Snippet #1961005

Meanwhile, in the City...

Taverns were, to Thauvin, a small slice of heaven on Tane. For just a penny, you had a warm bed; for a few more, you had a warm meal. And, if you played your cards right, for no pennies there was a woman who would share that meal and that bed with you for the night. If you were a bard, sometimes everything came free; in especially exceptional cases, the tavern paid you to stay with them.

Take the deal that Thauvin had at the moment, for example. At a tavern in the upper-class part of the city, a place called the Red Steer Inn; he had just offered to take the stage for a night. Well, 'offered' wasn't the correct term. The man that they had hired to play the night was a slouching brute of a singer with no talent for music; he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket and didn't plan to improve any, by the looks of him. Thauvin, well into his drink, was hurling insults at the player with the rest of the tavern crowd when the man, also deep in the bottle, had called himself Eillken. Thauvin was deeply offended by this claim, and took to the stage to defend the honor of his people... By bodily hurling the man off the stage, plucking his lute from his stool and launching into one of his own tunes, an old Eillken drinking song called "The Battered Mare's Ballad"; peppered with the kind of obvious innuendo and crude, sexual humor that got bar crowds laughing to the point of tears.

After that song was over he led the crowd in a few more traditional lays, then tossed the man's lute into the crowd and clambered--well, lurched would be a more proper description--off the stage and back to his seat. Within minutes, the tavern keeper was after him, offering him... Something or other; Thauvin was really too drunk to care. He could be offering the life of his third cousin and the bard would have gladly signed the contract without a second thought. Luckiliy; it was not a binding marriage agreement (Thauvin had already had that experience a few times too many), but an agreement to play twice a week at the Steer in exchange for free drinks and a bed. Thauvin was impressed with the deal; he had to say that the room was cozier and better outfitted than his own one at the guild hall--not that he would admit that to anyone there. But the guild was his home, so he turned down the offer of room and board and merely requested drinks and a ten-sovereign-per-performance fee, and the bed for one night (he was very drunk).

That following morning Thauvin found himself assailed by three large men in an alley as he was leaving the Red Steer; 'associates' of the previous night's entertainer who picked entirely the wrong fight. Three broken faces later and an incredibly hung-over Thauvin was stumbling up the steps to the Guildhall. Once inside, he found himself late to a meeting he didn't remember he was supposed to attend; dressed in last night's clothes and with a bruise over his left eye, his knuckles scuffed from the fight.

"Ah... Gentlemen." Thauvin smiled charmingly and gave a tiny, curt, half-hearted bow, ignoring the pain in his ribs ("That big one had a mean left hook," his inner voice cooed) before straightening up and fixing William in his gaze. "Sorry about that, I was... Presented with an offer I could not refuse, dear Ser William."

He looked over and noted his friend Ruin standing nearby. He smiled and gave a small salute. "And here I expected you would be up on the roof, my friend. Or is Guild business more important than your daily chats with the wind?" Thauvin flashed a toothy grin at the druid and pulled himself back up to his full height, straightening his clothes slightly.

"Well then, something important is afoot. What's this business you're on about, William? A new contract come in? Something about... Her?" Thauvin's Adam's apple bobbed. He didn't like mentioning Krista; the rogue Founder was something of a soft spot amongst the remaining two living leaders of the Stonetree Guild, and Thauvin wasn't going to rip open that wound just yet.