"I... we, will be in need of a room," Oliver said. "Have you any?"

"Your own," Tasman replied sourly.

Oliver smiled widely-he had liked his old place. He reached into a pocket and counted out the appropriate amount of silver coins, then started to hand them over.

"Though I suspect it will need a bit of cleaning up," Tasman added, reaching for the coins, which Oliver promptly retracted.

"The price is the same," Tasman a.s.sured him sharply.

"But the work-" Oliver began to protest.

"Is needed because of your own antics!" Tasman finished.

Oliver considered the words for a moment, then nodded as though he really couldn't argue the logic. With a shrug, he extended his arm once more and Tasman reached for the payment.

"Throw in a very fine drink for me and my friend," Oliver said, not letting go.

"Done, and you're drinking them," Tasman agreed. He took the money and moved off to the side.

When Oliver looked back to Luthien, he found the young man eyeing him suspiciously. The halfling let out a profound sigh.

"I was here before," he explained.

"I figured that much," Luthien replied.

Oliver sighed deeply again. "I came here in the late spring on a boat from Gascony," Oliver began. He went on to tell of a "misunderstanding" with some of the locals and explained that he had gone north just a few weeks before in search of honest work. All the while, Tasman stood off to the side, wiping gla.s.ses and smirking as he listened to the halfling, but Luthien, who had seen firsthand the reason Oliver, the highwayhalfling, had gone north, didn't need Tasman's doubting expression to tell him that Oliver was omitting some very important details and filling in the holes with products of his own imagination.

Luthien didn't mind much, though, for he could guess most of the truth-mainly that Oliver had probably been run out of town by some very angry merchants and had willingly gone north following the caravans. As he came to know the halfling, the mystery of Oliver deBurrows was fast diminishing, and he was confident that he would soon be able to piece together a very accurate account of Oliver's last pa.s.sage through Montfort. No need to press the issue now.

Not that Luthien could have anyway, for Oliver's tale ended abruptly as a shapely woman walked by. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were rather large and only partially covered by a low-cut, ruffled dress. She returned the halfling's smile warmly.

"You will excuse me," Oliver said to Luthien, never taking his eyes from the woman, "but I must find a place wherein to warm my chilly lips." Off the high stool he slid, and he hit the ground running, cornering the woman a few feet down the bar and climbing back up onto a stool in front of her so that he would be eye-to-eye with her.

Eye-to-chest would have been a better description, a fact that seemed to bother Oliver not at all. "Dear lady," he said dramatically, "my proud heart prompts my dry tongue to speak. Surely you are the most beautiful rose, with the largest..." Oliver paused, looking for the words and unconsciously holding his palms out in front of his own chest as he spoke. "Thorns," he said, poetically polite, "with which to pierce my halfling heart."

Tasman chuckled at that one, and Luthien thought the whole scene perfectly ridiculous. Luthien was amazed, though, to find that the woman, nearly twice Oliver's size, seemed sincerely flattered and interested.

"Any woman for that one," Tasman explained, and Luthien noticed sincere admiration in the gruff barkeep's voice. He looked at the man skeptically, to which Tasman only replied, "The challenge, you see."

Luthien did not "see," did not understand at all as he turned back to observe Oliver and the woman talking comfortably. The young Bedwyr had never looked at women in such an objectified way. He thought of Katerin O'Hale and imagined her turning Oliver upside down by his ankles and bouncing his head off the ground a few times for good measure if he had ever approached her in such a bold manner.

But this woman seemed to be enjoying the attention, however shallow, however edged by ulterior motives. Never had Luthien felt so out of place in all his young life. He continued to think of Katerin and all his friends. He wished that he was back in Dun Varna (and not for the first or the last time), beside his friends and his brother-the brother that Luthien was resigning himself to believe he would never see again. He wished that Viscount Aubrey had never come to his world and changed everything.

