The Belly of the Beast

[Ser Kenneth Coyn]

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Baldric came out of the back room about twenty minutes later, "Come on," Baldric said to Stutter gruffly his face reddened as if he had a stern talking too. "Were freemen lets get out of here before the boy changes his mind and decides to have us killed."

Lyman stood quickly plopped down some money for the drinks and left quickly with his boss, knowing better to ask questions now.

[Deleted]

Two children walked into the grimy tavern, giggling in a way that suggested that they were triumphant about something. One was a girl, about ten or eleven years old, and she was leading a chubby eight year old boy. They were plainly dressed and the girl was thin, but they looked clean and tidy and decently healthy. From the girl's grey smock with the seven-pointed star emblazoned in white, and the boy's grey tunic with the same symbol on it, it immediately became apparent that they were wards of Lady Sara's Hospice on Pisswater Bend.

[The Flint]

As the little girl went to enter the bar, she found herself lifted off the ground by the large thug sitting on a high wooden stool outside.

"And just where do you be thinking you're going?"

[Deleted]

The girl gasped as she was lifted off the ground, and the small boy went white.

"I was going to get a beer," the girl said, recovering very quickly. "Unless you're offering to get it for me?"

The boy was quiet, torn between fear and the faint hope that he too might be offered a beer.

[The Flint]

"How old are you?" the troll of a man asked the child, raising her so they are eye to eye.

[Deleted]

"Fourteen," the girl lied. "And that's my brother Tom, he's eight." She didn't bother to lie about his age.

She realized her smock had given her away. "We're from the grey brothers' hospice," she admitted grudgingly. "We slipped away while they were taking us on a walk to some gardens. Well, I tried to slip away, and he ran after me. I just want a beer, old man."

[The Flint]

"You got money to pay for 'em?" The man asked, not bothering to lower the girl to the ground just yet.

[Deleted]

"Aye," she said. "A few coppers and two silvers." Cheap drink did not cost much in Flea Bottom.

[The Flint]

"Where'd you get 'em?" The man asked. "You stole 'em didn't ya?"

[Deleted]

The girl began to speak, but Tom piped up first.

"Yes, she stole it from Brother Roran," Tom said. "He keeps a fund box for buying extra buttons and laces and things like that, and she took the mo - "

"Liar!" she said furiously. "You shut your mouth, and you," she stared at the huge man. "You put me down."

[The Flint]

The man let go and the girl fell to her feet.

"Don't much care for rats son, you keep your yap shut." the bouncer said. "Go on get inside."

[Deleted]

"Thank you," the girl said in a very dignified way, picking herself up and straightening her smock. She strode into the tavern, Tom running after her after giving the giant a nervous look.

[The Flint]

The crowd is thin inside the Belly. Thugs and sellswords keeping their own company. Scantily clad women work the room.

[Deleted]

The girl was undeterred. She had been a street child of Flea Bottom before Lady Sara's Hospice took her in, and this world was her home. She confidently walked up to the bar and said to the barmaid, "How much beer can I get for five coppers?"

"You have two silver stags Pam," Tom said accusingly. "I want something too!"

"I have one silver stag," Pam said hastily. "I need some soup for my brother - not that bowl of brown stuff, something without any meat."

[The Flint]

The one armed man behind the counter looked at the little girl with something approximating disinterest.

"Here's your beer. We ain't go no soup,but we can get some bread if you want."