"All the infections that the sun sucks up from bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall."
Caliban, the dispossessed fish monster, hauled a log onto the stage. He cursed Prospero for some time, detailing his master's harsh punishments for laziness or failure. The world was full of bad bosses, he thought. He had experience both working for and being one.
"And another storm brewing, I hear it sing in the wind:"
Yet another cross-dressed actress stumbled on stage. He recognized her as one of the swarm of sailors from the first scene. She had changed characters and traded her sou'wester for a jester's hat. And a long purple coat. Gotham had quite the cast of characters to draw from.
"If it should thunder, as it did before, I know not where to hide my head."
In Arkham, every madman's safe haven. The cardboard hospital was viewed by the criminal community more as an inn than a prison. And, as Dr. Crane was so fond of pointing out, the place had a revolving door. Doctor. Patient. Doctor. Patient. Who could tell? Jonathan wasn't the only one who danced that line. The Joker had met his wife there.
The mercenary analogue was any large city in the developing world. Hang out in a large enough city in a country with large enough problems and work was sure to come your way. It was rather like turning to the classifieds.
After his exile he'd ended up in Abidjan.
"Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."
That was where he first met Barsad.
The Imposter-clown slipped under Caliban's blanket, much to the entertainment of the more worldly members of the audience. The monster and the jester sheltered from the rain in just the right position to be mistaken for doing something else entirely.
"This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral. Well, here's my comfort."
A third actor stumbled on stage, singing off-key and swigging from an improvised flask. This one had exchanged his sailor's oilskin for a tattered tailcoat. Mercifully, he did not seem to be impersonating anyone.
Like Bane, Barsad had been none too gently let go from his previous position. He'd washed up on the Ivory Coast, crawled into a bar, and spent what little he had. Drinking was not valued in mercenaries, hence Barsad's unemployment. Despite his penniless predicament the man had not learned his lesson. But, skilled snipers were hard to find and work would eventually come his way.
Bane had been negotiating a job with a rather angry Liberian blood diamond group. It seemed their smuggler in Côte d'Ivoire had been skimming more than the acceptable amount from their merchandise. They wanted him dead. After several months of banishment, Bane wanted a job.
Which is how he met his lieutenant. Working the opposite side of the hit.
"Do you put tricks upon us?"
Like his clients, the smuggler was also aware that he lived in a city full of currently un-hired hired guns. So he went out and hired a few. Barsad picked himself up from his stool, shouldered his rifle, and took what he thought would be an easy gig.
"The spirit torments me. Oh."
Bane only half watched the bawdy comedy playing out on stage—how easily a bottle became something else when placed correctly. His mind was still in Abidjan. "The spirit torments me." Yes, that's what it had felt like.
The smuggler's protection had been easy enough to dispatch. All except one. Barsad, client in tow, had led Bane on a week-long wild goose chase through the city.
As it turned out Barsad was a sniper by trade but a grifter at heart. He and the client posed as tourists, traffic cops, and missionaries. He faked hotel reservations, meetings, train, ship, and plane tickets. Every time Bane got close Barsad and the smuggler would disappear. Their game of cat and mouse was the talk of Abidjan's underground. Those with the right connections could even place bets on the masked man and the drunken trickster.
The chase culminated in a glorified shell game of cargo ships. Bane figured out the true escape plan just in time to cut the smuggler off at Port Bouet Airport. Cornered, Barsad had made the single most important choice of his life. He'd shot the smuggler. Then turned to his opponent and asked if he could spare some of his earnings on a drink.
"Ha'st thou not dropped from heaven?"
"Out of the moon I do assure thee. I was the Man in the Moon, when time was."
As it happened he did. When the conversation came around to history Bane had lied through his teeth. Barsad didn't but it.. He guessed the lie and guessed Ban's connection with the League of Shadows. Confidence tricksters had to read people, he supposed. Had Bane still been working for the League he would have killed the other man on the spot. Instead he decided to work with him. Which turned out to be one of the more important decisions of Bane's own life.
He had insisted on one thing: stay sober or die. Barsad had agreed, claiming that was much simpler than any twelve step process.
A week later Bane found another job, one that required a sniper. Waste not want not.
"A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a poor drunkard."
Barsad had served him loyally ever since. People made strange idols of others.
"The King, and all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here."
Upon Ra's' death, Barsad had been the first to hear of Bane's plans to rebuild the League making him the first member of the new group. Well, him and Talia.
"Has a new master, get a new man! Freedom!"
The actors marched of stage, singing of Caliban's perceived freedom and their plans for the island. No sooner had they left than a hand-bell rang frantically off stage. Several actors returned holding two guitars and a violin. Another musical interlude.
Bane beat a hasty retreat out of the building and down the street. He ducked into the nearest alley and slid behind a dumpster. He should break up the performance now. Throw the actors on the ice and be done with it. But he couldn't.
He wanted to see how it ended.
The characters appearing in this story belong to Christopher Nolan, D.C. Comics, and Warner Brothers Pictures. No profit is made of their use herein.
All quotes from The Tempest are taken from First Folio Facsimiles on Internet Shakespeare Editions ( . ). The author has modernized the spelling, grammar, and formatting.