[OOC: Time for the bard to hold his nose and dive into the piranha-tank, again! But first, since
Buchvold's wondering what's been keeping him....
]
He
could, the bard supposed, have tarried further -- the
music in his soul certainly longed to linger -- but intuition assured him that he didn't need to: the Borcan's daily frustration-quota would more than be met, when Crow informed him at
which hotel in Port d'Elhour he'd be receiving messages. Buchvold's instructions had been for "Brother Crow" to arrive at nine sharp, allowing the two men to traverse whatever quagmire of identity-checks and tests might await them in tandem. It was
already half-past ten now, but given that Souragne (and its coachmen) maintained a
far more relaxed, easy-going pace to life than the bustling western Core, the bard doubted if the Borcan could've arrived more than a quarter-hour ago, himself.
Letting the man sweat bullets a
little longer would've been amusing, but not if it meant Buchvold's
own performance might suffer. And in case the Borcan really
had muffed the first move of the game, best to arrive
just after he'd done so, while the illusionist's brethren were still confused by his remarks and the contagion of anxiety amongst them could warn Crow to flee in time: another reason the spy'd opted
not to adhere
too rigorously to the Borcan wizard's marching orders.
(Besides, the cabriolet which had clattered past on La Tristepas near the toll of ten-o-clock had been occupied by none other than Milady Scalpel, Professor Gertrude Kingsley. The
letters they'd exchanged since Nevuchar Springs had been delightful, but few, and of necessity limited to pleasantries and discussion of her works; the bard dearly looked forward to meeting -- and dueling...? -- the Zherisian in person again.)
Now, as another coach approached from the north, the bard regretfully lowered the harmonica (by far his best, for
this) from his lips, wiped it down carefully with a purple handkerchief, then sheathed it and reached to tousle the tightly-kinked hair of Duchamps' smallest grandchild. The toddler squealed; the rest of the swarm of barefoot younglings giggled. Duchamps' wrinkles deepened as the ancient sharecropper beamed in toothless pleasure at the sound; the old man's roughly-calloused hand extended forward, and both Crow's hands reached to intercept it, enfolding the blind instrumentalist's mahogany fingers in the appreciative clasp which musicians universally understood as one of heartfelt respect, even reverence.
Soon, I'll be hobnobbing with men whose very philosophies
I loathe: men, with wealth and power enough to buy or destroy everything Duchamps' family has ever or will
ever own, and vanity-enough to believe it's not nearly so much as they deserve. And yet this
man, whose soulful harmonies I'd not presume to think I could equal in a lifetime, would deem it insulting if I pressed so much as a copper in his hand! Ah, Monsieur Duchamps, you shame them all, and humble me....
The blind man's fingers squeezed Crow's once, in camaraderie, while his free hand roved up and down the fretboard of his battered instrument, grime-impacted fingertips flowing magnificently along strings as familiar to their touch as ever the venerable guitarist's late wife had been. Behind the oiled paper of the roadside shack's lone window, the bard could sense Duchamps' eldest daughter glaring at him from the kitchen -- he'd brought a pail of jumbalya and seared chicken with him from town "to share", paid as tribute to a maestro who never accepted
overt charity, but Lisette still deeply resented the rich foreign blanque's intrusion on her father's privacy -- and the coach, a closed landau which had been ferrying passengers to the Maison Soulombre all morning, was drawing nearer.
The bard gently released Duchamps' hand, and turned to collect his jacket from the porch railing; feeling a tug on his ruffled shirt's fabric, he turned back to the master-player. The blind man's grin widened, as his gray head nodded toward the oncoming carriage's lesiurely clamour, and a calloused thumb pointed to the ill-pruned fruit tree beside the porch. The children giggled in unison again, then broke ranks and scattered from the porch as if on cue, to run shrieking and chasing each other over the weed-tangled yard.
"
Romèrsi," Crow murmured softly to his host ... and not solely for Duchamps' hospitality, nor his lessons in Souragnien bent notes, shuffles and glissandi. The bard's work almost invariably took him far, far away from the lives and life-experiences of everyday, mundane,
normal humanity. It was far too easy to lose touch with the simple human world he was struggling to protect, given how his missions demanded he focus so exclusively on tactics and objectives; he'd needed to feel
ordinary, and free of hostile pressures,
before he faced off with the phenomenal, yet again.
But such interludes could not,
must not, last. The bard's
own world of intrigue was too dangerous; his opposition, too
ruthless to respect the boundaries he'd drawn between himself and the vulnerable. He'd only dared reach out to
Kingsley, of late -- tentatively, circumspectly, like a smith gingerly testing if a new-forged horseshoe has cooled enough to touch -- because she was
already a part of that world, bound up in the Fraternity's troubles by her own instigation.
Now, it was time to join her and Buchvold in that deadly, uncertain world again. Crow slid into his violet jerkin --
beastly hot, and it'd only get worse if he recollected Souragne's weather rightly, but at least it hadn't any sleeves; the inebriated seigneur's son he'd won it off of at poker had been an oaf, not a masochist -- and slung his own guitar-case comfortably across his back, hopped off the porch to avoid using the rickety steps. He paused to pluck a couple of odd fruits -- loquats, he'd heard them called once, or Rokushiman plums; strange, and proof this stifling climate had
some fringe benefits, that fruit-trees should bear in April! -- from Duchamps' tree, before trotting to meet the carriage.
Even as he jogged through the riotous crowd of children, waving beseechingly to the coachman, the bard's bearing shifted. The jaunty spring in his step, of last October, returned; quips formed in the back of his mind and lined up, like muskets ready for firing; fingers dipped into a jerkin-pocket and fished out a pen (Buchvold's, naturally), tucked it behind one ear in an "eager-beaver" student's readiness for instant transcription.
The landau slowed, and the bard held up one of the loquats, hooking a thumb to the vehicle's rear. The driver considered for a moment, then nodded; it'd been a long morning, what with all the foreign seigneurs' guests in town, and his was thirsty work. Crow grinned, tossed the fruit to the coachman, then jogged behind the coach for a few paces until he could get a solid-enough grip on the rear storage-boot's edges, and boosted himself up onto the bootlid, one hand clinging to the back of the passenger-seat. The carriage's occupants voiced no complaint; hitching such lifts was commonplace in Souragne -- again, the pace of life was slower and more relaxed here -- and with the landau's collapsible roof up, they couldn't see him, anyway.
Up front, the driver cracked his whip and then set it aside, momentarily, to peel Crow's payment in readiness for a refreshing nibble. In back, the bard settled in, as well as such cramped circumstances allowed, for the short ride to the Maison. Sure, he could've
walked there, or hired a coach of his own, but this was more in keeping with his Manoir persona's youthful exuberance and stereotypical "bardish" roguishness.
Once more into the vipers' nest,
Crow-my-lad, and their coils
tighter and slitherier than ever. Best tread lightly, every step or word placed with care, lest it's your last. Best be convincing,
too, in dear "Brother Crow's" every mannerism ... which really could
use something else just now, come to think of it....
The driver's whip cracked a second time, and the landau lurched itself to a faster clip. The carriage's frame rocked; the bard's body tipped outward dangerously as his hands gripped tight to stop him falling from his perch, and he let out a devil-may-care "
Whoop!" of thrill-seeker's elation, startling and most likely amusing the passengers within.
Ah, yes.
That's what his persona'd needed, spot on.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
