The Innkeeper Who Has Seen Everything

The one behind the bar is broad through the shoulders and going comfortably soft with the years, sleeves shoved up past the elbow over thick forearms mapped with the shiny old scars of a lifetime near ovens and hearths. A grey cloth moves back and forth in one hand without any thought at all behind it, wiping and re-wiping the same already-clean patch of counter, the way other people breathe.

It's the eyes that hold you, though — pale, level, and entirely unhurried. They find you the moment you clear the door and are already three quiet steps ahead: working out what you are, what you're likely to want, and roughly what it's going to cost you before you've so much as opened your mouth. When you do finally speak, there's a small deliberate pause, an unhurried look that travels from your boots to your face and back, and then a single nod that could mean welcome or could mean nothing much at all. You get the distinct sense that very little said in this room over the years has ever managed to surprise the person now weighing you up across the bar.