Luthien turned back to the bar, staring at nothing in particular, and drank down the ale in a single swig. Sensing his discomfort, Tasman, who was not a bad sort, filled the flagon once more and slid it in front of Luthien, then walked away before the man could either decline the drink or offer payment.

Luthien accepted the gift with an appreciative nod. He swung about on the stool, looking back at the crowd: the thugs and rogues, the cyclopians, itching for a fight, and the st.u.r.dy dwarfs, who appeared to be more than ready to give them one. Luthien didn't even realize his own movements as his hand slipped to the pommel of his sword.

He felt a slight touch on that arm, and jerked alert to find that a woman had come over and was half sitting, half standing on the stool Oliver had vacated.

"Just into Montfort?" she asked.

Luthien gulped and nodded. Looking at her, he could only think of a cheaper version of Avonese. She was heavily painted and perfumed, her dress cut alluringly low in the front.

"With lots of money, I would bet," she purred, rubbing Luthien's arm, and then the young man began to catch on. He felt suddenly trapped, but he had no idea of how he might get out of this without looking like a fool and insulting the woman.

A yell cut through the din of the crowd, then, silencing all and turning their heads to the side. Luthien didn't even have to look to know that Oliver was somehow involved.

Luthien leaped from his seat and rushed past the lady before she could even turn back to him. He pushed his way through the mob to find Oliver standing tall (for a halfling) before a huge rogue with a dirty face and threadbare clothing, an alley-fighter sporting a metal plate across his knuckles. A couple of friends flanked the man, urging him on. The woman Oliver had been wooing also stood behind the man, inspecting her fingernails and seeming insulted by the whole incident.

"The lady cannot make up her own mind?" Oliver asked casually. Luthien was surprised that the halfling's rapier and main gauche were still tucked securely in their sheaths; if this large and muscular human leaped at him, what defense could the little halfling offer?

"She's mine," the big man declared, and he spat a wad of some chewing weed to the floor between Oliver's widespread feet. Oliver looked down at the mess, then back at the man.

"You do know that if you had hit my shoe, you would have to clean it," Oliver remarked.

Luthien rubbed a hand across his face, stunned by the halfling's stupidity, stunned that Oliver, outnumbered at least three to one, and outweighed at least ten to one, would invite such a lopsided fight.

"You speak as if she was your horse," Oliver went on calmly. To Luthien's amazement, the halfling then spoke past the man to the woman who had been the subject of the whole argument. "Surely you deserve better than this oaf, dear lady," the halfling said, sweeping off his hat as he spoke.

On came the growling man, predictably, but Oliver moved first, stepping into rather than sidestepping the charge and snapping his head forward and down, a head b.u.t.t that caught the bullish man right between the pumping thighs and stopped him dead in his tracks.

He straightened, his eyes crossed, and he reached down over his flattened crotch with two trembling hands.

"Not thinking of any ladies now, are you?" Oliver taunted.

The man groaned and toppled over, and Oliver slipped to the side. One of the man's companions was there to take his place, though, with dagger drawn. The weapon started forward, only to be intercepted right over Oliver's head by Luthien's sword and thrown out wide. Luthien's free hand struck fast, a straightforward punch that splattered the man's nose and launched him toward the floor.

"Ow!" Luthien cried, flapping his bruised knuckles.

"Have you met my friend?" Oliver asked the downed man.

The remaining thug came forward, also holding a dagger, and Luthien stopped his flapping and readied his sword, thinking that another fight was upon him. Oliver leaped out, instead, drawing rapier and main gauche.

The crowd backed away; Luthien noticed the Praetorian Guards looking on with more than a pa.s.sing interest. If Oliver killed or seriously wounded the man, Luthien realized, he would likely be arrested on the spot.

A gasp arose as the man lunged with the dagger, but Oliver easily dodged, moved aside, and slapped the man on the rump with the side of his rapier. Again the stubborn thug came on, and again Oliver parried and slapped.

