The Golden Fool
Chapter 11: Bread And Blood

Chapter 11: Bread And Blood

He made his way through the maze of alleys, following the river’s oily shine toward the stew house.

Voices drifted from its open front, a low, uneven tide of argument, laughter, then a sudden shriek that made the hounds at the stoop flinch but did not, apparently, trouble the patrons within.

Apollo ducked inside, scanning for a spot where the walls were less likely to collapse or the crowd to turn.

He found a place at the far end of the rough-hewn bar, where the wattle-and-daub wall formed a sharp corner with the windowless back.

The barkeep, a woman with arms like cured meat and a jaw that had clearly been put back together at least once, poured him a bowl of red stew that tasted, miraculously, of actual meat.

She added a mug of thin, bitter beer without being asked.

He ate slowly, surveying the other drinkers: dock hands in salt-stained canvas, a trio of market women with eyes like fish, a pair of city militia in mismatched blue.

None seemed to notice him except the hounds, who circled his legs in hopeful, arthritic orbits.

The warmth of the food hit his belly like an old friend, and for a while he simply let himself exist: not as a god, or an exile, or a scapegoat, but as just another animal grateful for calories and the illusion of safety.

He was halfway through the stew when someone took the stool beside him.

Apollo did not look up at first, but the newcomer’s presence was too forceful to ignore: a tang of sweat, cheap spirits, and the powdery aether odor of someone who trafficked in more than just mortal trade.

"Gods, but you eat slow," said the man.

His accent was city, but peeled of the usual affectations, each word dropped with the casual brutality of a stone from a tower.

Apollo turned. The man was broad in the chest, even broader in the shoulders, and wore his black hair cropped short except for a rat tail left to tickle the base of his spine.

His eyes were a sharp, washed-out blue, almost phosphorescent, with a scar cutting through the left eyebrow.

He had the face of a man who’d survived every barfight he’d ever started, and the hands of one who preferred to finish them with minimal effort.

He wore a hauberk of battered scale, patched with odd bits of boiled leather and a few fragments of what looked like priestly vestment stitched in for luck or as a joke.

A jagged cut bisected his lower lip, giving every smile the aspect of a threat. He eyed Apollo’s bowl with frank resentment, then stole a hunk of the bread and bit into it.

"I haven’t seen you before," the man said, talking as much to the beer as to Apollo. "You’re not local, and you’re not a guard. So what the fuck are you?"

Apollo considered lying, but the man’s expression made it clear he had already rehearsed most of the answers. "I’m a healer," he said, settling on the closest thing to truth.

The bread paused at the man’s mouth. "Oh, that’s rich," he said, and laughed. "You? Skinny as a louse and half-dead yourself?"

Apollo shrugged. "I heal better than I am healed, apparently."

The man gestured for the barkeep to bring another mug. "You’ll need it, friend. The town’s crawling with pest and rumor both. Half the east quarter’s already dead, and the rest are just waiting their turn."

He set down the bread, wiped his hands on the sleeve of his hauberk, and stuck out a hand: "Name’s Nikolaj. Call me Nik if you want, or don’t, I’ve been called worse."

Apollo took the hand, callused, hot, the grip somehow both lazy and absolute. "Lio," he said, choosing the name Othra had christened him with. "Just Lio."

Nikolaj grunted approval. "That’ll do. So, Lio, what’s your business in Marrowgate? Not the healing, unless you want to end up in a ditch, same as the rest."

Apollo sipped his beer, kept his eyes on the foam. "Passing through. Thought the road might be kinder than the woods."

Nik barked a laugh, so loud the bar quieted for a moment before remembering itself. "Road’s never kind, friend. It’s just faster to the grave."

He drained his mug and let it clack against the bar, then leaned in, lowering his voice to a private register. "You new enough to not know the lay of things, or just pretending?"

"I don’t know anything," Apollo admitted. The words brought a surprising relief.

