In modern times, this original section of the bar—also known as The Trough Proper, by the way—is reserved by right and custom for the most aged of The Trough’s customers. These heroes—sure, they’re a lot of doddering oldsters, but you have to be a genuine hero to survive the number of years it takes to be elevated to the Old Bar—sit there for hours on end quaffing ale through toothless gums and squabbling over their reminiscences of days gone by. They also, I might mention, serve The Trough as its Court of Final Appeal.
Next to the Old Bar, as we move away from the door— Oh. Yeah, I should mention that there’s an elaborate nomenclature by which directions in The Trough are specified. I won’t get into it—way too technical for laymen, don’t you know?—but, for the record, moving down the Bar Itself away from the door is called “nethering,” or, by your real hard-core Trough-men, “nether-reaching.”
Anyway, nethering from the Old Bar we come to Anselm’s Cursed Yard-and-a-Half, as the next stretch is called. But we won’t linger on Anselm’s Cursed Yard-and-a-Half. Nobody ever sits there, not since Anselm cursed it some two hundred years ago. (And if you don’t know who Anselm was, or why he cursed it, or why anyone worries about an old curse, that’s tough. I’m a proper Trough-man, I am, and there’s some things you just don’t talk about.)
The next stretch, comprising some thirty-five feet in length, are called the Blessed Planks. The oak slabs which make up most of the Bar Itself are absent here. Sometime back in the dawn of history—after the Suspected Soap Bead Uprising, according to legend—they were replaced by planks of cheap pine. Miraculously, as century succeeded century, the pine lasted. Unscarred, ungouged, uncarved, pristine and perfect. This, given the nature of The Trough, is an obvious miracle. Most Trough-men believe that a pot of ale served up on the Blessed Planks is better than any served elsewhere.
Superstitious sots. I’ve got no truck with that nonsense, myself. Ale’s ale, and there’s an end to it. The ale at The Trough is the best in the world, and that’s that. Doesn’t matter where it’s served or where you drink it, just as long as it makes its way down your throat.
Our hearts lighten, now, as we come to the next portion of the Bar Itself. This is where I hang out, whenever I’m not sitting at a table like I usually am on account of how Greyboar and I are too couth to belly up to a bar like your average lowlifes.
Eddie Black’s, it’s usually called. If you want to get formal about it, it’s The Stretch Where Eddie Black Was Probably Conceived. And if you really want to go black-tie over the matter, it’s The Stretch Where Eddie Black Was Probably Conceived If You Believe His Slut of a Mother and If You Ignore The Bloodstains Which Is What’s Left of Smooth-Talking Ferdinand After Eddie Black’s Father John-the-Ill-Tempered Carved Him Up On Account of How Eddie Black’s Pop Was Convinced That Eddie Was Actually Conceived Over There In What’s Now Called Ferdie’s Folly.
My spot, this. Always has been, since I was old enough to prop my chin on the Bar Itself.
And that’s the end of the tour. I’m thirsty, and enough’s enough.
“Welcome back, Ignace,” said Leuwen, shoving a mug across the bar. I contemplated the sacred object for a moment, before its contents disappeared into my gullet. Leuwen was obviously bursting with curiosity, but he’s the best barkeep in New Sfinctr—hands down—and so he waited for me to quaff two more full mugs before he started questioning me.
“So, how’s Prygg?” he asked. This, of course, was a meaningless question, nothing more than dancing around before he got into the juicy stuff. Leuwen’s interest in Prygg ranked somewhere below his interest in the taxonomy of flatworms.
I could dance too.
“Still there,” I replied.
“Glad to hear it,” he intoned cheerfully. “How’s Magrit? Still the same old proper witch?”
We were now bordering on a real question. Normally, I would have responded with a polite and reasonably informative answer, but the truth was that Magrit happened to be on my shit list at the moment—very high up on the list, in point of fact—and so I satisfied myself with a noncommittal grunt.
Leuwen wouldn’t let it go. “Hear she had to take it on the lam.”
Another grunt.
I didn’t think it would work. And it didn’t.
“Word is,” Leuwen plowed on, “she was mixed up in that business that brought in the Ozarine troops.”
Now we were treading on dangerous ground. I decided a grunt would be worse than an answer, so I tried to head Leuwen off.