Fortune and Fools, Chapter One (FFXII AU, Balthier, Zecht)
I need to get back on a normal sleep schedule. D:
This thing has been in the back of my head since at least November. Probably October. But it just didn't want to get worked on until now. (This has previously been known as: the Balthier-as-a-bastardized-version-of-Kit-Marlowe fic, the theatre AU, the HAY PUEL YOUR PROFESSION IS SHOWING fic, etc.)
HUGE THANKS to lassarina for letting me babble about this to her.
This is not written for a challenge. This has chapters and plot and even funny. And I wrote it because I had a story to tell. And it feels so good to type those words again. <3
Fortune and Fools, Chapter One. FFXII AU; Balthier, Zecht, and eventually a whole slew of others. 5100 words. This chapter is worksafe, others may not be.
Ffamran Bunansa ran away to become the leading man, but the role of Balthier carries its perils.
Chapter One: In which Balthier thinks himself quite clever and is proven wrong on this count several times.
Year 703 Old Valendian (one year before the fall of Dalmasca)
You can find almost anything on Balfonheim’s docks, Balthier thinks as he leans against a stack of crates stamped with a rather clumsy forgery of the Imperial seal. The docks have a certain level of bustle and business at noon, though if you want to catch them thriving, best to visit after dark-and keep a close eye on your purse strings while you’re at it. The cutpurses, the flower sellers, the fences, the rakes, the whores, the confidence men, the counterfeiters, the pirates-this is their city, and they rule it with a wink and a flourish.
One of their number walks towards him now. The bits of metal knotted in the scarf wrapped around her waist jangle with each sway of her hips. She’s beautiful, of course, and the swagger in her gait and the upward curve of her mouth show she’s quite aware of the fact. He whistles.
She catches his eye. “Do you think me a dog, to be summoned with such a sound?” But she keeps smiling as she says it, rolling a coin between her fingers.
“Well, it seems to have caught your attention,” he says. “I’ve heard tales of you.”
“What makes you so sure they’re of me?” Her teeth flash white.
“Yrena Highwind,” he says. He knows what ought to come next, but he changes it: “Sharp and sly as a dagger-and pretty as one, too.”
“Best beware my edges, then.”
“I see no edges, Madam Highwind. Only curves.”
Off to the side, Balthier sees Meric Ralenson put his head in his hands.
“Are you so bold with all the girls you meet?” she asks.
“Only the ones I like best,” he says.
“Ah.” There’s a knife in her smile. “You like me already, then?”
“My eyes and ears have given me a favorable report,” he tells her. “I’m inclined to believe their testimony.” No, he thinks. I sounded far too educated there. That needs to be changed.
“How kind of you.”
“I can be quite a kind man when I wish,” he says. “And generous to those I favor.”
“And how does one earn such magnanimity?” She lingers over the last word, letting it emerge in a soft sort of purr. Very fetching. She’s undoubtedly conscious of the effect.
“I’d say you’ve merited my attentions already.”
“What of your favor?”
“Perhaps if you granted me a favor in turn.”
“And what would you have of me, Captain?” The wench casts her eyes lower and toys with the neckline of her blouse, but her languor doesn’t extend to her legs; she rests on the balls of her feet, ready to spring away, and the muscles in her calves are drawn taut. The fabric of her skirt hugs her thighs. He notes a dagger strapped to one of them.
“All you have to offer, Yrena Highwind,” Balthier replies, tangling his rings in her hair and capturing her lips with a kiss that makes his stomach soar to giddy heights-
“Balthier!” Meric shouts.
With an exaggerated sigh, he releases her slowly. Her lips are pressed together, but a smile keeps tugging the corners apart, and any minute now she’ll start snorting.
Meric weaves his way around the clusters of barrels and scraps of sturdy netting littering his path. “This is not what we rehearsed yesterday. After your line, Kait stabs you in the leg and runs offstage. There’s no kiss.”
“I like the kiss,” Balthier says. “And so will the audience. I’m sure Kait can find a way to stab me in the middle of it.”
“Several,” Kait Tyral confirms. “You show little enough caution in this scene. A proper pirate king wouldn’t drop his guard so.”
“Not even for the sake of a beautiful woman?”
“Not when the woman he woos would as soon kill him as kiss him,” she says. “And watch that you don’t direct your words to the back of the stage when you speak to me.”
He rubs his forehead and nods. An amateurish mistake. Surely he’s learned his craft well enough by now that such troubles should have ceased to plague him long ago.
“I don’t see why you feel the need to change every line in the bloody script,” Meric adds, tapping his foot.
Balthier shrugs. “I think of ones that work better. That’s all.”
“I quite liked the part about my curves,” Kait says, smiling.
“That isn’t-” He sighs. Greasy circles have started to form under his eyes. The pallor of his skin makes him look undead, or nearly so. “I’ve enough worries. We haven’t filled a house since we arrived in Balfonheim-”
“We opened with a bad play,” Kait says.
“The Alchemist’s Gambit did quite well for itself in Nabudis,” Balthier retorts.
“In Nabudis,” she says, “audiences remain seated, and they’ve the grace to speak in whispers. Balfonheim has no patience for hours of wordplay and witticisms.”
“I put a duel in The Alchemist’s Gambit-at your behest, I might add,” Balthier says. He’d like to think he knows Balfonheim’s character well enough. He’s no fool.
“Not nearly enough blood to keep them in the theatre for two hours.” She cleans under her nails with her dagger.
“Quite a mercenary approach, Miss Tyral.”
“Oh, it has to be,” she says. “When winter comes, it’s not about artistry. Pretty phrases won’t feed you. They have no substance, after all.”
Meric clears his throat. “If we could suspend our philosophical discussion for the moment?”
“I suppose I must receive your tutelage later, oh mistress of my heart,” he murmurs to Kait. She fights to keep from snorting and runs through a few highly interesting expressions in the process.
“At any rate,” Meric says, shaking his head, “we’ll be thoroughly in the black in two months’ time unless we’ve a spectacular success with The Lady Highwind. And I see no such success forthcoming,” he adds, throwing Balthier a black look indeed.
“We’ve seen hard times before,” Kait says. “We’ll manage. We may need to be frugal for a while, but we’ll not starve. We shall return to Archades for the fall season, and we ought to turn a profit there.”
Balthier frowns, but elects to keep his counsel on the matter. He supposes he’s different enough now from Ffamran, with his hair worn short and his fingers and vests trimmed with all manner of ornamentation, but he’ll have to play up the Balthier parts of himself considerably should they return to Archades. He’ll constantly be plying his craft, which is good practice, but which will undoubtedly prove to grow tiresome. And he expects his purse will grow a sight lighter should one of the streetears recognize him and demand compensation for his silence. Jules will, even if the others won’t.
