He nodded surlily, and led the mule away, whilst I entered the tavern's
single room. Coming into it from the sunlight I could scarcely see
anything at first, so dark did the place seem. What light there was came
through the open door; for the chamber's single window had long since been
rendered opaque by a screen of accumulated dust and cobwebs. It was a
roomy place, low-ceilinged with blackened rafters running parallel across
its dirty yellow wash.
The floor was strewn with foul rushes that must have lain unchanged for
months, slippery with grease and littered with bones that had been flung
there by the polite guests the place was wont to entertain. And it stank
most vilely of rancid oil and burnt meats and other things indefinable in
all but their acrid, nauseating, unclean pungency.
A fire was burning low at the room's far end, and over this a girl was
stooping, tending something in a stew-pot. She looked round at my advent,
and revealed herself for a tall, black-haired, sloe-eyed wench, comely in a
rude, brown way, and strong, to judge by the muscular arms which were bared
to the elbow.
Interest quickened her face at sight of so unusual a patron. She slouched
forward, wiping her hands upon her hips as she came, and pulled out a stool
for me at the long trestle-table that ran down the middle of the floor.
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