Nik smiled, showing a line of chipped teeth. "Ah, honest. That’s fresh. Marrowgate’s run by three crews. The river lords, who claim the docks and the east, the old temple, who run the sick-houses and the dead, and the Blackhearts, who run the rest. If you’re not with a crew, you’re livestock. Or worse, a mark."

He sized Apollo up, as if debating which category he might fit.

"Who rules?" Apollo asked. "Is there a king? A council?"

Nikolaj snorted, then flagged down the barkeep with a flick. "You want a king, go to Glassmar. If you want a council, try the salt cities, though they’ll rob you even cleaner, just with better paperwork."

He glanced back, his eyes gone briefly sharp. "Here, it’s whoever has the most bodies and the least sense of shame. Officially, the city’s run by High Magistrate Cale. A puppet, strung up by the Blackhearts ages ago. The real ruler’s Lady Petronia, the ’Dusk Queen,’ though if you call her that to her face she’ll have you skinned and hung from the bridge."

Apollo let the names settle, trying them on the tongue of memory. "And what about the river lords?"

"That’s the Wyrm family. They’re traders, up from the marshes. Slavers, poisoners, sometimes even honest merchants, depends on the season, and if there’s a plague on. Rumor is, they’re in bed with the Sable Duke, but nobody’s seen him west of the flats in years."

Nik blew a crumb from his palm. "You stay out of the east quarter if you want your purse and skin."

"And the temple?" Apollo asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Nik grinned, this time with genuine pleasure. "You really are new. The temple hasn’t been a temple since the old gods went under. Now it’s a school for orphans, mostly, except the orphans run the rackets on the side, and half their priests are just cutthroats who got tired of getting their hands dirty. If you want opium or a boy, they’ll sell you either. If you want a blessing, bring a weapon."

Apollo smiled, not unkindly. "Sounds like home."

At this, Nik’s mouth twisted sideways. "That’s the spirit. Or you might call it survival, but that’s a matter for philosophers."

He caught the barkeep’s attention with a click of the tongue, then nodded toward Apollo’s emptying mug. "You ever fight, Lio? Not the polite, southern kind, but here, with fists and chairs and maybe a knife if you get unlucky?"

Apollo lifted his mug, noting the tremor in his own hand. "I can defend myself."

Nik’s shoulders shook with a silent laugh. "That’s not what I asked." But before he could press the point, a commotion erupted behind them, a chair scraped back, a shout, the unmistakable crack of a bottle against thick bone.

Someone hit the floor with a wet, meaty sound.

Nik rolled his eyes, drained what remained in his cup, and twisted on the stool. "See, here’s the trouble with stew houses," he said, almost to himself. "Nobody cares what they bleed on."

He stood, squared his hauberk, and stepped into the fray, dragging Apollo in his wake.

The fight was already well underway: a pair of dockhands, one heavy and balding, the other tall and whip-thin, were set upon a third, younger man who cowered behind an upturned table, face streaming with blood.

The crowd had parted just wide enough to give the combatants room to maneuver, but not so wide that anyone missed a good swing.

A woman at the bar was shouting obscenities in a dialect even Apollo hadn’t heard, while the barkeep methodically cleared glassware from the counter, unfazed.

Nik waded in, not with the hesitation of someone weighing the odds, but as if the outcome had already been decided.

He collar-grabbed the whip-thin dockhand, spun him around, and delivered a single, humiliating slap across the mouth.

The man reeled, blinking in disbelief, then charged Nik with a roar. Nik sidestepped, hooked a foot behind the man’s ankle, and let gravity finish the job.

The dockhand crashed chin-first into the table, then sprawled onto the floor, senseless.

The heavy one, seeing his partner’s defeat, lunged at Nik with a broken tankard. Nik ducked, caught the man’s wrist, and twisted until the tankard fell. He leaned in, whispered something in the man’s ear.

The words must have been properly chosen, because the dockhand’s face lost all color. He stumbled back, hands raised, and scuttled from the bar without so much as a backward glance.

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