Chapter Six The Poet and the Ruffian #3
“I look forward to attending your inking ceremony one day,” Shunvi said graciously, referring to the initiation trial monks and the particularly devout underwent, reciting scriptures from the Poetics by heart as sacred designs were hand tapped into their backs permanently.
Moving on, he tilted the bottle toward Lythlet. “And you, madam?”
Lythlet waved her glass toward him impatiently, no future in liturgical rites awaiting her.
He laughed and filled it up. His smile widened further as she took a deep gulp and unleashed a loud, satisfied sigh. “Always makes me happy seeing someone enjoy a good drink.”
Ilden prodded Lythlet’s arm. “Fancy a guess at what Shunvi does now?”
She shied away from his touch, unused to strangers making contact. “He works at—no, he owns an eatery.” She stopped, tilting her head thoughtfully. “Not an eatery. A teahouse.”
They stared at her.
“How did you know I own a teahouse?” asked Shunvi, bemused, his dark eyes warm in the yellow hivelight.
“You won the final jackpot. You’re far too rich to work at someone else’s establishment, so you must have set up your own. You spoke just now of having customers of your own as well.”
“But how did you know it was a teahouse?” pressed Ilden.
She pointed at Shunvi’s meticulously laid out crockery. “He put his teacup on the right and that small fork right under it, the way a teahouse sets it for patrons who want to order some small dishes to go with their teapot. Eateries position it differently.”
“I could simply be an enthusiast.”
“You could,” she agreed. “But you set your place so precisely without looking, as a man does when doing something rote, something he’s done a thousand times, just to get the task done and over with to attend to more important matters.
You even rotated your teacup in a full circle when you set it down, which tells me your teahouses are the high-end, traditional type catering to highbrow patrons. ”
Shunvi gave her an impressed look, eyes wide with growing fascination. “I own two teahouses, one in Northeast, the other in Central.”
She bowed her head. “I know only because Desil works at a teahouse, and I’ve seen this arrangement many times. I read about the teacup rotation ritual from a chef’s guide I once borrowed.” Borrowed , she said; stole , she meant.
“She’s just being modest,” said Desil. “She can—how does that saying go? That Oratha proverb, something about letters and wax?”
“ To glimpse a letter’s wax seal and unravel the message within? ” proposed Shunvi.
“That’s the one. She’s the sort who can manage that, sussing out patterns most ignore. Ilden, you saw how she was in the arena, figuring out what made the sentari grow and shrink.”
“Lucky guesses,” she said. “You only remember when I guess correctly and forget when I don’t.”
Ilden slammed his fist on the table. “I propose a game. You know terrilus ?”
She jumped, taken aback by the noise. “The card game?”
“Ah, so you do know it. Now you have no excuse. Let’s play it, you and Shunvi and I.
Only I’m going to tell you upfront that Shunvi and I have rigged it in our favor.
We know our deck thoroughly, and we’ve long identified little marks that give away its face.
One of us holds the golden ship. It’s up to you to guess who.
As is customary, we must place a wager.”
“No, thank you,” she said, even as Ilden dug around in a drawer behind him, retrieving a deck of cards.
Ilden shuffled the cards briskly. “Come now. We don’t intend to cheat your coin from you. We only want to see how savvy you truly are. This is a friendly match, and it needn’t be much. A penny,” he suggested.
“No.”
“I won’t refill your glass if you don’t play.” Shunvi tapped the rim of her glass with the wine bottle.
She gave a beleaguered sigh, leaning forward at last. “Fine.”
He laughed incredulously. “I meant that as a joke.”
Desil rolled his eyes as he dug through his own pocket to retrieve a coin, ready to front her wager. “She’s a cheapskate who loves her drink.”
“Can we play, too?” A boy peered at them from the table’s edge. Alongside him popped up more heads, his brothers, equally blond and equally scruffy. “We haven’t any coin, though.”
Ilden raised an eyebrow at Lythlet. “Can they? I’m willing to exempt wee tots from bidding.”
She nodded. “I don’t need their wagers.”
The boys whooped, and all waited in anticipation as Ilden dealt the cards into six piles.
Lythlet picked up her deck. An assortment of blues, greens, and yellows, ship wheels and thirteen-pointed suns and checkered moons met her eyes.
“No golden ship, yes?” Ilden checked.
“None indeed.”
“Before we deal our cards, shall we up the stakes? How quickly can you determine who holds the golden ship? I’m willing to bet you won’t find out at all.” He tossed a golden-copper dumasi onto the table.
“And I bet you will find out, but not within the first four rounds.” Shunvi threw a matching coin into the growing pile.
“Well?” Desil prompted, smiling at her encouragingly, fingers clasping a modest spira ready to be sown in the gambling pot.
All sense of modesty and shyness went flying out the window— there was a puzzle at hand, and her mind came alive with the sheer excitement of potentially solving it. “I wager I’ll answer your riddle before we deal the first round.”
Desil laughed at her sudden brazenness, dropping his coin into the pile. “Nothing better than when she goes for broke!”
But Ilden shook his head. “Play it seriously. You can’t know who holds the golden ship already.”
“You’re right. I haven’t solved who has the golden ship, but I’m certain neither you nor Shunvi hold it.
You’ve done this before, clearly, and it would be all too simple for either of you to have the card.
