Alas for poor old Kennit Maycomb, there would, in fact, be no peace. Not a breath after he got his sentence out, the door banged open again. This time, Ten was grateful for the looseness of the hinges, as it announced the arrival of four young noble wastrels before they laid eyes on her and gave her time to dive for the shadows in the corner. The dose she had given Ser Kit evidently had worn off, quicker than usual, but given his size it probably hadn't fully taken him out in the first place. The din of the bar fell silent. The fiddler's tune screeched to a halt. Thirty or so drunken heads turned towards the door.
"We're looking for the owner of this!" announced one of the young lords, holding up the pilfered bonnet Teneira had been wearing before it was so unceremoniously pulled from her head.
"Lads, this isn't the place for you," Edwina Bantree said, putting her hands on her hips.
"We know she went this way, and this is the only place open in the quarter. She is an elf, small of stature, swarthy of complexion. She should not be hard to miss, as we all know, elves are supposed to be confined to their alienage at this hour," he stared daggers at Zevran with this pronouncement, and Zev stared boldly back, not breaking eye contact as he took another sip of moonshine. The young lord continued, "She has assaulted Ser Kristhen Whitcroft of Highever, and with the guard woefully understaffed in this city, we will bring her to justice."
Hard to miss, huh. Right here, jackass…
"Or maybe she went home, just like you ought to," Missus Bantree said, "Look at you boys, you can hardly keep your feet. What would your mothers think?"
"Do you have any idea who I am?!" demanded one of them.
"Not a one. Perhaps you ought to tell us," suggested Missus Bantree, "Come on, loudly, so's everyone can here!"
Thanks, Edwina!
"I," the lad said, puffing out his chest, which wasn't all that much to look at. He was downright scrawny, probably because of how young he was, but perhaps he was simply ill-favored, "Am Bann Ranulf of Mordham. This is Bann Gladwin of Tallrey and Ser Hugh of Amaranthine. As you can see, the penalty for striking one of us will be dire indeed."
"Ohhh! So you're fancy lads, I see!" cried a voice from the opposite corner of the place from where Ten was sitting, near the fireplace on the far wall from the door. She looked over to see one of the dwarven sailors who'd been dancing there had spoken up, and was walking up to them, "That's mine! I apologize for the misunderstanding." He took the bonnet from the young lord, and put it on his own head, tying the strings all the way under his beard, "See? Makes me look quite pretty, doesn't it!" He made kissing noises at the group.
"Sure and you do, Kovald!" called his dance partner, "But are you sure that's not one of mine?"
"Well now that you say it, Potchek, perhaps you ought to try it on!"
"Best to be sure," the second dwarf said, swaggering to the front of the bar. Kovald untied the strings from under his chin and handed it to his companion, who tied it on upside down so his own russet beard was in the crown of it and the strings were tied above his head, "Suits me, don't you think?"
"The fairest maiden I ever did see," Kovald said, adjusting the bow on top of his friend's head.
"So, what was it you said about bringing the girl to justice?" Potchek asked, turning to the noblemen, one hand on the belaying pin hanging from his belt.
"I will have this whole bar arrested," Bann Ranulf fumed, "This is not funny!"
"Oh, come on, it's a little bit funny." Ten looked over sharply to see that Alistair had risen from his barstool and stepped between his erstwhile drinking buddies and the dwarves.
"You!" exclaimed Ser Kit - whose full name was, apparently, Kristhen Whitcroft, a thing Ten took note of, "What are you doing here?"
"Well he's found his manservant I see," said Ser Hugh, pointing at Zev, "I've a mind to haul him in too. Wasting good brandy like that, and I'll have you know my mother is a saint!"
"Really, Ser, I thought you were chasing her down, but here you are slumming it with these lowlifes? Surely you saw where she went," Bann Gladwin insisted, incredulously, clearly having grown more of a liking for Alistair than the rest of them.
"Who? That girl who was minding her own business before your great oaf of a friend decided to grab her?" Alistair countered, "Threaten her? Manhandle her in the middle of the street before she ran for her life?!"
"Knew it!" Kovald declared.
"Pigs!" cried a middle aged woman from a table by the fireplace, gripping a half empty bottle of wine by its neck, clearly ready to use it as a club.