“Is something the matter?” Kait asks.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he says. “Merely the usual troubles, which are so usual that they hardly bear remarking upon.”
“I’ve heard word that Kindal and his men mean to stage Julianna.” Meric heaves himself onto one of the barrels with a ponderous sort of sound. His skin is a greasy shade of grey these days. Rollys, one of the young actors, comes running in with a glass of water. He’s only fourteen, but already he’s receiving accolades for his portrayals of comic manservants. For one hardly bred to the life-bred to the exact opposite, in fact, unless you count his father’s diatribes as performances, which he supposes you could-Balthier’s adapted as well as can be expected and perhaps even better than that, but watching Rollys’s caricatures leaves him with something of an inadequate feeling. And to feel inadequate next to a boy who only comes up to your shoulder-well, it’s hardly an experience he relishes. Really, though, he should be grateful that his years with the judges never stripped him entirely of his sense of play; he’d truly be a poor actor then.
“Teysa is an abominable Julianna,” Kait says flatly, sniffing. “Her oratory leaves much to be desired.”
“The Akademies love her,” Balthier says.
“Oh, the Akademies. They give us only the barest part of our earnings.” She regards him quite coolly.
“And it’s in their words that we shall be remembered for years to come,” Balthier says.
Kait opens her mouth, likely as not to tell him where he can stuff his history, but Meric heads her off. “We could present the sequel, of course. I suppose Balthier can take Yves’s part; he’s inherited all his other roles. If, of course,” he says, raising his voice, “his lordship doesn’t object to this arrangement.”
“I’m here, you realize,” Balthier says. “You could speak directly to me if you’d like.”
“Both of you,” Kait says. She taps her foot. “Well, are we going to rehearse any longer?”
“If Balthier consents to do so,” Meric says.
“I do. I’ve some ideas on how to improve the last scene-”
Meric groans.
“Well, it’s as you said,” Balthier points out. “We’ve got to try something new to bring in profit. I might as well innovate, then.”
“A duel,” Kait says. She rubs her chin. “We could have a duel. When Balthier reaches to kiss me, I draw my blade as you suggested, and then he draws his sword to block my thrust.”
“We’ve no dialogue for that,” Meric says.
“I’ll write it tonight.” Balthier rubs his knuckles. “Or I’ll move some of the speeches about, at any rate.”
“We’d intended to go to the Sea Pearl tonight,” Kait says.
“I can write at the Sea Pearl.” He managed to jot down the first act of The Alchemist’s Gambit while riding in the cargo hold of an airship skirting dangerously close to jagd. He’s sure writing in a tavern won’t prove nearly as arduous. Besides, it might give him ideas.
“From your entrance, please, Balthier,” Meric says, “and mind you don’t overindulge at the Sea Pearl. I don’t wish to fine you for drunkenness tomorrow.”
***
Kait is the only one without a book in front of her; Meric’s poring over the ledgers, trying to make sense of rows of figures written in a crabbed hand, and Balthier busies himself with his journal, which is a journal because journal sounds more scholarly than diary does. The Sea Pearl’s usual ruckus assaults his ears, though at a somewhat subdued volume; they took pains to arrive before the din at nightfall. He’s had considerable practice at refusing to listen to meaningless shouts-thank the Akademy for that, if nothing else. It all resolves into a sort of background humming, like the whirr of an airship’s engines.
“We could sell the costumes, I suppose,” Balthier says, glancing over the paltry handful of words he’s scrawled down.
Pirate-King: Oho, her bite’s envenomed. Your lips are a fair mask for your teeth, my dear.
Not a bad line, perhaps, but not a good one, either, and he doubts he could get it all out with Kait doing her best to stab him, as on some nights he believes she abandons the pretense of acting and really does try to secure his untimely demise-
“We can’t sell the costumes,” Meric says, letting ale slop down his front. “Half of them are donations from Lord Beoulve-his gifts to us when the Linberry Players were first incorporated.”
“And we’d be a fine sight without them onstage,” Kait adds. “At any rate, they’re gentry’s castoffs. Nobles would never buy them, and vulgars would have no need of them.”
“And what of the ardents?” Balthier asks. He picks up his pen again.
Yrena: Why do you start? You shall have your kiss.
Pirate-King: I had rather it came from your lips and not your blade.
Yrena: Ah, but she’s a finer kisser than I, so pretty and lithe.
That exchange might be serviceable.
“The ardents wouldn’t think highly of the mending we’ve had to do on the elbows of my dresses. We had to put new sleeves on the dress I wore as Alyse-after we mended the bodice, of course.”
Balthier whistles softly. He remembers the intricate beading on the bodice, the delicate lace adorning the sleeves of that dress. “You could have bought another dress with that money.”
“Likely.” She takes a thoughtful sip of her ale.
“If only the Lord Reddas were to attend-” Meric says.
“The man’s a recluse,” Kait says. “And he’s rarely in the city.”
“Then he must have extraordinary power to have tamed these pirates so,” Balthier says. “If they keep to his laws without his presence to enforce them.”
“He has other enforcers.” Kait traces her finger through the liquid puddling on the table.
“And his reforms have certainly made the city prosper,” Meric says. “I remember trying to ride a chocobo through the streets years ago. They were in such disrepair that my chocobo injured its leg.”
“And he gave the pirates enough concessions during the nighttime hours.” Kait smiles.
“They’re all a sight more prosperous than we are, at any rate. We could always take to mumming on the streets.” Meric lets the ledger fall onto their table with a loud clunk. “Father did always think me better suited to mummery than management.”
“I thought mummers had to display wit,” Balthier mutters. Kait treads on his foot, looking at him over the rim of her tankard. Her knuckles have gone rather white, he notices. He begins making plans to excuse himself from the table at the nearest opportunity.
“If my father could see what we’ve done to his company-” Meric begins.
Kait interjects. “We?” Her voice is measured, her lips pursed.
“Present company excluded.” He looks at Balthier. “Largely excluded, at any rate.”
“Your father was-” Kait sets her tankard down very deliberately. She elects to drop her voice rather than raise it, biting out the words through bared teeth. “-a scurrilous wildsnake-”
“And the greatest actor of his time; he’d never have seen his company-and it still is his company-in such a sorry state-” Meric brings his fist down on the table, and the ledger-book shudders and flutters to the ground. Balthier busies himself with retrieving it before the rest of the Sea Pearl notices their row and decides to take up for one side or the other.
“-tried to use arcane magicks unlicensed to curse his competitors and nearly burned down the theatre at Nilbasse-”
“Slander, and you ought to know that, Kait,” Meric counters, “you ought to know the kind of men who spread such rumors, they were the same people who spread the stories about you-”
“He sold information to Rozarria,” she hisses, her palms pressed flat against the table.
