King Pinch by David Cook, Walter (CON) Velez Page B

front of them, was a thousand times better than another night sleeping on half-frozen mud and pine branches.
    A boy splashed through the melting snow, shouting out their arrival, so that by the time the Ankhapurans reached the gate, a band of grooms and farmhands faced them on the other side. The inn's staff was armed with a smattering of spears, scythes, and flails, the weapons of a ragtag militia. The signboard over the closed gate creaked in the wind, announcing that this was "The House of Pity."
    "Where you be bound?" shouted one of the lot as he struggled his way to the front.
    "We are Lord Cleedis of Ankhapur and his escort," shouted back the captain of the guard, the one Pinch knew was a brute to his men. "Who are you?"
    "The landlord's cook," replied the cadaverously thin man who stepped to the front. He wore a greasy apron and carried a heavy cleaver, the uniform and tools of his trade.
    "So much for the food," Therin whispered to Sprite.
    "Well, open the gate, lackey, and give us a room for the night. My lord is not accustomed to waiting in the mud." The captain was flushed with impatience to be out of the foul weather.
    With slow deliberation, the cook peered first into the woods on one side and then on the other, searching the shadows and the darkness for something. Finally he turned back to the captain. "Can you pay?
    "Can we pay?" the officer sputtered. "Pay depends on service, lout!"
    Now the cook slowly, and again very deliberately, looked over the riders, counting out the number on his fingers. When he'd counted both hands, his face furrowed in concentration until at last he nudged the man next to him with over-broad secrecy. Heated whispers flew until at last the second fellow held up his own hand and the cook continued to count. The captain barely suppressed his rage at this dawdling.
    "Twelve!" Pinch yelled out when the count was clearly above three hands.
    The cook and groom paused, looked at their hands, looked up, looked back at their hands, and then very slowly and deliberately began the count again.
    The captain twisted in his seat to glower at Pinch, and for the first time in nearly a week the rogue beamed a wickedly cheerful smile and stoically endured the icy discomfort.
    Behind Pinch a chorus of snickers and snorts struggled not to break into a round of guffaws.
    When the pair's count reached three hands, every eye of the cold and wet escort turned on Pinch. The rogue only nodded and smiled.
    "Three!" chimed Sprite's high-pitched voice.
    The count began again.
    The guards edged in closer, this time watching all four vagabonds.
    At two hands, Maeve could stand the ludicrousness no longer, and a hysterical cackle burst from her lips. It pealed down the wooded lane.
    The count began again.
    The captain wheeled his horse back through the mud. "If they say anything -" he paused in midsnarl, realizing he could not carry out a threat against his master's guests. "Well," he finally continued with teeth chattering, "don't let them!"
    Now the guards, sensing a pattern, paid particular mind to Therin. The big Gur smiled back at their fixed scowls and pointedly kept his mouth closed. The count passed one hand and he did nothing. Maeve, Sprite, and Pinch waited to see what he would do.
    Two hands.
    Therin didn't say a word.
    Three hands.
    The big man beamed in calm silence.
    Seventeen…
    Eighteen…
    Nineteen…
    Therin stretched his arms in a broad yawn. The guards reacted with the singing steel of drawn swords. The rude militia splashed back from the palisade fearful of a fight.
    The count began again.
    Pinch, Sprite, Maeve, and Therin all looked at each other and smiled.
    *****
    It was moonset before all the horses had their fetlocks washed, their coats curried, and their mangers filled with moldy hay. The soldiers plodded back into the commons. Pinch and his crew came up last; in this, like all things, the last of everything.
    In a night the color of simmered wine, the sway-backed inn breathed vaporous