For a tavern, the place was dangerously similar to someone's front room. The inhabitant would have to be the size of a Minotaur, based on the huge hearth whose chimney stack pierced the center of the leaping, ten foot high ceiling, and the cauldron-like pot that boiled there, but the cushions and rugs that replaced chairs, the comfortable lighting, and the custom of addressing others as though they were relatives made things cozier than they should probably have been. Instead of an actual bar, the owner of the tavern sat comfortably in an armless kitchen chair behind a roughly fashioned table top. The homey, cinnamon brown haired Human man pulled bottles from the shelves, short enough to house books, that supported the simple plank of wood. From there also seemed to magically appear extremely clean cups and bowls, considering the fact that there was no water basin to be seen anywhere near him. Most of the patrons in the tavern, Humans or not, were lounging comfortably on the immaculate wooden floor. The 'dining tables,' therefore, were relatively low, surrounded by handmade cushions or hand made mats. Only the booths that were mounted directly to the walls of the building itself had any real modicum of privacy, or tables of customary, seated dining height. Only a few of them were occupied, as native Kelthanni and other travelers that frequented the establishment had learned to prefer reclining at the lower tables to sitting at the mounted ones. However, as the night wore on, the tavern grew busier, and fewer visitors actually had their choices of where to sit.
This evening, the sole young woman in charge of the large kettle in the middle of the room only turned the spicy smelling substance inside it occasionally, spending the rest of her time ferrying drinks from the tavern's owner to the rest of the room's occupants, who lounged just as easily as he. Even though the place was so crowded that she could hardly find place to put her feet down safely, she, raven haired and dark eyed, caught the green eyes of the red-and-silver haired woman first.
That woman herself was a sight, with only half her face visible; it seemed to her beholder as though she must have been a survivor of some wasting, disfiguring disease. She wore a simple, dark traveling cloak, breeches, and a peasant's shirt, and had as many pouches about her waist as might a itinerant alchemist. Her simple messenger's bag was badly beaten, as though she had survived much to get to the place, but her step was light, as though she had flown directly from wherever she had been to the tavern in a single bound.
"C'è spazio?" she asked with a polite smile as she strode straight toward the central caldron. "Sarebbe due; Io e un amico."
"Y benvenutos, cugina," the woman called, coming all the way around the pot to tenderly address the entering patron. "Cosa posso fare per voi?" There was some surprise at noting that the traveler was not Kelthanni, but the polite bar mistress would not allow it to register on her face.
"Grazie," the stranger replied with an accent so genuine that the tavern owner finally looked up from his reading material to see her. "Ma ho bisogno di niente.
"Se non si desidera qualcosa da mangiare o da bere, perché questi?" the suspicious owner asked, putting his poorly bound book down as he peered at the new comer. The bar mistress shot him a look at once, annoyed at the unnecessary hostility.
The green eyed, freckled woman smiled pleasantly at the man behind what was passing for a bar. "Abbiate pazienza, cugino, e vedrete," she replied. With this, she moved toward the far corner of the establishment to sit in one of the unoccupied booths, prompting one or two nosy patrons to shift themselves so that they could better observe her. Just as neither they nor the tavern owner himself made any attempt to hide the fact that they were watching her movements, she herself made no attempt to pretend that she did not know that she was being watched. Before she sat down, she unsheathed an adamantine sword and a mithral dagger, placing both down on the side of the table where she intended to sit. Smoothing her breeches as though they were a dress or skirt, she took her place, then rooted around in her various pouches and pockets until she produced three tightly rolled letters. Slender, yet knowledgeable fingers popped the fine wax seal on one of them, unrolling it for pleasant reading. Most of the patrons, themselves occupied with more pressing business, turned their gazes elsewhere at that point, but the bartender was not to be distracted. Some minutes after this, the woman at the pot was beckoned over to receive a glass of water from him, then sent off to the far booth without the sole occupant's having asked for service. Visiting the half-shrouded woman's table, the tavern woman set down the glass with some delicacy, as though she were afraid of being reprimanded.
"Grazie," the visitor replied, looking up from her letter with a genuine smile. "Quanto costa?
"E 'gratis, cugina," the brown haired woman laughed airily, with a twinge of nervous energy.
