before the door, a new thought struck him and he turned back.

"Ahdio? You're ... all right?"

"Of course. And you be careful, Throde." Ahdio spoke without looking at him. He stood as if in shock, thunder-struck.

"Uh." And, still nervous and going motherly, the youth said, "uh, don't-don't, uh, forget to lock the door after me, Ahdio."

"Good night, Throde."

Throde departed, pulling the door securely shut behind him.

The moment he was gone, the unveiled lady spoke. "I'm sorry I called that warning-you handled everything so well, and purely physically, too, without a sign of your Ability."

Her voice was soft and she seemed to lean toward him, but he stood stiffly, a dozen paces away. Glaring at her. Still he appeared to be in shock, and she saw pain in his face.

"What in four h.e.l.ls are you doing here, Jo?" He could not have made his displeasure more obvious, but the catch in his voice bespoke pain, too.

"I'm sorry I felt I had to come here, in disguise. It's all right, Ahdio, it's all right now. Ezucar died over four weeks ago. I left just days later. I had no care for what 'looked right,' Ahdio. I am a widow. I am free. I may even be able to smile again. I came straight here, with a caravan. I came looking for Ahdiomer Viz ... and I find one Ahdiovizun, wearing mail in a rough, low place peopled by rough, low patrons; tending bar and handling trouble with-with hands and strength alone?!"

He glanced away. "Yes, well ... this isn't Suma, and I had to leave. You know that." He took up a wet cloth and began rubbing the bar's counter-top.

"I know that you are a superlative wizard among wizards, and were surely on your way to being Chief Wizard and Advisor," she said, with a note almost of pleading in her voice. "And then you simply vanished." She looked around, gestured. "And I find you ... in this."

"I didn't vanish, Jodeera. I left because of a woman- she was the wife of a mighty well-off and powerful n.o.ble, and I loved her. I couldn't stand being so close to her; couldn't stand being in Suma anymore."

Perhaps he noticed her sudden pained look when he put the word "love" in the past tense; perhaps he did not. She was worse than uncomfortable; she felt positively wretched. Knowing that he was uncomfortable and worse did not help.

"I gave up my magickal practice," he said, staring at the bar, rubbing and rubbing it with his wet cloth. "Completely. I came here and became who and what I am. This is my life. And now-G.o.ds, Jo, G.o.ds ... why have you come here?"

She straightened up, lifted her chin, put back her shoulders. "Why don't you look at me, Ahdio, and I will tell you." She waited until he did so. She saw the torture in his large dark eyes and knew it showed in hers. First she swallowed hard, and then she told him: "Because that woman you loved; she loved you too and still does, and shamefully soon after Ezucar died, I came after you. Now I am not going to leave, my love; you might try throwing me out but I will not go back to Suma ... or anyplace else, except where you are."

With one huge hand on the bar as if he needed its support to keep his knees from buckling, he stared at her. The look of pain had not left his face. She could not imagine why until he said, "I am not about to take up Practice again, Jo.

That is behind me. The wizard Ahdiomer Viz is no more."

"Oh?" she said, putting her head a little to one side. "What about the cats? And that a.s.sistant of yours- Throde?"

Again he looked away from her stricken eyes and her beauty. He heard the rustle and the quiet footsteps as she moved toward him, but would not look; could not.

Could this be? Didn't she love what he had been, that brilliant and prospering Sumese wizard-on-the-rise? She was a woman of beauty and she had been married to wealth and power; Ezucar of Suma. This was ... this was Sly's Place.

And I am Ahdiovizun, not Ahdiomer Viz. Not anymore.

"That's different. That's all there is, and all there will be of my power and my Practice, Jodeera. I'm so out of practice that one of the cats left me and I can't even locate him. That's all buried. Ahdiovizun is the man who runs Sly's Place in the Maze in Sanctuary, and serves drinks wearing a coat of chain."

He partly turned and bent then, to wriggle his shoulders and let the mailcoat rustle clinkingly down over his head and arms. It became a smallish package, which he placed on the bar as if it were not at all heavy.

