"A Matter of Back Payment Due" Log Date: 10/27/99 Log Date: Richard, Weasel Log Intro: Over the last many weeks Richard has led a busy life indeed -- trying to see himself and his new Mongrel charges through the plague that gripped the city. Trying to see through the ramifications of Cynara, the Lady of Thorns, making an all-too-alarming discovery about certain parts of his past that he'd have just as soon kept from her knowledge... and trying, as well, to fathom his own reactions to the young Mongrel woman Rory who has begun to grow oddly close to him. And then there's the attack upon him by the thief and petty thug Southpaw Rolf, which left Rolf dead at Rory's hand and Richard himself wounded. In the midst of it all it can probably be considered no surprise that he's forgotten a certain arrangement he made with a merchant of diminutive stature pertaining to a theoretical cure for that selfsame plague -- but even though the Rook has had this arrangement temporarily slip his mind, it is still quite firmly lodged within the thoughts of Weasel. And Weasel is not about to let a matter of owed monies slide. Even if Richard _is_ wounded.... *===========================< In Character Time >==========================* Time of day: Evening Date on Aether: Saturday, June 22, 3905. Year on Earth: 1505 A.D. Phase of the Moon: Waning Gibbous Season: Summer Weather: Clear Skies Temperature: Hot *==========================================================================* Weasel comes in from the stairs. Weasel has arrived. Well, so much for Jenean's promise to be bringing him a healer. Impatient with the still-healing knife wound at his belly, tired of confining himself to his bed, the man called Richard has risen out of a nap with a surfeit of energy for the first time since Southpaw Rolf had tried to kill him. His bandaged waist and the stitches holding the gash together protest his movements -- but not quite so sharply as they had a few days before. And thus Richard, determined to get outside this evening, gingerly goes about the task of clothing himself... arming himself. He _shouldn't_, he thinks, find too much danger between here and the Rialto, but one never knows... Except for Weasel. Weasel -ALWAYS- knows. Well, he's been wrong once or twice, ... maybe even something close to half the time, but we're just going to ignore that, arn't we now? Point in case: Weasel guessed that he'd have to force the money out of Richard for that lungroot. And now he's come to collect just when Richard is at his weakest. Granted, if it hadn't been for the business the plague presented and then the business inherent in heavy trade due to the food shortage, he would have come calling long ago. If you'd ask him though, he'd say it was just because he was waiting for the proper time. Well, this is the proper time. Thus is it that a sharp rap on Richard's door is followed quite immediatly by the bursting open of said door and the pushing through of two burly mongrels, followed by Weasel at his smarmyest, and then followed again by another two burly mongrels. It's Weasel's little group of guards/enforcers. Richard doesn't even have time to swear. Halfway into pulling on a shirt over his bandaged torso, the wounded man pulls out the knife he'd sheathed at his waist -- but makes no attempt to actually charge forth and use it on anyone. Blue eyes turned piercingly alert flash around the room as he instantly realizes he's not only hurt... he's badly outnumbered. But with commendable aplomb, he declares sternly, "Really now, mates, didn't yer mothers ever teach ye to knock?" There is a somewhat common saying among writers that appears in writing fairly often. It goes something like this: Joe walks in like he owns the place. Joe can of course be replaced by any number of names, and 'walks in' can be replaced by any action one might do in a manner like they owned the place, and a few more. This saying is, however, incredibly inaccurate. Normally when someone 'walks in like they own the place.' they do things that the owners would never do. Appraise the room condesendingly, for instance. Why would the owner need to examine his own room, and why would he do it in such a manner. You understand now, I hope. What Weasel does just now, is look like he owns the place. Except that he really does. He pays no attention to the surroundings, and his stance and tone make it seem like it was .Richard. who was the outsider here. A good tactic indeed, though it undoubtably will prove less effective than normal on Richard. "Good Evening, Richard." Then with a stern look. "My mother taught me only one lesson. Don't