Thieves World 7 – The Dead of Winter by Asprin, Robert

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.