Saga of the Old City

Chapter 15

Once the Aerdians had amassed an empire that extended far beyond the modern-day boundaries of what is known as the Great Kingdom. At its height, the northern frontier reached all the way to the northern bank of the Artonsamay River. Stoink was then a military outpost. At first a fortified encampment, the place grew rapidly to become a town. As imperial troops were brought there to prepare for further conquest, with them came a host of civilians-craftsmen, sutlers, camp followers, and the lot. When the expansion of the Aerdy empire stopped, the locale became a bastion against invaders. It was walled and became a garrison place. The ebb of the Overking’s power came slowly, and as the edges of the empire crumbled into sovereign states, Stoink was more and more isolated from its distant rulers and took on greater individuality and independence. After some four centuries its inhabitants turned to banditry, and for two hundred years thereafter, right down to this day, they have continued to be robbers. The town was now Gord’s home, and it felt right to him.

The town proper had perhaps twelve thousand people. Two suburbs, Holdroon and Ratswharf, brought the total to fourteen thousand-when there were few bandit-cum-merchant caravans, or mercenary companies, in the area. Stoink was actually a city state, for its Lord Mayor was also “Boss” of a considerable territory, essentially what had once been a frontier march and fiefdom granted from the Overking of Aerdy. Boss Dhaelhy, Lord Mayor of Stoink, despotically ruled the destinies of somewhere between fifty and seventy thousand folk-provided his enforcers were on hand to back up his dictates. Otherwise, residents and visitors alike did pretty much as they pleased. That made for a wild, brawling, and thoroughly chaotic community, with competing factions constantly at each other’s throats.

Gord was gratified that he had come with a fat purse, for the pickings were far from ample in Stoink. Everyone was busy trying to steal from his neighbor, and of course those neighbors with anything worth taking were exceptionally vigilant with respect to guarding valuables.

Jan, Crowbait, and Kalonas took their splits and drifted off to revel in whatever sinks of debauchery they favored. Gord found an inn, The Three Gables, on the west end of town, and there he settled down to reconnoiter. For the first week or so he would occasionally encounter one or another of the three bandits, but evidently they ran out of funds and went elsewhere to seek more, for Gord never ran into them again. He certainly didn’t miss their company, for the nine wards of Stoink provided sufficient entertainment. After a few weeks, however, exploration and discovery began to weary him.

If the town was an odd mixture of buildings, its polyglot population was even stranger. From the throngs of freebooters, bargemen, and riffraff of Ratswharf, where cargo stolen from who knew where arrived daily, to Holdroon’s rowdy encampment of brigand gangs and mercenary companies, there were all races of men, near-men, and humanoids.

Stoink offered something to suit the taste, base or not, of resident and visitor alike. The shops carried goods from every part of the Flanaess, from distant parts of the Great Kingdom, the Baklunish states of Tusmit and Ekbir…. Every place seemed to produce some item that the robber bands eventually brought here. Interspersed with these shops, the vice dens, taverns, slave pens, and unidentified establishments were the stores where normal artisans, craftsmen, and tradesfolk made and sold their wares. The apparently large number of legitimate businesses surprised Gord at first, but then he realized it was logical that such a population needed the goods and services of any normal community as well as those endeavors directly related to banditry.

Ratswharf boasted a rope-walk, tanneries, and a brisk trade in small spars and timber. In Stoink proper, the tanned leather of aurochs, horses, and more exotic creatures was worked into leather goods of all sorts, especially armor and shields of exceptional quality. Gord learned that large shipments of such were sent to outfit soldiers and adventurers of the lands around the Nyr Dyv, and beyond. The origin of the armor was not advertised, naturally.

After traffic in stolen goods, the next mainstay of the economy was slave trading. That major industry brought buyers from many distant places and was the main revenue source for the town itself. Holdroon was a thriving village dominated by taverns, brothels, gambling parlors, and similar places aimed at separating arriving bandits and free-lancers from their coinage. Amid this squalor, though, were also weapon forges, horse traders, and all manner of provisioners and suppliers.

The town gates were open from dawn to dusk, but as the sun’s last rays tinged the sky with rosy hues, all large bodies of foreigners were herded outside Stoink, so there was much nighttime revelry in the two adjoining villages. Gord had sampled the offerings of these villages frequently since arriving in this bandit land. Ratswharf and Holdroon had little more than low dives, however, and Gord found he greatly preferred the entertainments of Serpent Lane and Suggil Way to anything outside the walls.

