Tinwright sighed in irritation. He absolutely did not want to go back into the muddy street to drag the man out of danger, but Puzzle was the closest thing to a friend he had these days and he was reluctant to see the old fellow crushed by a wagon.
“Puzzle! The gods damn your shoes, man, come on! That beast will be standing on you in another moment!”
The jester looked up, blinking. Puzzle was dressed in what Tinwright thought of as his civilian attire, funereal dark hose and hooded cloak and a hat whose giant, bedraggled brim made it hard for him to see beyond his own muddy feet. It was a far more comic outfit than his motley could ever be; Tinwright thought the old man should wear it to entertain the nobility.
“Hoy!” shouted Tinwright. The jester seemed to see him at last, then looked around at the approaching oxcart, the irritated animal and its team of cursing drovers so intent on skidding down the muddy street that Puzzle might as well be invisible. He blinked and swallowed, finally understanding his peril. One storklike leg went out, his muck-covered slipper reaching unreasonably for the distant board, then he stepped off and directly into the mud and with a few squeaks and thrashes sank in up to his skinny thighs.
It was fortunate for Puzzle that the oxcart and its drovers were more at tentive than they had seemed. He suffered nothing worse than a further splattering as the cart slewed to a stop a yard or two away. The ox lowered its head and stared at the blinking, mud-slathered jester as though it had never seen such a strange creature.
It was not the entrance that Tinwright had planned, so it was just as well that his old haunt the Quiller’s Mint was dark and crowded and scarcely anyone even glanced up to see them come in. A trio of outland soldiers laughed at the brown shell hardening on Puzzle’s lower extremities, but made a little room for the shivering old man as Tinwright deposited him beside the fire. He snagged the potboy as he ran past—a child of nine or ten had replaced Gil, he noticed, doubtless one of Conary’s multitude of relatives, but young enough not to have become work-shy yet—and bade the boy bring a brush and some rags to get ofFthe worst of the mud. This done, Tinwright sauntered up to the serving table where Conary was breaching a cask. It was a real table now, not just a trestle-board; the poet couldn’t help being impressed and a little irritated. The coming siege had brought some good to someone, as the crowd of unfamiliar drinkers gathered in the Quiller s Mint proved, but it did take a bit of the luster offTin-wright’s own advancement in the world.
Conary’s look was sour, but it took in the huge ruff and the new jacket. “Tinwright, you whoreson, you stole my potboy.”
“Stole him? Not I. Rather, it was him that nearly got me banged up in the stronghold under the keep. But good has come of it, so I do not begrudge him. I am the princess regent’s poet now.” He examined a stool, then wiped it with a kerchief before sitting down.
“The princess gone deaf, then, has she? Poor girl, as if she didn’t have troubles enough.” Conary put his hands on his hips. “And if you’re nz so high in the world, you can bloody well pay me them three starfish you owe, or I’ll have the town watch in to pitch you into the street again.”
Tinwright had forgotten about that and couldn’t help making a face, but he had come flush today thanks to money he had borrowed from Puzzle, and he did his best to move the coins ungrudgingly from his purse to the tabletop. “Of course. I was detained at the pleasure of the regent, you see, or else I would have been back to pay you long ago.”
Conary looked at the coppers as though for the first time—new ruff and quilted jacket notwithstanding—he might consider believing in Tinwright ‘s exalted new position. “Are you drinking, then?”
“Aye. And my companion is the king’s own royal jester, so you would do well to bring a jug of your best ale over to the fire. None of that rubbish you give everyone else.” He waved his hand grandly.
“Another starfish, then,” said Conary. “Because them three are mine, remember?”
Tinwnght grunted—was he not clearly now worthy of credit?—but disdainfully dropped another coin on the tabletop.
Puzzle appeared to have thawed out a bit, although he had abandoned the scraping of his soiled hose and slippers with quite a bit of mud still on them and was staring into the fire as though trying to imagine what such a fascinatingly hot and shiny thing might be called.
“Now, is this not better than trying to find a place to drink in the castle kitchens?” Tinwright asked him loudly, “with the soldiers elbowing and shoving like geese fighting for grain?”
Puzzle looked up. “I… I think I have been in this place before, long ago. It burned down, didn’t it?” Tinwright waved his hand. “Aye, many years back, or so I’m told. It is a low place, but it has its charms. A poet must drink with the common folk or else he will lose himself from too much contemplation of high things, so I sometimes came here before I was raised up.” He looked around to see if anyone had noted his remarks, but the outlanders by the fire were playing at dice and paying no attention.
“Well, well.” A jug of ale and two tankards clanked down onto the hearth at their feet and Puzzle’s eyes bulged at the expanse of bosom revealed by the woman bending over. She straightened up. “Matty Tinwright. I thought you were dead or gone back to West Wharfside.”
He gave Brigid his most amiable nod. “No, I have had other duties that have kept me away.” She pinched at his jacket, let a ringer trail across his starched ruff. “It seems you’ve come high in the world, Matty.”
This was more like it. He smiled and turned to Puzzle. “You see, they remember me here.” The old man didn’t appear to be listening very closely. His weak eyes were following the quiver of flesh above Brigid’s bodice like a starving man eyeing a dripping roast. Tinwright turned back to the girl. “Yes, Zosim has smiled on me. I am now poet to the princess regent herself.”
The wench frowned a little, but then her own smile came back. “Still, you must get a bit lonely up at the castle, even with all those fine ladies. You must miss your old friends—your old bed… ?”
Now it had become a bit much, and even though the old man was still goggling at the girl’s breasts, happily oblivious, Tinwright himself didn’t really want to be reminded of his previous situation. “Ah, yes,” he said, and though he spoke airily he gave her a stern look. “I suppose a few nights Hewney and Theodoros and I did sleep here after having a few scoops too many. Riotous times.” He turned for a moment to Puzzle. “We poets have a weakness for strong drink because it sets the fancy free to roam.” He patted Brigid on the bum, as much to get her attention as anything else, and tried to slip her a ha’fish. “Now, my girl, if you don’t mind, my companion and I have important business to discuss.” She stared at him and his proffered coin. “Be a good lass, Brigid—that is your name, if I remember correctly, yes… ?”
Afterward he was glad she had not been holding a mug or a tray, but even the bare-handed slap on the back of the skull was enough to bring tears to his eyes and pitch his new hat into the ashes at the front of the hearth.
“You dog!” she said, so loud that half the crowded tavern turned to watch. “A few days past the walls of the inner keep and you think your pizzle has turned to solid silver? At least when Nevin Hewney falls asleep on top of a girl, drooling and farting and limp as custard, he doesn’t pretend he’s done her a favor.”