Balthier chances a peek out from under the table and sees Meric flinch, watches the color drain from his lips. “And what sweet nothings did you whisper to the Nabradian ambassador last year? Talk of court? Talk of the Eight’s formation flight maneuvers?” he whispers, his jaw trembling.
“If you were any sort of swordsman,” Kait says quietly, “I’d have you answer for your words.”
“Well, I believe I’ve enough material for that scene now, at any rate,” Balthier says, hoisting himself to his feet. “If we could continue these squabbles at some other time?”
“This doesn’t concern you, Balthier,” Meric says.
“On the contrary. If you draw the attention of every inebriated pirate in the Sea Pearl-of which there are many, I might add-I will most certainly be concerned, as I will most certainly find myself thrown in the fray with the lot of you, and I’ve no desire to get vomit or any other noxious liquid on my shirtsleeves this evening.” He brushes a speck of dust from his cuffs. “And I just had them laundered.”
Indeed a few of the Sea Pearl’s patrons look in their direction now, wondering if the nightly brawl is to commence early today.
“Balthier,” Kait starts to say.
He speaks before she can finish her thought. “My father always threatened to cast Stop on me when I became quarrelsome. Perhaps I should do likewise.”
“You can’t,” Meric says, though there’s a certain quaver to his tone. “Not within the city limits.”
“The paling’s weak this close to the sea, and I’ll wager-no. I daresay I’m a better mage than both of you. But if you’re not inclined to take me at my word, by all means.” He beckons to them. “Continue.”
“I could use another drink,” Kait says, whirling to her feet and off to the tavernmaster.
“And he was not a spy,” Meric mutters into his tankard once she’s safely out of hearing.
“Merely in the wrong place at the wrong time? Such things happen.” Balthier closes his journal and makes a vain attempt at cleaning a few spots of ink from his hands.
“The scene is finished?”
“Close enough to it. I expect you to tell me how abysmal the new lines are tomorrow, of course.”
“We ought to have a dance,” Meric says. “At the beginning. Father always opened with a dance.”
“It had best be one of the dances we used last season,” Balthier says. “We open in three days. We can't learn a new one in that time.”
“I would hire a troupe of moogles for entertainment between the acts, but we-”
“Can’t afford it,” Balthier finishes. “I thought we rented our license to Phyllo when we left Archades-”
“We? I don’t recall you being there at the time.”
“The royal we, then.” Balthier massages his temples. The bulk of the Sea Pearl’s night crowd is just starting to file through the doors; each new patron feels the need to make an even greater clamor than his predecessors upon arrival, and in the wake of all the answering shouts, Balthier fancies he’s developing quite the headache. It’s just as well that he set his journal aside. “Haven’t we any gil left over from that?”
“We used it to cover our traveling expenses,” Meric replies. “I miss Archades.”
“I don’t,” Balthier says. “It’s impossible to breathe there.”
“I can’t see why you loathe the place so,” Meric says. “Those fripperies of yours-”
Balthier raises an eyebrow. “My plays are not fripperies.”
“They’d do better in Archades than Balfonheim, certainly.” He gives a black sort of smile. “You play the role of gentleman well enough, but you’ve a ways to go before you make a convincing pirate.”
Thick smoke curls out from behind the kitchen doors, smelling of fish frying. Balthier breathes in deeply. With the state his purse is in, he’ll need to forego dinner, and this aroma’s as close as he’ll get to a meal. “The gentleman isn’t a role I care for,” Balthier says. “I suppose I shall have to practice being a pirate, then.”
“And how will you do that? Steal an airship?”
“Well, I do know how to pilot one.”
Meric snorts. Laughter booms out around them. Balthier looks to his left and sees a man and a woman playing mumblety-peg at a speed that makes him think he should keep a close eye out for any flying pocketknives.
“I see it’s no use convincing you of anything,” Balthier sighs.
“What?” Meric asks; three men behind them have begun a rousing rendition of The Bellwyvern and the Village Maid.
“I said that it’s no use convincing you of anything,” Balthier half-shouts. “You’d be surprised at the things I’ve picked up.”
“And none of it useful.”
“Some of it quite useful,” Balthier counters. “I memorized your father’s lectures on the craft years ago,” when he’d had nothing but drills to look forward to in the evenings. He’d elected to absent himself from such activities (and became quite good at forging signatures in the process) in favor of more pleasant diversions-the theatre, chiefly. “It was a pity he passed on when he did.”
“My father,” Meric says. He seems to slump into his ale.
“Oh do cheer up. I much prefer you when you’re berating me.”
Meric pays him no mind. “I wonder if anyone will think my words worth writing down.”
“Let the Akademies worry about that,” Balthier says. “But I can start doing it now if you like.” He looks around for Kait’s brown curls, but she’s vanished in the press of people, now beginning to congregate around a bare patch of floor where the chairs and tables have been cleared away. A lutist strides to the center and strikes up a Nabradian reel. His audience improvises the lyrics to it, and Balthier thinks it’s for the best that he can’t understand the tangle of words very well, though no doubt some of the phrases are very creative. “Now where did Kait go?”
“I haven’t any idea. And I don’t care,” he adds. “So long as she shows up on time to rehearsal tomorrow, she can do what she likes.”
Balthier downs the last few drops of his ale. “Regarding your father…”
“Do your worst,” Meric says. “I’m resigned to it by now.”
“You ought to act more often. You’re displaying quite the flair for melodrama. Regarding your father-are you certain it wasn’t true?”
“They only brought the accusations against him because he married a Rozarrian woman. My mother.” Meric sets his tankard down and listens to the lutist play an old Archadian ballad for a while. “It ruined him. Utterly.”
“That’s Archades for you,” Balthier says. “Ruining lives with nothing more than a whisper.” He pictures his father haring off to Kerwon after that damned manuscript and decides to order himself another drink.
He’s halfway out of his chair before he hears Kait say, “Indeed.”
“I didn’t know you’d rejoined us.”
“I left for refreshment. And now I am refreshed.” She remains standing, tapping her foot in time to the lutist’s melody. “Let’s not talk of Archades. We’ve quit it for now.”
“You don’t speak of Archades much.” Balthier pushes his chair in. “Tyral is a merchant House, isn’t it? Dominates the spice trade?”
“And what of your House, Balthier?”
He blinks. To his side, he hears a sharp sound-the collision of one man’s fist and another’s skull, by the sound of it. “The first blow of the night!” someone calls; a cheer goes up through the Sea Pearl, and toasts are made all around. It’s a curious custom, made all the more curious by the way the two men clap each other’s forearms afterwards.
“I have no House,” Balthier says.
“Nonsense,” she retorts. “You speak too perfectly to have been born anything else.”
“You do a fair job affecting that style of speech yourself.”
