Skandra Tyullis (roll_the_bones) wrote in adusta, @ 2009-11-12 23:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | ithacles, skandra tyullis, vedette uthral |
the wager (vedette, ithacles)
Faustben, Skandra decided, was not the sort of place where one took their ease.
Since he'd come here - ostensibly to see his old friend Ithacles - he'd been punched, nearly stabbed, clubbed, and dragged. His head ached like a thousand soldier's feet after the hard desert march. His hands were sore from laying about him like hammers. And his purse was empty. The worst of it was, he'd known for a fact that he could have diced with those idiots all night and never lost a round, but there'd been that fellow with a cigar chomped between his teeth. Smelled like four-day old cheese curd and looked like it, too. To amuse himself Skandra was spinning the tin cup he'd been given on his finger, twirling it forward and backward, listening to the odd whistle that it generated while he glared through the bars at his jailer. This fellow, too, could have smelled like something more pleasant. Then again prisoners would not appreciate it it. What occupied his thoughts, and the reason for his tension, was simple. He was fairly certain one of the men he'd been gambling with was a soldier in the palace of the king. And he was fairly certain that fellow had been talking about selling himself to the highest bidder.
His memory wasn't so good, after a beating like that.
"Gentle men!" Skandra roared as he approached the dicing circle, letting his wash-leather pouch hang from his fist and jingle a merry tune of wealth. "Are you playing King's Crowns, then?"
"Go 'way," one muttered surly.
There was another fellow, with a neck too muscular to belong to some street tough, glaring at him. Skandra could see the fellow's tattoo on his neck. The king's legion. Half-soldier, and half-slave, property and most honored servant of the king. Or leastaways that was how he remembered it, when Ithacles tried to explain it. Skandra wasn't one for swearing oaths unless he was taking said oaths in vain. He also wasn't one for ink on his skin. Probably better if he didn't say anything. The fellow was kneeling next to a man in dark brown robes, whose skin was too white to be exposed often to sun. The first thought was of fangs, but vampires were not common this close to the central mountains. Cold was not their element of choice. Anyway, they made an unlikely pair, and he took note through the ale, but...
"Nonsense," Skandra insisted in a too-nasal voice. "This is where the action is, so I belong here!"
"Let him join," Tattoo ordered curtly. "If he's the gold to back up that mouth."
Skandra grinned.
Of course, he could be remembering wrong. He could be paranoid. And he could be thinking to lure Ithacles here with the promise of dire news, in the hopes of earning his release. As it was they were set to put him on trial for disturbance of the peace and various other crimes that vaguely included but did not prove physical violence. It was a week in the stockade for things of that nature. He'd been in the stockade before, and the soldiers who stood guard would let peasants do just about whatever they wanted so long as it did not draw blood. Faustben was a just kingdom, which meant people who were in the stockade belonged there, which meant the soldiers didn't really care if you left in worse shape than you'd arrived. Sometimes they laughed if it was as simple as a mocking. Sometimes they did not laugh, but leveled lances and menaced peasants. Which was probably another thing they enjoyed more than they should. Skandra thought he'd heard names, but couldn't recall those, either. Drinking too much. Smoking too much. Gambling too much. He felt like a riot had happened behind his eyes. Everythying burned and ruined, destroyed.
The letter he'd scribbled off to Ithacles, with the permission of the magistrate, had been quite simple. Trouble in the worst way. Come get me out of here. Ithacles wasn't one to ignore a message from a friend. Unlike most princes Skandra had been given occasion to meet, Ithacles put more stock in friendship and loyalty than he did in nobility and birth. A good sort of fellow, sometimes less arrogant than Leironuoth, but you could see the similarities of blood when they fought. How many times had he completely lost himself in the drink and the conversation, recounting one tale after another of his battles with Ithacles? The two of them against monstrous hordes of orc, against she-vampires that flew in the blackest of night, and they were stories that didn't bring painful memories because everyone had lived. Skandra thought he'd come, if he wasn't busy doing the sorts of things that princes do.
What did princes do, anyway?
Well, fuck. His head still ached.
"And my offer?" the man in brown asked.
"It's worth considering," Tattoo acknowledged. "Considering."
"Your toss," Surly insisted with an offer of the bone cup.
Skandra made sure he was staring at his boots when Tattoo and Brown looked up. Surly's offer of the dice cup was accepted, and Skandra tossed against the wall. The game was played with three dice, each with six sides and counting up to the same number. Pairs were winning tosses if everyone else failed to gather anything of note. Three of a kind was called the Queen's Fan. But you were looking for the King's Crown, which was any sequence of three numbers. Statistically it was not a more difficult roll, if Skandra recalled his lessons at that farrier's knee, but it was still impressive and a sight to behold. If two men had a King's Crown it was called War, and those men threw again at double or nothing to see who would win. Or three, but that had never happened in Skandra's memory. He managed to win most of the rolls without his boisterous talk - that had gotten him kneeling among this group of hard-wagering fiends, but it would see him evicted, too, if he kept it up.
