Two men, however, stood staring in manner unfriendly. Ahdio stopped and returned
the gaze.
“You boys his buddies?”
“Right.”
“Yes. Narvy didn’t mean no harm.”
“Probably not,” Ahdio said equably. “Just drank too much, too fast and wouldn’t
take anything to eat. You boys want a sausage and a beer, or you think you ought
to help him … Narvy … home?”
The two of them stared at him in silence, mean-faced, and the taverner stared
back with his usual open, large-eyed expression. After a time they looked at
each other. The handsome one shrugged. The balding one shrugged. They sat down
again.
“Couple of sausages and beers coming up,” Ahdio said, and that was that.
Still, he had worried that they or perhaps all three might decide to take out
their mad on Throde, and Ahdio warned the youth, who walked home every night
alone. They had made it well known that he carried no money but did bear a big
stick. On the other hand, he needed that staff because he had a gimped leg. Now
his employer was more than glad that his apprehension had been for nothing.
He was heading back to the storeroom when he heard the banging sound back there.
Sweetboy didn’t make banging sounds, particularly when he was napping.
That was when it hit Ahdio that he and Throde had both forgotten to replace the
bar across the outer door. Some godless motherless meanhead had just walked in
for sure, he thought, already racing that way. He was bulling through the door
when he heard the screams: two. A man’s, and a cat’s. Not just any cat’s. It was