Café de Nuit

Adam wrote:Bennedict stands from the table, his hand tightening on the grip of his cane as he heads to the door. He makes eye contact with Dorgio and gestures towards the door with his head, but doesn't wait for him before following the servant to the gendarmes.

BENN


AT THE FRONT DOOR


Benn recognizes the pair of gendarmes as the same men who informed him of the murder of the young prostitute and seamstress, Anabelle.
The older of the two guards says,
"Sir, there's been a burglary at your house."
He coughs.
"No one's home. We have men looking all around the neighborhood, but I was sent here as soon as Captain Thilbault learned whose house it was that had been broken into. I don't know if the others have found anyone or anything yet."

Bennedict's eyes turn to ice instantly. "No one is in the home at all?" he says. "My children, their maid, and a servant were in the house. There is no sign of them?"

He shouts to a servant. "Fetch my coat and tell my wife I've been called away." When his things are returned and his questions answered, he follows the gendarmes to the Gehrman home.

Adam wrote:Bennedict's eyes turn to ice instantly. "No one is in the home at all?" he says. "My children, their maid, and a servant were in the house. There is no sign of them?"

He shouts to a servant. "Fetch my coat and tell my wife I've been called away." When his things are returned and his questions answered, he follows the gendarmes to the Gehrman home.

The older gendarme shakes his head, saying,
"Nobody was home, that's what Captain Thibault said. The Captain's ordered a full search. Like I said, I don't know if they...I don't know where your children and servants are, monsieur."


The younger gendarme looks down a moment and mutters, (listen DC 10)

Adam wrote: He shouts to a servant. "Fetch my coat and tell my wife I've been called away."

Raen politely excuses himself and joins the archivist. Seeing the man agitated he says "Is everything OK Bennedict? Do you think you'll need any help with whatever task the Gendarmerie has for you?"

One of the footmen goes to the closet to retrieve Benn's coat.

Sara overhears the conversation and stands up as well.

"We are here for you Benn, four eyes are better than two. I can come with you if you want. Even if is night and it will be difficult I can try to track the burglars and find out where is your children and servants."

Kat stands close enough that she can be easily asked to come but not so close that she is being pushy

The footman helps Benn into his coat.

Herr Gehrman slides into his coat, nodding to the others. "Anyone who wants to come and help will, of course, be welcome," he turns and puts a hand on the door but pauses. "But be on your guard. This could be part of a bigger plot."

He looks to the servants and the gendarmes. "Does Thom retain guards for his house? Can some officers be spared to guard Dorgio and I's wife?"

"Yes, I should be going with you," he tells Benn.

"And yes," he says to the gendarmes. "If some of you could be staying here, to prevent another suck burglary." He doesn't need to add the part about the disappearances.

Kat nods crisply to Herr Gehrman and goes to collect her things, quietly cursing the fact she has been caught by a crisis in her dress instead of her armour.

Once her equipment is recovered she stands ready to leave... although astute viewers may not she seems to always be standing where it is too dark or to obscured for the Gendarmes to get a good look at her face.

Thom stands casually in the back of the foyer, "Yes, Benn. I have a full staff of security personnel." He says.


"Pharamond, inform Bastion that his presence is required." He says to his butler. "I shall stay here, and assist with securing your families. Should you have need of me, send word and I shall come."

LEAVING THOM'S MANSE


(SARA POV)


BENN and those going with him make a hurried departure from THOM’s manse.
SARA is the last out the front door, as she pauses just a minute near the foyer closet to put her armor back on and cinch the straps snug. When she casts a quick glance back at the sound of Charlotte’s agitated voice rising in the parlor, she catches a glimpse of Thom speaking with the woman.

Someone in the front rooms of the house—Benn’s butler, maybe—calls out "Bastian!”
Then—a man steps round the far side of the closet door and turns to regard Sara with a level gaze. For all her usual wariness, heightened by the news of the burglary (and maybe something much worse) at Benn’s house, she didn’t see or hear this lean fellow coming. He just stepped out as if he’d been there in the foyer with her the whole time. Handsome, dark haired, olive complexion with a hint of the exotic about him, though his face looks familiar… Lantern light through the open front door glints on links of acid-browned mail showing through the open collar of the man’s tunic.
The stranger taps the brass hilt of a curved sword hanging at his belt, and the faintest of smiles flits over his lips.
“Peace favor your sword, lady.”

Quickly as he appeared, the handsome stranger with the familiar face goes, gliding off into the parlor without a backward look at Sara, stepping to where Thom works to calm Charlotte and Lorna.

The younger of the gendarmes steps into the front doorway, breathing a trifle hard.
“Mademoiselle, please, we have to leave right now.”

In another hurried minute, Sara sits in the back of a cart between RAEN and KAT, with BENN crouching just behind them in the cart’s back, leaning on a side rail. DORGIO rides in the front, between the two gendarmes on the buckboard.


A gendarme speaks softly to the team and jostles the reins. The pair of draft horses pulls the cart away downhill from Thom’s manse, headed south. High shuttered houses loom up on either side of the street.
What little whispered conversation passes between Dorgio and the guards is broken up by the sound of the wheels and hooves against the cobbled pavement.

Tension surrounds BENN, as if the man were a wheel-lock pistol wound tight, set to spark at the lightest pull on the trigger.

KAT shifts uncomfortably in her fancy dress, her hand never far from her dirk.

RAEN watches the city walls and Thom's house on the hill roll away behind the cart. Just for a moment the wizard’s eyes look like dim stars drawn down from the darkening sky.

The moon and stars fade and at last vanish as the cart draws nearer and nearer to Benn’s neighborhood; the only light now shines from the lanterns of the gendarme’s jangling on poles attached to the cart.

Sara feels something hot light on her cheek like an ember drifting from a campfire. No—it’s not hot, it’s cold as ice. When she brushes over the spot, her fingertips come away covered in black soot, melting like snow.



END OF CHAPTER