Outside factors, alas, intervened before he could fish for such.
At the oddball Brother's interruption, the spy grits his teeth -- dash it, he'd had it in mind to have a word with the man, but not now, nor in front of Kingsley! -- then forces a bemused half-smile onto his features. Damn this "Perrison" for his boisterous blather; he'd far prefer to have forfeited his own cards' contents and meanings ... rather, a judiciously-sanitized interpretation of their meanings ... to the professor at her request, not in self-defense against this "prophet's" poetic insinuations!Nathan of the FoS wrote:Brother Perrison, who had approached them from behind, applauds stiffly. "Bravo, Brother Crow!" he says, smiling his half-witted smile. "Very pretty! And you, do you seek redemption? You are an ascetic, yes? A man alone, a man who bears the blade on behalf of the meek of the earth? Every man's hand shall be against the righteous, yet he shall overcome...or will he?
"The soldier may triumph, or he may fall;
The cards show much, but they do not show all."
"Sir," the bard rises to confront the new arrival, and speaks with a civility not quite devoid of affront, "you seem to have mistaken me for someone else entirely. 'Redemption' implies that one is not already beyond saving: a capacity I'm sure my reputation has long since surpassed, by the judgments of society. Nor is 'ascetic' a word I'd use to describe myself ... save, perhaps, where certain exigencies of Art are concerned." As he utters this remark, Crow draws back the cuff of his right shirt-sleeve, revealing the edge of a stiffened leather wrist-brace -- a commonplace precaution, amongst instrumentalists prone to overstrained tendons -- wrapped round his forearm.
Looking back to Kingsley, still seated, the spy notes her skepticism and confusion, realizes a more vivid demonstration of good faith is called for. Returning to his seat, he dips into his Tarokka-deck and replaces four of the five cards in the cross-array with new ones: the Ones of Glyphs and Swords, then the Three of Swords, and last (hesitantly) the focus-card.
Pointedly ignoring the onlooking Perrison -- a man he's realized knows far too much for comfort, yet whose self-evident derangement might (so the spy sorely hopes) undermine his credibility to the FoS leaders; if it doesn't, the bard's dead anyway, so why let himself get distracted? -- as if snubbing the man for the rude interruption, Crow dives into his own fortune's interpretation brusquely, as if embarassed by the necessity and desirous of a quick summation.
"The Monk," he begins, tapping the card at Kingsley's left. "Self-reliance and the improvement of body, mind, skill. Appreciative of tranquility and calm thought, yet ever-prepared for the ordeals with which life -- or dark forces -- may confront us. A philosophy much respected in your own homeland if I'm not mistaken, Madam, though the customary iconic figure is Rajian.
"Past influences. My teachers' influences, I'd propose, from happier days of music and training ... though, heavens know, I've had ample need for self-reliance in the past decade."
(Crow's eyes close, very briefly, as he lifts his hand from the card. Sorry, old sage, he silently apologizes, for his inability to rightly credit the man whose books' heroic example had likely saved his soul.)
Quashing a pang of too-familiar regret, that he'd never had the chance to meet Van Richten face to face, the spy reaches across to the card opposite.
"The Avenger: future influences. A questor's card, indicating a thirst for justice and due retribution for foes' past wrongdoings ... something we Manoir survivors, I should think, would well understand, knowing first-hand the true depth of the traitor's offenses." He briefly glares at Perrison -- outrage at a man who wasn't there at St. Ronges, yet presumes to judge those who were, or so it would seem -- then taps the card, with its motif of the bloodied young hero perched atop his mounded, monstrous foes, again.
"Perhaps a sign I'll be recruiting adventurers' aid, when the time comes to beard Van Rijn in his foul den. Would-be heroes can be useful at times, can they not? Or perhaps a clue that it'll be up to me -- to all of we survivors, in fact -- to keep the Fraternity fixed upon its goal, not dilly-dallying with extraneous projects or neglectful of its higher duty to expunge its betrayer, no matter the cost." For an instant, Crow lets the fires of righteous outrage at Van Rijn's atrocities burn in his eyes: for all that he is no member, he does whole-heartedly share the Fraternity's goal of seeing the undead transmuter pay in full for his crimes.
The Prison, the bard does not touch. He's already described its meanings to Kingsley, for her reading; she'll note the omission, and possibly suspect he's concealing his personal take on its relevance, but she should also appreciate his not slogging over old ground. (Besides, the fact that they'd been issued the same card, in the same position, was highly uncomfortable for Crow. Given his recent, tentative hopes for friendship with the Zhesirian, it bespoke an intimacy to Perrison's insights which hinted at real prophetic power: a terrifying thought, that such might rest in the Fraternity's hands ... and not solely for the sake of his own imposture!)
