Chapter 1: Two Men Walk into a Bar
Sunlight came through the tavern’s high moon window in pale bars, undercut by the steady drum of rain on the roof.
Ember paused in her washing to look up at it.
It had been a while since she had stood outside in either. She could not remember the last time. The thought sat with her a moment, no heavier than the suds on her wrists, then she went back to the mugs. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow. The dress was old and frayed at the cuffs, but it was the only one the owner let her work in, and he would notice if the front went dark with bar water. He noticed most things. The last time he had noticed something, she had spent four days in her room without pay.
She caught it then — not a sound exactly, but a change in the tavern’s rhythm.
She kept washing.
Across the bar, a man sat watching the same window she had been watching.
He was older. Long black hair gone to tangles, a beard that had been let go, a jacket worn through at one elbow. The clothes told one story and his eyes told another. Ember had been at the bar long enough to know the difference. She wiped down the wood in front of him.
“I’ve never seen it before,” she said, just loud enough.
“The sun on a rainy day?” He swirled the last of his drink without looking up. His fingers worked at his beard. “They say it’s good luck.”
He set the empty glass down.
“Maybe I should try my hand at cards before it goes.”
A bronze coin slid across the bar with a soft scrape. He tapped the rim of the glass.
“What do you think?”
Ember took the coin and the glass and bent to refill it from the cask by her feet.
“Wouldn’t the man across from you have the same luck?” she said. “He’s under the same sky.”
The man considered that.
He scratched his head. His brow furrowed in the deliberate, careful way of a drunk trying to follow his own thought.
“If we’re both lucky,” he said slowly, “then what’s the point.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“No, no. Hold on.” He held up one finger. “Maybe it’s only good luck if you’ve noticed it. The sun. Through the rain. Maybe that’s how it… transfers.”
“Maybe.”
She set the full glass back in front of him.
She brushed her hair from her face as she straightened, slow enough for him to see her do it.
“Doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, though.”
“Doesn’t have to!” The man’s voice rose enough that two seated drinkers turned their heads. “Luck is random. You don’t question it when you get it. You take it and you run. Right?”
She smiled. She shrugged.
The man stood.
He reached into his jacket and brought out a silver coin and held it up between his fingers. The lamplight caught it. Ember kept her face still. A silver was three nights of work, four if it was a slow week, and the man had not yet decided what he was going to do with it.
He lowered it toward the bar.
He stopped an inch above the wood.
“Do you think you’re lucky?”
He held her eyes when he said it. Something in his face had sharpened.
Ember let her shoulders go and folded her hands in front of her dress.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re about to win at cards.” A small smile. “And I’m not.”
The man stared at her.
Then he laughed.
He laughed loud enough that the room turned to look, set the silver down on the bar, and weaved off toward the curtained doorway in the back corner where the games ran. Ember waited until his back was to her before she let the smile drop. She glanced once around the room. Then the coin was in her boot.
The tavern doors swung open before she had straightened up.
She turned smiling. “Welcome to the —”
It was the owner.
The town soldiers came in behind him, six of them, armor catching the lamplight, the Crown’s mark stamped on every chest. They shoved through the doorway shoulder first. Two of them already had their swords out for no reason she could see.
“Ember!” the owner called across the room. Cheerful. For their benefit. “A table for our town’s great protectors!”
The soldiers roared.
He reached her and put a hand on her arm as if guiding her forward.
“Don’t mess this up,” he said under it.
“Right this way, gentlemen.” She did not look at him.
She led them to the long table in the center of the floor. They dropped into the chairs hard enough to scrape them on the boards. The captain, the one with the better sword and the worse manners, caught her eye as she set the platter down.
“Round of the good stuff,” he said.
She nodded and turned to go.
His hand closed on her skirt.
She did not jerk. She had learned a long time ago not to jerk. She turned back as if he had only spoken.
“Keep it coming,” he said, gesturing to the table. “We’re going to have some fun tonight!”
She gave him a small curtsy and pulled the fabric out of his fingers as she straightened, the motion light enough to be mistaken for charm. Then she crossed back toward the bar.
A few more hours. Then the day would be over.
Maybe she’d run, she thought.
The thought made her smile.
It was a stupid thought. She had it most nights.
She loaded the platter and started back across the floor. She did not see the puddle where the door had let in the rain. Her boot found it before her eyes did.
The platter went sideways.
She felt the weight tip before she felt her foot slide. She caught at the edge of it. It was already too far gone. Her other hand went out for nothing.
A hand caught her under the elbow.
Another caught the platter at the rim.
The grip on her arm was hard enough that it would mark later, but the drinks did not spill. Not one. Ember looked up.
The man holding her was tall and tired-looking. Short blond hair, uncombed. A maroon jacket gone soft at the seams and patched at one shoulder. He looked at her without much in his face at all. Then she noticed his eyes.
One hazel. One blue.
“Thanks —”
He grunted and let her go and moved past her toward an empty table along the wall.
“Don’t mind him.”
