Free Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott

woman—she was probably
about twenty, Eslingen thought, not precisely pretty but with a
presence to her that wasn’t at all surprising in the tavern
keeper’s daughter and heir—tipped her head to one side, studying
him with frank curiosity. “Who are you, then?”
    Eslingen stepped up to the bar, gave her his best
smile. “My name’s Philip Eslingen, late of Coindarel’s Dragons.
Maggiele Reymers said the Brown Dog rented rooms.”
    “ We do.” The woman—Adriana, the
waiter had called her—returned his smile with interest, showing
perfect teeth. “I’ll fetch Mother.” Before he could answer, she
popped back into the kitchen, closing the door behind
her.
    Eslingen set the saddlebags at his feet—the floor
looked clean enough, and he was glad to be rid of their weight—and
leaned against the bar. The waiter had vanished in response to a
shout from the garden, but he was aware of the tavern’s regulars
watching from their tables, and did his best to ignore their
stares. Reymers had said that Devynck kept a Leaguer house; her
regulars must be used to the occasional, or more than occasional,
soldier passing through.
    The kitchen door opened again—both halves, this
time—and a stocky woman came out, pushing her grey hair back under
the band of an embroidered cap. She wasn’t very tall, but she had
the familiar sturdy build and rolling walk of the longtime horse
trooper, and Eslingen touched his hat politely. “Sergeant
Devynck?”
    The rank was a guess, but he wasn’t surprised when
she nodded and came forward to lean on the bar opposite him.
“That’s right. And you’re—Eslingen, was it?”
    “ Philip Eslingen, ma’am, just paid
off from Coindarel’s regiment. Maggiele Reymers told me you rented
rooms.”
    Devynck nodded again. She had a plain, comfortably
homely face, and startlingly grey eyes caught in a web of fine
lines. The daughter, Eslingen thought, had obviously gotten her
looks from her father. “That’s right. Three seillings a week, all
found, or one if you just want the room. How long would you want it
for?”
    “ That depends. Maybe as long as the
fall hirings.”
    “ I see. No taste for the current
season—what rank, anyway, Eslingen?”
    “ I had my commission this spring,”
Eslingen answered. “Before that, I was senior sergeant.”
    “ Ah.” This time, Devynck sounded
satisfied, and Eslingen allowed himself a soundless sigh of relief.
She, at least, would understand the awkwardness of his position; it
would be a reason she could sympathize with for sitting out a
campaign. Hearing the change in her voice, he risked a
question.
    “ Three seillings a week all found
you said. What’s that include?”
    “ Use of the room, it’s a bed,
table, stove, and chair, and clean linen once a week. The boy
empties your pot and rakes the grate, and the maid’ll do the
cleaning, Demesdays and Reasdays in the morning. You haul your own
water, there’s a pump out back.” Devynck’s eyes narrowed, as though
she were considering something, but she said only, “I suppose
you’ll want to see the room first.”
    “ Please,” Eslingen
answered.
    Devynck glanced over her shoulder, as though gauging
whether she could afford to leave the kitchen, then came out from
behind the bar. “Stairs are through the garden.”
    Eslingen followed her out the back door. The garden
was bigger than he’d realized, stretching almost twice the length
of a normal city plot, and there were fruit trees along one wall,
the hard green apples little bigger than a child’s fist. There were
tables nearer the door and the ground around them was beaten bare;
beyond that area, rows of woven fence kept the drinkers out of
plots crowded with plants. Pig apples ripened on their sprawling
vines, yellow against the dark green leaves, and he thought he
recognized the delicate fronds of carrots in the nearest patch. The
pump, as promised was by the door, a spout shaped like Oriane’s
Seabull roaring above a cast-iron