"Grazie mille," came the calm, gentle reply. That said, the visitor turned a business-like gaze back down to her letter, and the tavern mistress, embarrassed, made her way back toward her pot. The bartender attempted to get her to return to him, but she went straight to the cauldron, completely ignoring what seemed to her to be ridiculous and rude curiosity. The other patrons, now unimpressed by the visitor or any of her actions, continued talking, laughing, and arguing, and in time, the swirl of people coming in and out finally forced the tavern owner to stop paying so much attention to the one woman who had not asked for anything.
Some time after that, the evening influx of business easily covered the entrance of a young, slender, Human male. He made his way casually toward the visiting woman's table, but even so, the woman looked up before the young man had a chance to introduce himself. Seeing this, the young man smartly tucked one arm in front of him and the other behind his back to offer a bow.
"Beggin' me lady's pardon," he said as he righted himself, his cheery brown eyes resting calmly in the gaze of his hearer.
"And it is to thee granted," the woman replied, rolling up the scroll as she spoke. "To whom do I speak?"
"Dredge, of the Princess Gildenglade, me lady," the boy said, drawing a single step closer. "Does ye read?"
The woman quickly noted that although the boy could understand the form of Common she was using well enough, he could make no answer with it. Even what of the ordinary language he knew sounded miserable in his mouth. "As thou seest, any letter, ledger, or palm is plain to me," came her cheerful volley, as she spread an open hand to indicate the papers on the table.
"Ye speaks well, me lady; to tell the truth, the stars're easier for me," Drudge admitted with a furious blush, now made clearly aware of his own ignorance sounding in his hearer's ears. "Yet, if me cap'n lives, 'e'll 'ave me readin' the letters as well."
"Why would he die?" the traveler asked, interested enough to bring herself down to the more familiar form of Common. "Is he ill?"
"No, me lady; unless ye'll have the sea to be a fever," the boy answered with a strange wistfulness. "Holdin' that as so, then the lot o' us're unto death."
"The sea a fever? No, that cannot be," the woman mused nearly to herself, putting an elbow on the table and planting her chin on her curled fingers. "She doth with zealous care her lovers keep."
"There is no love in her; you are deceived," came a male voice richer than the boy that the woman could see could have mustered.
"Doth she not rock you gently, ser, to sleep?" she asked, turning her curious eyes slowly around the room. She was gratified by a shadow cast on the floor just beyond her booth, but only partially so- such information as it could give her about the man who had addressed her was unsatisfactory.
"Too dull that jest, that sharpened cold 'gently!' No 'gentle' term should e'er unto her tend. A tyrant, vicious, fickle creature she; no mortal flesh can with her will contend."
Still the young boy stood silently, making no visual reference to the voice that was issuing the answering verses. The noises of the rowdy tavern easily obscured it from those who were not meant to hear it, and the traveling woman had no help in identifying her verbal opponent based on any accidental, misplaced attention from them. Even the nosy barkeep was too wrapped up in his duties to cast any stray glance in her direction. The tavern mistress stirring the pot, however, shamelessly stared directly at the red-and-grey haired traveler herself, who had somehow mastered present day Common, some strange, archaic spoken form of Common, and her own native, vibrant Kelthanni with no apparent difficulty anywhere. This meant that either the man speaking to that traveler was so much less interesting than she that he was not to be noticed, or that he was familiar enough to the tavern mistress that she felt free to overlook him.
After what was actually only a few moments of silent information gathering, the traveling woman spoke again. "Your bitter verse doth make a cut too clean; it pierces flesh and bone alike to heart; yet am I glad to hear sharp raven's keen; for sweet division's his, not his young lark's," she stated calmly, looking at the young boy as though she were still speaking to him. The boy shifted from foot to foot a little, as though there were some faint tingling or itching in his legs.
"An airy aria will mourners pain, whose wounds are better dressed with solemn dirge," the voice replied with some coloring of feeling in his tone.
"Will you at wedding feast a grave song raise, or decked in mourning black welcome a birth?" the traveler asked, raising the one red eyebrow that was visible to the twitching boy.
She was mildly surprised by a soft, genuine, and bitter chuckle.
"A hit, Dredge; a palpable scratch," said the man who had been casting the unmoving shadow as he finally moved into the view of the traveler. "First blood to the lady, and well drawn."
Dredge held himself still at last, and smirked with mischievous eyes- a careful response to the conversation he had not fully understood.
The man who had commanded him was as striking physically as he had been verbally, with long, evenly braided blond hair, eyes the color of the pristine ocean itself, and well-tanned flesh. "Go back to the gentlemen; I'll be with you shortly."
