closed

[dastardly]

WHO: Josias di Jaconissa The Tiger & Flint & Silver
WHAT: A meeting
WHEN: Late Drakonis
WHERE: A tavern backroom in Lowtown somewhere
NOTES: TBA

The room is just like most of the others Josias has been making far too much use of over the past month. Dingy with disuse, mismatched and third-hand furniture cramped in the space, the smell of old smoke and ale emanating thick from the walls and ceiling. This one has a window, which rare but ultimately makes no difference: the grime on the glass only casting the already grey sky a further tone darker, and levering it open for some air would negate the privacy acquired by being in the room in the first place. Still, he lingers by it, watching the limited view of the empty alley outside from behind the nondescript mask of the Tiger.

For anyone else, he might have sent another. He really has had enough of meetings like this since Starkhaven. Listening to complaints, mediating arguments, wrangling new contacts and establishing new routes. There was a balance before, between those who cared only for profit and those who cared for other reasons. A balance in himself which was kept much the same. But the continual waves of disruption rolling through the business has upset all that, and managing the mess in the wake of each will only hold them over for so long. A bigger change looms.

He's trying to ignore it, for the moment. Focus on what slim pickings of enjoyment he can find amongst the constant headaches. Word that Captain Flint himself was expressing an interest had shone out like a beacon in that sense. Enough to make it worth it to drag himself through the rain to another dank little room, letting the dull murmur of conversations and music downstairs drown out his thoughts as he waits.

Comments

[katabasis]

Over five years ago, a ship lacking the flag of any nation had sailed directly into Kirkwall's harbor and dropped anchor just inside the invisible barrier threatened by the city's great harbor chain. Certain occupants of that ship had, at first, come to rooms very like this one in order to organize their own delicate business. To see that it might remain viable despite having been lain out in the daylight of civilization; to act as a necessary measure of distance between the management of that ship's interests and those of the island fortress in whose shadow she'd been anchored.

It had been summer then. The upstairs room of The Boar and Bat had been pleasantly thick with familiar heat and clinging humidity. Indeed, if they'd come during this bitter period between winter and spring, with all its cold, sluicing rain and miserable weather, with sea's rollers turning every ship in the harbor into nauseating spinning tops, there might have been problems keeping the crew in hand.

(More problems. All transitional periods are difficult.)

It's possible that climbing these narrow stairs to the back room, the stairwell marked by faded limewash and the stain of smoke and and the catch of dirty hand prints from where various drunken laborers have steadied themselves over the Ages, strikes him as somewhat reminiscent of that. But probably not. There have been nearly six years of claustrophobic back rooms and clandestine meetings to account for; Flint following at the heels of one of the taphouse's men has an air of practice.

So: the door to that sad back room opening halfway as if the sandy colored Kirkwall man who is employed here understands that he would rather not know any of the details of this meeting. Without looking in, he clears his throat and announces, "Messere," your guests are here," to the man waiting inside the room.

Guests.

The creak of floorboards, and that tell tale rhythmic strike of something other than a boot; Captain Flint, who once terrorized all northern waters and razed and murdered through a dozen pinpricks of civilization at the edge of the Nocen Sea, may pass into the room first but he pauses in order to hold the door open for the other man in his company.

mea culpa

[hornswoggle]

It is the briefest of delays. A murmur in that narrow hall a step back from the threshold.

John calls their guide by name; it is impossible to know every person in a port city, but it is his habit to forge acquaintance where he can, maintain it as long as the churn of work permits. Two coin passed to Edvard's hand, one to see a bottle sent up after them, the other for the man to keep.

It has been time enough that John may move more quietly on the crutch should he choose. But there's value in the way the sound carries; stories about John Silver still seep from the shadow and surf of Lowtown, find life in taprooms and taverns. They have moved into rooms like this together before. The blood-soaked notoriety of their partnership occupies the space alongside them, draw breath as John hooks a hand around the back of the chair to draw it out and settle into it.

Once seated, angled fully towards their masked host, John can be frank as to his scrutiny. Flint and Silver have done this before. John doesn't need him in his periphery to know how Flint will move through this room.

"Forgive us, if you've been kept waiting."

claps hands, collects pirates

[dastardly]

Josias doesn't yet move from his place beside the window, instead sedately watching the arrival of his guests, allowing them time to settle themselves in however they'd like to occupy the room. An absolute lack of reaction would be a reaction in itself, but he is neither startled nor particularly annoyed at the change in arrangement - instead, he's having to curb a low thread of amusement. There is something quite novel in being in a room with these two men, in being able to observe their way of operating together. More so that he's been able to observe them plenty in the Gallows already.

"Should I have assumed you'd come attached, or are you attempting to unsettle me with the surprise?"

Directed to both, despite the easy, petty option of ignoring John Silver's uninvited presence. His tone is level, accent something southern, indistinct. He sounds neither unsettled, nor impatient.

[katabasis]

From Flint, this warrants a look not to the man in the mask occupying the far side of the room—much as he might commend the dramatic sensibility to lurk near the grubby window, grey skies and all—, but rather to his Quartermaster. He slides the door shut with a heavy thump into the ill fit casement.

"I told you he didn't know everything."

Let no one accuse Captain Flint of being utterly devoid of humor. Though only a fraction of it, presumably one of the drier sharper parts, really shows in hard bitten lines of his face as he moves from the room's threshold to the next available chair, laying his hands along the back but not yet walking it back out form under the table's edge. His assessment of the man opposite them is blunt.

[hornswoggle]

A conciliatory motion: John's hand tipping in the space between them, a slant of a smile angled sideways.

"You did."

Concession. If there are coins to be exchanged over the settling of this matter, the process will happen outside of this room.

"Shall we begin?" is for their host, who may have perhaps divined the answer to his question already. Or is expected to have drawn a conclusion; either way, John's attention has turned to the reason for their gathering.

[dastardly]

A little inside joke, friendly banter between them. Josias, with no companion to balance his side of the room, could easily feel isolated by it. Perhaps that's the intention. Or perhaps this is simply what they're like together. From what he's seen of them around the Gallows, it's hard to say either way.

At least this was already more entertaining than any of his other recent meetings.

He crosses to the head of the table, drawing out a chair and slouching into it. He looks as though he's been comfortably sitting there for hours almost immediately.

"We could, though I imagine we'd need to pause when the bottle you requested arrives. Edvard prefers to know as little as possible of my work."