Leisure activities of this sort tended to be expensive, so after a few weeks Gord became more alert for money-making opportunities. Unlike spending opportunities, chances for gain were more scarce around here than honest men and virgins. Certainly, his skills enabled him to pick up a few coppers here, a silver noble or so there, but nothing significant. Before much more time passed, Gord found himself down to the last few drabs of his share of bandit loot and facing the prospect of dipping into his own hoard of electrum, gold, and platinum. He decided it was time to break out of his traditional mold and do something productive.

Locating the headquarters of the local Thieves’ Guild was simple-it bore a large and colorful sign! The rather splendid place was on Safe Avenue, in the Norward between the Slave Market and Stonegate, the eastern entryway that also divided Stoink’s Claybrick Ward from the administrative Greatward complex.

Safe Street was a thoroughfare linking the fortress area of the lords of the city with the bustling slave bazaar to the north. (Gord enjoyed the street names for the routes leading to the market place-Safe, Joy, Shackle… cute folk, these Stoinkers.) This seemed both a logical and cautious place for headquarters to be, near the most prosperous quarter with its back to the great blocks of the wall, and having a direct route to the government offices to the south. So thinking, Gord turned the corner of Crook Street (another enjoyable name) and crossed the pike-straight Safe Street. In a short time he was within the confines of the thieves’ home base.

“Here to recover stolen property?” a dun-clad fellow asked mildly from a trestle table that served as a desk, separating the building’s vestibule from access to the interior.

Gord surveyed him briefly, shaking his head.

The thief-guard looked surprised, for Gord appeared to be a well-to-do artisan or merchant, perhaps-one who should be uncomfortable in surroundings such as these. “Then are you here to hire services?”

Gord shook his head again and studied the interior of the place, moving so as to be able to peer into the corridor behind the speaker.

“Okay, buddy, quit gawking and tell me what the hell you do want…. Are you lost? Stupid? Or a sightseer?” At this last question, the guard got out of his chair, strode around the desk, and none too gently took Gord by the arm to usher him out.

“I’m here to join the guild,” Gord said blandly.

The thief paused in his effort to hustle the strangely hard-to-move fellow outside and laughed. “Who put you up to this, anyway?” he said, his tone growing less jocular. “It is a piss-poor joke-and you’re lucky I’m taking it easy with you!” As this last was said, the guard found that Gord had somehow turned and was moving behind him and back into the room again. Now the thief was getting peevish.

“No joke, friend,” Gord told the slowly reddening fellow as he sprang lightly atop the desk and then into the guard’s chair. “I am an accomplished master, and I am here to inscribe my name on your register.”

This was too much for the man, and he reached for his dagger. But his hand grasped nothing, and he stared down in amazement at the empty scabbard. When he glared up toward the interloper, he found Gord cleaning his nails with the weapon. Worse yet, a small pile of his belongings were on the table in front of this bold fellow!

“That’s it, asshole!” he said, leaping for Gord.

The thief landed with a crash where Gord had been sitting a moment before, then slumped to the floor. As pounding footsteps approached from within the building, the poor rogue managed to regain his feet and look around in a daze.

“I’m here,” Gord said nearly in his ear from a crosslegged seat atop the trestle table. “And I still wish to register.”

“Dammit, Stoat! What are you doin’ out here?” The speaker was a man of powerful build and no-nonsense expression. He stood in the hall behind the desk, glaring alternately at the guard and at Gord with one bright gray eye-and a black leather patch covering the other socket. The man had an authoritative air that Gord immediately perceived-even more impressive, in his own way, than Gord remembered Arentol to be. Was he a high-ranking thief? The master of this Guild? Or something else altogether?…

Gord smiled at the man who was surveying him and nodded a greeting, not committing himself with words until he saw what would happen next.

“Listen, Gellor,” the fellow now identified as Stoat whined, “I dint do nothing but try to keep this shit out of here, but he got rough. Look out for him-he’s fast!” he warned.

Taking Stoat at his word, Gellor moved to draw his sword and take care of things in his own way. Seeing this, Gord laughed merrily and held his smile.

“Hold on!” he said. “I did no harm to Stoat’s person, only to his pride. When I put on a performance, he came to escort me out, and as he tried, I stripped him of dag, money, and all. Look here!” Gord cried, pointing to the loot and letting out another laugh.

Gellor abandoned his threatening posture, slammed his sword back in its sheath, and stared at the evidence. Then he looked hard at Stoat with the hint of a smile on his face.

“Come on, Gellor, the asshole threw me over the desk!” Stoat argued.