Still, he couldn't suppress a chortle.
"You're lucky you aren't dead," a voice said.
Skandra peered through the iron bars, lounging as he was on the bench against the wall, his back to hard stone, so that he could see anyone who approached. It was the surly fellow from the bar. Only this time, he was wearing a uniform of the army, with its double-breasted coat and high collar. Blue wool was trimmed in gold, with gold buttons as well, and the slashes of red on his cuffs named him an office. What were the odds of two men gambling in the same tavern on the same night, both of them working for the king's guard? And what were the odds that those men were not in collusion somehow? Skandra only tipped his hat, instead of answering - and this he did with one hand, while the other continued to play his silly game with the tin cup. Ithacles would be along soon or late. And no doubt he would want all sorts of information, from Skandra and from this man.
Hopefully.
"I've always been lucky," Skandra's ghost of a smile gave more color to the words he chose deliberately. "And always will be. Men whose luck runs out should be worried. Men like yourself."
"I don't care if you know Prince Ithacles or not," the soldier said with visible annoyance. "My instructions come directly from the king's daughter."
"Watch your elbow," Surly's voice got more and more gruff all the time.
"The goal is the king," Brown said.
"He gives us a brand and thinks of us as cattle marked to die," Tattoo said in annoyance. "He won't-"
"See that he doesn't," Brown ordered.
In the noise of a tavern there were several different levels of volume that one could use. One made it clear that the whole of the tavern was meant to hear. One made it clear that only your table was meant to hear. And one made it clear that no one was meant to hear. Brown had not quite mastered that level of conversation, and Tattoo apparently did not care to, given the level of noise behind them. It was hardly conclusive - but given the tattoo on his neck, Skandra suspected he wasn't discussing the king of Malondir safely ensconced in his castle some two thousand leagues away. Or was it more than that? Irrelevant question.
"Roll," Surly commanded.
"You fellows talking about the game?" Skandra asked testily. "Care to let the rest of us in on the conversation?"
Tattoo stared in shock.
"No," Brown answered bluntly - and then a flash of steel in his fist-
Skandra felt something club him across the shoulders when he went for a knife. It was Surly, swinging a cudgel, and as men in armor descended Brown and his companion were suddenly gone. Now the soldiers were mugging him as though he'd stolen the bosom of the queen herself. May she live forever in the light. Skandra let out an oath before he fell to the ground.
Lethe. She'd always been too prim to get along with Skandra. He'd given her flowers once, and just to prove she could spoil the mood, she'd immediately pointed out that he'd picked them from the king's garden. The garden, she added ominously, that was not to be touched on pain of death. With his best wink, Skandra insisted that should demonstrate the level of his devotion to her. If Ithacles hadn't made a well-timed quip, Skandra was fairly certain his sister would have sent for the headsman. That was the nicest that she'd ever been to the Immortal - not because she was a bad person, but because she had never been a soldier, and had not come to appreciate the rough aspects of a soul. Ithacles had. Maybe that was why they got along so well. Lethe was what Shantar might have called a "hard patch to hoe", and Skandra couldn't help but agree with that assessment.
"Well, fuck," Skandra's voice was dry as the cup he was spinning. "Tell you what. I'll press my ass against those bars, there, and you just do your best to kiss it."
"Cur," the man spat. "You are addressing Captain Baldvas, an officer of the king!"
He was not impressed when Skandra was not impressed. Well, sometimes it came to that. Princes, meanwhile, had an annoying habit of being entirely too late for gatherings that depended on their presence.
Cramped as the cell was, with a simple wash basin that had no water and the metal cot that was chained to the wall, Skandra was starting to feel at home. Not even enough room to pace. There was grime between the stones that formed the wall, and he thought he could see a spider in the corner. Yes this was just his kind of miserable, wasn't it?
"Ithacles," he said aloud, as he scrawled in his best handwriting - which was legible but only just. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
A moment.
"No," and he crossed that out. "Ithacles. I'm rotting in the worst fucking hole Faustben has ever devised. Considering that I've been to every tavern this place has to offer, that's saying something. The guards are giving me looks like I spanked the queen. Not that I haven't considered it mind you - I know she's your mother but you must be aware that all beings have carnal feelings - but I certainly did not do it. Also I think I overheard a murder plot and should like your help in killing some men before the week is out. Please feel free to appear in person and spare me your flowery prose. All the love I possess, Skandra."
A moment, the tip of his tongue held between his teeth, and Skandra nodded. Then blew on the ink to begin the drying.