[PM to Join] Full House [Meraki]
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 2:13 am
Old Rose Harbor - The Leviathan
The 28th of Dentis, 2719, after midnight
The 28th of Dentis, 2719, after midnight
A
busy night and I was knackered. It felt like I’d been pulling pints for ages, as though my arm might merge with the taps. I like to think of myself as essential to The Leviathan, but I draw the line at being fused to the bar. Why was that night so busy? I don’t have a clue. No big merchantman had laid anchor in the harbor, and the only naval vessel that was new in port was The Redoubtable Wasp. So, the throng was just one of those causeless things. Fortune smiling on me, I guess. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I wasn’t going to go cursing the thing by asking too many questions When the gods decided to bless you with a perpetual horde of thirsty patrons, you don’t question it. You just pour the drinks and watch the black hole in your finances slowly become less and less dire. Busy nights are good for the accounts. Busy nights keep the creditors happy and the tipstaffs off my back. Not that’s I’d ever let a tipstaff past the doors. We do have some standards.
Busy nights are good for The Leviathan. Less so for Allardyce and Co. It’s not easy holding a quiet meeting with furtive clients when the drunken fancy man at the bar is demanding another glass of absinthe. Why do dandies always think absinthe is just the drink to lend them the right air of louche and debauched mystery? I’ve no idea. The stuff is awful. Far too sweet. Far too fiddly to make. Still, the faux peacocks pay well for it, so I suppose that’s another thing I should leave off complaining about.
Around an hour to midnight, there was a ruckus in the back room. I guess the three jolly idiots who were playing cards back there decided that a bit of recreational stabbing was in order. I hate when people bleed all over my furniture. It’s a pain to clean up. Sally and I had to eject those vicious reptiles out the back door and into the river. Well, Sally mostly. It’s amazing how effective a tiny lass with a very sharp knife can be at bringing a situation to order. Still, I’ve only got the one Sally. I’m not sure The Rose, let alone The Leviathan could handle another one such as her. Worth her weight in gold. Thankfully, she’s a feather-light piece.
After we’d sluiced down the back room and shaken our heads over the cost of the breakages, we stumbled back into a bar as lively as ever. There was no hope of any respite it seemed. I thought about closing shop early. Thought about going to bed. It would have been the wise thing to do. But I though about my debts, my creditors, my broken tables and chairs, and decided I needed to stay open. That was about to become a damn great mistake.
I hadn’t noticed when Gervaise slipped in, but I knew he and his flash crew were in the house when I got the order. They always ordered the same thing, I think they did it to annoy me. They were good at annoying me.
“The gents over yonder want two absinths and three admiral’s flips.” Byron had taken the order. Gods dammit, but he should have smoked the bastards right speedily. But, true to form, my lovable idiot of a brother had failed to recognize danger once again. Instead he brought me their request blythe as you please. Brilliant.
Before I could get the loggerheads hot on the braziers - who the hell orders flip on a night like this? - Gervaise hauled himself up to the bar, and smiled at me. Gods I hate that smile. It has all the warmth of long-expired turbot, and all the comfort of a bed of nails. The worst part was, Gervaise thought it was a rather winning grimace. He thought it made him seem suave and debonair.
“Hello, Dicey. A full house tonight.” That name again. In that affected voice with its horrible imitation of a man of substance. Gervaise just sounded like he had a cold and a lisp. “Good to know that you can be competent. We need to talk.” He tried that smile again. I noticed one of his teeth was going black. It would have spoiled his look, had he managed to pull it off. As it stood, that rotten tooth was the only thing about Gervaise that seemed proper authentic.
“Hello Gervaise.” I tried to keep my voice cheery. "Look, if this is about the medicine, it’s going to have to wait. I gave you my stash, I put you on to another shipment. It’s the best I can do. Do you think poppies sprout from my arse?” It would have made my life easier if they did. Well, the business part. Sitting down would have been a right bastard. Why in the name of all the gods did I think I could get the opium? I knew about the bad harvest, about the high prices. But no. Ulysses Allardyce had to think he was too clever by half. And now I was in up to my eyebrow in hock to this piss-poor imitation of a dandy. He might look soft, he might look silly, but Gervaise was not a man I wanted to cross. Well, not yet. Somehow, someway, I would crush him like a bug. For now, I had to mix him drinks.
“Go back to your table, fancy man. I have drinks to mix, and I can’t do that with you leering at me.” Especially not with the flip irons growing red hot. If Gervaise did not go back to his table, I was likely to shove one through his eye. Probably the right. I’d lose the flip iron, but that was a breakage I was willing to endure. “And you’ll have to wait for our little chat. Or would you like to have all these fine people turn on you for delaying their potations? It’s just me at the bar tonight.”
