Chapter Twenty-four: Balfonheim, mint liqueur and poker playing Viera

What the band playing in the Whitecap tavern lacked in skill they more than made up for in enthusiasm and inventiveness.

Balthier would never have thought to turn a packing crate, a hand held grater and some wire into an instrument or known what to do with it once he had.

As was often the case the Whitecap was packed to the rafters with pirates, dockworkers, wayfarers and assorted reprobates of low reputation.

Most of those esteemed patrons were gathered, three men thick, around the poker table in the centre of the Whitecap's basement floor, known as the gaming room.

Ordinarily the main draw was the Bandercouerl fights; men wagering Gil on which green skinned, bulbous headed fiend would disembowel the other first.

Tonight the entertainment was a rarity, an unexpected treat for the patrons of the gaming room. A fine show it was too, Ivalice's only poker playing Viera.

Balthier had no idea how Fran came to play, and play exceptionally well, all kinds of poker.

Archadian rules, Rozzarian high card monte, some bizarre off-shoot of the game played by the denizens of a small town at the northern foothills of Mount Bur-Omisace, she played them all.

But then, why not? Nobody could have a poker face like Fran's. Or the patience to crack the bluffs of some of Ivalice's most hardened gamblers.

When Balthier pushed his way through the thick knot of onlookers to stop at her back he bit back the smile when he saw the size of the pile of chips she had amassed.

Without a word Balthier placed the fresh drink by her still left hand, Fran able to fan a full hand of cards with just one hand, and refilled the empty glass.

Fran did not like most Hume ales or spirits, she would drink a glass of Madhu when she must, but for the most part she distained all alcoholic beverages.

Except this one. The drink he placed before her now; a vile, sickly sweet concoction, brilliant chartreuse in colour and with an almost over-powering mint after taste.

A drink favoured by giggling socialites and show-girls, he always thought it odd that Fran should be so partial to it, but then she did have a well hidden, but voracious, sweet tooth.

Fran did not even look at him as he left her side. Her gaze was abstracted as she waited for her opponents to ante up. Balthier sometimes wondered what she thought about while she played.

Not insulted in the lease by Fran's lack of attentiveness, she was by his count ten thousand Gil up, after all, Balthier went to find a quiet (or at least quieter) corner of the tavern to sit and maybe take a nap. It had been a trying few days after all.

Balthier must have succeeded in finding temporary respite from consciousness because the gentle tug on his sleeve startled him from nothingness to some form of awareness.

'Penelo?'

The girl was crowded against his side as he slouched in the hard back chair he had dragged into a corner, having failed to find a table to sit at.

Hair freed of its habitual pig-tails and out of her padded armour and without aldebaran, she looked like a Giza Bunny thrown into a Bandercouerl den; a pale lily resplendent in a rubbish pit.

Penelo's eyes flittered about anxiously, taking in the working girl and her john in the dark corner of the room, the thick, heavy veil of smoke that draped over their heads and fogged the brain, the leering sneers of a group of Rozzarian sailors clustered around the nearest table.

' Vaan went with Ashe and Basch to find more loot.' She told him unnecessarily.

' But you didn't go with Vaan?'

It always surprised Balthier whenever the two split up, he thought of them as a pair, as inseparable as - well- as he and Fran.

Penelo shook her head, ears reddening as the working girl began making enthusiastic noises a few feet away, clearly wishing to get the job over with.

Balthier smirked. Obviously the orphan had never been in a pirate tavern before.

' I was tired after what happened and Basch said maybe I should stay behind and rest.'

He quirked an eyebrow, ' You are unlikely to find much rest in here.'

Penelo wrung her hands together as she shuffled imperceptibly closer to him as a, really very minor, altercation broke out between two men over the same working girl who had been so cheerfully servicing the gentleman in the corner but moments before.

' I was looking for Fran. She said she'd teach me how to use Curaja.'

'Ah, well, Fran's a little preoccupied at the moment.'

Penelo speared a nervous glance over to a languid and calm Fran who impassively sipped her drink as another gambler left the table cursing her vociferously having lost all his Gil.

' What's she doing?'

Penelo was now so close to him her side was a warm weight against his shoulder and right arm. She was skittish as an unbroken racing Chocobo here in this den of iniquity.

'Making Gil, Penelo, a great deal of Gil.'

Penelo let out a little squeak as Balthier snaked an arm around her waist and hoisted the girl onto his knee, arranging her so that she sat comfortably across his lap.

' You said you were tired.'

