Free Dirty Eden by J. A. Redmerski Page A

hands, but with big, crooked smiles along the way. The clanking of metal pots in the back was annoyingly loud, but not nearly as loud as the men who carried on about the former queen who was apparently favored by few and friend to even less. I brought my mug to my lips, sitting quietly with my arms across the bar top.
    “Agrippine was a good queen,” said a red-haired man sitting nearby in a chair at a small round table.
    The bearded man, Morris, slammed his mug on the bar again. “Agrippine was a dimp! She claimed to be a way-finder, but she was more a politician and wasn’t even good at that !”
    “No, she was a money-hoarder, a self-serving coin-monger,” the brown-haired man said, raising his greasy, balled fist in the air.
    I turned fully on the stool so that I could see the red-haired man at the table behind me, the one of the three that seemed the least intoxicated.
    Tsaeb entered the conversation that before did not interest him. “Hell yeah,” he said looking at the brown-haired man. “A greedy liar, that witch was.”
    I shook my head. Look who’s talking .
    “What do you know about the politics of Fiedel City?” the bearded man named Morris said. He added after another clumsy chug, “You’re just a demon brat from the Outside.”
    “Yeah, but I know a lot of things,” Tsaeb said with a smirk. “And Agrippine was a better queen than Livvy, even though she was a compulsive liar.” He went back to picking his teeth.
    I leant backwards against the bar, propping my elbows upon it, my out-of-place dress shoes supported by the spindle below. He knows a lot of things, hmm?
    “A better queen than Livvy?” said the brown-haired man, his expression twisted into disbelief. “What’s wrong with you, boy; did you fall in the Well of Illusions?” He threw his head back in a loud chain of laughter, pounding one dirty fist on the bar top. The various mugs and half-eaten plates near him jumped.
    Morris let out a foul-smelling belch and tilted his baldhead to see Tsaeb near him. “Better watch that mouth of yours, boy. Livvy was a good friend of Morris.”
    “What?” said the brown-haired man, dumbstruck. The wrinkles deepened at the corners of his eyes. “You couldn’t have been older than six when Livvy died !”
    “Forget he said anything.” I looked between them. As usual, Tsaeb’s over-the-top personality was making me immensely nervous.
    Morris gestured for the barkeeper, too drunk to find a rebuttal. He absently moved his mug before the pour was finished; ale spilled onto the bar, but the barkeeper went about his business, not worried about cleaning away the mess with the dirty cloth dangling from his belt.
    If I can’t get straight answers from Tsaeb....
    “Why do so many want the queen dead?” I said over the arguing.
    The argument came to an awkward stop and all three men looked at one another cautiously. It seemed that my question might have even sobered them up some. The tavern was rambunctious and cruel, but in the small section where I was with the three drunken men, the air was thick with silence.
    Finally, the brown-haired man leaned toward me and quietly broke the silence that was making me more nervous than ever.
    “You must be an outsider too.”
    “Has to be,” Morris added, whispering.
    “Yep,” the red-haired man said, stepping up from the nearby table. “And we haven’t seen an outsider like you for...” he paused, chewing his top lip, “...at least thirty years for me.”
    “Morris ain’t seen one in — ”
    “No it’s been more than thirty...forty-five at least,” the brown-haired man added.
    “One what?” I hated this. “What do you mean, ‘an outsider’ like me”?
    “An outsider that’s human,” the red-haired man said, watchful of listeners around him. “You should be careful,” he added.
    “He’s right,” said the brown-haired man, “and you should get yourself a weapon or six.”
    “Tell me about the queen,” I whispered nervously, “if