60 Ymiden 722
Evening
Continued from here.
"Excellent! Shall we begin?"
The other seven players muttered their agreement. Maxine might've been masquerading in a wig as some blonde bimbo turned servant, in a pair of heels she could hardly walk in no less, but the seated gamblers around the tables started settling into their own roles. Loud mouths from the dinner table mere moments ago fell into pensive silence. The silent puffed their chests, trying on a new aura they hoped would taste something like confidence and cunning. It was hard for Max to see all this and not smirk at their expense.
Soon the sweat will bead foreheads...and then we'll see who really is who they want everyone to believe they are.
Until then she stood at the corner of the room like a picture on a wall or a house plant. "Seen and not heard" had been the bartender's advice. For once she'd take it, for when she looked across the room she saw the other blonde server was doing likewise. The poker players had their chips and the house had been paid in advance. The Rusalka had been around this game plenty of times but never had she played. She listened intently as the card dealer went about his spiel about Holdem, reminding all of the rules and just how things would go.
"Best of luck, gents," was the card dealer's final offering before he went about his business shuffling and ensuring the integrity of this high stakes game. In the meantime, players tossed their bets in blind to the center of the table. Then the cards started to go out in a swift flick of his skilled wrist.
The cards slid across the card table to their owners, each who had their own superstitions. Some picked them up immediately. Others let them rest and gave a compulsive number of taps before viewing. Maxine watched all of this, focusing her vision all the while so she might catch a better glimpse of the closely held cards faced in her general direction. She noticed how Benjamin adjusted his feet after looking at his. From just behind him, mere feet away, Maxine couldn't help but daydream about taking off her stiletto and jamming it into his vulnerable neck.
"We'll start it off with you, sir," the dealer directed his attention to the left. The first player did some sort of "call" and threw his chips in. The next, smirking, "raised" and threw in more pieces than the last. Maxine noted the jargon and the actions that followed, the choices that seemed to be to call, raise, or fold and what each choice entailed. The men sipped their drinks with varying expressions as the game continued.
For now, the Rusalka elected to merely watch and learn. For the most part the players were silent save for their participation in the game that required speech. It took her some time to understand how the two cards the players received interacted with the ones the dealer turned over in the center of the table. Unlike other games she played, there was no suit that seemed to prevail over all others. Pairs won. Cards in a perfect sequence won. Once she even saw a single high card take the pot, which twisted her mind. Two of the players had been eliminated from the game, cursing wildly, before she had a mind to be more than a wallflower.
"On my mother!" one of the players beside Benjamin complained. "I'm sweatin'! Honey?" He snapped his fingers at the closest drink server in his view, which happened to be Maxine. The sound of the snap nearly had her breaking character with her eyes alone. He pointed at his empty glass. "Fill it up, won't you? I'm gonna need a stiff one to weather these deep pocketed fiends."
"Make it two whiskeys," another player at the table piped up.
Maxine, seen and not heard, smiled her agreement with a closed mouth and meandered over to the table. She lifted their empty glasses, placed them on her tray, and sauntered out of the room into the kitchen. The bartender grinned at the sight of her.
"Having fun yet?" he teased her quietly.
"This whole night has just been thrilling," she played along with a roll of her eyes before she remembered herself. Boredom was getting the best of her. The bartender raised a brow and nodded his understanding. He offered her, "Hang in there..." She took the whiskey drinks and promptly returned to the card room. The drinks were served and she regrettably returned to her corner.
"Ah," the dealer tsked. "Another gone. Thank you for playing." He moved a thick stack of chips from the center of the table toward Benjamin. The man, with wild eyes and nearly salivating, hastily scooped his earnings close as though he feared they would run off without his own assurances. Just like that they were already down to four players at the table.
From the outside this seemed to be a very average game. There were winners, losers, and something for everyone to lose and gain big. There was nothing suspicious about the pace. No one was making reserve bets. If anything, players seemed too willing to put their money on the line. Egos ran inflated and a false sense of skill and confidence was to be expected to show itself in one way or another. Nothing should've given Maxine the feeling she got as she observed. Nothing save for Luckbringer.
Someone's cheating...
The Rusalka knew it with certainty. The Spirit of Luck never lied. Her wig felt itchier. She started to fidget rather than remain stoic and still. The dishonestly in the game bothered her, and more so because it wasn't so obvious. She thought she studied everyone well enough that she recognized their tells. As the next round started she felt confident, based on her observations, who was bluffing and who had a strong hand. Then she realized she'd missed someone. Her attention moved to the dealer.
You dirty...
Max fought the urge to shake her head. A couple more rounds and another player out of the game, and Max was certain. She saw it now. When the dealer adjusted his tie, Benjamin folded. When the dealer rolled his shoulders, Benjamin threw chips into the pot. The cufflinks where toyed with and Benjamin played big. The only gestures she hadn't caught on to where some of Benjamin's. He was doing something with the way he danced his fingers on the table. He did it every time, like a nervous, innocuous tick. There was the slightest change to the rhythm. Max frowned. She hadn't worked that out yet. It always came before the dealer's signs.
A code for cards in his hand?
That had to be it. Benjamin grinned as he reached forward and scooped the pile of chips over to his piling stack. The Dorrick brother and two other players remained. The opponents' stacks were dwindling while Benjamin's ego grew with every round. Max huffed a strand of wig out of her eyes. A couple of the players glanced up at the sound, frowning before going back to studying the cards about to be dealt like they could influence their luck.