But when you suggested we play a game, you slammed your fist upon the table noisily.
Rudely,” she added as an afterthought. “And I noticed those boys in the corner, one nudging the other two before you had even mentioned the name terrilus, as if it was a cue they were familiar with. Then they came to ask if they could join. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a common game you play with them to bully newcomers—”
“Not bully, no,” interrupted Ilden.
“We are gentlemen at our cores, after all,” added Shunvi.
“Well, he is,” Ilden conceded. “You’d have to be much drunker to ever consider me one. We just want to have a bit of cheeky fun every now and then.”
“Much cheek you have. But I am convinced one of the three holds the golden ship.” She gestured to the blond brothers.
Neither Ilden nor Shunvi nor the boys spoke then, refusing to incriminate themselves, staring at her with varying levels of caution.
Desil leaned in. “Which of the three? The one who asked to join?”
Ilden waved at him to stay silent, to not pollute the game with his counsel, and Desil reluctantly withdrew.
Lythlet retreated into quiet contemplation, resting her cards face down on the table and burying her face into her hands so she could think without the distraction of so many eyes on her. At length, she raised her head. “May I request that he who does not hold the golden ship raise his hand?”
“What?” With an incredulous laugh, Ilden shot his hand into the air. He looked at all the other raised hands, at all the heads swiveling to confirm they were not alone. “You can’t expect that to work, not if you genuinely believe us to be grifting masterminds.”
Lythlet ignored him, staring at each of them in turn, then at last patting Desil on the back.
She held herself expressionless, but he knew what that meant. He burst into a bright grin. “You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”
Ilden scoffed in disbelief.
“Well, who is it?” asked Shunvi with an intrigued smile, ink-dark eyes twinkling with delight.
She pointed at the leftmost of the trio, a small, cherubic creature with lovely red cheeks.
“Him?” Ilden jabbed his finger at the boy. “Not the one next to him, the one who asked to join?”
Lythlet nodded firmly.
Ilden threw his hands up in the air. “I have no idea how you came to this conclusion, but—Alemandro, go on, reveal your cards.”
A bashful smile, a splay of cards, and half-hidden beneath a pattern of red suns peeked the golden ship.
“You beauty!” Desil whooped, palms thumping the table. He leaned over to kiss the crown of Lythlet’s head as the rest of the table burst into cries of excitement.
A laugh borne of pure relief sprung from Lythlet, but she quickly muted it as dozens of eyes returned from the golden card to her.
“All right, well done, you caught where I planted the ship,” groaned Ilden. “Now tell me how you knew? You’ve mastered the gambler’s face, and one can hardly guess what you’re thinking at any time. Little Ale-boy raised his hand, too, at your strange question.”
“Of course he did. Everyone did. No one in on your game would be foolish enough to out himself, especially not the boy.” The boy looked sheepish, but Lythlet gave him a nod of solemn respect.
“Then why the question?”
“Because upon asking,” she retraced her logic, “each and every one of you raised your hand and looked around, checking on one another. Except him. He alone looked straight at me, with no need to confirm the reactions of others. He knew what was in his hand, he knew he alone was lying.”
“Well done,” Desil crowed, scooping the coins close and splitting the pile with her. They clinked into her palm, and she cupped them protectively.
Ilden commiserated with the boys. “Better luck next time. Mind your acting, Alemandro.”
“You did very well,” assured Desil, ruffling the boy’s hair as they scooted back to their corner.
“Your prize, madam.” Shunvi held his silk sleeve back as he filled her glass with more blood-red wine. With an eager expression, he spoke, “Would you be willing to have a look at my notes on the Phantom one day? I simply must get your thoughts on whether you think I’m on the right track or not.”
“Don’t badger her with your silly conspiracy theories! Come, next up, a drinking game,” Ilden proposed, rubbing his hands together slyly.
“That’s enough, boys,” said Naya, re-entering the hall with a heavy tray bearing one whole chicken, now roasted to a crispy golden-brown.
A couple of boys and girls came in behind her, carrying the rest of the roasted chickens, small bowls of green smugglesleaf and Jhosper berries, and platters of freshly baked bread.
She turned a kind eye toward Lythlet and Desil.
“A good meal here will warm your bellies and get you ready to head back to wherever you call home. You’re welcome to rest upstairs if you can find a spare cot. ”
“Thank you,” Desil said, beaming. He stood and leaned over the table, passing her a knife to carve the chicken with. “How much do we owe for the food?”
“Nothing,” she said sunnily.
“We couldn’t take your food for free,” Desil insisted.
She grinned, rapt with him. “Well, aren’t you sweet? Don’t you worry about it.”
“The Homely Home grows a generous crop in its garden all year round, thanks to the baltascar pillars,” Shunvi explained. “Besides that, Ilden and I like to chip in every so often to provide for their necessities.”
“‘Every so often’ is much too modest for all these lads do for us. We’d be done for without them bankrolling us,” Naya said with a laugh.
Then she winked at Desil. “We haven’t much down here but good cheer and spirit, and that means we have plenty to go around.
You bring your handsome face around whenever you want. ”
Glaring at Desil with a hatred that could power a baltascar bulb or two, Ilden looked ready to fling his fork at him.
Desil seated himself nervously before an oblivious Naya, as Shunvi gently edged all potential projectiles beyond Ilden’s reach.