"She stabbed me!" Ser Kit protested, "What exactly do you think you stand to gain, going to the mat for some knife-eared slut? I'm not sure I'm clear on exactly who you are, but surely you're above this rabble…"
"Oh, after all that, you don't even know who I am?" Alistair asked, "Not at all?"
"Not a single idea," said Ser Kit, stepping up and glaring down at him in a manner that had likely intimidated many a foe before.
"I'm sorry, I don't remember your name," said Bann Gladwin.
"Nope," said Bann Ranulf, and Ser Hugh shook his head as well.
Alistair, to his credit, just laughed. "So none of you know who I am?"
"As far as we're concerned, you are Ser Nobody of Nowhere," Ser Kit sneered.
"Good, then you can put that in your report to the guard."
Ten flinched as Alistair hauled off and hit Ser Kit square under his chin. She heard the big lad's teeth clack into each other, and put her hand over her mouth as he staggered back into two of his companions, taking them all down with him with his sheer size. That was all it took for the rest of the bar to erupt into motion, decades of resentment bubbling over, all of them wanting a go at the haughty quartet. Ten had to grab Kennit's arm and force him back into his seat so he couldn't throw himself into the fray with all the gusto of a man who had forgotten his age and the fact that he had very recently been a guardsman and had a pension to worry about. She watched in morbid fascination, wondering that they all weren't doing more damage to each other than the men at the bottom of the pile. It lasted all of about twenty glorious and chaotic minutes before Missus Bantree smacked her paddle on the bar.
"That's enough!" she exclaimed, "Can't have a murder in here. Not on my watch. The owner'd have my head."
The fray dissipated as quickly as it had formed. The patrons - humans, dwarves, and the singular elf, slowly disentangled themselves and backed away. All but Alistair, who had a knee on Ser Kit's chest and was still pounding one bloody fist repeatedly into his face. Zevran got ahold of his collar and pulled him away.
"Calm down, man. If you kill him it will be trouble for all of us" Zev said.
"Ugh. Fine," Alistair huffed. He rose and kicked Ser Kit an unceremonious kick in the ribs before retaking his seat at the bar.
"You four," Missus Bantree said, striking her paddle on the bar again, ducking under it, and standing over them, hands on her hips, "You are not welcome here."
"I can see that," Bann Ranulf said, pulling himself to his feet and spitting out a tooth, "You're all in trouble now. I could have this quarter razed to the ground."
"Can you, though?" asked Ten, speaking up finally, "Isn't Mordham just ten dirt farmers and a communal goat? What sway do you think you have in this town?"
"She was in here!" exclaimed Bann Gladwin, "Are you happy, girl?! Look at all the trouble you've caused!"
"Lad, I do not have the patience to explain to you everything wrong with what you just said. Just get out of here. But you'll be leaving your breeches," announced Missus Bantree.
"What?!" Bann Gladwin exclaimed.
"You heard me. House rules. You put your hands on a woman as hasn't asked you to, it's walk out with your arse out," she said.
"But we didn't! It was him!" protested Ser Hugh, who was cradling a broken arm, "And… and it was freezing out there!"
"You didn't stop him either, did you," Edwina said, rolling her eyes, "Come on, give them here, I'll add them to my collection."
"I could really do that all night, if you prefer," Alistair said, though his left eye was rapidly swelling, he was bleeding from his nose and mouth, and he had wrapped his right hand in a cloth which was rapidly being soaked red.
"I certainly could," said Zev. He'd come out more or less unscathed, as he tended to. Come to think of it, Ten had never seen him so much as break a nail, though he clearly had no qualms about joining whatever melee was before him.
"This is an outrage," Bann Ranulf grumbled, but he shimmied out of his breeches and handed them to the bartender, "My father will hear of this!"
"So he can beat you too, you little pissant?" asked Edwina, "Come on, hand 'em over."
"No! This is…" protested Ser Kit, who had managed to stumble to his feet. His words were garbled and Ten suspected his jaw was broken.
"Shut the fuck up, Kit," Bann Gladwin exclaimed, thrusting his pants into Edwina's meaty hand. "We wouldn't be in this mess if you weren't such a fucking creep. Take the shame, and let's get out of here."
