The Tavern Girl

I wandered toward the quarter where the camp-followers kept their booths and taverns, until the first drinking tents and makeshift brothels came into view.

On either side men poured beer and watered wine, patched armour, sharpened halberds, chopped meat, worked leather, or called out their meagre wares from crates and baskets.

My fingers strayed now and then to the single thaler in my pocket, and I weighed what it might yet buy.

Besides that, I still carried the Spaniard’s full purse, so there was no need for thrift.

As for equipment, I lacked nothing, save the fine breastplate that now lay, God knew where, forgotten in some smithy of the dead-ridden western quarter.

Food, however, was another matter.

I had tasted nothing since morning, and with twilight descending, I saw no reason to deny myself a decent meal.

I searched for the first tent that promised to quiet both hunger and thirst.

Near a small fountain at the far end of the square stood a larger tent, gaudily adorned with faded pennants that tried their best to hide the rents and patches in the canvas.

For all its shabbiness, it carried a certain charm.

At the entrance stood a young woman calling to passers-by, urging them inside.

Now and then she lifted her skirt in a motion halfway between a curtsey and a tease, adding a quick, mischievous wink.

Her voice was clear and high, cutting easily through the din of the camp.

I liked the sound of it even before I saw her face.

She was tall and lean, with dark-blond hair braided into a half-Dutch plait.

Her features were a touch sharp, yet pleasing, and her large blue eyes, together with the faint freckles on her cheeks, softened the harder lines.

When she spotted a likely customer, she set a hand on her hip, leaned back slightly, and pushed forward a tightly laced bodice that suggested more than it revealed.

Wishing she might take notice of me, I passed by with an air of idle indecision, as though still searching for a tavern to my liking.

But instead of the invitation I expected, I heard only the croaking of crows above.

Had she not seen me?

At the fountain I turned as if by chance and walked past a second time, whistling lightly so she could hardly overlook me.

Still nothing.

A third time I tried it, and only when my patience was nearly spent did the call I sought finally come:

“Ho there, you!”

I turned with a smile. “Aye?”

“Have you lost your way?” she asked.

“Not quite,” I said. “I seek a tavern and cannot settle on one. Might you advise me?”

She showed no sign of being impressed.

“Seek further south,” she said. “You shall find one there, I make no doubt. Godspeed.”

With that she turned away.

I stood for a moment, unsure what to do next.

I had not expected to be dismissed so bluntly, yet I had no mind to be sent off so easily.

“Is this not a tavern as well?” I asked.

“It is, certes,” she said, “yet it serves Landsknechts alone.”

“And what assures you that I am not one of them?”

She laughed openly.

“You?” she said. “A Landsknecht? First, your garb betrays you. Second, you have the look of a well-kept merchant’s whelp. And third, a true Landsknecht would stride in and take what he desired, not slink to and fro like a starved cur hoping for pity, or a beating.”

This I had not expected at all.

My mouth fell open before I caught myself, yet despite her sharp tongue, she was grinning at me now.

While I was still mustering a reply, she vanished into the tent, only to poke her head out again a moment later.

“Well then? Will you enter, or must I drag you by the ear?”

She disappeared once more until I collected myself, at least, and stepped inside.

The interior was smaller than I had imagined.

The bright colours outside were clearly meant to distract from the worn and mended canvas.

A few benches and tables stood on animal skins laid directly on the ground.

Several soldiers drank and played at dice, while an older woman moved among them with plates and jugs.

Behind a hanging cloth I glimpsed a hearth, and from it rose the smell of roasting meat that sharpened my hunger at once.

I took a free seat.

Soon after, the bold girl approached to take my order.

As she drew near, her eyes fell upon the crossbow slung over my shoulder, and she stopped.

“For a wanderer, you bear a curious trinket,” she said. “From whom did you filch that piece?”

“That is no trinket,” I replied, “but a crossbow. And what persuades you it is stolen?”

“A crossbow, you say?” She tilted her head. “Faith, it has more the look of a peddler’s spinning-wheel.”

“I know of no spinning-wheel that would drive a bolt through an oaken door and into a man’s skull,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes, her lips quirking with amusement.

In truth, I had no idea whether the bowyer’s odd invention could do any such thing.

I barely knew how to string it, and the man had been half drunk when he gave it to me.

But I would not allow a tavern-girl to make a fool of me.

“You would strike a man’s head with that toy?” she said. “Through a door? I shall credit such talk only when my own eyes witness it.”

She was beginning to test my patience.

“Find me a door and stand behind it,” I said coolly, “and you may judge for yourself. And mind this, girl, my marksmanship is no jest! Now bring me meat and drink, and quickly before I lose my patience altogether.“

That silenced her, for the moment.

She shot me a dark look and slipped behind the curtain.

A short while later she returned with a jug of beer and a plate of mutton, the smell of which near made my mouth water.

Before she set them down, she bent close to my ear and whispered:

“In two hours’ time, beneath the castle wall. Bring that curious engine of yours.”

She nodded at the crossbow, then straightened and moved away as though nothing had passed between us.

I stared after her, unable to find my tongue.

Had a tavern-girl truly challenged me? 

I could hardly believe it.

Perhaps she wished only to look more closely at the weapon… yet her tone had suggested something else entirely.

Very well.

If she wished to play games, I would show her what came of such impudence.

Still smouldering, I tore into the mutton and drained the beer in great gulps.

I placed a few coins on the table and left the tent.

At the entrance I looked back once, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“By God, who does the wench think she is?” I muttered.

In my mind she now seemed far less handsome than she had moments before; indeed, I told myself she had never been pretty at all, merely helped by the light.

I resolved to forget her and make for my Fähnlein.

Yet for all that resolve, the picture of the girl in her tight moss-green bodice and pleated golden skirt would not leave me.