“You can hang it beside the door.” Tomasz gestured to the wooden pegs on the wall. “Or on a chair closer to the fire.”
Garek followed where he gestured, squinting at the flames dancing in the hearth. He frowned and aimed across the tavern. Heavy footsteps thudded against the floor, and his coat landed with a quiet shush on the bar. He sat on a stool, elbows propped and shoulders stretching the fabric of an off-white shirt worn beneath a wool vest.
Tomasz moved slowly, taking the time to study Garek without the weight of his gaze. His hair was unfashionably long, his vest of a style Tomasz had never seen, but his clothing was cleaner than the standard traveler’s, and well-made. His bulk strained the linen but did not stress the seams, and the vest fitted his thick torso and muscular chest distractingly well.
“A gorza?’ Tomasz asked as he slipped behind the bar. Garek answered with a nod.
Though his hand shook, from nerves or the proximity of a man such as Garek for the second night in a row, Tomasz poured two cups without spilling. Garek took up both and sniffed the contents.
“It is good quality,” he said, setting one down. He nudged it closer to Tomasz, watching as he plucked it from the bar. A tiny clink echoed through the tavern as they tipped their cups together. The familiar burn teased Tomasz’s tongue, and he set his elbows on the bar.
“My uncle works as a merchant in Wroclasz and cut my father a deal on Imperial grade gorza.” He swallowed more, humming as warmth bloomed in his belly.
Garek sipped and swirled the liquor around his mouth before swallowing. “I have not tasted gorza this fine since—” He paused, bright eyes dimming. “Since a long while. It must have been quite the bargain.”
“Oh, it was a deal alright. Twenty crates at cost.”
“Over time?”
“All at once.”
Garek’s eyes bugged, and he choked on his mouthful. “That would bankrupt any innkeeper.”
“It nearly did. Thankfully, the town built its walls a year or so later, and my mother negotiated with the burgermeister to keep us without.” Tomasz finished the last of his gorza and refilled his cup, offering the bottle to Garek. He smiled, a soft, fleeting curve of his lips, and downed the last of his liquor before setting the cup beside Tomasz’s. “With the wall came the threshold laws, and being outside the gates, the crossroads tavern can stay open until the last customer leaves.”
“Threshold laws?”
“Every townsperson must be behind a threshold by sundown.” Tomasz quoted the simplest of the laws as he refilled Garek’s cup. He nudged it across the bar with the base of the bottle. “It does not need to be their own, but it is highly recommended that the threshold lie within the town gates.”
“Why?”
“To keep them safe.” Tomasz shrugged. More gorza slid down his throat. “My mother grew up in the woods and claimed to know the beasts lurking within. She always said if her salt and ash could not keep them away, what would a gate be able to manage?”
Garek’s smile this time was deep and true. A flash of white teeth before he sipped. “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.”
“She was.”
“Was?”
“She died giving birth to my younger sister.”
Garek stilled, save for his eyes, which darted around the tavern floor. “Sister?”
“Died with my mother.” Tomasz drank his gorza in one swallow. This time, it was Garek who nudged the bottle across the bar with a single finger. “I was in my eighth summer, and it has been—was,” he hastily corrected, “it was just my father and myself, until he followed my mother into the wood.”
“Into the—she died in the wood?”
“A saying.” Tomasz reached for the bottle and stopped himself. One glass was enough for a typical night, and here he was with two in his belly. Perhaps it was Garek and the nerves the man set off. His broad presence and startling eyes. His easy questions drawing out stories of Tomasz’s mother. She had been gone for a score of years, his father for half as long, and yet the thought of the woman he barely knew prodded an old ache in his chest. “‘Those of the wood return to the wood.’”
“Ashes to ashes,” Garek supplied.
“Something like that.”
“And your father?”
“Followed her ten years ago.”
Garek nodded, as though that made sense. Distantly, the wind howled, and trees groaned in the wind. He pressed his lipstogether, eyes flitting over Tomasz’s face before he nodded and rose. “Thank you for the gorza.”