“You jumped over it to attack me, only I wasn’t there to get,” Gord countered mildly. Then, for good measure, he added flippantly, “You’re the asshole.”

At that, the grin disappeared from Gellor’s face. “Never mind who is or isn’t a sphincter muscle here,” he said, again directing his attention to Gord. “What the hell do you want?”

“I am an accomplished thief, Gord by name, here to join the guild. Stoat, here, can testify to my abilities-”

“No screwin’ ’round or horseplay at headquarters, see!” Gellor interrupted. He sized up Gord in silence for a moment. “No more of this crap with fellow thieves, either… even if they are assholes,” he continued. “Now come on back, and I’ll get you enrolled. It costs a lucky if you’re beyond journeyman status, dues are a noble a month whether or not you score, and we take the usual twenty percent.”

As Gord moved to follow him, Gellor turned back to Stoat. “Now keep a better watch, chump, and don’t be mistakin’ your fellows for marks anymore!” he ordered as Stoat sullenly set about repocketing his possessions.

Gellor took Gord to a large chamber inside the headquarters. “In case you haven’t already figured it out,” he said, “I have a high station, shall we say, within this organization. You are fortunate that I, and not one of Stoat’s peers, happened along when you made your ostentatious entrance. Now, let’s see how serious you really are about joining the Guild.”

Gellor summoned a messenger and instructed him to fetch six other individuals for a meeting. He introduced Gord to these men, all master thieves, and informed Gord that they would pass judgment on his request for membership. Then Gellor sat back and ordered Gord to tell his story.

To be on the safe side, Gord told the audience that he was from Leukish. He briefly recounted his travels in Urnst and the Theocracy, omitting most details, including the fact that he was associated with the Rhennee wagonfolk. The less they actually knew about him, the better; after all, what was actually important was his talent as a thief. This was established readily enough, by the successful performance of a few simple tests for the benefit of the master thieves followed by Gellor’s recounting to them of Stoat’s embarrassing experience in the entranceway.

With the preliminaries out of the way, Gord paid over the initiation fee of one electrum coin, plus a silver one for his first month’s dues. His name was written on the guild register, a writ of identification was prepared for him, and the rules of thievery in Stoink were carefully explained to him by Assistant Guildmaster Uve Paulic.

No establishment protected by Boss Dhaelhy could be touched. These places were marked by the official blazon of Stoink. All other spots were fair game, although it seemed to be the thieves’ opinion that there were damn few other locations worth bothering with. Marks were marks, but Mayorial Guards, the Watch, town officials, and a raft of others were considered off limits. The enumeration went on and on until Gord’s head began to swim. His initial impression of Stoink as a veritable playground for thieves was apparently somewhat inaccurate, to put it mildly.

“This place is worse than Wintershiven!” he exclaimed with disgust. “At least a thief there can steal from anybody, though the risk be death.”

“That brings me to the part about punishments here,” replied Uve Paulic. He then proceeded to detail all of the things a thief would suffer upon being caught in the commission of a felony, or if apprehended afterward-unless the protection of the guild was obtained by reporting a successful job to officials at any of the various, and constantly shifting, sub-headquarters that the thieves maintained in the nine wards of the city. An assassin could still be sent after a thief, of course, even after he or she was safe from the law-but that seldom happened, Uve added, for the expense of hiring a killer was great, and the property wasn’t returned even if the thief was dispatched.

As Gord was preparing to make his leave, Gellor came up to him and said in a friendly tone, “It’s a rotten place to make a dishonest drab, but after a while the town grows on you.”

“So does green slime!” Gord retorted.

“Tell you what,” the one-eyed man said in a placating way.

“You and I can go over to Holdroon. I’ve seen only a little of your work, and I’d like to see more. Besides, I hear that a bunch just arrived that hit it big. We can both pick up some change!”

Gellor told Gord that the Horn and Haunch was the best tavern in the whole urban area, not just in Holdroon, so they went there. The place had a typical afternoon crowd, although the drinkers appeared a bit better dressed than in the places Gord had been to. Most were obviously mercenaries, bandits, or worse, but they wore oiled mail or well-preserved leather. Studding on jack and byrnie was polished. Cloth garments were neither shoddy nor in need of cleaning and mending. Most surprising of all, there was no overpowering odor of sweat and horses. The place was a marvel indeed-and the wenches were most pretty and buxom too! Gord was happy he’d decided to humor Gellor, or vice versa. No matter.

