Sword & Saturday - Post 2
The Tales of Belrik - Rescued Again - Part 2 In Crow's Port
Part 2 – In Crow’s Port
Belrik walked through the South Gate of Crow’s Port with a big smile on his face. As much as the city reeked the same as any other large human settlements he had visited, Crow’s Port was one of his favorite places to be. It wasn’t the masses of people from across Avellion and beyond, it wasn’t the busy markets nor was it the thriving night life that drew him. Neither was it because a little village a couple of hard days walk from here was the first place he had visited when he first appeared here over a century ago; then a few escapades later and he found himself outside the very gates he had just walked through for the first time.
No, it was none of those reasons, and yet all of them at the same time. Crow’s Port was full of opportunities. It was full of opportunities to visit old friends, to make new friends. There were opportunities a plenty to make silver and gold, with just as many chances to lose spend it or lose it. It was a place to eat some good meals, and swill some expensive drinks, or cheap ones if the mood was right.
“Moving your bloody arse!”
The snap of a whip near his ear snapped Belrik out of his reverie. He turned and made an exaggerated bow to the wagon drover that had been forced to stop.
“Goodman, my apologies. May the Lady of Fortune favor you this day.”
Belrik stepped out of the way of the wagon and walked down the busy street whistling to himself. He mused to himself that the drover probably thought he was a fool. The half-elf wasn’t insulted, he considered himself nothing more than a lucky fool.
There was only one person in all Avellion that looked like him. It made him stand out, and people remembered him. His appearance and his demeanor meant people who hadn’t heard his name underestimated him. He used that to his advantage.
His hair pulled back into a braid that reached to his shoulder blade and sported three large golden feathers. A goatee the same green and brown color as his hair was clashed with his sleeveless coat. It was stained and sported a few patches from years of being worn. A pale blue and open down the front, the coat sported stars and crescent moons embroidered in gold thread. The coat was worn over dark leather armor that showed signs of having seen hard use. A hand and a half sword that seemed as tall as he was hung from a baldric over his shoulder. Many other blades of various lengths hung on a belt, in his boots or a set of belts crossing over his chest.
As Belrik worked his way through the crowds, he was greeted by the many people he knew, many he did not. He cheerfully smiled and nodded ‘Good Day’ at everybody. Whether it was returned or not mattered not even a bit to him. There was very little that could dampen bring a frown to his face for long.
He knew that by the time he passed out the of the sprawling market at the South Gate, everybody who thought of themselves as somebody of importance would know he was here. Enemies and allies alike would be thinking of ways to turn his presence to their advantage. That made his smile get even bigger. The games within games, the politicking, the moves and countermoves. Those are what Belrik thrived on, what got his blood tingling.
He hadn’t been in the city in over a month, but he had people he trusted, his spies, gathering information and feeding all of it into his network. There were some among that network who didn’t know who they were passing the information, or who had passed along small pouches of coins in return. They came from all walks of life, from the poorest of beggars to members of the King’s Court itself. Information was power and people were willing to pay extremely well for little morsels of what his network had gathered.
In reality, his network extended far beyond the city of Crow’s Port. This is where he had begun his quest to become the most informed man in all of Avellion. Only a select few knew that he was at the center of it all. Most in the city knew him as the fool he portrayed himself to be, and from the stories of his escapades that made their rounds.
Belrik was the rogue who had broken into the tower of a mad wizard that lived in the city long ago. The rogue who dove from the tower into the city’s harbor and fought off a hydra sent to kill him by the wizard with nothing more than a dagger. The rogue who traded some ancient scrolls he found somewhere to another wizard for some griffon feathers, supposedly the ones he wears in his braid now. That was griffon was said to be the same one that he jumped from while they were flying among the clouds only to discover the ring he had acquired allowed him to fall from any height and land safely. People whisper that he secretly funds all the orphanages and poor houses in the city, that he dines with the beggars as often as he is seen at the balls of the nobles. There were rumors he was often seen in the presence of Forsaken Ones, but he wasn’t that crazy, was he?
