Free Where Serpents Sleep by C. S. Harris Page A

twenty-five, maybe thirty. Once she had been pretty, and traces of her youth still lingered. But she’d obviously had a hard life.
     
     
    “What’s your name?” he asked.
     
     
    She sniffed. “Cherry. Why?”
     
     
    “This is what I want you to do, Cherry. I want you to wait two minutes, then follow me into the Black Dragon. You’ll see me standing in the back, near the stairs. Ignore me. All you need do is create some sort of ruckus. If you’re successful there’ll be another crown for you when I come out. Do you understand?”
     
     
    “A ruckus?”
     
     
    “That’s right. Enough of a disturbance to attract and hold everyone’s attention but not so much as to land you in the roundhouse.”
     
     
    “I can do that,” said Cherry.
     
     
    “Good. Now remember, wait two minutes.”
     
     
    Sebastian pushed open the tavern’s door and walked into a murky, low-ceilinged common room that smelled of savory pies and warm ale and warm men. A crescendo of talk and laughter rolled from the leaded windows overlooking the street to the narrow wooden-railed staircase at the back that led up to the first floor. Sebastian could see a closed door on the half landing.
     
     
    Heads turned as he threaded his way between men in blue work shirts and rough corduroy coats. He found a place at the end of the bar nearest the base of the stairs and ordered a half pint. Turning his back to the bar, he rested his elbows on the ancient boards and let his gaze wander over the scattered tables and darkened booths. Right on cue, Cherry walked into the room.
     
     
    A gust of wind from the open door shuddered the flames in the tin lamps, sending dancing light across her black hair and pale round shoulders. She hesitated for a moment, her gaze scanning the crowd as he had done. Her eyes flicked over him without a hint of recognition, then settled on a potbellied, gray-whiskered man sprawled on his own at a table near the center of the room.
     
     
    She planted her fists on her hips, her chin coming up in a display of fury that was utterly convincing. “There ye are, ye good-fer-nothin’ mutton monger!” Her quavering, outraged tones cut across the murmur of male voices. The man with the gray whiskers paused in the act of raising his pint of ale to throw a quick glance behind him.
     
     
    “No point lookin’ behind ye like ye was expectin’ to find St. Peter hisself standin’ there. I’m talkin’ to you, ye bloody belly bumper.”
     
     
    Gray Whiskers set down his ale with a thump and swallowed hard. “I don’t know you.”
     
     
    “Don’t know me!” She descended on him, her arms akimbo, her black eyes flashing. “Ye don’t know me, ye say? I suppose ye don’t know yer own ten poor wee bairns then, either?” Quivering with outrage, she stalked up to him. He was still pushing back his chair when she brought up her open hand and walloped him across the face.
     
     
    The smack of flesh against flesh brought a sudden hush to the assembly. A gangly, half-grown lad with a tray of empty tankards quickly set aside his burden to grab her arm. “Now there ain’t no call to—”
     
     
    She wiggled free of his restraint. “Let go of me, ye bloody madge cull.”
     
     
    A bald-headed man with a broken nose reared up from a nearby table to collar the stripling with one beefy fist. “Hey. That’s no way to treat a lady.”
     
     
    Gray Whiskers surged to his feet, one hand clamped to his stinging red cheek. “Lady? You callin’ her a lady?”
     
     
    The man with the bald head swung around and planted one of his meaty fists in Gray Whiskers’s potbelly.
     
     
    A cheer went up around the room. Someone threw a punch at the stripling, who ducked and fell back against a wooden chair, splintering it beneath him. Sebastian heard the door on the half landing jerk open and turned to see a burly man in a moleskin waistcoat come barreling down the stairs into the melee. “Here, here, what’s this? We’ll have