He drained about half the pint and turned round in the middle of the tavern so that his cloak fell open, revealing the sword. The weapon's existence was noted, with professional interest, by the tavernkeeper, who didn't look directly at it; he was one of those blokes who used peripheral vision for everything. Give him a spyglass, he'd raise it to his ear, and see as much as Galileo. His nose had been broken at least twice and he'd endured a blowout fracture of the left eye-socket, which made it seem as if his face were a clay effigy squirting out between the fingers of a clenching fist. Daniel said to him, 'Let your friends understand that if serious harm comes to that gentleman, there lives a witness who'll tell a tale to make a judge's wig uncurl.'