He found himself at the Little Market. It was a busy market, but the wares weren’t as high quality as those found at the South Gate Market. The prices of those wares were lower than in the larger market, but most of the buyers found wandering among the stalls were locals. People tended not to cheat those they saw nearly everyday. Even though the market was busy he wasn’t worried about safeguarding his coin purse, but he kept an eye out for pickpockets. Those were not as numerous as they had been a decade or two ago.
“Milady Isadore, how good it is to see your beautiful face this morning,” he bowed deeply from the waist to an old granny running a small food stall. They had known each other for three quarters of a century.
“Quit your foolishness Master Invar, or I’ll start telling everyone you have gone and cracked and asked me to bond with you,” the woman grinned a toothless grin at him. Her face weathered with years of being in the sun, her hands knobby with age she tended to the skewers of peppers and a strange pulpy fruit that she seared on a brazier. The tang of the yellow fruit and the spice of the peppers blended to a favorite flavor of his.
Isadore had sold this delicacy for years beyond counting at this little stall, ever since Belrik had bought the rights to the location for her. Grinning back at her, he handed over a couple of silver coins and received a handful of skewers in return.
“The King’s spies have been out in force, they been asking some strange questions about you,” Isadore leaned forward whispering, a serious look on her face. “They have been hinting about a reward for some information about you. Nobody here talking though.”
“How do you know they are the King’s?” he asked around mouthfuls of fruit and peppers.
“Too stiff in their walk and the way they talk to us. None of them are from the Low City. More news to be found at the Anther,” she replied watching people in the market, not that she could see vey well. Crow’s Port was built on a long sloping hill. The portions of the city closest to the docks and warehouses were older, more rundown. They were also dirtier and tended to have a stronger smell. Someone who was born, lived, worked and then died in the Low City could always tell when someone was from one of the better districts of the city. Few natives of the Low City had anything goo to say about residents from elsewhere in Crow’s Port. The Anther was an outdoor alehouse at the edge of the market. It had always been called the Anther, and nobody knew where the name had come from.
“My thanks Isadore. Your skewers are delicious as always,” he declared. Belrik bowed once more before heading off to the Anther. He now had a couple more pieces of the puzzle he had been given. Was this happening because the King had decided that he had enough of Belrik or was this instigated by somebody well placed in the king’s court. While he wasn’t a declared enemy of the king, Belrik had enough enemies at court that the latter was within the realm of possibilities. Those people had been on the wrong end of many of Belrik’s escapades, and that was often something that courtiers and nobles didn’t forget.
If Lord Byarton’s belief that one of Valestrie’s enemies from the Dark Realms had passed information to somebody in the king’s court was correct, did that person in the court know who had passed along that information? Questions within questions were all that he had now. Such was the life he had chosen.
Belrik looked up at the two citadels that dominated the skyline from opposite sides of the city. The Pit stood to the east and was the older of the two. Its history stretching back to before there were human settlements in the area. It had tunnels and dungeon cells carved deep beneath the surface. Valestrie was somewhere in that place.
To the west was the King’s Citadel. It had been built by the great-grandfather of the current sovereign to celebrate the glory of Crow’s Port. Most residents never saw the structure from up close since the watch kept lesser folk from entering the Palace District surrounding it. Somewhere in that place was somebody who was plotting against him.
He must have been standing motionless for a while pondering the predicament of the two places as he realized that the sun had moved on. Muttering to himself he headed to the Anther. It wasn’t a long walk, but it does take longer when you aren’t moving in the direction you wanted to go.
The Anther was little more than an open-air courtyard surrounded by rows of shops and businesses. It had been used as a place to cheap drink for as long as anyone could remember. It was never empty except when the storms were coming in off the ocean. Nobody wanted to sit and drink in a downpour. Awnings had covered the courtyard once but those had long since rotted away to little more than scraps fluttering on the end of ropes. Nobody had bothered to replace them. It wasn’t worth the effort. Several locals offered beer and ales for sale, others sold a variety of foods from breads and cheese up to more heart meals.
