“Whoops,” Lilac slurred again, reddening, putting on the act of her life. “Looks like it’s time for that cartographer.”
Bog let out a sound of anguish, as if someone were kidnapping his firstborn. “What are you doing? Put my warlock down this instant!”
Garin, nearly at the door, slowed and glanced over his unoccupied shoulder, dubious. “Warlock?” he called across the bar. “Don’t you mean your bard?”
“No. I mean,yes—he isn’t very good at singing, but he is our bard nonetheless.Mybard. People pay to see him. Let him go.”
“Well, your bard’s had far too much to drink, and his singing is going to empty the bar faster than any scuffle with my wife.”
“Mathias! Lorenzo,” Bog called, and the two men who had addressed her before stalked from their corner and through the crows, past Garin, stopping in front of the front door.
Mathias? Lorenzo?These were the men who had hunted Daemons with Armand and Sinclair.
Garin stood before the pair, tall and unrelenting. “He collapsed at my feet. Surely you can see he is unwell. I’m simply taking him to get some fresh air.”
Bog stomped forward, while Lilac followed. “No, you’re not!” He took hold of Emrys’s arm and tried to heave him off Garin, but the vampire was already moving away, trying to dislodge the tavern owner.
“I am,” Garin said, a streak of human-like bravado crossing his face as he tugged back.
When Bog finally stumbled back, his face was full of rage. “You take my warlock, you leave me your prize of a wife. I’ll have her entertain us.” A glob of spittle landed at Garin’s feet. “In her wedding dress.”
“Yeah?” Garin laughed, politeness crumbling away to reveal his open derision. “She’ll insult your patrons, drink all your alcohol, and maybe draw you a better map. She won’t bring you the crowds?—”
There was acrack, and Garin stopped talking. He hadn’t moved at all, but he blinked in disbelief as his hand slowly went to his jaw.
Bog had punched him. The tavern owner chuckled, his first still balled,seemingly proud of his own courage, and said, “She might not, but setting her up in one of the chambers upstairs would.”
It all happened quickly. Garin slung Emrys across his back, and with a pivot of his shoulders, had Bog retreating against the door, Mathias and Lorenzo slowly easing away. Garin hadn’t even touched him, but with the way he was staring Bog down, Lilac knew the tavern owner would have been through the door if Garin didn’t have an image to maintain. A growl emanated from the vampire, and his back seemed to quake with the effort of refraining from pouncing.
Step by step, he closed in on Bog, whose instincts seemed to kick in and tell himsomethingbad would happen if he ran from the tall, lanky fellow before him.
Lilac grabbed up two slices of bread, slightly steaming, that had been left at a nearby table. One bite, and she would turn back. She could do it. She would, for him. Her word might not hold much power in Brocéliande, but this was different. These were her people, hate her as they might. She would threaten them into compliance if it meant saving him.
She pocketed one piece of rye and held the other tightly, concealed in her palm. Garin was right. It smelled delectable.
As Garin reached for him, she brought the piece to her mouth. His hand wrapped around Bog’s throat.
“So.” The voice of a man boomed from behind. Everyone turned, including Garin, who’d started so hard he’d almost dropped Emrys. Lilac did drop the piece of bread, which clicked hollowly upon the plank floor.
The entire inn had fallen quiet. A few knocks and calls from outside, now that the door had been blocked for several minutes, went unanswered. Several patrons stood off to the side, looking nervous, probably eager to leave.
An elderly man stood in his nightgown—silk, Lilac noted, with a fur shawl over thick robes—at the top of the staircase. He clung to the banister with one hand, a wooden cane with the other. He looked like he would collapse the moment he released either support. An eye patch covered his right eye, but the left was gray and milky. It was hard to tell where he was staring, but something told Lilac he was staring right through her soul.
Bog began to stammer. “S-sir, I’m sorry. They were causing unrest.”
A smile spread on the man’s face as he turned and started a slow, wobbly descent down the stairs. “Which one of you,” he asked, a word with each step, “disturbed my slumber?”
Garin breathed a low chuckle, but there was something tight about the sound.
The man finally reached the bottom and placed both hands on the cane. Anyone within five feet scurried back as he began making his way to the door. The cane scraped against the floor with each step.
“There are guests trying to steal our bard, my Lord,” said Bog, his voice taking on an unusual deference.
My Lord?
The man seemed to ignore the tavern keeper as he stopped several feet away, his good eye fixed on Garin. “Better yet, who was it that allowed this vampire into my tavern?”
8