let anyone steal from you." Very accusatory, and not at all in the struggling speech that Weasel normally employs. Half-clad, strips of white cloth that want changing wound about his trim waist, armed with a single wicked-looking blade in the face of four strapping Mongrels, quite disheveled and in need of a shower and a shave, Richard might well be dismissed as ridiculous for continuing to hold his wary, watchful stance. But hold it he does, along with the affronted look of a lord whose personal chambers have just been violated and who expects his guards to come running in at any moment. His ebon brows arch above those keen blue eyes, and he drawls without batting an eye, "Takes four big men to come and tell me that, does it?" "No, not at all." Weasel says, staring at Richard with a very calm and upmostly serious look on his face. Well, as serious as a midget can look, you know. "I'm reasonably sure four short men would have been suitable. But you are a dangerous man with equally dangerous friends, and I wouldn't want to be caught at a disadvantage." And he says it solidly, not giving away an inch, even when he calls Richard dangerous. He says it with the same tone as one might say that a certain mugger is dangerous. The taller man's mouth curls in what might well appear to be a self-deprecating smile -- if it actually reached his eyes. Rather more worried about those four large men flanking the diminutive merchant than anything Weasel might do himself, Richard says guilelessly, "Ach, now, would I do that to such a fine upstandin' businessman as yourself?" Especially while he's still healing from the last fight he got into? But we'll not be calling attention to that vocally even if the bandages _are_ obvious. "I would never accuse you of violent behavior." Weasels sounds absolutly flabergasted that Richard would even think of such a thing, but mockingly so. No straight out insults, aside from that dangerous thing. He's just here to get his money, and maybe make sure Richard doesn't forget to pay again. "But one never knows about such things." Well, Weasel doesn't actually believe that. He believes he always knows. "I'm simply here to collect my three zechin." Anger flashes across azure eyes, momentarily hot before cooling down to twilight-hued frost. With it comes a flash of comprehension -- and although Richard doesn't allow it to show in his face, chagrin at his lapse in memory. Payment to Weasel. He'd simply _forgotten_. For an instant, he wonders exactly what else he might have lost in the days of delirium in which _he_ had suffered from the sickness -- but then, Richard dismisses that as irrelevant. "The deal," he answers tautly, neither his eyes nor the knife in his hand budging an inch, "was for two more zechin _if_ my friends survived. Which they didn't." "Oh, isn't it so convienent that your memory has suddenly returned." Weasel says sharply, losing all pretexts of a friendliness and it's ilk. He's here to collect from a delinquint client. "But I am a charitable man, even with those who refuse to pay. I will cut down the 'interest' to a panas. Two zechin and a panas, it will be then." Well, it might be a little less than generous, but it's not the highway robbery that a zechin was. Ridiculous though it might be to be obstinate in the face of being outnumbered b four large and furthermore unwounded men, still, Richard's sense of justice flares up and turns his eyes to blue crystalline fire. "What you sold me was worthless," he snaps, the normal street lilt of his voice giving way to clearer and sharper enunciation now. "My partner is _still_ dead, and so's his wife, you treacherous little mongoose. I owe you nothing." What two people died after using his herbs? Well, alot of people died after using his herbs. Nothing is a hundred percent sure on that sort of thing. But still. Well, this is an interesting situation. But does Weasel believe it? Maybe. But wether or not, he'll have to pretend he doesn't, just to save face. "And I am sure they died from the plague, not from some little slash marks in the right places, brought about by a 'carelessly' weilded knife." And his gaze looks down on the knife in Richards hand. He does look like the sort who'd do that type of thing. Better men than Weasel have attempted to coerce money out of Richard -- larger ones, too. Disgusted by the intimidation tactics yet all too aware that he's walking a fine line between principles and saving his own hide, the wounded thief clamps down hard on the surging desire to pound the little merchant's face in for him. Now, he tells himself grimly, is not the time. His features