Third Rate Hack — Song of Arventis, Part Eight
Arventis finally reaches an inn in Bergot, and meets the worst person alive
Perhaps you’d like to start at the beginning? Part One
No vampires jumped from the shadows during the walk from the burnt out gate to the roadside inn. Arventis avoided any attacks from bandits. He did not trip on a corpse and break his leg.
He made it to the inn’s pine-timber door unscathed. It made him nervous. Too much had gone wrong, too many catastrophes beset him as of late for things to go so smoothly. But he steeled himself, took a lungful of crisp air, and eased the door open.
The room beckoned him in with a warm fire crackling in the hearth. Fresh straw littered the ground, and spice and meat scented the air, wafting from an unseen cookpot. Arventis searched the inn for any Dellish soldiers loitering about, but all he saw were a couple leathery men in rough-spun, drinking together at the only occupied bench, the innkeeper behind a bar counting out coins, and a bard. A bard, plucking at a lute.
Arventis couldn’t take his eyes off the lute. It was a second-rate instrument, based on the coloring of the wood and the warmth (or lack thereof) of its tone in the small room. But Arventis would have foregone food, a warm bed, even a chance at the bath he so desperately needed after soiling himself in the tower tree, just to pluck out a single note on that lute.
He approached the bard in his corner of the room. The slight man wore a wool doublet, dyed rust and adorned in silver buttons. His hair sat in a neat blond crop atop his head, beard braided and oiled. He cut a smart figure. It occurred — in the back of his mind, behind the opportunity to play a lute again — that Arventis, in comparison, probably looked like a ghoul covered in its own shit.
“Excuse me, my fellow man of the musical arts,” Arventis said, mustering his most well-bred voice. “Might I play a tune on your instrument?”
“You smell wretched,” the bard replied, pinching his nose.
Arventis frowned. He did, that was plain. Perhaps he ought to have bathed before asking the most personal of favors from a stranger. After all, a lute was much like a lover. Not willingly shared. And especially not with dirty ghoul men.
“I apologize for my odor,” Arventis said. He backed away a step to lessen the smell. “I’ve been on the road for some time. Beset by troubles.”
“I believe it,” said the bard.
“And strumming a lute again,” Arventis wrung his hands, “would bring the life back to this weathered shell.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“I really must insist.”
“No. Run along. Indulge in a bath, perhaps.” And the bard lifted his eyes from Arventis and returned to the song he had been playing.
The other two drinkers chuckled behind Arventis. His face flushed red. Fury and embarrassment mingled and formed a stinging alloy in Arventis’s chest.
Laughing! At him! Arventis, bard of renown across the continent of Lorten. This flat-voiced turd could hardly hold a tune. He should be bowing to Arventis, begging for tutelage.
“Would it change your mind,” Arventis said, and stepped forward again. “If you knew my name?” And Arventis opened his warms wide, turning to the other patrons with a smug smile, then back to the bard. “I am Arventis,” he had to raise his voice to be heard over the bard’s music. “Arventis, of Grale! Renowned bard — ”
The other bard kept looking elsewhere. He did not address Arventis directly. But he did weave a reply into the song he sang.
“Filthy scoundrels haunt the land, spinning lies ever so grand. ‘Arventis’ he claims. What silly games. He couldn’t play his own cock with his right hand.”
Arventis spluttered. Then he found his voice, “What kind of asinine rhythm was that? Seven syllables twice, then five, then four, then eleven? Absurd! I…”
A heavy hand fell on Arventis’s shoulder. The weight of it pushed him back down to reality. He felt his empty stomach, smelled his own foul fumes.
“Arventis,” said the voice behind him. His heart leapt. Somebody could see he was telling the truth! He’d be able to rub it in this hack bard’s face!
Arventis turned to face his deliverer and saw a mocking smile plastered on his face. It was the innkeeper, patronizing him.
“Arventis, you really do need a bath. Or you need to leave. You’re making my nose ache.”
Arventis swallowed past the knot in his throat. He knew, outside the door of the inn, that things had gone too smoothly. Why did he delude himself into expecting a pleasant evening?
“A bath. Please,” he said, eyes downcast.
“Wonderous. Two cants for a bath. Another three for food and board, if you wish to stay the evening.”
Money. Right. He didn’t have any.
“Can I pay you in song?”
If you stuck around this long, hopefully you enjoyed the story and didn’t simply finish it out of spite. And if you liked it, do my ego a favor and throw some claps, maybe a response, or a follow my way.
Arventis has a long journey ahead of him. I can promise music (on the page), violence (on the page), and disease (on the page, as well as in my own body on occasion). New chapter every Thursday.