“It isn’t affect with you. It’s simply how you talk. And you hold your wrists limp, as the gentry do.”
It’s odd, if he thinks about it. When he was gentry, he lacked that affect. His father thought it foppish, and worse, foolish. “Observant of you.”
“A necessary skill, you’d agree.”
“Certainly. We’d all be poorly off without it. Take that boy there,” he says, gesturing to a sallow youth with a dirty headcloth. “He has his eye on that swordswoman’s purse, I’d wager.” And indeed the boy’s eyes are fixed on his target with a knife’s keenness; there’s a predatory energy to his hands, one that won’t allow them to sit still. “Someone ought to stop him before his hand’s cut off at the wrist.”
“You won’t get thanks for it, if that’s what you’re after.” Meric stands. “I’ve matters to discuss with the landlord regarding our future lodgings, in the unlikely event we extend our engagement.”
“Hope springs eternal,” Balthier murmurs, slipping away from Kait. She doesn’t try to stop him, merely snorts. Charming little habit of hers, that.
“Show-off,” he thinks he hears her mutter, but it’s entirely possible he misheard, what with the ever-increasing din. In fact, even if she did say what he thought she did, he’d give such a remark no credence, none at all.
He sidles past a pair of dockworkers boasting of their strength to a lady with crimson lips and a dress to match, skirts a group of men hurtling dice across the floor as though the objects had given them offense, gives a wide berth to a cloaked man with a table to himself, and at last arrives next to his young cutpurse, who seems to be waiting for the swordswoman’s vigilance to flag. When his hand darts out at last, his fingers a nose-length away from the purse strings, Balthier seizes his wrist. “I would show more care in the future,” he tells the boy.
And he appears to have startled the ragged thing, for he withdraws his wrist with a hiss and melts back into the throng, leaving Balthier’s hand suspended over the swordswoman’s purse when she at last turns around to investigate. “Thief!” she snarls, reaching for her sword. “Select your targets with more care.”
I just told him that, Balthier thinks. “A misunderstanding, I assure you-” he begins, but a friendly bystander jumps in to offer his account.
“Ain’t no misunderstanding.” He hops from his stool. “I saw ‘im reach for the purse, and my sight’s as good as any.”
“You still have all your fingers,” she says, backing him into the bar-she must be at least half a head taller than he is, and a good deal more broad-shouldered-“so I assume you’ve not been caught thieving in Balfonheim before. Perhaps I should remind you of the penalty-”
The crowd around them thickens, giving the swordswoman far too many cries of encouragement for Balthier’s liking. She lunges for his wrist-he feints to the side, and when she turns to seize him again, he ducks under her outstretched arm and sprints for the door. Kait will never let him live this down. Ever.
“Stop the thief!” the swordswoman cries, and to Balthier’s dismay, the patrons take up her cry: “Stop the thief!”
The crowd surges and blocks his retreat most effectively. He has a dagger by his side, but that isn’t nearly enough to break through so many, not when most of them are armed with considerably more steel. I wish Balfonheim had followed Archades’s example and outlawed blades within the city, he thinks as he drops to the ground before one burly man’s swing connects with his jaw; the errant fist strikes a bystander instead, who’s none too pleased about the blow. He elbows the burly man in the gut, and Balthier senses the beginnings of a fully-fledged tavern brawl when the burly man’s fellows wade through the crowd to aid their companion, their swords drawn.
Perhaps I ought to have paid more attention when we learned tactics for crowd-fighting. He thinks he chose to attend the theatre that evening instead.
He creeps towards the door and away from the knot of fighters, hoping to be forgotten, but at a cry of “There ‘e is, the sarden thief!” he knows he hasn’t been. He finds his wrist seized again and twists his hand around to jam his fingernail under his attacker’s thumbnail. Not an Akademy trick, but an effective one, as his attacker releases him with a howl. He delivers a swift chop to his next attacker’s neck and begins to feel the first glimmers of confidence when the swordswoman’s kind enough to ram her boot into the small of his back, knocking him to his stomach most effectively. He hears something crunch.
“If you recall the penalty-” she says, eyes flashing wild as her blade.
He groans. No, Kait will never let him live this down.
No blow comes, and after a while he twists his head around to look up, because the commotion seems to be ebbing. The cloaked man from earlier blocks the swordswoman’s downward stroke with one of his own blades-the other is at his side, readied against another possible attack. His hood has fallen back, revealing-
Balthier would rub his eyes, if he could. He can't recall seeing the man with a beard or an earring, nor dressed in that particular fashion, but the Ninth are said to be masters of infiltration, and surely disguise is included in that.
“That penalty was abolished,” he says. Well, Balthier can’t mistake his voice.
“Lord Reddas,” the swordswoman says, almost hushed, and the noise in the tavern continues, somewhat, but those gathered in a knot around them fall silent. A good thing the swordswoman named him first, because Balthier guesses the man wouldn’t have reacted well had he called him Judge Zecht.
“I’ll see the thief upstairs. I trust there will be no misbehavior in my absence,” Zecht says-Reddas, the woman called him? No, it has to be Zecht, he glimpsed the man at the Draklor Laboratories enough, something few others could say; Judge Zecht rarely removed his helm. Zecht hoists Balthier to his feet and half-marches him up the steps, which resolves any lingering questions Balthier had over his true identity-he marches with a trace of the Imperial lock-step. He sees Kait at the banister and can’t entirely suppress a smile to witness her at a loss for words, for once.
Zecht steers him into a dingy little room with dusty floorboards and a threadbare carpet, barring the door behind him. “Ffamran Bunansa,” he says. Balthier’s stomach plummets to somewhere around his ankles. “Some time has passed when we last spoke.”
“You looked different then,” Balthier says.
“As did you. We appear as we are expected to, when we take on such roles.” He tugs his earring. “Reddas is a convenient fiction, as Balthier is.”
“Balthier is not a fiction.”
“Well, you’re accustomed to the role by now, at least.” He smiles. A cat’s smile. A jungle cat’s smile, powerful and coiled and ready to strike. “Archadia needs your services.”
Archadia can bugger off, he thinks. “What’s the other option?”
“You’re court-martialed for desertion. No doubt your father wouldn’t care about the scandal, but Lord Vayne would. Your Judgeship was his gift.”
“And Lord Vayne takes it poorly when his friendship is betrayed in such a fashion, I take it.”
“The man cannot abide traitors. Where does that leave you?”
And now I see why he smiles like a cat. “Do you want me to return to my post? Come up with some fiction as to why I left?”
“No. You were ill-suited to the Judgeship.” He smiles again, but this time with more humor. “I’d never have promoted you, if the decision had been mine to make.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” he says flatly.
