27th June, late evening: Rescuing the Damsel

"It is all your fault, Torrington, don't even try and deny it. I said last night that you could stir up trouble in heaven itself and lo and behold!"

Hunter had been diligently attending to his duties the entire day, until finding himself free after dinner he decided to invite Torrington to sample some local fare at the small tavern nestling in a narrow street in the same village as the building, which has been appropriated for Sir Arthur's headquarters.

The visit started out well enough, though Hunter declined to drink more than a little local wine. But now trouble was brewing in the air, thankfully with them as observers rather than participants.

Edward sighed melodramatically, taking another sip from his glass (his first one, too, as a matter of fact, although it wasn't too bad).

"Well, probably you are right. I should never have brought some devastatingly handsome and somewhat roguish looking man, whom no one knows, into this kind of tavern. It spells TROUBLE in capital letters."

"I would agree if those men were giving me trouble," he nodded towards a weasely looking man, who was trying to engage the serving girl's attention a little too insistently.

She'd been calm and cheerful all night, parrying the advances of the regulars skilfully and with laughter in her eyes, but then it was a routine, a sort of a tradition, that never spelled out any danger. This man though was getting very insistent and the laughter in her eyes had died to be replaced by worry and impatience. She snapped at him that she needed to get back to work and tried to walk away.

Edward frowned and raised a hand to signal for her, looking quite haughty.

"Empregada! Over here, if you please!"

The girl let out a small relieved breath and tried to maker her way between the tables to where Torrington and Hunter were sitting. But as she almost reached her target, the weasely man grabbed her hand from behind viciously.

'You won't be going anywhere for some time, slut,' he growled, while back at his table his friends guffawed.

Edward was on his feet before the man had finished speaking. In a cold, clear voice, he inquired:

"Would you care to explain why you are stopping this girl from seeing to her duties, Sir?"

The man replied with a barrage of curses directed at Torrington. The girl tried to use this distraction to get away, but the man pulled her towards him, one arm painfully squeezing her waist. She struggled and received a slap in reply.

Hunter surged forward, peeled the man's arm from the girl's waist, ducked a punch, struck in him in the stomach and as the man bent over, brought the his fist down on the man's neck.

Two of the Weasel's friends were now crowding the passage between the tables, preparing to launch themselves at Hunter.

Edward took both their glasses and stepped between the men and Hunter, signalling the girl with a jerk of his head that she should get out of here quickly. Then he calmly proceeded to toss the content of the glasses at their faces. At first glance, this probably wasn't that smart a move. But then, he only needed them to close their eyes for a second - just long enough that he could kick one hard into the stomach and even the numbers a bit.

The girl scampered away: if the two officers wanted to get involved on her behalf, she was grateful, but she wasn't waiting around to find out who'd won.

The man whom Torrington punched promptly obliged him by bending over with a pained groan, but the second man, blinking furiously barreled into Torrington intending to get him off balance.

In the meantime, with Weasel out of action, at least for a bit, Hunter turned to go lend Torrington a hand, when his was jumped from behind. Hunter managed to evade the choking hold, but received a very well placed kick in the knee, which made him go down.

Since it had worked splendidly with Hunter a few nights ago, Edward didn't try to resist the momentum - the man had enough weight on him to make it a rather doomed endeavour anyway. Instead he wrapped his arms around what he hoped was the other's neck and let himself fall, trying to twist so that he would land on top. Preferably with his knee in a place where it hurt.

Hunter fell onto his fours, scraping his palms. He rolled to the side immediately and kicked his attacker's legs from under him. Springing up to his feet he was faced by the man whom Torrington had so successfully punched moments ago and the now recovered Weasel. They were coming at him from two sides, so Hunter vaulted over a table overturned it. The bigger man stumbled and lost his balance but the Weasel came at Hunter with renewed energy.

While the first part had worked quite well, and the last part had been equally successful, the part where Edward had hoped to reverse their positions hadn't worked out. In one way, it had been good. The solid floor to brace his foot on and the man's weight had made his knee much more effective. But it also meant that Edward was now trapped under a very heavy, very hurting man who trashed and cursed and quite accidentally managed to hit him soundly a few times until he had managed to roll him off.

Hunter weaved his way between chairs and tables, creating an obstruction between him and the Weasel until he got to Torrington and was able to kick his attacker in the stomach as he was rising to get at Torrington again.

Edward quickly rolled away, politely saying 'thank you!', before jumping to his feet again, ramming his shoulder forcefully into the Weasel's guts on his way up.

The bartender was shouting something over the noise, but the fighters were too involved in their melee to take notice.

Weasel was a wiry man but not big or exceptionally powerful. Torrington's blow winded and disabled him. But the third man, whom they both forgotten about by now, stepped behind Torrington and was about to strike him on the hand, when Hunter pressed his boot knife against the man's throat from behind.

"Touch him and I will slit your throat," he said quietly and rather calmly.

While Weasel tried to get his breath back, Torry snatched their still half-full decanter at the neck and brought it down sharply on the man's head. The centrifugal force had kept the liquid inside during the swing, but when the thin glass shattered, it sprayed in all directions. The Weasel dropped, bleeding from a cut and unconscious, amidst a shower of glass fragments and Moscatel.

Edward looked down at the mess, than at Hunter.

"A pity. It was a rather nice vintage. Should we leave now?"

Hunter nodded, waited a little while Torrington moved closer to the exit, than followed, backing away from the men, with his knife held out. As soon as they were outside he let out a breath.

'Come on, before they come to their senses.'

Edward looked around quickly to orient himself, than placed his left at Hunter's back (his right was firmly closed around the hilt of his sword - just in case) and nudged the other lightly to follow him before setting off at a quick walk in the direction Hunter's billet lay.

"I'm still holding my breath waiting until we find our's again ...", he murmured darkly.

The building was less the ten minutes of brisk walk away.

'I am still firmly of the opinion that it is all your fault,' said Hunter as he shut the door of his room behind Torrington.

For the first time in what appeared to be an hour, Edward allowed his muscles to relax. He exhaled deeply through his nose and dropped his chin to his chest, trying to loosen the cramped muscles in his neck. A turned-over chair had made his aquintance with the floor a rather uncomfortable one, and he gingerly touched the back of his head to see whether it had caused more than a headache and a stiff neck.

"And I still agree. One really can't take you anywhere!" he replied drily.

"If you would care to recall, it was I who took you there." Hunter lit the candles in the big candle holder. "Would you sit closer to the light? I want to see those scrapes and bruises of yours."

"Only if you will do me the courtesy of allowing me to do the same with you later. I realize that you are the more experienced fighter, but I would prefer to make sure that the weasel didn't bite you."

Edward dropped on the indicated chair, folded his arms on the table and dropped his head on it.

"You know, I had quite expected to come home with a sore head from drinking bad wine in good company - not from wasting good wine on a bad one."