Ruins of Camelot

Chapter 9

Three men sat around a rough, wooden table lit by the afternoon light of a small window.

"There," the largest of the men said flatly, plinking a short stack of coins onto the table and pushing it next to two similar stacks. He had a square, sunburnt face and meaty forearms. He crossed them before his leather tack vest. "The takings for one week. Like I have already told you, this is far more than average. It is the peak of the season after all."

Yazim nodded equably and bent to scribble a note on a piece of thick parchment. Thomas frowned and looked around the low room. There were four other tables besides the bar, but only one patron was visible, and Thomas suspected that it was the proprietor's father. The old man leant against the wall in his chair, hands folded over his thin chest, snoring faintly.

Yazim tapped the parchment with his quill. "How many cattle and horses did you say you keep, sir?"

"Three and two," the proprietor answered without blinking. "My best packhorse broke a leg last autumn, and we had to put her down. It has been a true challenge without her, guv'nor, do not doubt it."

"I do not," Yazim replied sincerely. "How long have you operated this establishment then, sir?"

"Four winters. The first two were the hardest. Barely made a copper, what with all the building and repair. The place bore hardly a standing wall when we moved into it. Almost starved, we did."

Yazim nodded. His quill scritched on the parchment. "And this is why you have not yet reported this establishment to the local tax authority?"

The proprietor nodded warily. "I been meaning to, you understand. Fair is fair. Me and the missus, we always mean to do our part, small as it might be."

Thomas sighed and looked around. "It must get dreadfully lonely out here once the peak season ends," he commented, raising an eyebrow, "if this is how it is when business is at its height. Travel and livery must not be a particularly thriving industry this far off the main roads."

"Right you are, guv'nor," the proprietor agreed somewhat suspiciously. "Why, we can go weeks at a stretch with nary a passer-by."

"Makes one wonder," Thomas pressed evenly, meeting the proprietor's eyes, "why one would go to the trouble to operate an inn in such a place."

"Simple human kindness, I expect," Yazim announced, rolling the quill and ink pot up into the parchment and stashing both into his pack. "A quality we see far too little of in the city proper, I am afraid. Thank you, good sir. You may expect a friendly visit from the tax constabulatory of this region within the year. For our part, however, we bid you good day."

With that, Yazim stood, and Thomas moved to join him. The proprietor blinked up at Yazim and then down at the small stacks of coins on the table. A question seemed to form on his face, but it vanished quickly. He began to scoop the coins into the hollow of one huge, callused palm.

"Always a pleasure to host the agents of the King," he said loudly, as if to cover the clink of his coins. "As I say, me and the missus, we just want to do our part. Glad to be of service. Fare thee well then, gentlemen. Safe travels."

Ten minutes later, the two were astride their horses again, cantering away from the stone inn along a barely visible road.

"I've enjoyed better accommodations in barbarian prison camps," Thomas declared, glancing back.

"As a descendent of those 'barbarians' myself," Yazim commented smoothly, "I suggest that that might say more about the differences between our cultures' concepts of hospitality than it does about that specific inn."