“Your talents are of more use to me elsewhere,” Zecht says. “You’ve considered, haven’t you, that actors make excellent spies?”
This thing has been in the back of my head since at least November. Probably October. But it just didn't want to get worked on until now. (This has previously been known as: the Balthier-as-a-bastardized-version-of-Kit-Marlowe fic, the theatre AU, the HAY PUEL YOUR PROFESSION IS SHOWING fic, etc.)
HUGE THANKS to lassarina for letting me babble about this to her.
This is not written for a challenge. This has chapters and plot and even funny. And I wrote it because I had a story to tell. And it feels so good to type those words again. <3
Fortune and Fools, Chapter One. FFXII AU; Balthier, Zecht, and eventually a whole slew of others. 5100 words. This chapter is worksafe, others may not be.
Ffamran Bunansa ran away to become the leading man, but the role of Balthier carries its perils.
Chapter One: In which Balthier thinks himself quite clever and is proven wrong on this count several times.
Year 703 Old Valendian (one year before the fall of Dalmasca)
You can find almost anything on Balfonheim’s docks, Balthier thinks as he leans against a stack of crates stamped with a rather clumsy forgery of the Imperial seal. The docks have a certain level of bustle and business at noon, though if you want to catch them thriving, best to visit after dark-and keep a close eye on your purse strings while you’re at it. The cutpurses, the flower sellers, the fences, the rakes, the whores, the confidence men, the counterfeiters, the pirates-this is their city, and they rule it with a wink and a flourish.
One of their number walks towards him now. The bits of metal knotted in the scarf wrapped around her waist jangle with each sway of her hips. She’s beautiful, of course, and the swagger in her gait and the upward curve of her mouth show she’s quite aware of the fact. He whistles.
She catches his eye. “Do you think me a dog, to be summoned with such a sound?” But she keeps smiling as she says it, rolling a coin between her fingers.
“Well, it seems to have caught your attention,” he says. “I’ve heard tales of you.”
“What makes you so sure they’re of me?” Her teeth flash white.
“Yrena Highwind,” he says. He knows what ought to come next, but he changes it: “Sharp and sly as a dagger-and pretty as one, too.”
“Best beware my edges, then.”
“I see no edges, Madam Highwind. Only curves.”
Off to the side, Balthier sees Meric Ralenson put his head in his hands.
“Are you so bold with all the girls you meet?” she asks.
“Only the ones I like best,” he says.
“Ah.” There’s a knife in her smile. “You like me already, then?”
“My eyes and ears have given me a favorable report,” he tells her. “I’m inclined to believe their testimony.” No, he thinks. I sounded far too educated there. That needs to be changed.
“How kind of you.”
“I can be quite a kind man when I wish,” he says. “And generous to those I favor.”
“And how does one earn such magnanimity?” She lingers over the last word, letting it emerge in a soft sort of purr. Very fetching. She’s undoubtedly conscious of the effect.
“I’d say you’ve merited my attentions already.”
“What of your favor?”
“Perhaps if you granted me a favor in turn.”
“And what would you have of me, Captain?” The wench casts her eyes lower and toys with the neckline of her blouse, but her languor doesn’t extend to her legs; she rests on the balls of her feet, ready to spring away, and the muscles in her calves are drawn taut. The fabric of her skirt hugs her thighs. He notes a dagger strapped to one of them.
“All you have to offer, Yrena Highwind,” Balthier replies, tangling his rings in her hair and capturing her lips with a kiss that makes his stomach soar to giddy heights-
“Balthier!” Meric shouts.
With an exaggerated sigh, he releases her slowly. Her lips are pressed together, but a smile keeps tugging the corners apart, and any minute now she’ll start snorting.
Meric weaves his way around the clusters of barrels and scraps of sturdy netting littering his path. “This is not what we rehearsed yesterday. After your line, Kait stabs you in the leg and runs offstage. There’s no kiss.”
“I like the kiss,” Balthier says. “And so will the audience. I’m sure Kait can find a way to stab me in the middle of it.”
“Several,” Kait Tyral confirms. “You show little enough caution in this scene. A proper pirate king wouldn’t drop his guard so.”
“Not even for the sake of a beautiful woman?”
“Not when the woman he woos would as soon kill him as kiss him,” she says. “And watch that you don’t direct your words to the back of the stage when you speak to me.”
He rubs his forehead and nods. An amateurish mistake. Surely he’s learned his craft well enough by now that such troubles should have ceased to plague him long ago.
“I don’t see why you feel the need to change every line in the bloody script,” Meric adds, tapping his foot.
Balthier shrugs. “I think of ones that work better. That’s all.”
“I quite liked the part about my curves,” Kait says, smiling.
“That isn’t-” He sighs. Greasy circles have started to form under his eyes. The pallor of his skin makes him look undead, or nearly so. “I’ve enough worries. We haven’t filled a house since we arrived in Balfonheim-”
“We opened with a bad play,” Kait says.
“The Alchemist’s Gambit did quite well for itself in Nabudis,” Balthier retorts.
“In Nabudis,” she says, “audiences remain seated, and they’ve the grace to speak in whispers. Balfonheim has no patience for hours of wordplay and witticisms.”
“I put a duel in The Alchemist’s Gambit-at your behest, I might add,” Balthier says. He’d like to think he knows Balfonheim’s character well enough. He’s no fool.
“Not nearly enough blood to keep them in the theatre for two hours.” She cleans under her nails with her dagger.
“Quite a mercenary approach, Miss Tyral.”
“Oh, it has to be,” she says. “When winter comes, it’s not about artistry. Pretty phrases won’t feed you. They have no substance, after all.”
Meric clears his throat. “If we could suspend our philosophical discussion for the moment?”
“I suppose I must receive your tutelage later, oh mistress of my heart,” he murmurs to Kait. She fights to keep from snorting and runs through a few highly interesting expressions in the process.
“At any rate,” Meric says, shaking his head, “we’ll be thoroughly in the black in two months’ time unless we’ve a spectacular success with The Lady Highwind. And I see no such success forthcoming,” he adds, throwing Balthier a black look indeed.
“We’ve seen hard times before,” Kait says. “We’ll manage. We may need to be frugal for a while, but we’ll not starve. We shall return to Archades for the fall season, and we ought to turn a profit there.”
Balthier frowns, but elects to keep his counsel on the matter. He supposes he’s different enough now from Ffamran, with his hair worn short and his fingers and vests trimmed with all manner of ornamentation, but he’ll have to play up the Balthier parts of himself considerably should they return to Archades. He’ll constantly be plying his craft, which is good practice, but which will undoubtedly prove to grow tiresome. And he expects his purse will grow a sight lighter should one of the streetears recognize him and demand compensation for his silence. Jules will, even if the others won’t.