"Yeah, you heard him, take the shame!" called Potchek, who was still wearing Ten's bonnet upside down over his beard and holding a cold glass of beer to a goose egg that was swelling on his cheekbone.
Slowly, but with gaining speed and volume, a chant of "Take the shame! Take the shame!" started up among the patrons.
Reluctantly, Ser Hugh and Ser Kit shed their respective breeches.
"Oof!" exclaimed Missus Bantree, "Looks like someone had a wee accident in these ones! Do you need help finding the privy, lad?" The barroom roared with laughter.
"You're all nothing but common thugs!" Ser Hugh shouted, as though it were the insult of the century and stepped out into the street, making an undignified noise as the cold wind hit him. Ten looked after them, her mouth in a grim line.
"What are you so sourfaced about?" asked Kennit, "The whole bar just came to your aid."
"Most of them don't even know me," said Ten, "They just wanted an excuse to beat the tar out of some upper class twits. Not saying I blame them, but it's a little frightening how easily that happened."
"Lad who started it, he was with you when you came by the sentry box last month. Friend of yours?"
"Colleague," said Ten.
"I've never broken my own hand on another man's face for a colleague," Kennit said mildly.
"Whatever. If he hadn't, someone else would have. This city's always been a lake behind a weak dam, but I feel like we're close to the day where that one raindrop falls and unleashes the river," Ten said.
"You've got a point there," said Kennit, "But most of us have seen it coming a long way off and our boats are ready."
"I hope you're right," said Ten, "I should go see to my…colleagues. Good talk, Kennit."
"As always, Arlessa."
She rose and rejoined her companions at the bar, sliding between Zev and Alistair. "Missus Bantree," she said, "Everybody's drinks on me for the rest of the night, yeah?" She slid some coins across the bar.
"I'm going to have to cut most of them off, after that little display," Missus Bantree, "But you do know how to turn a crowd to your favor, don't you Miss Tabris."
"I… didn't do any of that. I was hiding in the corner," she said.
"So tell me, lass," she said, "Did it really go down like your friend said?"
"What, you think I was lying?" Alistair asked.
"Sometimes young men look for excuses to make their actions righteous when what they really want is to blow off some steam," said Edwina.
"He wasn't," Ten interjected, "Big one thought he'd bend me over in an alley, got more than he bargained for."
"They truly never learn, do they," sighed Edwina, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, he got a handful of my hair but that was the extent of the damage."
"You know full well that's not what I meant."
"Nothing a few drams of moonshine won't solve," Ten said bitterly, and Edwina ducked down to fetch her a clay jug and a glass. Ten uncorked the jug and went to pour herself a drink, but when she went to lift it, her hands were shaking too badly for her to do so without spilling. She sighed and set it back down. Probably for the best.
"Worry not, manita," Zev said, taking over for her, and topping his own glass off as well, "Your mind will be wiped clean of all that unpleasantness."
"We should give those little shitasses time to get themselves home. I've definitely won fights with pantsless men before but I'm not looking to repeat the experience."
"Now that is a story I have to hear," said Zev.
She shot him a withering glare, "Read between the lines, Arrainai."
"Oh… oh! I am sorry. That was indelicate of me," he said, turning red and looking back into his glass.
"Let me see your hand," said Ten, turning to Alistair.
He obliged, gingerly taking it out of the napkin he'd wrapped it in to staunch the bleeding. Once again, he'd split his knuckles getting a little too carried away with rearranging a deserving man's face, but this time she'd probably need to stitch him up. Though, given how unsteady her own hands were at the moment, she'd have to give that time as well.
"Andraste's shapely ass," Ten sighed, taking his hand in both of her own and prodding gently, "Did nobody ever tell you? Open palm on the hard bits, closed fist on the soft bits."
"Knees and elbows everywhere else," Zev said, examining his own pristine hands, "It was a valiant effort, truly, but it is very clear you're used to being armed."
"Yeah, well, you should see the other guy," Alistair sighed.
"Are you sober?" asked Ten.
"As a judge."
"Like, a real judge, or that sot of a magistrate that decides who gets let out of the city lockup based on a roll of the dice? If it's the former, I truly have no idea how you kept wailing on the man as long as you did, you've broken two fingers and the bone on the side here… this should hurt like a bitch."
