It was a large settlement, more than a village but too much of it was temporary for it to be considered a town. Maybe it would, one day, if brick and stone replaced enough of the canvas and wooden planking.
In the meantime, it felt like a cross between a market square and a campsite.
A sprawling, complicated campsite that made it relatively easy for Charlie to lose the hooded men following her, but relatively hard to then wend her way back to her original destination.
Finally, she slipped between two wide, warped planks and into the dimly lit cacophony of Mistress Golda’s tavern.
The man she was to meet was already there, of course. As were two more of the hooded figures. Unless they were the same ones she’d slipped away from earlier. Why were they sitting so close together? Was it coincidence? Had her pursuers given up and stopped for a drink? Or had they changed their quarry to the other party in her evening’s appointment? Or were they colluding with him?
Charlie slid further into the friendly shadows at the edge of the room, scanning the crowd for the tavern’s owner. There, across the room, near the official front door, and awkwardly close to both the man she had to meet, and those she’d rather avoid.
She pulled the shadows closer around her, and walked slowly, calmly, around the edge of the room, then took advantage of the lumbering exit of a large man in the company of a smug-looking woman. The pair hid her slim form from most of the room until she could step out of their shadows and drop into a chair at Mistress Golda’s table.
Three of the four others gathered around started, and one swore. Only Mistress Golda looked unsurprised. “Evening, Charlie. Something wrong?”
That was Mistress Golda, always straight to the point.
Charlie hitched a thumb over her shoulder at the table where the hooded men sat. “The amateur spies there. I was intending to meet with their neighbour but think I may have to reschedule to a more suitable time and place. Could you send someone to let him know? Not urgent, you understand.”
Mistress Golda snorted. “Imperials, are they?”
“Couldn’t say, given how covered up they are, even indoors.” Charlie shrugged, hoping she looked casual and unconcerned.
A chair clattered into the space next to her, and the man she’d been about to not meet sat down. “You gave my men a pretty enough run for their money, Princess. I trust you’re not about to upset them by disappearing again.”
The DNA of Stories 