“This is one of the most pleasant gathering places I’ve ever frequented,” said Gellor. “Even as well-traveled as you are,” he added with a smirk, “I expect you will find it the same. Now for some refreshment!”

Gellor recommended some of the dry white wine from Furyondy to begin with. After several goblets of the stuff, Gord felt quite able to attack the tavern’s bill of fare, and soon food was set before them. Tubb, the proprietor, fitted his name quite well, and this worthy, together with a woman to see to their drink and a lad to step and fetch, personally attended the pair. Gellor was evidently a regular here, and well-regarded by Tubb.

More of the crisp, apple-fragranced wine was poured for them as their host set a pewter salver before them. It was filled with morsels of radishes with black skins, smoked rounds of eel, scallions, and pickles. All of it tasted delicious, especially when washed down with the Furyondian vintage. They also had a small loaf of bread with a golden and crispy crust and soft, white crumb. The whole was gone all too soon, and Gord was about to call for more when bowls of pink liquid were placed before them. This stuff was a thick, creamy soup of a sort he had never tasted. Gellor told him it was made from the young giant crayfish taken from the mill pond of Agile Creek. It was made with wine, cream, and herbs, plus only Tubb knew what. Gord felt like licking the bowl clean when he’d finished the last spoonful he could get out of it.

Both men sat back a bit and enjoyed their contentment. The wench, Amy, brought them fresh goblets, filled this time with an emerald-colored elvish wine-whether from Celene or Ulek, Gord neither knew nor cared. As the wine was poured, the boy hastily removed their bowls, for Tubb was at hand with a brace of squabs for each. The birds were roasted to perfection, juicy, and stuffed with green grapes.

When the tiny bones were picked clean and the last globe of fruit devoured, Gord thought no prince or king had ever dined so well. Gellor, in contrast, seemed only mildly satisfied, telling their host that so far all had been acceptable. So far? That made Gord wonder, but not for long. The elvish wine was whisked away in favor of a deep ruby-hued wine served to them in chalices. Gord imitated Gellor’s actions as the one-eyed thief swirled and sniffed the stuff. The aroma was heady and tantalizing. Gord sipped and found the flavor full, strong, and impossible to describe. Just as one flavor seemed to come to mind, the vintage moved a different part of his palate to identify another taste, and when he let the last of it pass down his throat, still another sensation filled his mouth. Then a vast dish filled with mutton and legumes, seasoned with garlic and herbs, was placed before them, and both fell to-Gord more from the appetizing odor and appearance of the dish than from hunger for it. Could it be that this course was even better than the previous ones?

Neither man could possibly finish these last portions served, and when the remainder was cleared, both belched and grinned. As if by magic, small plates with various sorts of greens were placed before them. Gord’s nose detected vinegar, fine oil, and pepper. Gellor speared the leafy bits and ate them with relish, and Gord followed suit. The stuff was tasty and removed the greasy mutton aftertaste from his mouth. Soon the plate was clear of all but a few stray bits of parsley and cress. At last they were finished, thought Gord, but he was mistaken once again! The astonished Gord was served a trencher of thin, white bread, a dozen cheeses were put before them, and a crock of butter placed between the pair.

As more wine was poured, Gellor said, “Tubb, you continue to amaze me, I must admit. Where did you find these wonderful cheeses? I haven’t seen their like in years!”

Tubb only beamed and hurried off to serve his other customers. Gellor enlightened Gord as to the nature of several of the small wheels and rounds on the table. One was a goat cheese from far to the west, Ket, actually. Another, one with great holes and a sharp, vaguely nutty flavor, was Perrenlander. Still another was a creamy and delicious, but very smelly, one made by the Frustii and known as Djekul for the town of its origin. Best of all, Gord liked an ivory-colored cheese with greenish marbling through its center. His companion informed him it was called Wickler, from the Yeomanry. Just after this array came some diminutive tarts of various sort-berry, nut, and mincemeat. At last it was really over, and the thoroughly stuffed patrons sipped brandy and groaned.

“How could such a place exist?” Gord demanded of Gellor. “And how came you to find it? Never have I eaten such!”

The one-eyed man smiled sardonically and shrugged.

“No, no! Tell me.”

“Come on, my boy,” he replied. “Think you seriously that everyone here has always been a lowly thief or always dwelt in such a pest-hole as Stoink?”

Ruminating on the full meaning of those remarks, Gord joined Gellor in a stroll around Holdroon to settle their meal and work off its attendant lethargy. After all, they had come here for more than a banquet.