"Oh I assure you, it does, so if you can't fix it, can you stop poking me?"
"Sorry," said Ten, and let him go.
"I just… truly did not like the shape of his face," said Alistair. She registered some odd gaps in his speech, as though he would lose his train of thought midway through a very short sentence. He didn't sound drunk, though.
"Don't care much for your own either, apparently," sighed Ten. She gingerly reached up to examine his eye socket, make sure nothing was broken in there either, "Well there's some good news, it's just a run of the mill shiner. How's your vision?"
"Peripheral's... out," he said, "Otherwise, it's fine."
"Really… how many fingers am I holding up?" she asked
"One, and... that's rude," he chuckled, then fingered his jaw, "Ow…"
"Teeth?"
"Sound. Fucker had a... ring on is all," he sighed.
"Well, you'll mostly mend on your own, though you should ask Wynne to set your fingers," she said, "And… you truly did not need to do that, don't you think it was overkill?"
"No," he said, "I do not. I'm... standing by this one, Tabris."
"I'm a terrible influence, aren't I," she sighed.
"Say 'terrible' again."
"How many fingers am I holding up now?"
"Oh… that's a problem," he said, shaking his head and blinking, "I'm fairly sure you're not supposed to have... four middle fingers."
"Ahhh shit. All right, let's get you some actual medical help. Zev?"
"I'm taking the moonshine," said Zevran, "But very well, wouldn't want to find out what this one sounds like with even more brain damage…"
Between the three of them, they managed to make it through the winding streets beneath the cliffs back north and through the side entrance to the Arl's estate, mercifully unmolested by guard or the various drunkards that had left the inns of the market district. Closing time in the more genteel parts of town was much earlier than among the rabble. Come to think of it, it occurred to Ten, she had genuinely never seen the Paloma close. Then again, the trio likely looked like another young nobleman had gotten more than he'd bargained for and was being carried home by the help. They had some trouble with the stairs, but managed to get up in one piece. Ten went to find Wynne while Zev had far too much fun keeping Alistair awake every time he started to drift off.
She rapped on the mage's door, "Wynne! I'm sorry, I know it's late, but it's a bit of an emergency…"
She heard movement behind the door, and she opened it. It took her a moment for her to realize what she was looking at. Well I've heard things about what happens to you when you get on in age, I thought it was just whiskers on your chin! If ever grow back hair like that I'll… oh. Oh no. Oh… She gasped quietly and closed the door again, as quietly as she could.
"I'll be out in a moment!" Wynne called from inside.
Ten walked back out into the common room and sat herself on the couch at Alistair's feet. "Zev, you need to give me that moonshine, now."
"What happened, manita?"
"Wynne's got a man in there. An… age-appropriate man," she said, "Moonshine please. Come on. Hurry it up."
"She what?!" Zev exclaimed, and obliged, putting the clay jug in front of her.
"Given what's transpired tonight I did not imagine I would feel even more violated," Ten said. Not bothering with a glass, she uncorked it and took a long swig straight from the jug.
"Well, you did… open her door," Alistair pointed out. His speech had gotten slower and begun to slur.
"I did," Ten said, "But you sound like you're actually in some danger, so I'm going to call that taking one for the team." She took another swig of the moonshine and shook her head quickly.
Wynne, by this time, had gotten a robe on and sashayed into the room. Her hair was out of its customary severe bun and hung down in silver curtains around her face, which was pinker than usual.
"Well, isn't this a mess," she sighed, putting her hands on her hips, "Young man, however did this happen?"
"You should... see the other guy…" Alistair said, struggling to sit up.
"Are you drunk?"
"No, I'm just… stupid."
"Well there's some refreshing self-awareness," Zev muttered.
Wynne shut her eyes and sighed, "All right. But I really must request you all keep your injuries to normal business hours going forward. I'm not a young woman. I need my rest."
"Rest, huh," Ten remarked, but got up and let her do her work, "Is that what the old folks are calling it these days."
"Well perhaps if you got more of it you'd be less of… oh, how do the young people say it. A little bitch," said Wynne, grinning slyly as she went to work.