She turned. Another man stood at her shoulder, a half step behind where the first had been. Taller than his friend. Dark-complected — the kind they called Ret in this town, though she had only ever seen the word borne out in passing travelers, never sat across from one. Blue shirt. Gray overcoat. He gave her an apologetic smile.
“He’s not one for conversation.”
Something in her face must have caught on the word, because something caught in his, too. Only for a moment. Then it was past, and he was looking at her the way he had been a second before, friendly and a little tired, and she could not have said for certain that anything had happened at all.
“That’s all right.” She found her feet under her again. “I’d have fallen if he hadn’t caught me.”
“Sorry if he startled you.”
“Not at all.” She gestured at the open table. “Take whichever seats you like. I’ll be over.”
She started to turn, then paused.
She stepped closer to him.
“You may want to cover that up,” she said quietly.
His brow lifted.
She glanced down at his waist. A bronze hilt was showing under the line of his coat, carved with a pattern that did not belong to any town blade she had ever seen. She let her eyes flick toward the soldiers’ table without moving her head.
The man followed her look. Then he shifted his coat. The hilt was gone.
He turned back to her with something close to a smile.
“Thanks.” A pause. “I’m Jet, by the way.”
“Ember.” She returned the smile small. “Give me a minute.”
She crossed back to the soldiers.
The captain had just shoved two drinks into the hands of the youngest at the table, a boy who did not look old enough to be in armor.
“Time to be a man, boy.”
The young one drank the whiskey. Then the ale. Then he leaned sideways and emptied both onto the wall beside him.
The rest of the table cheered.
Ember got the mop.
When she came back to Jet’s table, the blond-haired man — Noel — was already in his chair against the wall, watching the room without seeming to.
“What can I get you?” she asked.
“Does that happen often?” Jet said.
She thought about the soldiers. They came every night.
“It’s not so bad,” she said. “Besides. What can we do? They’re soldiers.”
She smiled and waited.
Jet watched the soldiers’ table a moment longer.
“One beer for me,” he said. “Three for Noel.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“He can hold his own,” Jet said. “I promise you won’t need the mop.”
“You did save me from one mess tonight,” she said. “I suppose I’ll trust you.”
Noel gave a small nod.
She brought the drinks. Noel finished the first before Jet had taken two sips of his own. Jet did not seem to mind.
“Say, Ember.” He leaned forward a little on his elbows. “Is there a spare room? We were just traveling through the area, but now we need a place to wait out the storm somewhere dry.”
“Of course.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “We keep rooms ready. We get a lot of travelers.”
Her eyes went, without her meaning them to, to where his coat hid the bronze hilt. The carving on it had been clean and deliberate. Travelers carried simple swords. Travelers did not carry blades like that.
The owner was watching her from across the room.
She looked away.
Jet kept going.
“Any last-minute work, before we head out? Anything no one else could take care of? People like us are always looking.”
His eyes went past her shoulder toward the bar.
She cut in before they could land.
“No. Nothing like that here. Not an unpleasant soul in this tavern.” She stepped back. Curtsied. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
She left.
Jet watched her go.
Then he turned to Noel.
“You know you can introduce yourself.”
Noel finished his third ale.
“The soldiers.” Jet kept his voice low. “Any of them stand out to you?”
Noel looked, briefly. He reached over and took Jet’s ale and finished that too.
“No.”
“She got tense when I looked at the owner,” Jet said. “That might be worth a look.”
“How do you know he’s the owner?”
Jet tipped his head toward the bar.
The man behind it was already up and crossing the floor toward the soldiers’ table, a fresh round in both hands, calling out as he came that the next was on the house, for the brave defenders of the town.
“You know, old man,” the captain said, taking the drink. “Your barmaid’s quite the flower.”
The owner laughed politely.
“She’s family, you said?” The captain looked over at Ember at the bar, then back. “We’d be glad to take her off your hands. For this young one.”
The other soldiers laughed. The young one — pale now, mouth still sour from the wall — looked over at Ember and went red.
The owner laughed with them.
“Come on now, men. She’s family.” He waved a hand. “Parting with her would be very… expensive.”
“She doesn’t look like family,” Noel said.
His voice was quiet. He had not taken his eyes off the soldiers’ table.
“She’s going to get hurt working in a place like this.”
Jet could hear it starting. The pull in his voice. He knew where Noel went when it started.
“Maybe the family thing’s an act,” he said. “To bring in business. Maybe she’s supporting her real family somewhere.”
Noel did not answer.
Jet let out a breath.
“Let’s get some sleep. I’m tired. I’m sure she’s fine.”
He stood and stretched.
After a moment, Noel stood too.
Ember saw them go from across the room.
The blond one moved like he had not quite agreed to be moving. The other walked at his shoulder, saying something low that she could not hear. They climbed the stairs and were gone.
She watched the empty doorway a moment longer than she needed to.
She did not know why.
Then a soldier called for another round, and the owner’s eyes found her across the floor, and she picked up the platter and went back to work.
The Silent Beggar's Anthology 