The barkeep called across to her, “Refill the cider pot, Peilanne.” She nodded, spinning nimbly and gracefully as she set the hot pitcher down, carefully out of reach of the little girl gnawing determinedly at the end of a fresh loaf as the girl’s mother stroked and untangled the girl’s hair.
She stuck another pitcher under the cider barrel and opened the tap. “Are we expecting anyone else, Darien?”
He smiled at her. “You never know.” He set ale steins one by one on a large tray. “Though the gods know where we’d put them.”
But a breeze shook the lamp flames as the front door opened. A general cry went up: “Shut that door!” “Frosty out there.” “Always a latecomer.”
As he always did with strangers, Darien eyed them carefully. They were physically unimpressive, of medium height and wiry build. One had black hair, the other brown, and their teeth flashed white as they smiled automatically to the crowd at the tables.
All the same, it seemed to Darien that they passed by the tables with complete indifference, as though they were something apart from the local families, the traders, and the travelers.
He met them from behind the bar, smiling more broadly than the newcomers had. “And what can I do for you?”
One of them spoke. “Is there any supper?”
Darien shook his head. “Long since eaten. Look at this crowd; every bed full, locals in to eat as well. Barely any bread left. Didn’t you take food for the road?” He glanced at their tiny packs.
The two looked at each other. The black-haired one said quickly, “We eat where we can, and only take enough for the day. We’ve traveled quite a ways.”
The innkeeper said dubiously, “Traders, are you?” They shook their heads. “Pilgrims?” He added hesitantly, not wishing to be insulting, “Runaway clerics?”
The brown-haired man said, “I’m Gannie and this”- he hesitated slightly-“is Kory. We’re storytellers.”
Kory added, “We specialize in telling frightening stories.”
Gannie glanced around the inn. “This lot looks like they could use the excitement.”
“Ah.” Darien scratched his head. “So there’s a living in telling stories, is there?”
“If you’re good at it.” Kory looked pointedly at the ale barrel.
Peilanne filled two more steins and drew closer, intrigued. “And how do you make it pay better if you’re good?”
Kory said, not entirely happily, “We wager on ourselves.”
“My idea,” Gannie said proudly.
Peilanne joined the conversation with a laugh, a light silvery sound. “How does that work?”
Kory said unwillingly, “We bet you and anyone else in the room that we can scare people with our story. If we lose, we don’t get paid and we don’t eat.”
Gannie frowned at him. “But we seldom lose.”
Kory looked at him glumly. “It could happen.”
Darien nodded. “I see. And to win, you have to scare nearly everyone in the dining room.”
“As long as they don’t turn out to be disguised kenders, or something else without fear,” Kory said dubiously.
“Look around you, young sir. That old man, Brann, is a shepherd, with his flock in the cote out back. Young Elinor, making a mess at the table, is from the village, here with Annella her mother. And that fat one is a merchant out of Solamnia, and those others with him, all human-” He leaned forward. “But are you tricking me? Will you scare them just with the story, or with something else?”
“Oh, our stories are good enough all by themselves,” Gannie assured him.
Darien settled back into filling an ale pitcher, watching them closely. “And what must I do if you win?”
“You pay us and you make us a meal.”
He glanced automatically at the empty stew pot. “Make you a meal?” Darien chuckled. “For now, at least, have the last of the bread. On the house, pending the outcome of the bet.”
Peilanne looked at him with surprise and opened her mouth. He shook his head slightly to silence her, then tapped his gold ring against a cup. Eventually the insistent noise silenced everyone.
“This is Kory”-he hesitated, then pointed to the other man-“and this is Gannie. I have a wager with them.”