Wren
Ch. 21
It was about six when Rich arrived at his haunt, The Old Ox. The sun was still in the sky, but wouldn’t be for much longer. In the crowded streets of Wrenfield, however, the sun was already far below the horizon of rooftops. The sun was still visible from certain parts of the city, ones that were practically on the water, but The Ox was not on the water. The only water that got anywhere near the Ox was mixed into the drink of anyone who got too rowdy. Occasionally someone would realize that theirs didn’t taste terrible enough, but Mags could handle herself in a fight. She looked like someone who would have some weapon behind the bar, but few expected her, or any other woman, to be able to wield a greatsword so ferociously.
“Mead again?” Mags asked, without even looking up from her work.
Rich walked over to the bar and took a seat, “Yeah, go ahead and pour two now.”
“Got it.” She took two tankards and filled them up to the brim with mead. “Y’know you still owe me that money. Only reason I’m even serving you is I know you’re good for it.”
“Yeah. These past few days have been tough, but once I’ve got the time I’ll get you the money.” Rich took a sip. Sickly sweet, or it would be to anybody other than him. Rich still had his sweet tooth, as he’d been lucky enough to be born to parents wealthy enough to buy their child sweets. Or perhaps unlucky. His palette was one unbecoming of what would have been his social class, if his parents had lived long enough to prevent him from going down the path he’d gone down. Now he was, in multiple senses of the word, classless. As he finished his first tankard, he tapped the bar with it twice. Mags knew that this was a request for a refill, as he started on his second. She knew that he didn’t like talking while he drank, because he had a habit of running his mouth once he opened it. It was just as well, she didn’t want to hear him talk anyway.
Rich didn’t know it, but he was far from the only upper class person to drink here. He was certainly the only one who drank here any more than on a monthly basis, though, and the only one who did so without disguise. A bar that didn’t spread rumors about its clientele was a rare treat for the upper class. To be able to simply drink socially without being hounded for information by the bartender was worth drinking the swill that the Ox served. Rich could drink here openly, however, because all that most people knew about Richard Newport was that he was very wealthy, possibly the wealthiest person in the city, that his parents died while he was young, and that he should be about twenty-three.
But when you don’t have business dealings with the upper class, they tend to forget who you are. Nobody knew that he got into crime, that he fell in love, and was betrayed by that love, and that his body was thirty-eight. Rich didn’t see the need for the upper class, both in general, and in his life individually. His inheritance would last him several lifetimes of much more extravagance than he practiced, and he had no heirs, and no plans to acquire any, so why waste time making more money. He didn’t have any clue what would happen to his worth when he was gone, and he didn’t greatly care. “Why should I care about anything that happens after my death,” was his typical response to that line of questioning.
By this time Rich was on his fifth tankard of mead, not noticing how much it had been watered down. It seems pretty quiet tonight, he thought, but it didn’t occur to him that the quiet might mean anything until Mags came over with a sixth.
“Her again!” she said, “Every time she’s here people don’t drink as much. I guess people don’t want her to do to them what she did to you.” Rich turned and looked. Wren was seated alone at a table, in the same form as his other encounters with them. He got up from his seat and they shook their head no. He continued and sat across from them anyway.
“You’re not getting it back,” they said, “at least not for a while. Not until I’m done with you.”
“I thought you said if I saw you again you’d be killing me?”
“I changed my mind.”
“At least tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Maybe once we’re a bit closer I’ll tell you. Maybe one or two more kills. But not now. You’ll stay in the dark for a bit longer.”
“Why did you pick me?”
Wren didn’t say anything. They looked impatient.
“Do you have it with you?”
They started to get up to walk out, but Rich flung his tankard at them. In an instant, they disappeared, leaving the tankard sailing through the air towards the other patrons. In what was Rich’s only stroke of luck in several days, the patrons did not realize that Rich was absent his sword, and decided to not press the issue.
Rich remained in the Ox until closing time, without another drink.