"Aye-aye, cap'n," the young boy nodded, moving off at a near run without a backward glance.
"Dredge," the man said with a fatherly tone, raising an eyebrow at the hastily departing child.
"Cap'n?" came the prompt reply as the child spun like a top.
"I don't believe that's the proper way to dismiss yourself from a lady; do you?" the man asked with delicacy.
"Oh! Uh, evening, ma'am; pleasure to meet ye!" Dredge cried at once, dropping another sharp bow like a puppet on the most taut of strings.
The woman smiled and nodded her agreement, and the boy- with a cursory glance at his approving commander- tore off and out of the busy tavern without a second glance. It seemed his feet didn't touch the ground at all- which was fortunate, given how many people were on the floor.
"You'll pardon him, I hope," the gentleman laughed gently, turning from his subordinate's sudden movement back to the woman at the table. With ease, he pulled a battered, common looking rapier from the scabbard at his side and laid it on the table. "Some of his errands now are too new to him, as are the manners of those who spend more time on land than on water."
"I fault him not," the red-and-grey haired traveler nodded. "Wernvuuld was a useful man, but not a very good one; it is commendable that the current captain does take his crew better in hand."
"Ah, that man, that man, the very shadow of that man," the gentleman sighed strangely, chasing some of the defiantly beautiful hair that hung loose about his oval face up and over his ears. The traveler took the moment to notice the length of those ears, and realized she was talking to an Elf of some sort. "One of these days, I would rather like to be properly introduced."
"To Wernvuuld?" the woman smiled knowingly. "The business end of his sword wasn't enough?"
"Had it touched me, perhaps it may have been," came the careful reply, accompanied by a raised eyebrow. "Might I buy the source of that question of you?"
A wickedly pleased glint appeared in the woman's one visible green eye. "It is well known that Wernvuuld of the Brinecove Maiden was killed upon his own ship, which very soon after came to port called by another name- the Princess Gildenglade. I had assumed that I was speaking to her captain, the Jackal, who has been quite busy making a name for himself as the well-mannered and spoken Prince of Pirates."
"The second pass is yours; soon, I shall need a medic," the Elf replied simply, his tone strangely bare of the joviality that should have accompanied the joke. "Your wit and gracious manners do make you out to be Dark, as you have taught me by your letters to call you."
"Well dost thou use thy better sword," Dark answered, picking up one of the still-sealed letters as she spoke. "I am very interested, ser, in an alliance of the Princess Gildenglade with Spectre. Although I speak for the organization, all those whom I represent have all their own will, and their autonomy. I neither issue commands nor make incontestable demands of any of them; neither should I make any of thee, if thou wouldst join with us. Thy time is thy own, and when it is to me lent, I shall pay both in coin and in... let us say 'favors'."
The Jackal raised an eyebrow, then lowered his voice so that it was nearly completely consumed by the raucous whoops and yells of the other occupants of the tavern. "To enter into contract with Dark is a weighty thing, as I have, with some meager study, discovered; it is an honor usually reserved to those creatures who have proven some capability in some field of stealth, theft, smuggling, or the skillful redirection of law makers and enforcers. Pardon my incredulity, madam, but how is it that a pirate quite newly minted should come so suddenly into your company?" he challenged, raising an eyebrow.
The woman's eyes flickered with some hint of emotion, but no more of it crossed her face. "With thine own words thou dost make good my interest; thy very study, let alone its subject, doth recommend thee to me. Wilt thou now with patience mark thy text?"
The Elven male moved a little closer to the table, placing one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other firmly under his beardless chin. "With all due caution, lest blood run from it."
"The matter is this," Dark began, scooting a bit closer herself. "Ser Ymilsano DiCiprione fell, unfortunately, into a hasty alliance with a commander who was known for making slave and substance deals with Wernvuuld; he thereby came into the acquaintance of some allies of mine, who recommended him to me. Two missives did I send him, and I mean to have them answered."
The Elf gave a suspicious look, but spoke with some gentleness. "That man is dead, madam."
