”No more ale for you, Ted”, said the female bartender to the drunk who had been nodding off at the bar. It was still early afternoon and The Mad Badger Inn of Archet was almost empty. In addition to the bartender only the early birds, the barflies of Archet occupied the spacious common room of the inn. Ted, dozing off at the bar. Herb, snoring loudly at one of the tables. Joy, Herb’s wife, sitting next to her husband, staring into space with her glazed, hopeless eyes. And one stranger sitting in a corner table alone, staring at the shabby clientele, his mean black eyes full of scorn and contempt.
The Southerner.
He had spent the night sleeping in the woods outside of Combe and followed the wagon of the hobbits when they had left Combe and arrived in Archet a few hours later. He should have stayed away from the town, he knew it, he should have camped in the woods, eating his rations and sleeping outdoors, out of sight. But the coldness of the late autumn in Bree-land had been too much for the Southerner. The chill had crept into his limbs and into his bones until they felt frozen to the marrow. He could not have taken it anymore, so he had walked into the village and into The Mad Badger Inn.
He knew it to be stupid and risky, but the Southerner just had to warm his frozen bones by a hearth, just for a little while, he had to eat just one hot meal before spending another night in the cold, wet woods outside. His presence would be noticed in such a small village, but what difference would it make? A stranger from Bree came to Archet and ate lunch at the Mad Badger. Nobody knew him here, and very few knew him in Bree. There was no reason for anyone to connect him with that idiotic brute who had attacked the old hobbit yesterday. He was just a traveler from Bree, perhaps a trader. Perhaps someone who had gotten tired of the noise and ruckus of Bree and was looking to buy a house from a more peaceful neighborhood.
That’s what he had said to the guards at the gate, and to Bernice, the female bartender at The Mad Badger Inn. The Southerner could act very pleasantly and convincingly when he wanted to, although some people would say there was something too smarmy and inauthentic in his pleasantness. Some would look deep into the glittering madness in the bottom of his pitch-black eyes and suddenly feel uncomfortable in his presence.
The Southerner had warmed himself by the fire and eaten a hot meal. He had drank a goblet of mulled wine and felt the ice in his bones starting to melt. Watching the quiet desperation of the town drunks had warmed him even more, and now he was feeling quite content, warm and drowsy. His eyelids had started to feel heavy and he had almost dozed off to sleep when a noise from the door woke him up.
The Southerner opened his eyes and met a pair of eyes staring at him from across the inn. He returned the gaze. It was a middle-aged man in a watchman’s livery with a black mustache and sharp blue eyes.
At that moment The Southerner knew it had been a mistake to come here. Of course it was, he had known it all along. The livery the man was wearing was a little different from the livery he had seen on the guards by the gate, but it was very familiar to the Southerner from other places.
The newcomer was a watchman from Bree. A high-ranking watchman from Bree in Archet.