At the bottom of the array: "The Soldier, of the suit of Swords. Like the Avenger, a card of strife; unlike the previous card, the agendas and boundaries of the factions set at odds are unclear, undefinable as right or wrong, as underdog or clearly-dominant. A battle resolved by luck or the hand of destiny, not by either combatant's superiority. As fitting a card as one might choose, I'll grant, for the struggle presently besetting us all, not just myself." He looks to Perrison, and grudgingly nods.
The imagery of the Soldier -- the swordsman pausing, uncertain of his choice, at the rack of blades: black, gray, white -- the spy does not discuss. She questions his motives quite enough, as it is, and will surely deduce that side of its symbolism for herself.
Crow's eyes glide around the points of the cross -- Swords in abundance, the suit of ravens ... his suit, damn Perrison's eyes! -- before they settle, at last, on the center card. Inverted to Kingsley, but upright to him as he's placed it; its grim malignance makes him shudder, a reaction beyond even the bard's capacity to mask. Swords, again, too ... damn the man! How much could this Perrison possibly know?!
He looks away, turns the card, hears Kingsley's breath drawn in sharply at the horrific image. Fraternity or not, Lady Scalpel yet had it in her to be dismayed by such things. Good for her.
"The Torturer," Crow speaks, eyes distant, face turned away. "Darkness beyond all reach of illumination, corruption beyond hope of redemption. Significator of fiends, of murderous madmen, of fallen souls so twisted as to thrive on purposeless misery. No other card of the Lesser deck is equal to its terror; only the Dark Master and Prison signify comparable malignity, to the Vistani, and only the Horseman exceeds its evil.
"A darklord's card, Madam, if ever there was one."
Now truly shocked, Kingsley looks up to the bard. Whatever she'd feared of his motives or intentions, this plainly wasn't within those doubts' scope.
"But... it's reversed, is it not? So it should mean..."
"The opposite?", Crow ruefully finished her query for her. "Not quite. As your own focus, the Temptress, still embodies temptation of a kind if inverted, so the Nine of Swords always bears the mark of darkness upon it. Reversed, it speaks of the prospect of redemption -- of atonement, of amends made, of honor or reputation restored -- however slim a prospect that might be ... but, alas, it also warns of the need for redemption, and the very real possibility of failure in that attempt."
He turns the central card back as it was, to spare her the full impact of its haunting imagery in upright configuration: the broken, shackled captive, body marred by endless days or weeks of torment; the nine blades, glowing redly within the brazier, ready to inflict still more suffering; most subtly, and most alarmingly of all under the circumstances, the shadow cast over the tortured prisoner's form, its contours distinctively those of a raven ... or a crow.
Though he'd blocked it from his thoughts, upon first being given the slip of paper, seeing the cards -- his cards -- physically laid out upon the bench has undermined the bard's resolve to think Perrison's handiwork sheer folly. Shaken, he grips the edge of the stone bench, to steady his thoughts, even as he rouses his deviousness to his imposture's defense.
"I... did not tell you everything, when last we met, about events in Il Aluk, Madam. There were ... others, other friends, I could easily have spared from their fate, had I but asked them to come with me. I have tried, tried hard, to believe that I am not to blame, in this ... but it would seem, if these cards do speak truly, that there is more I must do to make amends, before I wholly accept my own lack of culpability in their fate."
His words ring true, are true. The bard has not lied once, in all his words, merely presented facts as his wits -- and his troubled conscience -- have aligned them.
(They'd been so certain, those young fools he'd dispatched on their own mission -- so confident of their own invincibility, so assured they'd be back with their reconnaisance-reports within a day's time -- and he, so very preoccupied in probing Van Richten's disappearance, he'd set tales of the Ebon Fold's movements and the convergence of so many Kargat aside, for later consideration. Later consideration, like his search for the missing doctor, had come far too late. That graveborn whisper, those terrible lights that wracked the sky ... he'd been so close, close enough to feel the heat leeched from the air at the city's fringes, close enough he'd almost shared his associates' downfall....
(...and that was just the failure he did remember. Swords, too many Swords, in a world where there are no coincidences ... the crow's shadow, cast black and unforgivable upon the prisoner ... how can one atone for offenses one dares not remember committing....)
Working. You're working, damn it! Don't go there: don't feel it, just use it as you must, use the guilt and then push it down....
Denial, the bard's weakness and strength, brings him through it. He blinks away the fugue, stares accusingly at Perrison.
"How can you know these things, Brother? How, by the Fathers, can a giorgio hope to discern such truths, even if your deductions drawn from the cards' contents might be skewed out of true, in my case?"