settling into a cool expression that loses very little to the haggard state of his face or the beard haunting his jaw, Richard repeats unflinchingly, "I owe you nothing. You've got two zechin out of me already and I've got two dead friends. I call it square, mate." "I can't very well just take your word on it." This is Weasel's reputation at stake here, you see. If he just took Richard's word on this sort of thing, every two-bit hoodlum would be lying about his debts to Weasel. "But I think we can resolve this by some means or another. He pulls a wad of paper out of the folds of his coat. "Nothing violent, of course. I simply need some sort of proof that you are a man of your word before I can trust you." The veener of friendliness has not returned, but there is no hostility. Just calm. Richard's mouth curls into a smirk within his short ebon beard. "Proof?" he echoes. "What kind of _proof_? The death carts carried off my friends weeks ago." "Not proof of their death. That could be easily faked. Mongrels have no magic, I'm sure you know." Of course he does. He's a mongrel himself. "What I need, is proof that you can be taken on your word, in general. I have ways of finding out these things if you can't think of some way to prove it to me, but I prefer not too." Costs too much, you know. Blue eyes narrow, to go with the smirk in the black beard. "Twelve years of my history in Haven isn't enough proof for you?" he asks in low, sharp tones. Never mind the looming presences of the four minions flanking the little merchant -- now, Weasel has started getting personal. "You have the gall to stand there and call me a liar?" "Now Now. Don't get upset." Richard isn't really expected to do that. "Until I have some evidence to the opposite, I cannot afford to assume otherwise." Weasel's got himself very under control now. Calm, just as Richard is beginning to get angry. The balance of power in this room is shifting very quickly. Weasel has always had the physical advantage, but that means nothing. Weasel will let it come to violence, but he won't initiate it. Richard doesn't know that, however. "And what sort of 'proof'," snaps the taller man coldly, "do you require that I can be taken on my word?" "Whatever kind you could provide." Weasel, the midget, calmly retorts. "I Wouldn't presume to force you into any method or type of evidence of proof. To do so would invalidate the whole thing." Richard's lucky actually, that he hadn't made his deal with some gang or some sort. They would have beaten him and taken his money by now. Richard probably doesn't see it that way, however. He doesn't need this. He really doesn't need this. Richard's slash wound is starting to throb under the bandages at his waist, and the spurt of energy that had propelled him from his bed is beginning to ebb. But he doesn't dare relax, and he doesn't dare show anything but the same stern face he's been presenting his uninvited guests ever since they burst in. "I can name you three of my contacts who can support the fact that my partner is dead," he grates out. "And six of my recent clients, who've gotten what they paid for." His smirk shifts into an unamiable smile, and the light of clear, cold, prideful confidence in that azure gaze doesn't take the edge off his expression. "If I can't stand on my professional reputation, little man, I don't know why we're having this argument." "Your professional reputation means nothing to me. Nor does any other type of reputation." Does this mean he's not going to accept that? No. "But I do listen to personal accounts. A name of any of them who I can contact and is not too shady will do." Not that Weasel isn't shady, but he wouldn't trust himself anyway. Personal accounts, huh? Richard's fine-boned features grow very still, and the hand wielding the knife lowers, just a fraction. "Jenean," he rasps then, "and Nox, and Cynara." And he leaves it at that. Three other faces flash behind his eyes, but the thief isn't about to drag the children of his dead partner into this sordid business -- or the girl who'd come to tend him in his sickness. "They'll speak for me." Didn't he ask for no one too shady? Ah, well, he'll accept those. He's fairly sure he'll be able to trust at least one of them, so he writes the names down in his wad of papers and sticks it back in his coat. "If I find that you have misled me, be sure that you will see me again." And there'll be someone watching him too, just in case he tries to skip town. With that, Weasel turns and leave the room two in front, and two in back. Weasel heads downstairs and out into the street. Weasel has left. [End log.]