“Is something the matter?” Kait asks.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he says. “Merely the usual troubles, which are so usual that they hardly bear remarking upon.”
“I’ve heard word that Kindal and his men mean to stage Julianna.” Meric heaves himself onto one of the barrels with a ponderous sort of sound. His skin is a greasy shade of grey these days. Rollys, one of the young actors, comes running in with a glass of water. He’s only fourteen, but already he’s receiving accolades for his portrayals of comic manservants. For one hardly bred to the life-bred to the exact opposite, in fact, unless you count his father’s diatribes as performances, which he supposes you could-Balthier’s adapted as well as can be expected and perhaps even better than that, but watching Rollys’s caricatures leaves him with something of an inadequate feeling. And to feel inadequate next to a boy who only comes up to your shoulder-well, it’s hardly an experience he relishes. Really, though, he should be grateful that his years with the judges never stripped him entirely of his sense of play; he’d truly be a poor actor then.
“Teysa is an abominable Julianna,” Kait says flatly, sniffing. “Her oratory leaves much to be desired.”
“The Akademies love her,” Balthier says.
“Oh, the Akademies. They give us only the barest part of our earnings.” She regards him quite coolly.
“And it’s in their words that we shall be remembered for years to come,” Balthier says.
Kait opens her mouth, likely as not to tell him where he can stuff his history, but Meric heads her off. “We could present the sequel, of course. I suppose Balthier can take Yves’s part; he’s inherited all his other roles. If, of course,” he says, raising his voice, “his lordship doesn’t object to this arrangement.”
“I’m here, you realize,” Balthier says. “You could speak directly to me if you’d like.”
“Both of you,” Kait says. She taps her foot. “Well, are we going to rehearse any longer?”
“If Balthier consents to do so,” Meric says.
“I do. I’ve some ideas on how to improve the last scene-”
Meric groans.
“Well, it’s as you said,” Balthier points out. “We’ve got to try something new to bring in profit. I might as well innovate, then.”
“A duel,” Kait says. She rubs her chin. “We could have a duel. When Balthier reaches to kiss me, I draw my blade as you suggested, and then he draws his sword to block my thrust.”
“We’ve no dialogue for that,” Meric says.
“I’ll write it tonight.” Balthier rubs his knuckles. “Or I’ll move some of the speeches about, at any rate.”
“We’d intended to go to the Sea Pearl tonight,” Kait says.
“I can write at the Sea Pearl.” He managed to jot down the first act of The Alchemist’s Gambit while riding in the cargo hold of an airship skirting dangerously close to jagd. He’s sure writing in a tavern won’t prove nearly as arduous. Besides, it might give him ideas.
“From your entrance, please, Balthier,” Meric says, “and mind you don’t overindulge at the Sea Pearl. I don’t wish to fine you for drunkenness tomorrow.”
***
Kait is the only one without a book in front of her; Meric’s poring over the ledgers, trying to make sense of rows of figures written in a crabbed hand, and Balthier busies himself with his journal, which is a journal because journal sounds more scholarly than diary does. The Sea Pearl’s usual ruckus assaults his ears, though at a somewhat subdued volume; they took pains to arrive before the din at nightfall. He’s had considerable practice at refusing to listen to meaningless shouts-thank the Akademy for that, if nothing else. It all resolves into a sort of background humming, like the whirr of an airship’s engines.
“We could sell the costumes, I suppose,” Balthier says, glancing over the paltry handful of words he’s scrawled down.
Pirate-King: Oho, her bite’s envenomed. Your lips are a fair mask for your teeth, my dear.
Not a bad line, perhaps, but not a good one, either, and he doubts he could get it all out with Kait doing her best to stab him, as on some nights he believes she abandons the pretense of acting and really does try to secure his untimely demise-
“We can’t sell the costumes,” Meric says, letting ale slop down his front. “Half of them are donations from Lord Beoulve-his gifts to us when the Linberry Players were first incorporated.”
“And we’d be a fine sight without them onstage,” Kait adds. “At any rate, they’re gentry’s castoffs. Nobles would never buy them, and vulgars would have no need of them.”
“And what of the ardents?” Balthier asks. He picks up his pen again.
Yrena: Why do you start? You shall have your kiss.
Pirate-King: I had rather it came from your lips and not your blade.
Yrena: Ah, but she’s a finer kisser than I, so pretty and lithe.
That exchange might be serviceable.
“The ardents wouldn’t think highly of the mending we’ve had to do on the elbows of my dresses. We had to put new sleeves on the dress I wore as Alyse-after we mended the bodice, of course.”
Balthier whistles softly. He remembers the intricate beading on the bodice, the delicate lace adorning the sleeves of that dress. “You could have bought another dress with that money.”
“Likely.” She takes a thoughtful sip of her ale.
“If only the Lord Reddas were to attend-” Meric says.
“The man’s a recluse,” Kait says. “And he’s rarely in the city.”
“Then he must have extraordinary power to have tamed these pirates so,” Balthier says. “If they keep to his laws without his presence to enforce them.”
“He has other enforcers.” Kait traces her finger through the liquid puddling on the table.
“And his reforms have certainly made the city prosper,” Meric says. “I remember trying to ride a chocobo through the streets years ago. They were in such disrepair that my chocobo injured its leg.”
“And he gave the pirates enough concessions during the nighttime hours.” Kait smiles.
“They’re all a sight more prosperous than we are, at any rate. We could always take to mumming on the streets.” Meric lets the ledger fall onto their table with a loud clunk. “Father did always think me better suited to mummery than management.”
“I thought mummers had to display wit,” Balthier mutters. Kait treads on his foot, looking at him over the rim of her tankard. Her knuckles have gone rather white, he notices. He begins making plans to excuse himself from the table at the nearest opportunity.
“If my father could see what we’ve done to his company-” Meric begins.
Kait interjects. “We?” Her voice is measured, her lips pursed.
“Present company excluded.” He looks at Balthier. “Largely excluded, at any rate.”
“Your father was-” Kait sets her tankard down very deliberately. She elects to drop her voice rather than raise it, biting out the words through bared teeth. “-a scurrilous wildsnake-”
“And the greatest actor of his time; he’d never have seen his company-and it still is his company-in such a sorry state-” Meric brings his fist down on the table, and the ledger-book shudders and flutters to the ground. Balthier busies himself with retrieving it before the rest of the Sea Pearl notices their row and decides to take up for one side or the other.
“-tried to use arcane magicks unlicensed to curse his competitors and nearly burned down the theatre at Nilbasse-”
“Slander, and you ought to know that, Kait,” Meric counters, “you ought to know the kind of men who spread such rumors, they were the same people who spread the stories about you-”
“He sold information to Rozarria,” she hisses, her palms pressed flat against the table.