"So you would have one to believe," Dark smiled. "The last that anyone heard from Ser DiCiprione was that he boarded the Brinecove Maiden, at the time headed for Furthinghome, with that intrepid commander and one Captain Wernvuuld. On that ship, there was a fight that many did not survive- but one Liam did. Interestingly enough, this brother-in-law to DiCiprione now trembles like a child at the very echo of that surname. Would it be wiser for the on-looker to say that DiCiprione is now made pirate, and failed to kill the only innocent witness to his conversion, or to say that DiCiprione is dead, and that Liam barely survived a bloodthirsty pirate with his life? The truth, so very like a lie, will soon be taken as one. It is one thing to be manipulative when the odds are already in your favor- it is quite another to be handed a terrible situation, and manage to crawl your way out of it with as little collateral damage as possible." The woman paused, checking the handsome Elf for any sign of negative reaction. When he maintained his neutral gaze, she leaned back slightly to motion to one of the two unopened scrolls before her. "My delay in answering your first letter was due in part to procuring information about a certain widow. Here it is."
The Jackal sat back slightly and opened the hand that had been under his chin. The traveler picked up the scroll that she had indicated and handed it over, and the Elf promptly broke the wax seal by sliding his thumb underneath it. The traveler watched as he shifted the paper through his fingers slowly, never completely blocking his soft-focus view of her as he read the scroll line by line.
"How did this make its way into your hands?" he asked as he neared the end.
"A good deal of gold," the red haired woman answered. "And the calling of a few favors from friends who had permanently moved to Furthinghome itself."
"Do I owe you, then, still more?" the Jackal asked with a slight scoff, finishing the letter and putting it down to focus his attention back fully on the freckled woman before him.
"Thou hast in full paid back all my effort, ser. It is not my intent to force the role of debtor upon thee, but instead to cultivate a working relationship," came the response. "Thou hast for me brought not only grain, as I had asked, but fabrics, spices, and rare components, with a missive that made me know that the Jackal, since he must exist, intends to thrive. If I did not quickly make an ally of this man, who knows his own potential for greatness, I might instead find myself his enemy."
For a moment, the sea blue-green eyes met the clear emerald ones, and the two maintained the gaze as long as politeness would allow, wordlessly feeding a growing awareness that rested between them as palpably as the swords and the letters.
"The match is thine, madam; nolo contendere."
The traveler smiled. "Well, then. I had diverse second and third hand contacts whose business I am ready to place directly into thy hands, if thou wilt have it. I politely request a finder's fee, which is always negotiable."
"And along with that fee, I put cannonballs in the sides of thy enemies, give thee such items as are needful, take from thee whatever thou sendest, and guarantee secure communications from the other side of the Isles."
A simple nod let the Elven man know that he was correct. "I'd especially like to keep an eye on any sort of Semmite-Isles alliance."
A blonde eyebrow arched upward. "Sembia is now trying to starve thy people into returning to her, then?"
Dark nodded, checking her own surprise at his perceptiveness. "Grain first, then livestock, and now textiles. It's as though someone with the mind of our gracious High Captain is cutting off economic circulation."
The Elven male gave a thoughtful nod of his own, removing his hand from his blade completely. "The Princess Gildenglade shall hear of thy proposal, and I shall send thee word of her men's decision. As I am sure thou dost well understand, due to thy tenure in thy post, true camaraderie and loyalty are not to be had by force, command, or threat; all things must be done respectfully, knowledgeably, and in good time."
"It is well, ser; I shall return home, to await the answer of the Princess there."
"Fain would I invite thee to come away from this place safely, with me, madam," the Jackal offered, with a smile that somehow still seemed sad.
"In good time," the traveler replied, giving a tempting smile of her own. "I shall be safe enough, I warrant, though I do thank thy kind mindfulness."
"The rook doth move, his royal to defend."
"Yet royal She shall her own way attend," Dark answered pleasantly, watching the Elf take up both scrolls and his sword one at a time. "Her paths are diverse, ser, as her intents."
"Then pray I, She, that Fortune thy way wends."
In another booth across the room, an older Human male scraped the bottom of his soup bowl. He was just going to order another portion when his wrinkled brown eyes caught sight of a casually dressed Human male who sat at a low central table near the back of the tavern, casting an unusually knowledgeable look that ran from the red haired traveler to himself. Troubled, the old man thought better of the second order and asked for the total of the bill instead. The man that he'd caught looking at him returned to the conversation at his own table, never looking back at either the traveler woman or himself again, but that one moment still resonated in the old man's gut. He watched as the Elf arose and moved away, pausing briefly at the makeshift bar to place a food order for the traveler that he had left behind at the table, then marked the angle from the other Human male to the traveler's booth. The Elf left the tavern entirely, but that Human remained at his table, pleasantly speaking with the others.
One of her own kind, the old man thought suspiciously. Dark's finally lighted upon one of her own kind.
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