Hazel knew exactly one person who had access to any magical talents: her Aunt Agnes. But the old woman was a hermit and lived outside of town, so no one paid her any mind. At any rate, the gods of Caelis were pleased enough.Praise be,Hazel thought, with more than just a touch of cynicism. The gods were, after all, the source of more than their fair share of the problem.
“Aye, barmaid!” one of their regulars barked at her. Hazel knew who the voice belonged to, and she loathed him. Jonas the butcher was a sour sort of man who wore a permanent scowl on his scarred and pockmarked face. Forever smelling of smoked meats and stale ale, Jonas was the kind of man whose troubled past led him to believe the world owed him something, and he treated everyone accordingly. Alas, even when piss-drunk, he was the only person experienced enough to run the town butcher.
“I’ll be with you in a minute, Jonas. And I don’t think I need to remind you the barmaid has a name,” she shot over her shoulder. He mumbled something incoherently under his breath, and Hazel was happy enough not to make out a word of it. It wouldn’t have been anything pleasant, anyway.
She shook her head and reluctantly poured the man’s drink. After returning the flagon to its home behind the bar, Hazel approached Jonas with a fake smile, ignoring the slight warming sensation produced by her locket. “Your ale, sir.”
Without a word of thanks, Jonas tipped the entire pint back and drank it dry. Hazel watched in disgust, half wishing she’d have spat in it, as the amber liquid overflowed at the corners of his mouth, accompanied by his grotesque slurping. He drank as though he’d just finished a week-long journey through the blistering sands of the Western Wastes, the ale running through his beard and down to his stained apron.
When he finished, he slammed the mug onto the bar top. “Tastes like hot hog piss. Figures, though, seeing as this whole place has gone to shit since the old cripple put you in charge.” Hazel winced at the insult, directed not at her, but at her father. And still, Jonas wasn’t done.
He belched before continuing. “Any man who knows anything at all knows women shouldn’t handle the ale, besides maybe serving it. Their womanly curse causes it to spoil.” Rising from his stool, his whiskey-barrel gut butted up against the bar.
“Bet every drop in this place has gone sour in your presence.” He spat on the floor.
Hazel knew one thing for certain. It was unwise to disrespect Connall Callahan. Or his daughter. Or his establishment.
Jonas went on ranting and raving as the rest of the tavern grew quiet, shifting uncomfortably in their seats. A large figure stepped out of the stairwell shadows, as though Jonas’s actions had summoned him.
He approached the bar, his gait uneven and marred by a limp, but no less imposing. The silence was deafening as the man brought his calloused hand to rest heavily on Jonas’s shoulder. Jonas flinched at the impact, glancing sidelong at his new company.
“Connall.” He swallowed hard but kept his facial expression unflinching.
“Jonas.” Connall nodded, maintaining eye contact as he reached past Jonas to his daughter, who handed him the rag she’d been cleaning with. “Seeing as you’dneverdo that on purpose, go ‘head and clean it up and we’ll forget about it.” He pressed the rag into Jonas’s chest and patted him on the back. An unspoken warning. As Connall turned to walk away, Jonas tossed the rag to the ground.
“I’ll do no such thing. Your disrespectful wench of a daughter can handle it. Could probably use a good whip—” Jonas’s wordscaught in his throat as Connall snatched him by the collar and pulled him in close.
“Shall we head outside, then? Settle this like men?” There was fear in Jonas’s eyes, sweat beading on his wrinkled brow. Connall smirked. “Surely you aren’t afraid of anold cripple?”
Everyone in town, Jonas included, knew Connall’s bad leg wasn’t much of a hindrance to anything. What he lacked in mobility, he made up for in sheer ferocity and brute strength. He was a tall, broad man, whose hardened body represented a lifetime spent in the King’s militia. It wasn’t until his injury that he finally settled down, finding a new purpose as a family man. Later, his pride and joy became this very establishment, the Briar & Rose.
He may not be what he once was, but Connall maintained a reputation—one he wouldn’t stand to have tarnished, especially not by Jonas. Disrespecting his daughter was disrespecting him, old-fashioned as it may be. It wouldn’t do.
Jonas’s gaze darkened as the two men locked eyes, but he broke first, as though realizing what was at stake. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor. Hazel watched as her father released his grip on the butcher’s collar and folded his arms across his chest.
“Connall, I…” Jonas started, cheeks reddening.
“Therag, Jonas,” Connall interrupted, uncrossing his arms to gesture in a sweeping motion at the floor. Jonas sighed in defeat, crouching down to pick up the rag. As he grasped it, a foot came to rest on top of his fingers. Jonas focused on the leather boot for a moment before his features scrunched and he closed his eyes, as though prepared to take the full brunt of the weight threatening to flatten his bones into the bar floor.
“The only reason I don’t crush every bone in your hand right now is because this village relies on you for our meat processing,” Connall spoke from up above him, voice graveand gravelly, heavy with the weight of his warning. “But let me be clear: you willneverdisrespect my daughter or this establishment again. Understood?”
Jonas whimpered his agreement, and Hazel almost felt sympathy for the man. Almost.
Connall lifted his foot, releasing Jonas. The butcher got to his knees, rubbing his hand. Connall outstretched his hand in offering. Jonas took it without another word.
“You’re a better man than this, you old bastard, and I suspect you’ve had more than enough to drink tonight.” Connall said. “Go home.Straighthome. No detours. And get some sleep. We’ll talk about this when you’ve cleared your head.”
Hazel knew Jonas to be an abrasive man, but tonight he had acted different. She recalled how he had stumbled in despite the lack of alcohol on his breath. She’d just been too preoccupied to make much of it. If anything, it was unusual the drunkarddidn’treek of drink, she remembered, frowning. She may not like Jonas much, but he and her father had a longstanding relationship she would never fully understand.
They’d served in the militia many moons ago and formed a bond like brothers, as military men often did. For reasons unbeknownst to Hazel, the two men had a falling out at the end of the war and went their separate ways. A decade passed without either of them so much as crossing paths. Then one day, Jonas showed up with his little near-starved family and begged for a second chance from Connall. Being a forgiving man, he welcomed Jonas with open arms and helped him find a respectable role in the village. Surprisingly, Jonas had a wife, though she rarely showed her face. Hazel sometimes wondered what horrors the woman had persisted through, and why she stayed.
Because of her father’s relationship with the man, Hazel tolerated Jonas just enough to keep Pa happy. But she worriedabout keeping people like him around. Worried he would chase off other customers and cause Briar & Rose to lose business. Never mind the fact that Jonas believed most—if not all—women to be descended from witches, and the only way to ensure they stayed both compliant and subservient was to whip and beat the magic out of them. To keep the curses at bay, he said.
“What got into him?” She asked her father, who still had his eyes trained on Jonas. She hadn’t noticed it in the middle of the commotion, but the remaining patrons had all gone. Jonas’s departure left her and Pa alone in the empty tavern. “Um, Pa?” When he didn’t respond, she stepped into his line of sight. “Are you okay?”
He snapped to. “Fine. I’m fine,” he muttered, though something clearly troubled him. “As for Jonas, well, I don’t know, love. I don’t know.” He squeezed his brow between his thumb and fingers. “He’s a complicated man.”
As are you,she thought.
