Dolanna's directions took them to a slightly better part of the city, a neighborhood where the paint was a bit fresher and the streets not as populated by salt-smelling men. A residential area, where the citizens lived and the better or more refined inns and taverns could be found. She pointed Azakar to an inn called the Dancing Swan. "That is where we will go," she told him. "I have stayed here before."
"Looks common," Keritanima said, sniffing slightly.
"It appears common, Kaylin," Dolanna said, using Keritanima's assumed name. "But you will not find a more interesting innkeeper."
"Really," she drawled as Azakar opened the door.
The interior was clean, well maintained, and elegantly decorated. Art hung on the walls, and a young, handsome boy sat in the corner playing a curious wooden instrument with strings that he held under his chin. The sound of the instrument was haunting, and it was quite lovely. The place smelled of humans and alcohol, but the most sumptuous smells of roasting beef, pork, and goose wafted from a door in the back. A huge chaba wood bar, deeply burnished so the red hue of the wood shined, dominated the back wall of the inn, and the floor was peppered with a great many circular tables, all with padded chairs pushed underneath them. There were a surprising number of patrons, filling the tables, as well-dressed serving maids moved between them with grace and poise. A large man stood behind the bar, serving drinks, but it was not to him that Dolanna looked. She looked to a man dressed in a white silk shirt with a brown vest, a man that looked young and vibrant, with dark hair and handsome looks. He had a slightly narrow face and looked light-boned and slender, but the warm smile on his face seemed to brighten the room.
"Snazzy," Miranda said, looking around.
"Elegant," Keritanima agreed.
Dolanna walked up to the table and lowered her veil, which made the man's face light in recognition. "Madame Dolanna!" he said with a slightly twanged voice, a Torian accent. "So good of you to visit with me again! I didn't know that you had your eyes on marriage, or I would have suited you," he said with a sly wink.
She smiled. "A costume, nothing more, good Haley," she replied. "I have need to move about without eyes following me. How have you been?"
"I've been destitute without your company," he said in a completely insincere voice. "My nights have been long and lonely, and all the color has bled from the flowers."
"Flatterer," she said with a slight smile, motioning for the others to join her. When they got closer to him, Tarrin caught his scent, and it almost immediately made his hackles raise. It seemed human, but there was something more in it, something extra. He wasn't entirely human. "Haley, you remember Faalken. These are the other members of my group. Azakar, Dar, Allia, Mistresses Kaylin and Allison, and their bodyguards Ben and Sestra."
The man Haley seemed to stare at Binter and Sisska, then gave Keritanima a rather curious look, but then his smile returned. "I see you travel with an unusual group," he said. "I'm surprised her Highness there agreed to not be your shining star."
Dolanna gave him a curious look, then she chuckled ruefully as Keritanima glared at him. "I do hope you will be discreet, my friend. This is part of the reason why we travel like this."
"For you, Dolanna, I'll cut out my tongue and let you keep it until you leave," he said grandly. "I take it you're looking for rooms?"
"If you have them," she nodded.
"Of course. Nobody's rented the top floor suites, so consider it to be yours. Seven rooms, with a view you'll not find anywhere else on the islands. I'll even give it to you at cost, because you are an old friend."
"You were always good to me, Master Haley," she told him gratefully.
"What's 'at cost'?" Keritanima asked.
"Why, it's a steal at ten nobles a night," he said with a bright grin.
" Ten nobles! That's piracy!"
"For seven rooms, included meals, the services of a maid and page, and a view that will take your breath away, ten nobles is a bargain," he replied with a wave of his hand, as if her argument was baseless. "The usual rate is twenty."
"What is a noble?" Allia asked in a whisper to Dar, so quiet that only Tarrin's sensitive ears picked it up past him.
"It's a coin worth five gold crowns," he whispered back.
Tarrin converted it quickly. For a night here, they could rent rooms in a boarding house for all of them for three months.
"We accept, old friend," Dolanna said with a gentle smile, taking his hand. "And tell me, has Renoit left for his spring performances?"
"Renoit? He's still performing in the Circus Square, so I guess he hasn't left yet," he replied. "Did you want to see his troupe? I have to admit, they are astounding. More than worth an afternoon."
"Perhaps we will at that," she said. "If you do not mind, we really must settle in. It has been a long journey."
"Of course, of course! Dareen, escort our guests here to the Grande Suites," he ordered one of the pretty young ladies standing behind him. "They are to be treated like the old friends they are."
"Yes, Master Haley. If you would follow me please," she told them.
"I don't like him," Keritanima said waspishly as they went up the stairs.
"You just don't like someone that's more royal than you," Dar jibed.
"He's much more of a princess than me," she shot back.
The suite was huge. It was a large central sitting room with six assorted bedrooms leading away from it. It took up the entire top floor of the inn. Each of the six rooms were large, but some were obviously meant for wealthy guests, and some were meant for their servants. Each was well decorated, but the lavishness of the larger bedrooms was apparent to any who cared to look. Tarrin remained in cat form as Dareen showed them the suite, then promised to have a very large meal brought up for them. Only after she left did he wriggle out of Miranda's shoulder satchel and shift back to his humanoid form.
"This room is mine!" Keritanima shouted from one of them, probably the largest and most luxurious of them all.
"Six rooms, ten of us. Some of us are going to have to double up," Faalken said.
"I hope your snoring isn't as bad on land, Faalken," Azakar said.
"I'll do my best to make it worse," he teased.
"I really need to take a bath," Dar said, tugging at his robes.
"Haley has a large bathing room in the basement," Dolanna told him. "Or he will have a bathtub brought up to us, as we please."
There was a knock at the door, which sent Tarrin back into cat form immediately. Dar opened it, and found a young, slim, pretty girl in a black dress, with an apron. Her blond hair was tied back in a tail, and it dangled all the way to her thighs. The dress ended above her knees. " Andevous, madamme. Abuyi Lisette. Jui sun ceci chate deaux?"
"Do you speak the common tongue, young one?" Dolanna asked.