Balthier pointed out mildly when she gave him a very red faced, startled look.

' Fran will play a few more hands. No doubt she'll deliberately lose the next two to lull her opponents into a false sense of security then hang them out to dry.'

'She does this a lot?'

Balthier shrugged, as much as he could with Penelo ensconced on his knee.

'Piracy is shockingly expensive and the Strahl guzzles fuel at an alarming rate.'

Penelo frowned, clearly wondering at something, ' I never thought Fran would do that sort of thing. I mean you would but – '

And here she stopped hand going to her mouth as her features flushed pink in embarrassment.

Balthier felt the grin tugging at his lips. So instead he pasted a look of righteous indignation onto his face and pressed his ringed hand against his heart.

' Penelo, I am shocked and appalled that you have such low opinion of me. That you think me nothing better than a common criminal, to swindle men at cards.'

Penelo giggled and kicked her legs slightly as she fidgeted, getting comfortable, on his lap.

' Oh, I don't think you're a common criminal, Balthier.'

He laughed at that, as much for the surprisingly knowing humour glinting in the girls eyes as for her audacity at playing him at his own game.

She had come a long way from the sweet little girl who had 'borrowed' his gun back in the Nam Yensa.

After that they both settled into a companionable silence. Penelo letting her head drop onto his shoulder as the fumes from the smoking pipes, the sweet high scent of ale and spirits and the rhythmic thumping of the band on the upper floor, lulled them both into something close to sleep.

' What is going on here?'

The imperious demand of her would-be majesty snapped both Balthier and Penelo back into awareness.

Penelo jumped up so sharply Balthier had to make a grab for her to save her from a close encounter with the filthy tavern floor.

Vaan, Basch and her Highness were standing side by side, for there was little room to breathe, let alone move in the tight, heavy confines of the gaming room, looking at them with varying expressions of curiosity and annoyance.

' Very little Princess.'

Balthier answered the earlier question that had so rudely awoken him.

'Penelo and I were simply waiting for Fran to finish her game.'

He nodded towards the poker table, Fran's mountain of chips now obscenely high; the bottle of mint liqueur two thirds empty, her opponents looking both desperate and frightened behind their cards.

'Why are you sitting on his lap?' Vaan asked Penelo. He didn't exactly sound jealous, just curious.

' No chairs.' Penelo said around a jaw cracking yawn.

Vaan seemed satisfied with this answer, the Princess however did not.

She looked narrowly at Balthier's hand, which was resting innocently on Penelo's bare knee. Really what was he supposed to do? Leave his hands suspended in midair?

' And what are you all doing in this sty anyway?' she demanded.

Un-ho. She was in one of those moods was she? Balthier sighed, and to think she had been quite genial and pleasant before Draklor.

Though, Balthier conceded, a run in with a maniacal Dr Cid would have a detrimental effect on anyone's mood he supposed. If one was inclined to let it, which Balthier certainly wasn't.

'How can Fran waste Gil on gambling when we have precious little left to buy much needed supplies as is?'

Balthier, Vaan and Penelo all simply stared at the Princess as her strident tones notched up in volume towards hysteria.

Balthier looked at her in surprise; she really was quite upset by their recent adventures, wasn't she?

Basch who had previously ambled over to Fran and exchanged whispered asides now came back to hear the tail-end of the Princess' outburst.

' Fran appears to be winning. She has made something close to twenty thousand Gil, my Lady.'

Ashe blinked. Penelo raised a hand to her mouth in shock, Vaan looked astonished (but then that was his usual slack-jawed and awed visage so it counted for little) Balthier, for his part, grinned hugely.

'That's my girl.'

When the Princess glared at him he shrugged. While as he could not deny, though he was determined to ignore, a certain attraction towards the Princess her judgemental petulance irritated him to no end.

' You see, Ashe, we have not been loafing about this 'sty' as you put it, but diligently working towards preparing for the next leg of our quest. We needed Gil to pay for passage back to Golmore, Fran has provided us with ample.'

Smirk turning just this side of smug he turned innocent eyes on the Princess.

'Incidentally how much Gil did you manage to make from loot, today?'

Ashe's lips pursed into a thin, white line; her fists bunched and her chin tilted dangerously.

Balthier had a split second to regret pushing her too far, before she turned on her heel and stormed up the stairs of the tavern.

'Whoops.' Vaan breathed shaking his head.

Penelo got to her feet looking worriedly over at the stairs leading up to the upper floor that Ashe had just disappeared up.

