She spoke in the same barbarous accent as the northern mercenaries. From it Abdullah concluded that he was now in whatever country those men came from. He smiled at her. “What are you offering, O jewel of the wayside?” he asked her.

Evidently no one had ever called the woman a jewel before. She blushed and simpered and twisted her apron. “Well, there’s bread and cheese now,” she said. “But dinner’s doing. If you care to wait half an hour, sir, you can have a good game pie with vegetables from our kitchen garden.”

Abdullah thought this sounded perfect, far better than he would have expected from any inn with a grass roof. “Then I would most gladly wait half an hour, O flower among hostesses,” he said.

She gave him another simper. “And perhaps a drink while you wait, sir?”

“Certainly,” said Abdullah, who was still very thirsty from the desert. “Could I trouble you for a glass of sherbet—or, failing that, the juice of any fruit?”

She looked worried. “Oh, sir, I—we don’t go in much for fruit juice, and I never heard of the other stuff. How about a nice mug of beer?”

“What is beer?” Abdullah asked cautiously.

This flummoxed the woman. “I—well, I—it’s, er—”

The man on the other bench roused himself and yawned. “Beer is the only proper drink for a man,” he said. “Wonderful stuff.” Abdullah turned to look at him again. He found himself staring into a pair of round limpid blue eyes, as honest as the day is long. There was not a trace of dishonesty in the brown face now it was awake. “Brewed from barley and hops,” added the man. “While you’re here, landlady, I’ll have a pint of it myself.”

The landlady’s expression changed completely. “I’ve told you already,” she said, “that I want to see the color of your money before I serve you with anything.”

The man was not offended. His blue eyes met Abdullah’s ruefully. Then he sighed and picked up a long white clay pipe from the settle beside him, which he proceeded to fill and light.

“Shall it be beer then, sir?” the landlady said, returning to her simper for Abdullah.

“If you would, lady of lavish hospitality,” he said. “Bring me some, and also bring a fitting quantity for this gentleman here.”

“Very well, sir,” she said, and with a strongly disapproving look at the pigtailed man, she went back indoors.

“I call that very kind of you,” the man said to Abdullah. “Come far, have you?”

“A fair way from the south, worshipful wanderer,” Abdullah answered cautiously. He had not forgotten how dishonest the fellow had looked in his sleep.