Emmaline sat down and began to unwrap food. Neil had done a remarkable job of carrying off contraband. There was rich chocolate wrapped in waxed paper, candied pomegranate seeds, sweet meats packed into artfully peel orange rinds, jerked meat treated with lime juice and salted with pungent hot spices, and hard biscuit that seemed to be made of crushed almonds and other nuts. There was thousands of gelt worth here, more than they could eat certainly, and more luxury than most people in the Empire ever saw.

 

 

 

Neil stabbed a knife into the top of the small keg of Bugman’s ale, sliding it along and then striking the top of it with the flat of her hand. The rich yeasty smell flowed out and filled the tower. Dwarven ale was incredibly rare and expensive even in Altdorf, and no table in the Empire could boast Bugman’s ale more than once or twice in a generation. He took two, more or less clean, mugs and dipped them into the open barrel, lifting out two foaming tankards. He sat one down infront of Emmaline who picked it up eagerly.

 

“Too looting,” Emmaline proposed.

 

“How very civic minded of us,” Neil agreed and they clinked glasses. They both took long drinks. It was intense and creamy as whipped milk, malty and potent beyond anything Emmaline thought of as ale.

 

“How do you propose to get out of the city?” Emmaline asked, brushing her newly auburn locks behind her, as she peeled the paper away from a bar of chocolate and broke of a corner. She popped it into her mouth, it was dark and slightly bitter in the Brettonian fashion, and it melted most wonderfully in her mouth.

 

“They tell me there is a siege on.”