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that passes for conversation among those slowly getting drunk. Now and then I fancied that I was the great Camber Fosrick, sitting disguised as a wizard’s servant in some back-alley watering hole where the vermin of crime met to hatch their dastardly plots. Such a fantasy was difficult to maintain, what with the talk of barley yields and rainfall (or lack thereof), but it got me through the dull patches.
    And I was glad I lingered, for at about nine o’clock, in through the door walked one of the most prime specimens of womanhood that I have ever seen.

7
    Her perfect if stern face was framed by red hair, cropped off just beneath the woman’s chin, leaving her neck bare. She wore a broadbelt that supported a steel bustier, mail leggings, and a leather skirt that was open in front almost to her generous hips.
    From the broadbelt hung an assortment of bladed weapons, all of which legally bore peacestrings upon their hilt, though I suspected these symbols of nonaggression would not have prevented the woman from drawing any of her blades efficiently. Although the armor and weaponry was daunting, they did not manage to hide a glorious face and, shall we say, a healthy body that now positioned itself at the dark end of the bar.
    “Who,” I asked the all-knowing tailor, “is that?”
    “Must be Kendra,” he said quietly. “An adventuress.” I had heard of her. But her reputation, though impressive, had not nearly done her justice. “Heard she was coming to the Vast Swamp,” the tailor went on. “Supposed to be looking for
    treasure there.”
    Her looks alone were treasure enough for a hundred men, I thought, but I kept my opinion to myself. Others were not so tactful. It came as no surprise to me when Dovo lumbered up to Kendra and sat down next to the woman. “Buy you an ale, missy?”
    I hope I’m never looked at that coldly by a woman. If Dovo had been any other man, his blood would have frozen, and once it thawed he’d have been on his merry way. But his skull was as thick as his muscles, and he merely leered in response to her sneer. “And what are you?” she said, examining his stained clothing. “Slop boy?”
    He colored then, and drew himself up. “Slop boy, is it? Not hardly, missy!”
    “Nay indeed!” shouted a tavern wag, safely from a dark corner. “A nail gatherer!”
    “A fire stoker!” cried another, given the anonymity of the mob and the tavern’s darkness.
    “A smith!” insisted Dovo.
    “A smith’s assistant!” cried the first voice.
    “Then,” said Kendra with a voice that would have frosted over Anauroch, “I’ll know who to come to when I want my horse’s spit licked off its bridle.”
    It wasn’t the most eloquent insult I’d ever heard, but it got under Dovo’s skin. “Watch yourself, missy!” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “There’s more to me than you might think—much more.”
    Kendra glanced down, then looked away disinterestedly. “I doubt it.”
    He grabbed her arm then and started to whirl her about, but as quick as a snake she pulled out a dagger and pressed it against his throat. “I don’t like being touched,” she said. “Especially not by a smith’s assistant. Barkeep!” she said to
    Shortshanks. “Why don’t you toss this bat’s dropping out of your establishment?”
    Shortshanks had already come up with that idea on his own. He laid a smart rap behind Dovo’s knee with his mallet, and the man nearly fell. “Out!” the dwarf bellowed, and Kendra added to the command by flinging Dovo toward the door.
    Dovo went, but with no good grace. He spat on Shortshanks’s floor (another cleanup job for poor Sunfirth, thought I) and snarled at Kendra. “No woman treats me like that! I’ll show you yet, you—” I shan’t say what word he used, but it had Kendra off her stool with a savageness that spurred Dovo to a fast sprint through the door and away into the darkness. The adventuress looked after him for a moment, then returned to the