Balthier chances a peek out from under the table and sees Meric flinch, watches the color drain from his lips. “And what sweet nothings did you whisper to the Nabradian ambassador last year? Talk of court? Talk of the Eight’s formation flight maneuvers?” he whispers, his jaw trembling.
“If you were any sort of swordsman,” Kait says quietly, “I’d have you answer for your words.”
“Well, I believe I’ve enough material for that scene now, at any rate,” Balthier says, hoisting himself to his feet. “If we could continue these squabbles at some other time?”
“This doesn’t concern you, Balthier,” Meric says.
“On the contrary. If you draw the attention of every inebriated pirate in the Sea Pearl-of which there are many, I might add-I will most certainly be concerned, as I will most certainly find myself thrown in the fray with the lot of you, and I’ve no desire to get vomit or any other noxious liquid on my shirtsleeves this evening.” He brushes a speck of dust from his cuffs. “And I just had them laundered.”
Indeed a few of the Sea Pearl’s patrons look in their direction now, wondering if the nightly brawl is to commence early today.
“Balthier,” Kait starts to say.
He speaks before she can finish her thought. “My father always threatened to cast Stop on me when I became quarrelsome. Perhaps I should do likewise.”
“You can’t,” Meric says, though there’s a certain quaver to his tone. “Not within the city limits.”
“The paling’s weak this close to the sea, and I’ll wager-no. I daresay I’m a better mage than both of you. But if you’re not inclined to take me at my word, by all means.” He beckons to them. “Continue.”
“I could use another drink,” Kait says, whirling to her feet and off to the tavernmaster.
“And he was not a spy,” Meric mutters into his tankard once she’s safely out of hearing.
“Merely in the wrong place at the wrong time? Such things happen.” Balthier closes his journal and makes a vain attempt at cleaning a few spots of ink from his hands.
“The scene is finished?”
“Close enough to it. I expect you to tell me how abysmal the new lines are tomorrow, of course.”
“We ought to have a dance,” Meric says. “At the beginning. Father always opened with a dance.”
“It had best be one of the dances we used last season,” Balthier says. “We open in three days. We can't learn a new one in that time.”
“I would hire a troupe of moogles for entertainment between the acts, but we-”
“Can’t afford it,” Balthier finishes. “I thought we rented our license to Phyllo when we left Archades-”
“We? I don’t recall you being there at the time.”
“The royal we, then.” Balthier massages his temples. The bulk of the Sea Pearl’s night crowd is just starting to file through the doors; each new patron feels the need to make an even greater clamor than his predecessors upon arrival, and in the wake of all the answering shouts, Balthier fancies he’s developing quite the headache. It’s just as well that he set his journal aside. “Haven’t we any gil left over from that?”
“We used it to cover our traveling expenses,” Meric replies. “I miss Archades.”
“I don’t,” Balthier says. “It’s impossible to breathe there.”
“I can’t see why you loathe the place so,” Meric says. “Those fripperies of yours-”
Balthier raises an eyebrow. “My plays are not fripperies.”
“They’d do better in Archades than Balfonheim, certainly.” He gives a black sort of smile. “You play the role of gentleman well enough, but you’ve a ways to go before you make a convincing pirate.”
Thick smoke curls out from behind the kitchen doors, smelling of fish frying. Balthier breathes in deeply. With the state his purse is in, he’ll need to forego dinner, and this aroma’s as close as he’ll get to a meal. “The gentleman isn’t a role I care for,” Balthier says. “I suppose I shall have to practice being a pirate, then.”
“And how will you do that? Steal an airship?”
“Well, I do know how to pilot one.”
Meric snorts. Laughter booms out around them. Balthier looks to his left and sees a man and a woman playing mumblety-peg at a speed that makes him think he should keep a close eye out for any flying pocketknives.
“I see it’s no use convincing you of anything,” Balthier sighs.
“What?” Meric asks; three men behind them have begun a rousing rendition of The Bellwyvern and the Village Maid.
“I said that it’s no use convincing you of anything,” Balthier half-shouts. “You’d be surprised at the things I’ve picked up.”
“And none of it useful.”
“Some of it quite useful,” Balthier counters. “I memorized your father’s lectures on the craft years ago,” when he’d had nothing but drills to look forward to in the evenings. He’d elected to absent himself from such activities (and became quite good at forging signatures in the process) in favor of more pleasant diversions-the theatre, chiefly. “It was a pity he passed on when he did.”
“My father,” Meric says. He seems to slump into his ale.
“Oh do cheer up. I much prefer you when you’re berating me.”
Meric pays him no mind. “I wonder if anyone will think my words worth writing down.”
“Let the Akademies worry about that,” Balthier says. “But I can start doing it now if you like.” He looks around for Kait’s brown curls, but she’s vanished in the press of people, now beginning to congregate around a bare patch of floor where the chairs and tables have been cleared away. A lutist strides to the center and strikes up a Nabradian reel. His audience improvises the lyrics to it, and Balthier thinks it’s for the best that he can’t understand the tangle of words very well, though no doubt some of the phrases are very creative. “Now where did Kait go?”
“I haven’t any idea. And I don’t care,” he adds. “So long as she shows up on time to rehearsal tomorrow, she can do what she likes.”
Balthier downs the last few drops of his ale. “Regarding your father…”
“Do your worst,” Meric says. “I’m resigned to it by now.”
“You ought to act more often. You’re displaying quite the flair for melodrama. Regarding your father-are you certain it wasn’t true?”
“They only brought the accusations against him because he married a Rozarrian woman. My mother.” Meric sets his tankard down and listens to the lutist play an old Archadian ballad for a while. “It ruined him. Utterly.”
“That’s Archades for you,” Balthier says. “Ruining lives with nothing more than a whisper.” He pictures his father haring off to Kerwon after that damned manuscript and decides to order himself another drink.
He’s halfway out of his chair before he hears Kait say, “Indeed.”
“I didn’t know you’d rejoined us.”
“I left for refreshment. And now I am refreshed.” She remains standing, tapping her foot in time to the lutist’s melody. “Let’s not talk of Archades. We’ve quit it for now.”
“You don’t speak of Archades much.” Balthier pushes his chair in. “Tyral is a merchant House, isn’t it? Dominates the spice trade?”
“And what of your House, Balthier?”
He blinks. To his side, he hears a sharp sound-the collision of one man’s fist and another’s skull, by the sound of it. “The first blow of the night!” someone calls; a cheer goes up through the Sea Pearl, and toasts are made all around. It’s a curious custom, made all the more curious by the way the two men clap each other’s forearms afterwards.
“I have no House,” Balthier says.
“Nonsense,” she retorts. “You speak too perfectly to have been born anything else.”
“You do a fair job affecting that style of speech yourself.”
