[OOC: Sorry for the delay getting Crow back on stage, Llana; I was traveling all yesterday, and getting ready to travel the day before.
]
The bard doesn't openly look up when Draxton and the fallen Vistana emerge from the interview-room, merely pauses in his monologue for another sip of his mint julep. As expected, the quicker Brothers had fast snapped up the denuded Library's few references on Tarokka cards, in the first five minutes of the attendees' release from the upper floor; appropriating a convenient table on the far side of the Maison's entrance hall, Crow had laid out a random sampling of cards -- carefully avoiding those from
his own 'reading'; he had no wish, and could not afford, to get distracted -- and rapidly attracted queries from those who'd missed their chance at the Maison's references. He is now casually explaining the significance of the Charlatan and Spirit to a brace of Invidian Initiates, woefully misinformed about gypsies and thus unduly worried about their own 'readings' ... even as he watches the comings and goings of the other brethren, placing faces with names, infamy with individuals.
So far, so good. The spy had taken his cue from Mikkelson's rote-recited apology -- not surprising that it should sound a bit mechanical, for all the Valachani's eerie force of presence; the Father had been repeating those same words all afternoon, and any man with
his reputation for hard-charging ambition would've surely been bored stiff -- and bowed his way out of the tableau, politely set the chair back in its place for the next test subject. (It's the
little touches like that, which truly complete one's performance....) He'd held the door open for Quiret, when the two bards exited the dim-lit room, as well: the very picture of a younger member hoping to curry favor, yet too cowed by others' authority to dare pursue his ambitions with
real vigor, let alone cross his superiors.
Little
touches ... clearly, the Fraternity -- or at least Mikkelson -- knew of their importance, too. The VRS spy has to hand it to the Father: that "Brother Crow" had been
given the powdered sheet of paper from his identity-test had been a classic. He'd folded it up with a puzzled expression, tucked it into a pocket, and had asked Quiret its significance before they'd parted company. The half-elf's reply had only verified his own hypothesis, of course -- indeed, he'd recognized most of the powder's active ingredients by smell alone; his
Society used them continuously -- but
failure to ask, after Mikkelson's parting remarks, would have been an amateur's gaffe. The spy would, naturally, have the powder analyzed alchemically at the first opportunity; Crow himself wasn't certain what manner of monstrosity the
paprika in the mix was intended to discriminate, but if the Fraternity knew a trick his own colleagues did not, that information
alone was well worth the risks he'd taken in coming here, and submitting to the cabal's "necessary test".
(Necessary, yes; a test
alone, no. Again, the bard mentally tips a salute to the FoS Father, for courteously returning the papers to their test subjects ... and thus, lulling them into overlooking how their
ampulles, still spotted with blood on the insides, had
not been handed back to them. As in all malign societies, the Fraternity of Shadows was a hierarchy, even if its members pretended to an equality born of scholarly respect; the underlings were kept in the dark, and bound to service, as surely as the Kargatane submitted to the Kargat. In a crisis such as it now faced, reassessment and consolidation of human assets and stringent enforcement of loyalty would be paramount: the organization could not afford
another significant betrayal, lest it disintegrate from within -- a chronic concern for villainous factions; rats do not rush to
save a sinking ship -- as well as succumb from without.
(To Crow's eyes --
outsider's eyes, unblindered by propaganda or indoctrination -- this gathering in Souragne has
nothing to do with lectures, any more than a wolf's howl in the night has anything to do with the moon. The Fathers were summoning their pack, from every corner of the Land, to measure and muster its strength ... and to
leash those potentially-wayward souls who -- like
Draxton Serd, if the bard's suspicions about the Richemulouise's book bore out -- might otherwise shirk their duties or ideological convictions. The papers might have been returned, but the
ampulles would be kept: those blood-samples had too many potential uses
not to be retained, for divinatory monitoring of suspected traitors or -- if this new-made Souragnien cell had done its homework -- for indigenous voudans' magic-for-hire.
(Unless, of course, Mikkelson had his
own use for the vials' contents. Again, the man's reputation was for ambition, and for egotism as well; yet
another line of speculation to file away for future analysis....)
Speak of the Devil..., the spy mused, as he sets his julep-glass aside and allows himself a quick glance at Serd's and Roeccha's progress up the grand staircase. He wonders, briefly, if the merchant-mage will be coming back down again; his prior encounter with the man in Nevuchar Springs had not revealed the nature of the "curse" Serd had allegedly picked up in Darkon, but it would be amusing if the effects rendered him vulnerable to one of the Father's tests....
Then a far more welcome personage enters the Maison, and the bard cuts his lecture to the Invidians short. Kingsley, again ... and not alone.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow