Page 46 of The Dragon Ring
“An’ I’ll ’ave one, too,” my rescuer said, plonking his own empty tankard down on the counter. While Morgan filled it, he turned back to me, and I caught his gaze sliding down to take in my figure-hugging gown.
I felt uncomfortable. Where were Merlin and Arthur and the rest of them? Carousing in that bloody bath house, of course. Men.
“Ye travelled far?” asked my rescuer conversationally.
I nodded. Even the attack of the night before hadn’t quite taught me the caution I needed for Dark Age life yet.
He smiled at me. His teeth were yellow and crooked, and there were hairs poking out of his nostrils. Not a pretty picture. But he’d helped me get a drink, so I couldn’t just ignore him.
I sought for polite small talk you could use on a Dark Age bar customer. “Do you live here?”
“Me? No. I’m a merchant. Came ’ere to meet up wi’ someone. ’E’s not turned up. Typical. Ye can’t rely on no one nowadays.”
The other man had been putting away his dice in a little leather pouch. Now he got to his feet and sauntered over to the bar, settling himself on the other side of me.
“What’s a nice young lady like ye doin’ in a place like this?” he asked. How corny could you get? Although, perhaps in the Dark Ages it was a novel approach to a woman.
He had a narrow, ratty face and sparse sandy hair. Both of his front teeth were conspicuous by their absence. In fact, neither man was an oil painting.
“I’m waiting for my friends,” I said. “They should be along in a minute or two.”
Now that I was virtually hemmed in from both sides, caution washed over me, and I felt more than a little uneasy.
“Drink up, girly,” Hairy-Nose said, “and I’ll make Morgan get ye another.”
I didn’t want to gulp down the cider. It was strong, and I had an empty stomach, and it would go to my head. I took another small sip.
Ratty leaned in toward me. His breath smelled of stale onions. The two of them were positioned in such a way that getting away from them would mean shouldering my way between them, and, as I didn’t want to touch either of them, I recoiled from the idea. Surely Merlin at least, with his watching brief, would be along soon? What could be keeping them? Silly question. I knew very well what was keeping them, Merlin included. Hopefully they’d be quick about it.
“Ye got a man to take care o’ ye?” asked Ratty, with a leer. Did he think I was one of the hostelry’s employees? Horrible thought.
Fifty, but what use were they when they were all off getting their legs over in the bath house?
Hairy-Nose bristled with indignation at Ratty’s muscling in. He laid his hand on my arm. The nails were broken and filthy. Were they the hands of a merchant? I doubted it very much. Was he bigging himself up to impress me? Well, it wasn’t working.
He pulled me round to face him. “A nice lady like ye didn’t ought to be alone in a bar.”
I was just beginning to realize this fact. The strong implication was that I couldn’t possibly be a nice lady. I really wished I’d been able to ask the old maid if it was the done thing to wait in the bar unattended. It looked very much like it wasn’t.
Behind the counter, Morgan was busy sweeping the floor, his back to us. He wasn’t going to be much help.
The old man by the fire made a horrible noise in his throat and then spat copiously into the flames. Yuck. No help from his direction, either. I put my right hand on the hilt of the dagger at my waist. Ratty’s hand came down on top of mine, vicelike, clamping my hand against the decorative hilt. His touch felt dirty and hot.
“Not so fast, girly, we ain’t doing you no ’arm.”
I stood very still. Neither of them was taller than me. I drew myself up, my free hand itching to slap him, my pinioned hand desperate to twitch away from his hot grasp.
“Let go of me,” I said, as imperiously as I could. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure they’d both be able to hear it, and realize this was a last-ditch panicked attempt.
It must have worked, because Ratty’s hand wavered on mine, and I snatched my hand away, but without the dagger. The action brought me up against Hairy-Nose by mistake, and his arm went around my waist from behind, his hand clamping down over my left breast. I was furious. But I’d done self-defense in university, and I knew what to do next. I stepped back hard onto the instep of his foot, grinding my booted heel down onto it. He let out a shout of pain and let go of me, and I pushed myself away from both of them.
I looked desperately round the room, but Morgan was no help at all, and the old man didn’t even look at us. There was a flash of steel in the torchlight and a knife glittered in Ratty’s hand.
“You want ter play the shy little virgin?” he sneered at me, holding out the knife and moving from one foot to the other like a boxer. “I likes a bit o’ resistance in a whore.”
He hadn’t seen Merlin walk quietly into the room.
“No, she does not.” Merlin’s sword came down hard on the knife, knocking it from Ratty’s hand. He let out a shout of rage and pain as blood spurted across the floor. Some small pink things lay in the straw underfoot. They were his fingers.
