Page 56 of The Shadow of Breninsol
The Three Bells was the perfect clandestine location for the headquarters of Breninsol’s most sinister and ruthless gang.
The air was thick with the crackling fires and pipes being smoked, and Eleanor pushed back her hood the moment the pub’s door swung shut behind her. It wouldn’t do to start off on the wrong foot tonight. Despite this being the location of an unlawful gang, Valen’s word was law amongst his people, especially in his domain. She revealed herself to everyone in the Three Bells, not that it mattered. No one cared who she was anymore. In here, only one person mattered, and they were decidedly absent. He didn’t grace the pub with his presence for just any night.
The candlelit chandeliers did their best to illuminate the long pub, and Eleanor had to traipse the length of the pub’s boarded floor to reach the bar. Even though this was Breninsol’s most nefarious pub, it was far from the seediest. On the outside, it appeared unimpressive. If anything, the pub looked completely forgotten about, tucked away in the dark passageway. Yet, it was the cleanest pub in the Barrow and the interior was the nicest she’d been in. Tables, chairs, and stools varied in their collections and sizes, but all of the furniture were as glossy as the polished bar top.
Wooden panels decorated the walls and extended to the partitions, which each had a row of distorted glass decorating the top of the screens. The screen partitions ran along both sidesof the pub to divide the tables and provided the occupants with an illusion of privacy.
At the tables in the centre of the room, groups of people were engaged in idle chatter, playing cards, smoking, and generally looking like they were here for a quiet drink. Their forced idleness didn’t fool Eleanor. Everyone was casting an eye at the small door beside the bar, watching and waiting for who would emerge or dare to venture to the other side of the pub.
Pouring a beer, the white-haired bartender with an eye patch, a cleaning rag thrown over his shoulder, watched her stride through the pub. The round bar stretched over the width of the pub bisected by a wooden wall. The pub’s front half was where nearly anything went. It didn’t matter in the Three Bells what gender you were, nor who you wanted to spend the night with, as long as there were no deals being made.
Eleanor nodded to Burt in recognition as he finished pulling the pint for the wide-set man who had his back to her. She half hoped that some new upstart would ask him what had happened to his eye. She could do with the entertainment of watching him easily flip the obnoxious arse out onto the street in a bloody mess.
As Eleanor went through the wooden door to the other side, she resolutely ignored two women who were wrapped up in each other. If she gazed at the couple for too long, she’d feel the ache of what that felt like; to be held and touched by loving, tender, soft caresses.
It was not for her. She wasn’t worth it.
Only those invited could enter this side of the pub, and the person issuing those invitations was the reason why the Three Bells was best left alone by the city guard. Eleanor glanced around the back half of the pub, confirming that the crime lord was indeed absent, and cursed under her breath. She had hoped he would be downstairs tonight. She didn’t want to haveto return another night, although there was another option. It’d get her in a fair bit of trouble with the gang leader, but there was a small chance he’d find it amusing, considering their first meeting.
This side of the pub was a mirror of the front half, with shiny wooden panels covering the walls, screened booths creating a semblance of privacy, candlelit chandeliers trying to shed some light on the criminal clientele, and a roaring hearth aiding to cover the murmured conversations.
Behind the bar were rows of liquor in different sized bottles with various seemingly random glass ornaments nestled between the bottles. Eleanor recognised some decorations as seeing orbs, so the bartenders always had at least one eye on the surrounding pub.
Trix was pouring an ale before Eleanor needed to say anything. “Haven’t seen you in here recently, love,” Trix said gently in her low voice. “Everything all right?”
One could deem Trix overdressed for working behind the bar in this pub, but Trix always took pride in her appearance. Purple shadow lined Trix’s lids, the long sharp brush strokes complimenting her enviously long lashes and high ebony cheekbones. Eleanor knew Trix wore wigs, considering how dramatically Trix’s hair changed from each of Eleanor’s visits to the pub. Last time Trix’s hair had been blonde and cropped to her chin, today Trix had raven long wavy hair. The top section had been weaved into an intricate-looking braid that was decorated with silver ribbons and clasps to complement her outfit of a purple corset with silver ribbons and a matching skirt. Trix didn’t care that exposed corsets weren’t in fashion anymore, but looked like she could give the marquis a run for his ever-fashionable purse.
Eleanor lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t see a reason to come unless there’s work for me.”
Trix tossed her wavy hair over her shoulders, revealing her mismatched pearl drop earrings, but on Trix, the earrings looked like a pair that belonged together. “You didn’t want to come just to see me and Burt? We’re a bunch of fun if you stuck around long enough to find out.” Trix pushed out her perfectly lined, full lips into a pretend pout.
Any newcomers at the Three Bells usually overlooked Trix and Burt. They might be the bartenders, but they were Valen’s eyes and ears.
“All work and no play make for a sad life,” Trix continued in a softer voice that Eleanor didn’t like. No one could possibly care for her.
A ruddy-faced man barrelled into the bar, interrupting them, and slapped down a coin and sneered at Eleanor. “Who’d you think you’re fooling? Coming in here like that. Trousers don’t make you a man.”
The pub went deathly silent. Eleanor’s hand was already loose over her thigh, but now her fingers twitched.
Trix stopped pulling the pint, and her hands disappeared beneath the bar. “Now I know you didn’t just say what you said,” Trix said to the man, whose face showed revulsion as he continued to stare at Eleanor.
“You heard me,” the arsehole continued, but this time he looked at Trix. “And a dress don’t make you a woman.”
Chairs scraped across the floor, making Eleanor smirk, but she’d drawn her Attarician dagger before anyone else could get close. Eleanor kicked at the soft spot behind his legs, so he dropped to his knees. Unfortunately, his head narrowly missed the bar, or perhaps that was fortunate, considering how Valen liked his tidy pub.
The piece of shit held his hands up, as if that would save him. “Valen’s rule. No fighting in here.”
Eleanor grabbed the man’s greasy hair from its tie. He was trying to emulate the current fashion but had some type of labourer job, which meant he had to tie his hair back.
“Who says I'm fighting? All I see is a dead man,” she seethed in his ear, holding her blade to his throat.
Trix raised an unamused look that spoke of the many times she'd experienced this type of spiteful ignorance. “There'd had been a time you'd have never dared say such nasty words to women.”
“Witches are gone,” he gritted out from the floor.
“That’s what you think,” Trix muttered low enough that Eleanor wasn’t sure if she was supposed to have heard.
As Eleanor was considering how much trouble she’d get in with Valen if she slit the fool’s throat, Burt jumped and slid over the bar to join her.