"Let it be buried with Ezucar then," she said softly, right beside him behind the bar, "and the rest of the past. The present is that I love you, Ahdio. What about the future? Can't we start it right now?"

He looked at her, and the tears he saw on her cheeks caused those in his eyes to well over. Then he was embracing her and being embraced, both of them striving to meld their bodies into one. The embrace lasted a long, long while, and surely no one who knew or thought he knew Ahdiovizun could imagine him weeping, as he wept now. Some of their murmuring was incoherent but most of it was the repeating of the other's name, over and over.

"Home is where Ahdio is," she murmured, in a moment of coherence, "and the rest of his name doesn't matter. I've come home."

At last she reminded him that he hadn't locked the front door. He did that, and they went upstairs.

The following night she was there, very much there and enough to bring gasps from every patron, men and women alike, and Ahdio stood and bellowed to gain their attention and silence while he made an announcement. What he made clear was that this was his woman. She had better not be touched or called out at or spoken to with disrespect. And Jodeera remained behind the counter, pouring, helping him and Throde.

Of course it did not work. Men who had never bothered to get themselves up and go to the bar kept doing so, rather than calling or signaling to Ahdio and Throde. They fetched and carried their own brew just to be able to approach the counter and have a look at her. Predictably, the looks became more intense and more l.u.s.tful as the night wore on and the beer and wine flowed. Inevitably someone made a remark. Then someone else did. Someone else, whether from a sense of honor and rightness or in order to curry Ahdio's favor, conked that man with his fired clay cup. It broke on a hard head. The collapsing man's brother went after the mug-wielder. Ahdio came after them both and Throde went after his staff. Jodeera stood looking on, feeling pained and wretched again and showing it.

Her very presence here had caused trouble. Perhaps both she and Ahdio had known it would happen, but both hoped it would work, her beauty in this place. They had' told themselves it would be all right, that it would work out, because they wanted it so.

So there was trouble. Ahdio ended it, and Ahdio closed early.

"Oh darling," she quavered through her weeping, "I'm so sorry!"

"It wasn't your fault and we both know it. And we also know that now you're here, after last night and today, I am not about to let you go. Nothing is going to interfere. Nothing!"

Holding her so fiercely that his hands hurt her upper arms, he stared at her.

His Jodeera, who had always been his Jodeera, but they had had to wait so long, so long. He knew what had to be done; what he had to do. He hated it, but he knew that he was going to do it. Tonight, Ahdiomer Viz had to be reborn. Just for tonight.

The hit on Throde came as he limped and tap-tapped homeward, leaning on his long staff. Since everyone knew he carried no money and was harmless, the motive of the three men was vengeance, not robbery. They could not get at Ahdio; they would have their fun with Throde. He recognized the ejected Tarkle and the two who had sat with him, and remained after.

They stood in a line across his path in the alley, smiling. To Throde, Tarkle loomed about as big as an outhouse. He made a show of looking all around. "Don't see Ahdio nowheres. Reckon he won't appear 'tween you and my fist this time.

Gimp!"

Throde said nothing, and Tarkle made his move.

Then Throde did. The cripple's staff practically leaped across him into both his hands, becoming the quarterstaff it was. Right end went low to whack Tarkle's left leg just below the knee, hard; Throde reversed the push and pull of his arms and the staff's other end rapped the man's right arm, between shoulder and elbow. The swiftness of Throde's a.s.suming the stance and delivering those blows was not believable, but Tarkle's pain was. He cried out at the first impact and moaned at the second. His better arm dropped to hang useless and he was staggering. Throde was still moving: third stroke high to catch the left side of Tarkle's neck with a meaty thup sound. The bully's only sound was a throaty noise. He went down. One of his astonished cronies had already started moving in; the third underwent a sudden attack of intelligence and paused to draw his dagger. Throde feinted to the right and drove the end of the stave straight into the stomach of his second attacker. He made a truly ugly noise and bent right over and Throde whacked him right on the top and back of his head. The fellow fell onto Tarkle. Tarkle was moving and groaning; his crony wasn't.