The kid was right, this place is trashy.
I'm pretty sure there was straw and sawdust, which made this place smell like the back of a horse's ass, to soak in blood, urine and ale. Why am I always in the shittiest bars?
Fuck my life.
I looked over my options. There were games being played in a couple of corners.
Some real high rollers here. I saw chunks of gold being traded over cards. I think I even saw a necklace made of diamonds being used as collateral for the game.
I didn't want to risk my head if I lost the game. I knew how to cheat pretty well, but these were professional players. They could see my card tricks and my eyes counting cards a mile away.
I could also lounge back at the bar with the rest of the women. Clearly paid by the place to service the men, there were two or three men joining them, but most of them were women. They were eyefucking me pretty damn hard, so I was resigned to join them.
I was casing out the place for a couple of days, but nobody showed, so I decided to join the staff after the barman had a little accident.
And so graciously offered myself to replace him. I've been showing up here every night looking for a man with a windcoat and a mask that covered his entire body and a mask entirely white that covered his entire face.
By the third night that I have tried to stop an altercation between a girl and a dude that got way too handsy behind a red curtain and tried to bite off the girl's nipple.
I have learned one important rule in this bar: just because there is a sign on the wall that says, "hands off." Does not mean they listen.
I'm sick of entitled assholes and the way they feel they can take whatever the hell they want. I wanted so badly to tell these girls to run, to go somewhere, anywhere, but just like I was stuck in my hell. They were stuck in theirs.
I was glaring at some dude trying to feel up Winnie, the brunette with the wide lips. I felt the hand on me before I stepped out of the bar to do something. "Don't," Sam warned.
Sam was a good guy. I got to know him pretty well after the couple days I worked here. After he was sold by his mom to fishermen, he became a fish cutter for the merchants. It was not as lucrative as it used to be, so the fisherman sold him to the owner of this place.
He got passed around by every person he knew, so I knew his trust was precious, and I especially understood how much it took out of him to give it to me, but right now it was not the time. I growled under my breath, "No touching is part of the rules." I pointed towards the sign stating as much.
He knew I didn't talk about the rules, and I didn't give a fuck about the bar. He gave a slight nod to Winnie, and she looked over to me with what I could have sworn was concern before she gave me a weak smile and caressed the arm of the man who was trying to position her on his lap and smoothly moved away from him.
Sam moved into the bar to pour himself a heavy drink of bourbon and offered me one too. I swatted it away. I needed to stay clear-headed.
He gave me a confused glance.
I tried to steady my breathing, still pissed off. "I hate that fucking look they get when they scoff at being touched like that."
"They're used to it," but I barely heard his voice over the clattering loud one in my head.
I said even weaker, "I used to get that look."
-----
After nights spent behind the bar, the time finally came; the sea merchant was going to show tonight.
Some regular started cackling over his fifth drink. He is going to make a bank tomorrow night. When the sea merchant is going to show for his regular game.
I had to keep my hands still as they were because I wanted to jump up and down, clap, and, fuck yeah, I was itching to talk with the man. Even he was evasive about the details. No one knew a lot about the same merchant, and I mean no one.
Tonight I finally took the night off. I was donning the mask I used to wear with Helena when I was pretending to be someone else. Ever since that night at the masquerade ball, I've gone to meet her dozens of times with that mask, never knowing it was me. She told me all her secrets, and I was not an errant ear.
I executed on every one of her warnings. Every time a lord got a little too handsy, he suddenly seemed to have found himself in the middle of a scandal.
I didn't like to complicate things with stuff like murder, but if the need to revise arose, I always obeyed the call.
That was the only way I was going to get into that game with a false identity and name. And a personality to match it all. I wore plenty of masks, figuratively and literally. So it felt only natural to go back into that courtier persona. Charming, sweet, silver-tongued lover.
It's so much easier to manipulate people if they think your motivation is lust. They let loose and allow themselves to let restrictions they usually would obey be gone.
I waited until the night got heavy and dark and all the riffraff were gone.
Only a few tables were still hosting games. I was playing for a couple of hours now, asking about the game with the much higher stakes being hosted. Suggesting that I have some real money to play with. Letting the arrogance show a little too much, but giving people the impression that I was an idiot that was willing to lose a hell of a lot of money to professional card players.
One of the girls showed a little too much to me when she leaned over, whispering in my ear, "If you like to join the game being hosted behind the red curtain. Join me please."
I was guided to a round table with lush red sofas already occupied by old players with the gut from years of drinking alcohol to prove their experience with the bar.
All of them were wearing wolf masks except me.
I was keeping the mask that I always wore with Helena; it was part of the costume that I always wore during events. Usually, I would bedazzle it with gold or dark lace depending on my mood.
Today I was adoring raven feathers, dark and long. I needed to seem like a greedy animal with sharp eyes.
Especially because I didn't want any of the Royals to recognize the mask for what it is and disguise helping me fit into the court. I could go anywhere with that thing; it wasn't unusual to go to the odd mask event or club.
I was eyeing the door waiting for a certain one of the players to walk in, but he was nowhere in sight. I sat down at the view from the nearest exit. One of the men who seemed way drunker than the others, with red cheeks puffing and a silver mustache that did not match his balding head, swayed towards the table to sit. "Well, where is he?"
He did not need to say who he was, but he said it anyway. "Where is the pirate?"
"I hope he does not come," said one of the finer men, wearing a sleek suit, dripping arrogance.
I could not help myself but ask, "Why? Who is he?"
The men exchanged a look.
I lean over sporting a grin. "Are you so scared of the sea merchant that you are afraid to speak his name?"
"Don't speak of something you do not understand." The man with the mustache's voice turns cold.
I roll my eyes, but I catch the odd shiver going through the room. I stiffened my spine, my back, trying not to let the mood in the room affect mine.
"Do you know why he doesn't speak ever?"
"They say the butcher was a soldier among the butcher's army when they invaded Maples, and that he was the top lieutenant of his navy, and when the trial for the Mad Jester happened in the hazard of the invasion, the Jester escaped, and when he escaped. The sea merchant caught him and killed him, but when he fought back, he managed to slit his throat, cutting off his voice box.
Silence fills the room, and although I know this secret, this story is nothing but gossip and lies, I can't help but feel as if someone has stepped on my grave.
"I bet that psycho keeps the jester's body parts on the ship." The man in the suit chuckles, but there is an edge to his voice.
Do you think he keeps all his he cuts off staring at me or, more correctly, right behind me? I can feel the presence behind me, and I do not have to guess who it is because I can feel the room tensing at the sight of the man behind me. The Sea merchant.