The man Luthien had hit was starting to get up again, and Luthien was about to jump in to meet him, but the woman, charmed by Oliver's attention, was there first. She neatly removed one shoe, holding it up protectively in front of her, seeming the lady all the while. Then her visage turned suddenly savage and she launched a barrage of barefooted kicks on the man's face so viciously that he fell back to the ground, squirming and ducking.

That brought cheers from the onlookers.

Oliver continued to toy with the thug for a few pa.s.ses, then went into a wild routine, his blades dancing every which way, crossing hypnotically and humming as they cut the air. A step and a thrust brought the main gauche against the man's dagger, and a twist of Oliver's wrist sent the weapon spinning free.

Oliver jumped back and lowered his weapons, looking from the stunned thug to the fallen dagger.

"Enough of this!" the halfling shouted suddenly, quieting the whispering and gasping crowd.

"You are thinking that you can get to the weapon," Oliver said to the man, locking stares with him. "Perhaps you are correct." The halfling tapped the brim of his hat with his rapier. "But I warn you, sir, the next time I disarm you, you may take the word as a literal description!"

The man looked at the dagger one last time, then rushed away into the crowd, bringing howls of laughter. Oliver bowed gracefully after the performance and replaced his weapons, gingerly stepping by the original rogue, who was still p.r.o.ne and groaning, clutching at his groin.

Many of the dispersing group, particularly the dwarves, chose a path that took them close enough so that they could pat the daring and debonair halfling on the back-salutes that Oliver accepted with a sincere smile.

"Back five minutes and already there's trouble!" Tasman remarked when the halfling and Luthien returned to their seats at the bar. It didn't seem to Luthien, however, that the man was really complaining.

"But sir," Oliver replied, seeming truly wounded, "there was the reputation of a lady to consider."

"Yeah," Tasman agreed. "A lady with large ... thorns."

"Oh!" the halfling cried dramatically. "You do so wound me!"

Oliver was laughing again when he returned his gaze to Luthien, sitting open-mouthed and amazed by it all.

"You will learn," Oliver remarked.

Luthien wasn't sure if that was a promise or a threat.

Chapter 14.

THE FIRST JOB.

Luthien thought "Tiny Alcove" the most ridiculous name he had ever heard for a street-until Oliver, leading him through the shabby avenues of dilapidated wooden buildings, turned a corner and announced that they were home. Tiny Alcove was more an alley than a street, barely eight feet wide and shrouded in the shadows of tall buildings whose main entrances were on other fronts.

The two walked down through the gloom of a moonless night, gingerly stepping over the bodies of those drunken men who had not made it to their own doors, or had no doors to call their own. A single street lantern burned in the lane above a broken railing and chipped stairs that led down to an ironbound door. As they pa.s.sed, Luthien noticed other lights burning within and the huddled shadows of people moving about.

"Thieving guild," Oliver explained in a whisper.

"Were you a member?" Luthien thought the question perfectly reasonable, but the look Oliver gave to him showed that the halfling apparently did not share his feelings.

"I?" Oliver asked imperiously, and he chuckled and walked on, out of the lamplight and into the gloom.

Luthien caught up to him across the lane and four doors down, on the top step of another descending stone stairway that ended in a narrow, but long landing and a wooden door. Oliver paused there for a long, long while, studying the place quietly, stroking his neatly trimmed goatee.

"This was my house," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

Luthien did not reply, caught up in the halfling's curious posture. Oliver was tentative, seemed almost afraid.

"We cannot go down there," the halfling announced.

"One must learn to sense these things?" Luthien asked, to which Oliver only smiled and turned, stepping back up to the street level. The halfling stopped abruptly and snapped his fingers, then spun back and whipped his main gauche down the stairs. It hit the door with a loud thump and hung quivering.

Luthien started to ask what the halfling thought he was doing, but the young man was interrupted by a dozen rapid clicking noises, the sound of stone sc.r.a.ping stone, and a sudden hiss. He spun back toward the door, then hopped up next to Oliver as darts ricocheted off the stone stairs. The bottom of the landing burned with a hot fire, and as Luthien stared on in disbelief, a large block of stone slid out from above the doorway, crashing down into the flames.

As though a giant had peeked over the edge of the stairs and puffed out a candle, the flames suddenly disappeared.

"Now we can go down there," Oliver said, and hooked his fingers into his wide belt. "But do watch where you put your feet. The darts were likely poisoned."

"Somebody does not like you," the stunned Luthien remarked, slowly following the halfling.

Oliver grabbed the hilt of the main gauche and gave a great tug, but it did not pull free from the door. "That is only because they never came to know my most charming personality," he explained. He stood straight, hands on hips, and eyed the weapon as though it was a stubborn enemy.

"Too bad you don't have your main gauche," Luthien quipped behind him, seeing his dilemma. "You could disarm the door."

Oliver turned a not appreciative glare on his friend. Luthien reached over the halfling for the stuck dagger, but Oliver slapped his arm away. Before Luthien could protest, Oliver leaped up, grabbed the hilt of the main gauche in both hands, and planted his feet on the door on either side of it.

A heave brought the blade free, and sent Oliver, and Oliver's great hat, flying. He did a backward somersault, landing nimbly on his feet, and caught his hat as he slipped the main gauche back into its scabbard.

"My most charming personality," he announced again, quite pleased with himself, and Luthien, though he hated to admit it to Oliver, was quite pleased as well.

The halfling bowed and swept his arm out toward the door, indicating that Luthien should go first. The young Bedwyr almost fell for it, dipping a similar bow and stepping for the door. He reached for the handle, but then straightened and looked back at Oliver.

"It was your house," he said, stepping to the side.

Oliver brushed his cloak back from his shoulders and boldly strode past Luthien. With a single steadying breath, he yanked the door open. A smell of soot a.s.saulted both the friends, and though the light was practically nonexistent, they could see that the inside wood of the door was blackened. Oliver huffed and took a tentative step over the threshold, then quickly retracted his foot.

A double-bladed pendulum swung past, just inside the door jamb. Its supporting beam creaking, it swung back and forth several times, finally coming to a halt in a vertical position directly centering the door.

"Someone really did not like you," Luthien said again.

"Not true," Oliver quickly replied, and he gave Luthien a mischievous smile. "This trap was my own!" Oliver tipped his hat and gingerly stepped past the pendulum.

Luthien smiled and started to follow, but stopped when he realized the implications of Oliver's game. Oliver had bade him to go first, but the halfling had obviously known about the pendulum trap! Muttering with every step, Luthien entered the apartment.

Oliver was over to the left, fidgeting with an oil lamp. The halfling added some oil and finally got it going, though its gla.s.s was gone and its frame had been bent and charred.

Something powerful had hit the place. Every piece of furniture was smashed down and blackened, and the layers of carpets had been burned away to clumps of worthless rags. Smoke hung thickly in the stagnant air, though no traces of any heat remained.

"A magical fireball," Oliver remarked casually. "Or an elvish hot wine."

"Elvish hot wine?"

"A bottle of potent oils," the halfling explained, kicking aside the remains of what looked to have been a chair. "Topped with a lighted rag. So very effective."

Luthien was amazed at how well Oliver seemed to be taking the disaster. Though the light from the battered lamp was dim, it was obvious to Luthien that nothing remained of the place's contents, and obvious, too, that some of those contents had been quite valuable.

"We will find no sleep this night," Oliver said. He opened one of his saddlebags and fished out a plain, less expensive suit of clothing.

"You mean to start cleaning right away?" Luthien asked.

"I do not wish to sleep out in the street," Oliver replied matter-of-factly. And so they went to work.

It took two days of hard labor to clean out the debris and air out the smoke. The friends left periodically during that time, back to the Dwelf for meals, and to the stables to check on their mounts. Each time, they found groups of children hovering about and in their apartment when they returned-curious waifs, half-starved and dirty. Luthien didn't miss the fact that Oliver always brought back a good part of his own meal for them.