Kellen took a long draught of water from the mug near his stool. Storytelling was thirsty work, even for an experienced bard. Sometimes a bit of liquor was just what a story needed to help add fire to a momentous battle or a fight between mortal foes. Other times, an aged wine was perfect in helping evoke the flavor of ancient deeds set in the far flung past. Water though, water was good for clearing the mind, a boon for starting a new story.
Setting the mug aside, Kellen flexed his hands, relishing the crackling sensation as the nimble and slender digits popped lightly. Taking up his lute from its resting position in his lap, he made a show of tuning the instrument, but really he was eying the crowd, gauging its collective mood. Kellen let his eyes wander, trusting in his sharpened bardic instincts to filter out the relevant cues that would influence his next performance.
The tavern was thick with patrons, and as Kellen had rightly guessed, the tavern was in an area safe enough and close enough to the residential district that a fairly balanced mix of males and females were now present. Casper Lark, the proprietor of the tavern was merrily chatting with several regulars by the bar. Even as he talked, he quietly pushed drinks into the newcomer’s hands and took their offered coin, seemingly as an afterthought. Kellen smiled inwardly. Lark was a man who knew how to work a crowd, something Kellen could always appreciate on a professional level.
Kellen well knew that in a few bells time, the men and women present would have enough liquid courage in them to try their hand at dancing. For now though, he would help ease them into their mugs with a story. And here Kellen was faced by a crises he had long grown accustomed to. What story should he tell? A sad story would get the crowd deep into their mugs, and on a cold, dark night like tonight, the liquor was sure to pour. The deal Kellen had with Casper would ensure him a percentage of the night’s sales, and even though Kellen had recently acquired a rather decent windfall, he was never one to turn down honest coin for an honest night’s work. He wasn’t much for turning down dishonest coin for dishonest work either, but the crowd needn’t know that.
He could spin a raucous, and ever so slightly lewd tale, one that would have the patrons laughing at the story as they reflected on how the characters in the story mirrored their own lives. A slight, impish grin spread across Kellen’s face. He knew a particularly good tale involving a donkey and a cheese wheel that he’d been dying to tell. Still, the story didn’t quite fit the mood. Not yet, at least.
A glimpse of a silk-gloved arm in the crowd decided Kellen’s mind. There was only one woman he knew that would come rub elbows with modestly wealthy traders and shop owners while wearing exorbitantly expensive silk gloves. Even in the muted light from the tavern’s lanterns and the fire in its twin hearths, Kellen guessed that those gloves were dyed a very distinct yet tasteful lavender. Leah, his lover and economic windfall had a debilitating weakness for silk gloves and that particular color.
Knowing full well that his harp was ready to leap into vell asul, joyful noise, at a moment’s notice, Kellen ceased twiddling with the tuning pegs. A novice bard might have strummed a loud chord to gain his audience’s attention, but Kellen was no street-side minstrel. No, Kellen Pock, bard to kings and queens, gnomish adventurer and daring-doer needed no mean trick to gain an audience’s attention.
Adjusting his posture, Kellen became still. A deer in the forest, sensing danger, will become still. A man, poised between that point of salvation and a precipitous fall to his doom will become still. Two lovers, ensnared in the fire of passion will catch the others’ eye, stopping all thought, motion, and breath. This was the nature of Kellen’s stillness. It spread out from him in a slow wave, like the cold of the world’s deepest lake. As it passed from patron to patron, conversation dwindled and ceased. Slowly, all eyes turned to Kellen as a hush fell over the crowd. The world itself seemed to balance upon a razor’s edge, not daring to breath, not daring believe. To the sound of vell asul, Kellen began to speak.
