The smells of smoke and roasted meat and drying vegetables, of fish and sour ale, of unwashed people hit his nostrils and he gagged for just a moment, then stepped into the gloom. Why should it bother him when this morning he had been in the sulfurous stink of the marsh?
No reason he could fathom.
There were almost two hands worth of people there, none armored, none armed, mostly human men holding horns and sitting on the floor around the firepit. A spit held three times as many squab roasting there. A burly woman moved among them, refilling horns with her alegoose.
"Sir?" said a thickset man in tunic and hose. He had a way of dragging out the i so it was halfway between sir and sire. "Your sword? We don't want no trouble."
"Of course." He was reluctant to give up his sword. "Do you have peacewire?"
"Never heard of it."
"Oh." He drew his sword slowly, careful not to cause alarm, and handed it, hilt first, to the thick man. Once he had, everyone drooped as though they had been expecting--
Something. What, he wasn't sure.
"Ale, sir?" said the woman. She had the same accent. She leaned in. "Nobody purifies our water, so you're best to take the ale."
He nodded, and she handed him a drinking horn. He mumbled his thanks.
The ale was sour and bitter and quenched his thirst. They watched him drain the horn and then he looked back--and they began to talk among themselves.
"Food, sire?" He was sure he heard it as sire. He shook his head to clear it, then waved her back.
"I'll have some. Fine."
One of the men, young and fox-like, came over to him. "So what are you calling yourself?"
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