You can't.
Maxine glowered at the back of Benjamin's head.
But...I can.
Maxine deployed the first boon Chrien ever granted her to influence the round. She didn't look to favor anyone in particular. Her Favorable Outcome was any that didn't benefit Benjamin. Yet she'd never used it in a game quite like this.
The dealer began his duty of dealing out the cards again. This blind bet was large, and by the time it was back to the game, at least half of every player's chips was in the center. Cards were picked up. Just over Benjamin's shoulder Max could make out what was in his hand. Three of Spades and a Three of Hearts. The game progressed and the flop revealed an Ace of Diamonds, Ace of Hearts, and Ace of Clovers. The dealer played with his cuff link.
"I'm feeling lucky," Benjamin declared with chest puffed. "All. In." He shoved his mountain of chips into the center of the pile. Max watched sweat bead on the back of his neck. The dealer twisted his cuffs again, no doubt a reassurance. The other remaining players sighed, scratched their heads. Not to be outdone, both shoved their chips into the center. Everyone's money was definitively on the line, as was the game itself.
Player Left is a lying sack of shit. He should've folded. Fucking moron.
Max slid her eyes to Player Right.
You...you think you have a chance though.
"Good luck, all three of you gentlemen," the dealer announced professionally with consoling nods. "Show."
The cards were down. Benjamin was smirking broadly. He had a Full House, a robust hand in this game and the odds were slim anyone would top him. The dealer had led him perfectly all game and now was the big payout. All his debts would be cleared, and Tristane would be none the wiser for his mistakes. Better than that, he was about to triple the pot he brought. His brother should thank him for making him coin. It was practically investment. Especially when his skills and his system were this good.
"Congratulations, Lionel," the dealer said with a furrowed brow. "The pot is yours."
Benjamin shot up from his chair with hands on the table. He leaned forward with wide eyes, the reality not quite striking him yet. He brought his face closer to the table as though the markings on the cards weren't bold enough. He blinked. Over and over he turned his head from his laid hand, to the cards, to Lionel's hand. Lionel tapped his lucky cards: an Ace of Spades and a Ten of Diamonds.
Lionel had taken Benjamin with Four of a Kind.
"I can't tell ya enough," Lionel chuckled as he took his winnings so very humbling. "It is always an absolute pleasure to take your salaries. I'll enjoy the bread off your tables, jackasses!" The house went to securing his coins and his own entourage of trusted men were ushered in. Lionel waved off a cacophony of curses and insults and practically floated out of the room with elation. The other players slapped the table and scooped up their drinks to consume their sorrow and disdain over the event. Benjamin merely continued to stare at the results.
Max turned on her heels and made straight for the kitchen. She took her earnings begrudgingly from the night manager and off she went, quick to rip off the wig and the heels when she was out of sight. She walked barefoot back to Sabrina's with the heels in hand and a grin painted on her face.
----------------
"You told me the game was fixed," Jarl answered Benjamin's bewilderment and ire with perplexity. "I thought the dealer was crooked in our favor?"
"So did I," Benjamin said through gnashed teeth, pacing with a whiskey in hand. "Green had it set up before..."
"Fucking Green," Jarl growled. "Wretch."
"Have you found him yet?"
"Not yet. I will. He isn't long for this world, I promise you that. Not after what he did...to her."
"Is he so petty and spiteful and foolhardy he'd stick around to ruin the deal? That he'd fuck me over instead of fleeing far from here to save his own hide?"
"I've never known Green to be anything but selfish. In either case he's a dead man."
"Make it so!" Benjamin took a long swig of his drink. "We now have a more immediate problem to deal with in the meantime."
Benjamin walked over to his liquor cabinet and retrieved the whole bottle. He cast aside the small glass and unscrewed the cap so he could take a bigger pull of liquor. Only when his throat was good and burned could he speak of his troubles again to his underling.
"Tristane can't know," Benjamin said firmly. "He can't, Jarl. He'll fucking kill me if he ever finds out."
"Aye," Jarl agreed. "He's a cunning man, your brother. This won't stay hidden long unless it's sorted."
"Indeed. I put it in the ledger. We still have merchants on the route. The annual largest of the arc should be arriving by caravan before the snow. If we can play the numbers, we can hide the debt at least until then."
"That can work, sir," Jarl thought it over with a scratch at his chin. "It just might let us scrape by."
"Get the ledger from my office," Benjamin ordered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I want it down to The Accountant tonight. I don't care if you wake him up. Throw him the coin we don't have if you have to, but we need him to find a way to keep us afloat and everything look right should Tristane glance it himself."
Jarl nodded and vanished from the firelight of the main room. Benjamin placed a forearm on the mantle of his fireplace, letting the heat from the flames blast against his cheeks and the whiskey irritate his throat. He closed his eyes. For a moment he thought he could understand the inclination for a man to put a bolt in his brain like Edward Hunt. Jarl reappeared with empty hands but a pale face.
"Sir...where's the ledger?"
Down the street Max had the bound book of sin tucked tightly under her arm. She gave a whistle as she rounded the corner back toward the entrance to the underground. Her ankles buzzed just a bit from the heels and the drop from Benjamin's office window to the street. She slipped the key she'd stolen to the residence long ago back into the safety of her pocket.