' I'll go see if she's okay.'

It was Basch who stopped her turning unkind eyes on Balthier.

'I think perhaps it is for Balthier to do that.'

For a moment all Balthier could do was frown at the Captain, who he thought had made his feelings towards his growing intimacy with the Princess abundantly clear back in Sochen.

Now the man's face was grave with reproach and gave nothing away as to his thoughts. Balthier heaved himself to his feet with a long sigh, making his displeasure well known.

'Some might consider this entrapment, Captain.'

Balthier murmured as he brushed past the solid weight of the man, somewhat reminiscent of trying to shove a marble column out of the way.

'I thought we were all friends here?' He added.

'Friends do not play games with friends, Balthier; nor with their hearts.'

Balthier groaned in annoyance. Really did the man have nothing more to worry about but his damned Princess' heart? Anyone would think the man coveted it himself. Hmm, now there was a thought.

Balthier found her staring out to sea just outside the Whitecap in the semi-circular courtyard that afforded such a beautiful panorama of the ocean.

' He saw right through me, just as you did.'

Ashe spoke without turning to face him, somehow knowing who had come to find her.

'Princess?'

' Your father. He knew I sought the stones power, he – he had the audacity to infer we were the same.' Her voice was heated ice, anger and self-loathing.

Balthier came abreast with her, looking out at the crashing surf. The night air was cool on his face, clearing the misty cobwebs of exhaustion and mild intoxication; he had spent the best part of the day in the Whitecap, after all.

'Do not take it personally Princess, he is like that with everyone. It was always thus.'

Ashe shook her head, 'No, Reddas also questioned my intentions, he dared beg me remember Nabudis – as if I will ever forget!'

She whirled around to face him, her face alight with an impotent, frustrated and uncomprehending fury.

' Why? Why do you all follow me if you think me nothing more than a power hungry girl not fit to know her own mind?'

Balthier studied her curiously; this was the crux of the issue wasn't it? Her own insecurities; he wondered why he was always forced into situations where advice was required.

Damn Basch. The man must have known this was what the Princess fretted about and decided to off-load the responsibility on him.

'Princess, you are the daughter of King Raminas, rightful heir to the Dalmascan throne and the last living descendent of the Dynast King. Why do you care what a madman and an old pirate think?'

Ashe looked startled; she opened her mouth to form a reply then hesitated. Balthier leapt in while her confusion offered him opportunity.

'We follow you, Ashe, for our own reasons. It doesn't matter how long you sit atop a throne, or how large an empire you amass, in the court of a man's heart, he is the only ruler. We are all governed by our own will, Princess, and no other.'

Ashe shuffled her feet, turning inward again he noticed, a nervous gesture perhaps?

'That is all well and good if one is a simple farmer, or labourer, but a Queen's decisions affect an entire country. How can I know what is the right course of action?'

Balthier shrugged, turning on his heel as a cold gust of ocean breeze rushed in with the breakers.

'You can't. No one can.'

Having nothing further to say, as there were no simple answers, Balthier started walking back to the Whitecap. The weight of her eyes on him gave him pause however.

Balthier turned to face her, finding her unmoved staring out to sea.

' Princess the answers you seek are not likely to be found by freezing to death out here. Let me at least by you a drink?'

He nodded his head towards the Whitecap, the vibrations from the band's - music- for lack of a better word, reverberating through the ground and out to sea.

'They are not like to be found at the bottom of a bottle either, Balthier.' Ashe said unforgivingly.

He quirked his lip and bowed slightly acknowledging the hit. 'True. No one has ever found absolution or clarity in drink.'

He held out one hand to her with a flourish still maintaining his courtly bow.

' Though you will find something much more valuable inside this tavern than you'll ever found out here.'

She looked at him with cool curiosity, ' And what would that be?'

He smiled, keeping his head bowed, as befit the address of a queen.

'Stirling company and the rarest of all sights, myself, parting with hard stolen Gil, to buy you a drink.'

She stepped forward and deigned to place her hand in his.

' I suppose that will have to do, in the absence of anything more valuable.' She sniffed.

Balthier straightened up from his bow and automatically tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, pulling her flush up against his side.

He wouldn't be much of a pirate if he didn't take advantage of every given opportunity, after all.

' You wound me, Princess.'

'Not yet, Balthier, but I may one day.'

She shot back as he held the door of the tavern open for her with an extravagant flourish. She walked through the open doorway with all the bearing of a queen – even if she was still wearing that skirt!