What the Anther was best known for was it was the best place to get a feel for the Low City. Some people from other districts did come down for a drink or two so some news filtered in from other parts of the city.
As Belrik entered the shabby courtyard called the Anther some of the other visitors offered a grim nod or a cheery wave. Even with the unwritten rule of anonymity in the Anther his name was on many lips as he passed. He flipped his hand at one of the many serving people and nodded to a table. He saw the worker take note of the table and the number of other customers there and nodded in return. As was customary in the Anther, he waited until the man was almost back with the mugs of beer.
“Good folk of Crow’s Port,” Belrik declared loudly. “My friends allow me the pleasure of joining you this day and provide this most excellent beer for your company.” He finished with a flourish as the barman began to place mugs in front of everyone at the table.
The collection of men at the table ignored him until the barman walked away before they turned back to Belrik.
“What do you say lads? Is this fellow low enough to sit and chat with us?” A portly man with touches of blood, long soaked into the fabric, on the cuffs of his sleeves. Belrik judged him to be a butcher. This was all customary, a tradition said to be as old as the Anther itself. The butcher’s words were met with a rousing cheer, and the man with a gap-toothed smile waved to a spot on one of the benches. “Welcome to our merry band, my good sir.”
As Belrik sat in the spot he was waved to, the others all hoisted their mugs toasting his good health. He was now a respected friend to all the others at the table until he got up and left. The next person that came to the table would be met with the same ritual, although it would be Belrik asking the questions the next time. And so on. It was a small ritual carried out at every table all night long so long as there was somebody sitting at the table.
“My friends,” he began to talk. “I know ill-news travel faster than even the carrion birds, but the bandits have gotten thick coming up the Coast Road. I think it was my big friend that kept them from attacking the farmer whose wagon I rode here on.”
There were nods from the men at the table, a couple even voicing their agreement. A few glances at the sword hilt sticking up behind his head told they knew who his ‘big friend’ was.
“The king will have to do something come the spring after the planting is done,” another man added, “If he doesn’t them mercenaries will cut the route.”
Belrik’s ears perked up. ‘Mercenaries’—that meant that the various groups of bandits were working as part of concerted effort. Someone was looking to take a bite of the little kingdom that the rulers of Crow’s Port had carved for themselves. It was even possible somebody was going for broke and trying to stage a coup attempt. Not good news either way.
“I heard that the Crows have been grabbing up lots of folk right of the streets,” Belrik spoke the words hesitantly as I he was afraid to speak the words around these people.
“Aye,” a glum man said, “I seen them bringing in lots of people, some strange ones too.” He took a sip of his beer. Belrik found he couldn’t tell if the sour looks on his face were from the beer or a memory he would rather forget.
“I know the Orduites tell us how they wiped them out, but I saw six Lost Ones going to the Pit, only of one of them was in chains. The court fellows with them did a whole lot of fawning and preening over the five of them dark hearted heathens.”
That glum looking fellow then got up and bid good night to the others. He then melted into the maze of people that crowded the Anther at every hour.
Belrik had far more information than he had, he still needed more. He was at the Anther gathering bits of gossip here, some information there. He was like a spider sitting in his web catching the news as it passed him by.
The only way he was going to get a direct answer was to pay a couple of unscheduled appointments to a couple of people in the King’s Citadel before going to the Pit to get Valestrie out. He had all day to prepare, but those visits the next night would be so much fun!
The rest of evening Belrik did more listening than talking. The conversations went from talk of banditry in the area and how the bandits will affect goods leaving or coming to the city, to people being snatched from their homes or from the streets as they went about their business to strange foreigners being seen at the court of the king being somehow behind all the problems facing folk in the city. From snippets he garnered from the tables nearby when voices got heated, the talk was the same at all the tables.