The Forlorn(62)

Keilin staggered out. He had to empty his bladder and oh . . . hell's teeth! He felt dizzy and sick. Flashes of memory from last night kept blurring into his reluctant mind. It had been a night of firsts. First time he'd killed a man. The thought still made him uneasy. He kept remembering the terrible threshing convulsive jerks transmitted up the assegai shaft. He splashed water into the porcelain basin from the cracked jug with faintly shaking hands. Washed his face. First time he'd really ever been drunk. When wariness was all that kept you alive it wasn't something you even considered. He poured water into the glass that stood on the washstand. He was suddenly desperately thirsty, with a strange rising saltiness in his mouth. He drank and looked across at the woman who still snored gently. First time for that too.

She'd rolled over onto her back, and had rather ineffectually pulled the rumpled sheet over her nakedness. He stared at her, trying to clear his memories of last night. She was perhaps twenty or more years older than he was, with faint lines around her closed eyes, and stretch marks on her belly and big breasts. He felt a sudden need for a second and third glass of water, and then . . . a desperate need for that bucket and seat next door.

The sound of his retching woke her up. She brought him a glass of water and a towel, and held him unself-consciously against her breasts while she wiped the beaded sweat off his forehead. "My God, boy hero, you look a lot younger in the morning light." She looked faintly guilty, as well as amused. "I think my sons are older than you are."

He felt his face going hot. "Still, we were both drunk, I guess." She became aware of his embarrassment, of the fact that he was holding his hands in front of his nakedness. Gently she pushed them aside, "And you do wield a beautiful big spear." She rubbed her breast across his cheek. "I see part of you isn't feeling too bad any more . . . It's still very early, and after last night I don't think anyone will be awake for a while. Come back to bed for a bit, before you grab your clothes and slip out of here." She gave a wry smile at his look of surprise. "You heroes'll leave in a haze of glory. I've got to go on living here. At least let me pretend to be a respectable captain's lady-o."

Keilin discovered that adrenalin and deep breathing provided the most wonderful hangover cure, and he was actually whistling when he reached the main road. He noticed abruptly that his ankle pouch was missing. He was about to swear and turn around, when another piece of last night's vagueness came back to him. He'd given it to Kim—Shael—before he'd left with Mara. If looks could have killed. . . She'd known exactly where he was going and with what intent. That was why she had come across and demanded her bracelet. He'd solved part of his own problems by simply giving her the pouch. He nervously realized he wasn't going to enjoy asking for it back.

"Hello, youth!" Beywulf's cheerful bellow echoed down the street. "You look like the cat that ate the canary . . . and now you've got indigestion. Well? Did you get lucky last night?"

He looked at Keilin's expression. "Well, well! And it wasn't with our little Princess. I saw her this morning. She's looking likely to curdle milk. Or was it that terrible an experience for her?"

Keilin shook his head, looking at the windows of houses around them.

"Pussycat got your tongue, boyo? What! You mean that's worn out, too!" He guffawed and took Keilin's arm. "Come. Let's go and have some breakfast. Maybe that'll restore you enough to swap lies with me."

Over a hearty meal of red flannel hash and toasted muffins served by a very respectful barkeeper at the Silver Anchor, Keilin caught up on the plans . . . and the happenings of the previous night. "We'll be sailing on the afternoon tide—if the channel's clear by then. Or if we can get those girls to part with S'kith." Keilin discovered that when everybody had got drunk last night his "friend" had tried alcohol, too, and decided he very much disliked it.

He'd been trying to keep in the background when he'd been discovered by the town's three professional girls. "They tried to get him to drink with them, and he refused. One of them asked if he'd given up screwing as well. He pulled his trousers down and showed her he hadn't." Beywulf laughed. "The pimp tried to interfere. With his trousers still around his ankles S'kith threw him into the harbor . . . from over there." He pointed to the railing outside the tavern. It was a good twenty yards to the water. "Then he walked off carrying a girl under either arm, with the third hanging on to his neck with her legs wrapped around his waist . . . still with his blooming trousers down!"

Bey took a deep pull from the foamy pint pot. "Believe me, lad, he'll be a legend here long after we've been forgotten."