What's the Harm in One Little Drink?

[Lent]

It was not a good week for the Broken Dagger. Two major attacks in three days. On top of that, there had been other skirmishes and various crashes into various bottles. The place was generally violent, but this level of mayhem attracted a certain sort of attention. With attention came opportunities of all sorts, high and low.

One man was currently in search of the lower form of opportunity. He sat at a table towards the center of the room, moderately inexpensive wine in a glass in front of him, holding down a particularly unkempt stack of papers. Across the table sat another man, with nary but a mostly untouched mug of ale in front of him.

The first man seemed comfortable in the Dagger; the second seemed hardly comfortable in his own skin. Both wore the uniforms of Myrkentown's finest, defenders of the law, the governorship, and all that was good and right (so long as that last one did not contradict the first two), the Constables.

The second man had barely seen twenty summers. His hair was fair and his skin far more apt to burnt than tan. It had not much experience with the sun before this summer. Neither had he. His uniform was all but stuck to a more or less (granted, more less than more) muscular frame. When he spoke, his tone had just a bit of impatient whine to it. "Kurt, come on, mate. I really don't think we should be here now." It was the third time in as many minutes that the younger man had fronted this idea.

"Told you before, McCoy," spoke the first man, the older man, with patience in his voice, yet no real sympathy, "this is the best time in known history for us to be here and actually get away with it." A word had not yet been invented to describe this man's posture. Suffice to say, it was not very good. He looked almost twice as old as young McCoy, with short hair that may have once been black but now was a darker grey, with speckles of white popping up here and there. His skin showed signs of being permanently darkened in the way of one who worked the fields. Moreover, he wasn't sweating, not like his counterpart. There was little need for it when you were wearing a uniform two sizes too large. His voice was gruff, yet not completely unpleasant. "I have to go over it again for you?"

The older man grunted as the younger one nodded. "Hnn. Fine, fine, but you're a prat, McCoy. A prat that happens to be a rich man's son, but a prat still.That's why you're with me. Me? I'm a liability. That's why I'm with you. That makes us a prat and a liability, basically a whole lot of nothing. Thing about nothing is that it falls through the cracks. When two men fall through the cracks, well, they can sit here near this unpleasant little bar, do their paperwork, order their drinks and no one will care. Understand, son?"

McCoy seemed a bit worried still. Thankfully, his voice did not break with his question, so it was a step up from the usual. "But, Kurt, sometimes the High Constable..." It would have mattered more if he could have actually got the whole sentence out before his voice faded off.

"Ahhhhh." That brought Detective Constable Kurt Letham's glass back into his hand and prompted him to raise it up off the table. "Here's to the High Constable, McCoy, a far nobler man than we." A toast like that deserved a nice, long sip. Only after the glass was back on the table did he wave away his partner's concern. "Look here, son. Yes, the High Constable comes in here occasionally. If he does, you want to know what he'll see? He'll see two men that are bending the rules somewhat, sure, but that are still doing their job, and more than that, they're doing it in a place where they can keep their ears to the ground. I think the one counters the other. For some reason that I just can't finger, it's just not any of the other pubs or taverns or inns or shops or whorehouses where things have been happening. For some reason, things happen here. SO, if you're still following, which I figure is possible seeing that your eyes are NOT rolling back into your head, that very fact is what we tell the High Constable, may we toast him again, if he walks on in. For now, drink your damn ale, keep your mouth shut, and help me get rid of this paperwork."

McCoy went to say something else but thought better of it, rather sure that his voice was about to squeak again if he tried. With a defeated sigh, he took another sip of his ale and looked down at the mess of papers in on the table. This was going to be the start of a very bad habit for both of them. He just knew it.

[Lent]

"Oi, McCoy." There was Detective Constable Lentham, back at what was very slowly becoming his usual table. Things had been busy. There was little time to sneak away and drink, even for him. Council meetings tended to throw everything up in the air. "Glad you made it. Get yourself over here, son."

"Kurt!" Good friends tended to call Kurt Lentham by the endearing name of Lent. Constable McCoy was not so lucky. "Kurt, you shouldn't be here. I've been looking everywhere for you. There's been a murder and..."

"Hey, are we assigned to it?" The two were an odd pairing, the barely eighteen son of a quite well off man with some strange ideas on civic duty and this grizzled, yet newly promoted Detective who had been eaten up and chewed out by Myrken Wood more times than one could count.

This question brought a frown to McCoy's face. "Well, no, not yet but you know that..."

"Then sit down, you prat. You can help me with this piddling mess of bureaucracy." There was no room for argument in Lentham's tone, though even the most insulting words weren't overly harsh.

"Bureaucracy, yeah?" McCoy sat down, frowning even more now as he looked at the papers before them. "Hey, Kurt, you were at the Council meeting, right? What do you think is going to happen?"

"An actual question from Constable McCoy. Will wonders never cease?" A hint of a smile tried to escape, even as Lentham ordered his partner a drink. "Here's what I think. Try to follow along. The most important bit of news that came out of that entire travesty of a Council meeting is that Bromn's brought himself AN ARMY. See, if the man had shown any sense of political guile at all since his return, well, I'd say he had his spy systems in place and he's had an ear to the street. There's something brewing and if you ask me, IF our beloved Governor wasn't about as savvy as you, McCoy, he'd be bringing in his own army to be prepared for when it's well and ready, not to fight off some army we haven't even seen yet that some monster from the dregs of Myrken's recent history claims to have. All that make sense?"