“It isn’t affect with you. It’s simply how you talk. And you hold your wrists limp, as the gentry do.”
It’s odd, if he thinks about it. When he was gentry, he lacked that affect. His father thought it foppish, and worse, foolish. “Observant of you.”
“A necessary skill, you’d agree.”
“Certainly. We’d all be poorly off without it. Take that boy there,” he says, gesturing to a sallow youth with a dirty headcloth. “He has his eye on that swordswoman’s purse, I’d wager.” And indeed the boy’s eyes are fixed on his target with a knife’s keenness; there’s a predatory energy to his hands, one that won’t allow them to sit still. “Someone ought to stop him before his hand’s cut off at the wrist.”
“You won’t get thanks for it, if that’s what you’re after.” Meric stands. “I’ve matters to discuss with the landlord regarding our future lodgings, in the unlikely event we extend our engagement.”
“Hope springs eternal,” Balthier murmurs, slipping away from Kait. She doesn’t try to stop him, merely snorts. Charming little habit of hers, that.
“Show-off,” he thinks he hears her mutter, but it’s entirely possible he misheard, what with the ever-increasing din. In fact, even if she did say what he thought she did, he’d give such a remark no credence, none at all.
He sidles past a pair of dockworkers boasting of their strength to a lady with crimson lips and a dress to match, skirts a group of men hurtling dice across the floor as though the objects had given them offense, gives a wide berth to a cloaked man with a table to himself, and at last arrives next to his young cutpurse, who seems to be waiting for the swordswoman’s vigilance to flag. When his hand darts out at last, his fingers a nose-length away from the purse strings, Balthier seizes his wrist. “I would show more care in the future,” he tells the boy.
And he appears to have startled the ragged thing, for he withdraws his wrist with a hiss and melts back into the throng, leaving Balthier’s hand suspended over the swordswoman’s purse when she at last turns around to investigate. “Thief!” she snarls, reaching for her sword. “Select your targets with more care.”
I just told him that, Balthier thinks. “A misunderstanding, I assure you-” he begins, but a friendly bystander jumps in to offer his account.
“Ain’t no misunderstanding.” He hops from his stool. “I saw ‘im reach for the purse, and my sight’s as good as any.”
“You still have all your fingers,” she says, backing him into the bar-she must be at least half a head taller than he is, and a good deal more broad-shouldered-“so I assume you’ve not been caught thieving in Balfonheim before. Perhaps I should remind you of the penalty-”
The crowd around them thickens, giving the swordswoman far too many cries of encouragement for Balthier’s liking. She lunges for his wrist-he feints to the side, and when she turns to seize him again, he ducks under her outstretched arm and sprints for the door. Kait will never let him live this down. Ever.
“Stop the thief!” the swordswoman cries, and to Balthier’s dismay, the patrons take up her cry: “Stop the thief!”
The crowd surges and blocks his retreat most effectively. He has a dagger by his side, but that isn’t nearly enough to break through so many, not when most of them are armed with considerably more steel. I wish Balfonheim had followed Archades’s example and outlawed blades within the city, he thinks as he drops to the ground before one burly man’s swing connects with his jaw; the errant fist strikes a bystander instead, who’s none too pleased about the blow. He elbows the burly man in the gut, and Balthier senses the beginnings of a fully-fledged tavern brawl when the burly man’s fellows wade through the crowd to aid their companion, their swords drawn.
Perhaps I ought to have paid more attention when we learned tactics for crowd-fighting. He thinks he chose to attend the theatre that evening instead.
He creeps towards the door and away from the knot of fighters, hoping to be forgotten, but at a cry of “There ‘e is, the sarden thief!” he knows he hasn’t been. He finds his wrist seized again and twists his hand around to jam his fingernail under his attacker’s thumbnail. Not an Akademy trick, but an effective one, as his attacker releases him with a howl. He delivers a swift chop to his next attacker’s neck and begins to feel the first glimmers of confidence when the swordswoman’s kind enough to ram her boot into the small of his back, knocking him to his stomach most effectively. He hears something crunch.
“If you recall the penalty-” she says, eyes flashing wild as her blade.
He groans. No, Kait will never let him live this down.
No blow comes, and after a while he twists his head around to look up, because the commotion seems to be ebbing. The cloaked man from earlier blocks the swordswoman’s downward stroke with one of his own blades-the other is at his side, readied against another possible attack. His hood has fallen back, revealing-
Balthier would rub his eyes, if he could. He can't recall seeing the man with a beard or an earring, nor dressed in that particular fashion, but the Ninth are said to be masters of infiltration, and surely disguise is included in that.
“That penalty was abolished,” he says. Well, Balthier can’t mistake his voice.
“Lord Reddas,” the swordswoman says, almost hushed, and the noise in the tavern continues, somewhat, but those gathered in a knot around them fall silent. A good thing the swordswoman named him first, because Balthier guesses the man wouldn’t have reacted well had he called him Judge Zecht.
“I’ll see the thief upstairs. I trust there will be no misbehavior in my absence,” Zecht says-Reddas, the woman called him? No, it has to be Zecht, he glimpsed the man at the Draklor Laboratories enough, something few others could say; Judge Zecht rarely removed his helm. Zecht hoists Balthier to his feet and half-marches him up the steps, which resolves any lingering questions Balthier had over his true identity-he marches with a trace of the Imperial lock-step. He sees Kait at the banister and can’t entirely suppress a smile to witness her at a loss for words, for once.
Zecht steers him into a dingy little room with dusty floorboards and a threadbare carpet, barring the door behind him. “Ffamran Bunansa,” he says. Balthier’s stomach plummets to somewhere around his ankles. “Some time has passed when we last spoke.”
“You looked different then,” Balthier says.
“As did you. We appear as we are expected to, when we take on such roles.” He tugs his earring. “Reddas is a convenient fiction, as Balthier is.”
“Balthier is not a fiction.”
“Well, you’re accustomed to the role by now, at least.” He smiles. A cat’s smile. A jungle cat’s smile, powerful and coiled and ready to strike. “Archadia needs your services.”
Archadia can bugger off, he thinks. “What’s the other option?”
“You’re court-martialed for desertion. No doubt your father wouldn’t care about the scandal, but Lord Vayne would. Your Judgeship was his gift.”
“And Lord Vayne takes it poorly when his friendship is betrayed in such a fashion, I take it.”
“The man cannot abide traitors. Where does that leave you?”
And now I see why he smiles like a cat. “Do you want me to return to my post? Come up with some fiction as to why I left?”
“No. You were ill-suited to the Judgeship.” He smiles again, but this time with more humor. “I’d never have promoted you, if the decision had been mine to make.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” he says flatly.
“Your talents are of more use to me elsewhere,” Zecht says. “You’ve considered, haven’t you, that actors make excellent spies?”