The Steel Remains

Unfortunately, the two law clerks hadn’t run off, they were still hiding in the crowd. Now they trod forward, clothes in disarray, faces flushed and bearing some small scrapes. Ringil spared them a glance.

“You got in a fight with this man?”

“He attacked us,” spluttered the more distressed looking of the two men. “Unprovoked. Started shoving us in the crowd, screaming abuse for no reason.”

“Lying fucks.” Slurring tones—at Ringil’s heel, Darby had managed to prop himself up on one arm. The motion brought with it a heady stink of unwashed flesh laced with piss and cheap wine. The man had clearly not bathed in a couple of months. “Called me an animal. A fucking marsh sloth. Not so long ago it was I fought to keep your mamas from being spitted on a big fucking lizard prick, that’s the thanks I get? I made my living with honest fucking steel, not robbing a man’s home and family with papers and ink.”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” said the other clerk, somewhat calmer than his companion. He seemed, perhaps with an eye sharpened by his profession, to have taken stock of Ringil’s attire. “But from the state of the man, I think it’s pretty clear who you can believe here.”

“That’s a skirmish ranger’s coat he’s wearing,” Ringil said, trying not to breathe through his nose. “Which suggests he was considered good enough to give his life for the city once. Perhaps there’s something in what he says.”

The clerk flushed. “Are you accusing me of lying, sir?”

“If you choose to take it that way.”

A slight, hanging silence. The crowd watched, lapping it up. The clerks looked uneasily at each other. Neither was armed beyond short ceremonial poniards they clearly had no idea how to use.

“Look,” one of them began.

Ringil shook his head. “You don’t look worse than shaken up, either of you. Nothing a visit to the baths won’t ease. In your place, I’d cut my losses and go home. Think of it as a valuable lesson in manners.”

He held their gaze for the time it took to make sure they’d do as he said. Watched them push through the gathered spectators and away, muttering angrily at each other, a couple of backward glances, nothing more. The crowd swallowed them, and chattering broke out in their wake. No one among the spectators seemed too upset by the way things were sliding. Ringil turned his attention back to the Watch.

“Seems the plaintiffs are disinclined to press the matter,” he said easily. “So what do you say, shall we show this old soldier here a little civil leniency? Turn him loose with a warning?”

A scattering of murmurs through the crowd. It sounded like agreement.

“Here fucking here,” croaked Darby, trying to get up. He didn’t make a very good job of it; he slipped and fell on his backside, stayed there, bleeding from a bad cut above the eye. The spectators laughed.

Ringil felt a hot stab of anger. Held it down.

“Honor the unpaid debt,” Darby mumbled, blinking around at the laughter from his seat on the ground. The air was redolent with his stench now; it wafted with his every move. “The life and limb in honor given.”

The young watchmen snorted. “Fucking old soldier, my arsehole. He’s quoting that shit off the Grel Memorial. Any beggar with half his wits can do it. And this one’s a drunk fucking pervert to boot. Ask anybody around here. Always causing trouble. Exposing himself to the good women of the neighborhood, abusing the citizenry day and night. And as for that coat, the fucker probably stole it off a corpse down at Pauper’s Landing.”

“Yeah.” One of his fellows jeered. “Hasn’t washed it since, what my nose is telling me. Some skirmish ranger.”

Ringil nodded at the two members of the Watch who were still out cold on the cobbles. “He fought remarkably well, don’t you think, for a drunk pervert beggar?”

“He jumped us,” said the young one. “He got lucky.”

Ringil met the young watchman’s eye and held it. “If he’d had a bladed weapon, you’d all be dead men now. You’re the ones who got lucky today.”

The watchman looked away.

“Just doing our jobs,” he muttered.

Ringil spotted the opening. Moved smoothly into it. “Yes, and I’m sure it’s thirsty work. Look, I have an idea. I’m a man of some means, and a soldier myself, and I suppose this old warhorse has captured my sympathy. But that’s no reason to expect honest men like yourselves to put aside your bound duties in keeping the peace. Perhaps, in view of the trouble you’ve had, I could stand you all a flagon or two at that tavern I see across the street there.”

A hesitant look chased its way around the four watchmen. One of the older ones nodded at their two comrades stretched out on the cobbles.

“What about them?”

“Yes, I imagine they’ll need some small medical attention.” Ringil spurred the shifting mood on, tossed his commandeered day-club onto the cobbles, and reached for his purse instead. “And I’d be more than happy to foot the bill for that as well. It’s only right.”