McCoy didn't even touch his drink. There was a great deal that Lentham had left unsaid there, and it was all running haphazardly though his head. "Where does that leave us, Kurt?"

"Another surprisingly cunning question from the young man in the uniform." A hearty smack on the shoulder followed. "I must be rubbing off on you. Either that or my expectations have just dropped considerably. Where that leaves us, the mighty Myrken Constabulary, is right in the middle once again. It also leaves us uselses. What can we do against an army, no? What can we do againsty CALVARY? Not a whole lot, let me say. No, we'll just do our best and get run over, much like during the coup." He had raised his glass and toasted upon mentioning the Constabulary. He took the long sip of his wine before continuing.

"No, who cares about us? You ask me, the big question mark in what's to come is that strange order of knights hanging out not far outside the wall. They say the king bankrolls them, the KING, here in Myrken. Ha. No, well, they say that but the Governor didn't know a thing about them? That's what I hear, at least. No one seems to know a thing about them, except for that they're from overseas somewhere. From overseas and funded by the crown? Isn't that a bit odd?"

Something of a sad look came over Lentham now. "Whatever's coming, son, it isn't good, not for Bromn, not for the people, and not for us, not for anyone, I think. We're going to be stuck right in the middle of it, so you better make sure you're prepared." He raised his glass once more. "Ah well, McCoy. We'll just do our best and try not to die. That's the Myrken way. Here's to politics. May we keep our bloody noses out of it."

[Lent]

"Hey, McCoy! Get over here. I'm surprised you haven't been made into a Councilor yet, huh? Land-owning stock and all that." Detective Constable Lentham's feet were up upon the table in his little corner of the Dagger. He was drinking openly out of his flask and there were papers scattered around.

Lentham's partner, having just walked in through the door in search of the man, looked more than a little pale at his so-called friend's words. "Kurt! Shh.. Come on. Don't talk like that!"

"Hey, what's the harm. At the least, your father might have a shot at it. He's a big supporter of the Constabulary. Though, he DID dump your sorry behind on us, huh? I can imagine the High Governor would frown upon that." Lent took a hearty drink in toast to their leader.

"Come on, Kurt, come on. Stop it already. I thought you'd be happy about this." Most of the Constables WERE happy about this. Now they'd finally get to do their jobs without any sort of red tape holding them back.

"I am. You know how I felt about Bromn, how I still feel. Hell, you know that better than me because I just know what you told me, but still, this may not be the best thought out plan ever. That's all. At least that curious land purchase makes sense now." Oh yes, lovely thing, that. Their case was knocked to bits by Calomel's well-meaning ambition.

Frustration on the case being disrupted had already been worked off by now, at least for one of them. "So what's the problem?"

"The problem, dear McCoy, is that there have been STORIES in the streets, ones of Karolinger and Calomel," A quick toast. He had too much to say, "fighting side by side, both encased by flames, against the Fiend. They're enjoyable stories, but the farmers have clung to another tale of that night, of the Kaczmarek girl, with no power of her own, ONE of their own, charging at Ashfiend without fear."

A look of confusion came over the younger man's face. "What're you getting at Kurt? Yeah, it's a little frightening that the Head Constable's sort of um.." No, Constable McCoy was not about to call the man inhuman but the thought was there, "but.."

A wave of the Detective's hand cut him off. "Have you heard the stories of the brave girl, how she charged at him with only rapier and kitchen knife?" Think, McCoy. That was the message of Lentham's focused, angry gaze.

Understanding slowly bloomed in McCoy's face. "Oh.. that. Ohhhhhhhh.. No. Oh, come on, Kurt. Tell me you don't think." This could be bad. This could be very, very bad.

"More than think. I looked into it a bit. Do you know she used to run around with a kitchen knife, before she was trained by Miss Emory? People were more than a little proud to recount that, especially in the light of the sorrow. She's something of a hero to some of them, especially the younger ones." Lent shut his eyes and took a nice long drink. Damn that sense of integrity. Damn that oath. "Hate saying it, son, but we're going to have to look into this more directly. Maybe it'll be nothing, a dead lead. The timing might not even work out. But if not, well, we still have to do it... our fine, sterling new interim governor's popularity be damned." If nothing else, it would be a real fine way of seeing where the new Cinnabar Calomel stood on issues of law and justice when, perhaps, they did not serve the greater good, when the decisions were quite hard indeed.

[Lent]

Another fine day in another fine pub. Except for this time, they were actually working. Or at least one fo them was. "Well, son?" Detective Constable Kurt Lentham was slumped into his seat at the far table of the Broken Dagger.

Constable Charles McCoy sort of wished they were back terrorizing the Marshall. Sure that might get them killed, but it would probably hurt less. "They definitely saw a drow leaving the Dagger around the time of the tailor's death. Is that enough?" He had been brave enough to draw a sword on Jons Feul, quite ignorantly, mind you, but a man had to draw a line somewhere and that specific drow was the exact place.

Lentham once had a healthy fear of drow like any good Myrken man. Then he had a blistering hatred of them like a good portion of Myrkenfolk, those who had lost a great deal to Audmathus, for instance. Now, it was sort of a dull dislike, even annoyance. "'Fraid not, looks like we have to go find her. Lucky us." He mouthed the next word while stretching and yawning so it was far longer than it ought to have been. "Commmmme on." And then he was up on his feet, still finishing his yawn. "Let's go find her."