Board and lodging for the night

”It's getting late. We'd better find a place to spend the night,” Tom said.

”Yes,Tom, but do get us a good place this time and not the kind of flea infested hovel you would normally seek out,” Yolanda answered.

The wheels of the heavy cart ploughed deep through the muddy streets as Tom and Yolanda slowly made their way into Zatakia. Tom was taken aback by the sight. Never had he seen anything like it! The houses towered around him at least three stories high. And looming above the city was the great rock citadel, the centre of the empire.

Even though the hour was late, there was still hustle and bustle all around them. Merchants shouted, drunks staggered, nobles in bright clothes cursed at people getting in the way of their slender horses. But first and foremost from Tom's viewpoint, there were women, all kinds of them. From the young servant girls to the noblewomen, to the shameless harlots offering their services from windows and balconies. This was something else than his home village!

Tom had been dreaming about this trip for years. Finally, he was out of the dull village and had a chance to show what a man of the world he was. He was so glad when chief Olaf told him to make the week-long trip to the capital with the responsibility of this year's furs. He had also been overjoyed when Olaf entrusted him with his young wife Yolanda on the voyage. Even though the chief's ”If you touch her I'll cut off your balls” rang through his head, he indulged in fantasies about her all the time. But as her badgering progressed throughout the journey, his fantasies changed from tender lovemaking to shutting up her nagging mouth somehow.

Being the most beautiful woman in the village and on top of that, the chief's wife had gone to her head, and she was acting like the Empress of Osinth. Boy, would he like to show her!

His daydreaming stopped when he realized that they had reached a dead end, but luckily there was a tavern at the end of the street. Music and laughter sounded from the other side of a wooden door, and a sign above it said ”The Dancing Nymph.”

The hall inside was packed with people, drinking, eating and buzzing in many different languages and dialects. Busty tavern maids, in low-cut gowns, scampered between the busy tables with ale, a bard in a corner was strumming a lute, and the place smelled lovely of roast and bard in a corner was strumming a lute, and the place smelled lovely of roast and strew.

The hall was large indeed, but the establishment seemed to stretch out even further through several doors and entrances, and a red carpet stairwell led up to a balcony overlooking the room.

A grinning, burly man with a large moustache approached.

”Good evening, young sir and madam. and welcome to Dancing Nymph. I’m Voltok, the proprietor of this humble establishment. How may I be of service?”