Throde was arranging benches and stools, squatting to rearrange the sliver of
wood that for three months had “temporarily” steadied the table with the bad
leg.
“Maybe tonight we ought to turn that damned table up and slap a nail up through
that hunk of wood into the leg,” Ahdio said, his voice only a little strained.
He set the barrel down behind the bar, without banging it. “Not thisun,” Throde
said. “The wood’d split out.”
“Uh,” Ahdio said, thinking about last night’s trouble. The arising of trouble in
Sly’s Place was hardly noteworthy. Patrons who came to push and shove or worse
either settled down, or helped clean up and pay for damage, or were told not to
come back. Now and again Ahdio relented. But when sharp steel flashed he moved
in fast with a glove and a club. Both were armored. Such things happened, and
usually he stopped it without a blow and before someone got stuck. Not always.
What he would not tolerate was yellers and plain bullies. That big one last
night had been both. Ahdio warned him. Others warned him. Eventually Ahdio had
felt compelled to pick up the big drunken troublemaker by the nape, just the way
he’d have picked up a kitten. In sudden silence from patrons once again
impressed by his strength, he carried the loosely wriggling fellow over to the
door and deposited him outside, without roughness. He returned to applause and
upraised mugs, smiling a little and never glancing back; he knew that if the
ejected one came back in behind him, other patrons would call a warning.