A piece of The Collector of Tales
.... That was more of less what happened when I tried
to get a room sorted here. The only difference was that once we had got down to
the issue, we haggled over the price. Well, that and the fact that I claimed
that I was the mother of a smoking dog. Don’t ask me how. All I know is that I
swallowed a couple of syllables in my translation of the word 'overnight
accommodation’ and out it popped uninvited as it were. I have to say that this
linguistic error was to my advantage however. It kind of caught her unawares
and I think threw her out of focus on the price. Anyway five trupps was, I
thought, a bargain even though there was the obligatory non-refundable deposit
(for fumigation) which the hairy witch told me was set at another five trupps
in these parts.
"On
account of the calymeens." she had explained.
Then she had disappeared behind the bar for a
few seconds before emerging with a look of triumph and a rather unhappy and
pale looking creature about the size of her rather meaty hand and vaguely
resembling a trilobite which she proceeded to crush on the bar before me.
“These
calymeens! Hah!” she said and then grinned a gap-toothed grin.
Personally I think that she had kept that one
there for the purpose. As the viscous juices of the hapless creature spread
over sticky surface of the bar, I paid my ten trupps (and the shreeve tax –
another trupp) and the key deposit (another two trupps but refundable if the
key is presented on departure). Then with my bag, a huge key and my plate of
smoke roasted and slightly warm pork on a dirty
birch-bark platter I made my way through the crowded room to the dark
narrow opening with the words ‘Slepish!’ scrawled on the crumbling plaster
above it in the hand of a large but moderately literate spider. The tankard of
Horshp’s remained on the bar untouched. The dead trilobite watched me through
its lifeless calcite eyes.
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