Gervaise grimaced, his expression went cold. “Then you should get another bartender. We need to talk. Now.”
Another bartender. True, I needed one, but everyone who applied was as awkward as a lame loblolly-boy and as brisk as a half-frozen bee. Not the sort I needed. I needed a dab hand. Someone with a sense of the spirits and a way with the shakers and irons. “Keep your knickers on Gervaise. Drinks on the house, and my sparking company at my earliest practicable convenience. Drinks are money dear boy. And I’ll need all the jingle I can muster if you want your dose.”
Busy nights are good for The Leviathan. Less so for Allardyce and Co. It’s not easy holding a quiet meeting with furtive clients when the drunken fancy man at the bar is demanding another glass of absinthe. Why do dandies always think absinthe is just the drink to lend them the right air of louche and debauched mystery? I’ve no idea. The stuff is awful. Far too sweet. Far too fiddly to make. Still, the faux peacocks pay well for it, so I suppose that’s another thing I should leave off complaining about.
Around an hour to midnight, there was a ruckus in the back room. I guess the three jolly idiots who were playing cards back there decided that a bit of recreational stabbing was in order. I hate when people bleed all over my furniture. It’s a pain to clean up. Sally and I had to eject those vicious reptiles out the back door and into the river. Well, Sally mostly. It’s amazing how effective a tiny lass with a very sharp knife can be at bringing a situation to order. Still, I’ve only got the one Sally. I’m not sure The Rose, let alone The Leviathan could handle another one such as her. Worth her weight in gold. Thankfully, she’s a feather-light piece.
After we’d sluiced down the back room and shaken our heads over the cost of the breakages, we stumbled back into a bar as lively as ever. There was no hope of any respite it seemed. I thought about closing shop early. Thought about going to bed. It would have been the wise thing to do. But I though about my debts, my creditors, my broken tables and chairs, and decided I needed to stay open. That was about to become a damn great mistake.
I hadn’t noticed when Gervaise slipped in, but I knew he and his flash crew were in the house when I got the order. They always ordered the same thing, I think they did it to annoy me. They were good at annoying me.
“The gents over yonder want two absinths and three admiral’s flips.” Byron had taken the order. Gods dammit, but he should have smoked the bastards right speedily. But, true to form, my lovable idiot of a brother had failed to recognize danger once again. Instead he brought me their request blythe as you please. Brilliant.
Before I could get the loggerheads hot on the braziers - who the hell orders flip on a night like this? - Gervaise hauled himself up to the bar, and smiled at me. Gods I hate that smile. It has all the warmth of long-expired turbot, and all the comfort of a bed of nails. The worst part was, Gervaise thought it was a rather winning grimace. He thought it made him seem suave and debonair.
“Hello, Dicey. A full house tonight.” That name again. In that affected voice with its horrible imitation of a man of substance. Gervaise just sounded like he had a cold and a lisp. “Good to know that you can be competent. We need to talk.” He tried that smile again. I noticed one of his teeth was going black. It would have spoiled his look, had he managed to pull it off. As it stood, that rotten tooth was the only thing about Gervaise that seemed proper authentic.
“Hello Gervaise.” I tried to keep my voice cheery. "Look, if this is about the medicine, it’s going to have to wait. I gave you my stash, I put you on to another shipment. It’s the best I can do. Do you think poppies sprout from my arse?” It would have made my life easier if they did. Well, the business part. Sitting down would have been a right bastard. Why in the name of all the gods did I think I could get the opium? I knew about the bad harvest, about the high prices. But no. Ulysses Allardyce had to think he was too clever by half. And now I was in up to my eyebrow in hock to this piss-poor imitation of a dandy. He might look soft, he might look silly, but Gervaise was not a man I wanted to cross. Well, not yet. Somehow, someway, I would crush him like a bug. For now, I had to mix him drinks.
“Go back to your table, fancy man. I have drinks to mix, and I can’t do that with you leering at me.” Especially not with the flip irons growing red hot. If Gervaise did not go back to his table, I was likely to shove one through his eye. Probably the right. I’d lose the flip iron, but that was a breakage I was willing to endure. “And you’ll have to wait for our little chat. Or would you like to have all these fine people turn on you for delaying their potations? It’s just me at the bar tonight.”
Gervaise grimaced, his expression went cold. “Then you should get another bartender. We need to talk. Now.”
Another bartender. True, I needed one, but everyone who applied was as awkward as a lame loblolly-boy and as brisk as a half-frozen bee. Not the sort I needed. I needed a dab hand. Someone with a sense of the spirits and a way with the shakers and irons. “Keep your knickers on Gervaise. Drinks on the house, and my sparking company at my earliest practicable convenience. Drinks are money dear boy. And I’ll need all the jingle I can muster if you want your dose.”
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/8hsziVH.png)