table. He smiled at the invisible face that, judging from the angle of the hood,
seemed to be looking up at him. “In this place, those who put coins on the table
are running a tab. Unless you think you’re just going to have one and run.”
There. That would get a few words from the woman who had eased coin onto the
table while no one was looking.
Wrong. Wints looked at his companion/employer a moment, then up at the huge man
looming over their table and occluding an immoderate number of tables. “Thanks,
taverner. We’ll be here awhile. My lady would like to know why you wear that
chain-coat.”
Ahdio shook his arm to emphasize the jing-jing of the mail that covered him from
collarbone to wristbone and to a point just below his loins. “For effect,” he
said with an easy smile. “Ambience? A conversation piece. A little added color
in a place I can’t afford to fancy up much.”
Wints glanced at the veiled lady and gave the taverner a knowing grin. “With the
price of a coat of good butted chainmail being what it is? You sure that’s the
reason?”
Ahdio shrugged, jing-jing. “Maybe I wear it for the same reason a soldier does
in battle. This is a tough dive with me as proprietor, bartender and bouncer.
Maybe I’d be dead or full of scars by now if I didn’t wear these forty-seven
pounds of linked steel.”
Wints’s grin broadened and just as he started to laugh, Ahdio heard the first
sound from the man’s companion: a nascent chuckle swiftly drowned by his full
laugh.
“Hey, Ahdio, you still sellin’ ale around here?”
Ahdio swung away from the strangers. “Ale! In this place? Glayph, you wouldn’t