The Philosophical Strangler by Eric Flint

Barkeep Moral Imperative #1: Confidential information transmitted over a pot of fresh-poured ale is confidential.

It was only midafternoon, so the crowd at The Trough was relatively light. Leuwen had no trouble keeping the customers supplied with the necessities of life while I regaled him with the whole story.

Experienced raconteur that I am, I started with a proper topic sentence:

“Prygg was a fucking disaster. A pure, unmitigated, unadulterated, fucking disaster. A disaster, I tell you.”

I fell silent, staring with anguish at my empty mug.

“Good topic sentence,” pronounced Leuwen, quickly replenishing the staff of life.

After drawing off half the mug in a single draught, I immediately launched into the background to the disaster.

“To begin with, we lost all our money bribing the guards to get out of New Sfinctr. Then, once we got out of the city, we had to make our way across Joe’s Mountains in order to get to Prygg. Would have been easier, of course, to take the southern route, skirting the mountains altogether. But that meant going through Blain.”

Leuwen winced. “Blain’s dicey.”

“Tell me about it! On the way back—never mind. Yeah, Blain’s a bad luck city, pure and simple. And with the manhunt on, we knew there was bound to be at least a full company of the Queen’s Own Cuirassiers stationed there, looking for us.”

Leuwen shook his head. “Nasty lot, the Cuirassiers.”

I nodded, took another draught. “Nasty. We found out later they speared every pig the farmers tried to bring through the town, on the off chance Greyboar and I were hiding in their bellies. The farmers themselves got force-fed emetics, so the Cuirassiers could inspect the barf.

“So we decided to take the mountain route. But that posed its own set of problems. The main road through Joe’s Mountains goes right past the Great Temple of the Ecclesiarchs. The very seat of God’s Temporal Power on Earth.”

An aggrieved looked crossed my face. “Not that we’d done anything to call ourselves to the attention of the Inquisition, mind you. Fact is, to my way of thinking, the Church stood in our debt. Hadn’t we throttled one of the world’s most powerful heathens? The King of the Sundjhab himself!”

Leuwen shook his head. “The Ecclesiarchs have always been schizophrenic on the subject.” Wipewipe. “If you go out and slaughter a poor heathen, of course, you’re a hero in the eyes of the Lord. But if you croak a rich and powerful one, well, that’s a different matter altogether.” Wipewipewipe. “That smacks of bloody-handed red revolution, which ranks a whole lot higher in the scale of sins than simple heathenry.”

I nodded sagely. “Yeah, that’s the way we figured it. So we decided it would be best, all things considered, to just avoid the Temple. But that meant we had no choice but to take one of the less-traveled routes through the mountains. `Less-traveled route,’ you’ll understand, is what they call a euphemism. `Goat path’ better captures the reality.

“And that meant—I still shudder at the memory—that we had no way to replenish our funds through our customary, dignified, professional skills. Instead, we had to hook up with one of the flea-bitten, mangy little caravans which avoid the Temple and— Well. You know. Work.”

Leuwen grimaced with sympathy. He even wiped his rag once or twice to show his proletarian solidarity.

I continued: “A nightmarish period followed. The labor was bad enough. What was worse was listening to Greyboar be philosophical about it! But, eventually, we toiled our way through the mountains and onto the plain of Pryggia. Now back in civilized lands, I scrounged up a little job in one of the larger towns along the way. Had to accept an outrageously low fee, of course—country rubes—but the job was quick and easy. The good thing about country rubes—the only good thing—is that even the local lord of the manor doesn’t expect to receive the attentions of a world-class professional strangler. So, a quick and simple choke, and we had enough cash to pay our way into Prygg with no more of that toiling nonsense.”

I then proceeded to regale Leuwen with the tale of our adventures in Prygg itself. Of that tale, however, I will say nothing here. Secrets which I’ll spill to Leuwen, bound as he is by the barkeep-sot privilege, I’m not going to blather about openly. My lips are sealed. I vow eternal silence. I still have hopes—getting fainter all the time, I admit—that our part in the madness which ensued will remain hidden from the public eye.