Achmed said nothing, merely nodded.
“Let us make our inquiries here,” Ashe said, his eyes red from exhaustion. “This is the last of the coastal towns; if no one here has seen her, I don’t know where else to look.”
“I doubt they have, but one might surmise that they could have seen Michael,” Achmed retorted, gesturing angrily at the ruins around them.
Together they shouldered their way through the gathering of townsmen who were still observing them and went into the tavern.
A lanky man with a sailor’s manner and a beard interposed himself in the doorway. “Can I help you, mates?”
“We are seeking victuals,” Achmed replied, casting his eyes around the tavern.
“And ale,” Ashe added. “And fresh horses.”
“Canna help you with the latter,” the man said, “there are none to be had. Those few that survived belong to the barkeep here, and he keeps them for the needs of Gavin’s foresters who are fighting the fires and seeking the fire-starters.” Without breaking his gaze away from them, he called to the barkeep over his shoulder.
“Hie, Barney! Customers.”
The young man on the other side of the bar looked up and motioned them nearer, signaling subtlely to the men at the door as well.
“What’ll it be, gents?”
“Food and drink,” Achmed replied. “We’re not particular, unless it’s mutton. If all you have is mutton, just give me ale and bread.”
“Bread and ale and thin cabbage soup is all I have,” the barkeep replied, setting two tankards on the board in front of them. “We have been a little—busy, as you might have noticed.”
The travelers nodded. “Did anyone come through here before the fire, asking after a woman?”
The barkeep exchanged a glance with the men at the door.
“Aye,” he said. “Three of ’em, one dressed much like you, sir.”
“Do you know where they went?”
The barkeep shook his head. “You might ask Old Barney; he may know. He’ll be here soon.”
“Old Barney? Is that your sire?”
The thin young man laughed. “I see you gentlemen don’t frequent taverns much.”
“I’ve drunk in my share,” replied Ashe, exhaustion making him testy. “Why do you say that?”
“Had you not noticed that all barkeeps are called Barney?”
Achmed shrugged. “As long as he keeps pouring my ale I’ve never thought to ask his name. Unless knowing him personally makes it cost less, I don’t care.”
The young man’s forced smile dimmed a notch. “It’s an ancient tradition, an old story. One that predates this land.”
“Oh?” Ashe asked, loosing his tentative hold on the dragon slightly to assess the man more thoroughly. His awareness noted the barkeep was not Cymrian, nor were any of the others huddled at the door, watching them intently, blades not drawn but at the ready. “Would you favor us with the telling of it?”
The barkeep exhaled. “Not much to tell. In an old land, far across the sea, long ago a barkeep named Barney overheard something that he shouldn’t have heard;’tis an occupational hazard amongst us, for good ale makes lips loose, and there are many in the taverns to whom a friendly face behind a bar seems the best friend in the world after a few pints. But this particular Barney, now, he was unfortunate enough to be the only man in the pub when something was witnessed or said that a fellow of large influence and small conscience did not want known, or repeated, or discovered.
“So the fellow hired the best assassin of the day, told him the name of the town thirty leagues away, and the name of the victim—a barkeep named Barney—paid him a handsome sum to send him on to the Afterlife. Not being from the area, he did not know the name of the tavern, but they both reasoned it would be fairly easy to discover.
“The assassin arrived in town, and made discreet inquires—much the way you folks are doing.” The barkeep raised an eyebrow, then continued as he wiped off the tavern board. “He asked the first few men he came across where he could find a tavern with a barkeep named Barney. And he got three different answers.
“He went a little further into town, and tried again, learning not only the names of four different taverns, but the fact that barkeeps are a nomadic lot; we tend to move around quite a bit, unless we own the tavern. The nature of the business, so to speak, and a precaution for our safety. Word had apparently spread of the original Barney’s plight, and so all the barkeeps in the town decided quickly that it was better for them all to share a single identity and the name that went with it, rather than allow their friend to pay for another man’s mistake.
“So the tradition continued. It spread all across the old land, a place that now is lost to the sea, and when those who came here from that place began building alehouses—which of course is often the first order of business—they all became ‘Barney’ as well.” He smiled slightly and went back to drying his tankards.
“That’s a fine tale, and this is fine ale,” Ashe said, putting his battered tankard back on the bar. “So does Old Barney own this establishment?”
“Aye,” said the barkeep. “This one, and this one alone, though I know he had one of the same name long ago and far away. He’s a right old man, sir—mayhap not the original Barney, but he might have known him.” He laughed at his own joke.
A slight commotion rose from the door; the group of men parted as an old man with a thick head of white hair passed through, whistling merrily.
“Speaking of which—here he is,” said the barkeep.
The man pulled the hat from his head and ran his hand through his hair, spattering off the spray of the sea, then hung his hat and jacket on a peg by the door and came to the bar, a gleam in his blue eyes. He ceased his whistle in midnote.
“Just tellin’ these gents the story of our name, Barney,” the young barkeep said, putting the clean tankards under the bar. “They’ve been asking after those men who came through here three days ago.”
Old Barney nodded as he came around behind the bar; he reached for an apron beneath it and as he stood his eye caught the faces of the two travelers. He stood suddenly straighter, then leaned forward and quietly addressed them both.
“Pray come with me, sirs. I’m sure we have a better, more private table for gentlemen of your stature.” He turned and beckoned for them to follow him to the rear of the tavern.
Achmed and Ashe looked at each other in surprise. Neither was wearing any insignia or markings indicating their position; in fact, the journey had been arduous enough that their appearance had caused them to be denied entrance to a few establishments along the way. They rose from their stools and followed Old Barney to the back table he had indicated.
“You know us, Grandfather?” Ashe asked as they slipped into the rickety chairs.
“Aye, m’lord,” the tavernkeeper replied, nodding his head deferentially to each of them.
“How?” Achmed demanded.
The old man’s eyes took on a gleam.
“I am of the Island, too,” he said in Old Cymrian. “I was there at your investiture, Lord Gwydion; I fought that day in the battle against the Fallen, though I am not as spry a man as I once was. And I saw you there, standing as host of the Moot, Majesty,” he said to Achmed.
“Please speak Orlandan, Grandfather,” Ashe said quietly. “Though I understand you, my grasp of Old Cymrian is academic; my father insisted I study die language, but it was long dead ere my birth. It is important that I grasp fully everything you have to say.”
“Once again your inadequacy compromises us, Ashe,” Achmed said.
“Why do I not know you?” the Lord Cymrian asked the elderly man, studying the shining blue eyes, the wrinkled face, the thick head of hair whiter than salt. “I wore the Patriarch’s Ring of Wisdom for a time, and believed that it revealed to me the names of all those from the Island who were still alive. And yet I know you not—why?”
The tavernkeeper smiled. “Because my name is not my own, m’lord,” he said pleasantly. “It belongs to a brotherhood that predates the exodus. My fealty to that brotherhood is more elder, and more powerful, than any pledge I, like the others who fled the destruction of Serendair, made to your grandfather Gwylliam. So, with respect, you have no claim on me.” He leaned forward slightly. “But your wife does.”