Adventures (with 8 Ball influence)

Smirking, Jarreau pushed back the hair which had overcrept his brow, revealing a fresh, angry looking scar. "Ever had someone try an' break a chair o'er your head?"

"But they are not all so bad as that!" Leveque protested earnestly, "Sometimes yes, but you know how men are when they have had too much to drink. It is comparatively safe as long as one avoids the busier times."

Daubigny grimaced, remembering his head's last violent encounter with a chair. He took some comfort from Leveque's words, but his curiosity was piqued. "What happened? Why were they angry at you?" he asked Jarreau.

Jarreau's hand went unconsciously to his forehead, tracing the puckered line of the scar. He grimaced. “I.... may have called one of their wives a whore.”

Daubigny's jaw dropped as chivalry and righteous indignation bubbled up to the surface. "You swine! What ever made you say such a thing? Serves you right, the way I see it!"

Swine, was he? Jarreau spun to his left, intending to head off the sea officer, but Leveque’s arm caught him across the chest. “Sebastien,” the other man’s voice was quiet, but firm, “Sebastien, leave it.”

“The woman was being.... inhospitable, was she not? Jarreau’s choice of words may not have been the most delicate, but...” Leveque paused uncomfortably. He could not condone what his friend had done, but neither did he wish to see him disparaged for it.

“If our friend takes exception to my ‘choice of words’, that’s his own affair,” Jarreau snapped irritably, cutting off Leveque, “Unless he wishes to make it otherwise?” he added with a note of challenge.

Daubigny's blood was up. "Maybe I do!" he retorted. "Leveque, how can you defend such boorishness? What could the woman have possibly done to deserve such censure?"

“Do you?” Jarreau laughed. “And what do you propose to do about it?”

“Oh, for god’s sake!” exclaimed Leveque, “No one’s doing anything. Suffice it to say that Jarreau’s honor was impugned and he responded accordingly. And as for you, sir,” he turned directly to the naval lieutenant now, “For one so quick to censure as yourself, you show a remarkable inability to comprehend the same impulse in others.”

Leveque's outburst startled Daubigny. He seemed a good sort of fellow, from what Daubigny could tell, and he was rather sorry to have upset him now. After all, Daubigny did not truly relish the idea of fighting a duel with Jarreau, especially over an incident he had not even witnessed involving the insult of a woman he did not know.

"Well," he began, his tone softening, "I suppose I may have been hasty to judge. Since I don't know all the circumstances." He coughed to cover his embarrassment. "Why don't you tell me what happened? So I can avoid the same fate."

Leveque colored slightly, embarrassed by his own outburst, but relieved at the other man’s attempt to make peace. Jarreau growled an oath under his breath as Leveque’s elbow caught him in the ribs. He had no interest in making peace or indeed discussing the incident any further. “Just don’t break anything, spill anything or call someone’s wife a whore,” he suggested grudgingly.

“Sebastien had the misfortune of bumping into another patron,” Leveque elaborated patiently, “causing her to drop the parcel she was carrying. It broke, whatever it was at which point she became quite irate. I don’t know what she said exactly; I wasn’t there at the time. Even if I had been, I doubt I would have been able to learn much more,” he continued, hoping to segue into a more neutral topic, “I confess, I find the local dialects quite impenetrable at times. Can you make out what they say ?”

Daubigny was glad to move on to another topic. "I haven't spoken to many of the locals," he admitted, "Though I managed to exchange words with some of the seamen on the ship that brought me to England. At least, I think we exchanged words. Theirs were difficult to understand. Have you come to know any of the villagers personally? Or the guards, even?"

“One of the guards has family in the village whom I’ve met on more than one occasion, but I have not yet made any further acquaintances. Jarreau, you have a friendship of sorts with one of the stable hands, do you not?”

Jarreau shrugged. It was hard to call it a friendship when the two never spoke. They shared a mutual appreciation for the beasts and also, it seemed, for silence.

“They tolerate one another, at least,” Leveque amended. “As for the guards, some of them are obliging enough when it comes to conversation. How did you come to learn the language? Are you self taught?”

"Heavens, no. I'm not such a natural scholar as that. No, I learned at school, when I was a boy, before I entered the navy. And very useful it was, too. Though it might have been more use if they had taught us some more warlike terms. 'They've shipped a new mizzenmast,' or 'Do you surrender,' that sort of thing, instead of 'He buys the good bread' or 'Where is the library.'" He smiled in fond remembrance of his miserable school days.

"But tell me more about the guards. They're friendly, some of them?" His voice dropped, and he looked over his shoulder at the moorland around them. "And can they be bribed?"

Leveque burst out laughing, “Indeed! Though if it would in any way validate your education, I’m sure one of the guards could give you directions to the library within Beckwith.”

Upon hearing Daubigny’s last question, however, his mirth faded noticeably . “I suspect so,” Leveque answered carefully, “Why do you ask?”

"Oh," Daubigny replied vaguely, scanning the horizon as if his answer might be found there among the sheep. He wanted to escape from the prison, of course, but this was neither the time nor place to discuss such things, particularly with the truculent Jarreau present. Leveque seemed a trustworthy fellow, but Daubigny would wait to tell him later, if his opinion of the man were confirmed. "Oh, well... I should like to learn more about the girl I heard singing."

Leveque relaxed, glad that his suspicions had been unfounded. “Ah yes,” he grinned, “The siren of whom you spoke. You have not discovered her identity, then?”

Goyette, further up the path, had been walking alone when he heard the small group gaining on him from behind. He contemplated quickening his pace to avoid conversation, enjoying his moment of solitude after months at sea without a speck of privacy; but, he immediately felt guilty, wondering how he could want to avoid his fellow prisoners on such a day as this. He slowed his pace accordingly and nodded once in greeting as they approached. "Gentlemen."

"Good day," Daubigny said, nodding to the stranger. It was obviously another prisoner, but Daubigny was feeling guarded and distrustful now since speaking of the guards, as if he were now caught in the very act of attempted escape instead of merely the thought. But it would not do to be impolite. The man was a French officer and a gentleman, same as the rest of them. And so he hazarded an amiable speech. "Are you heading to the village?"

Jarreau returned the other man’s nod while Leveque looked up in surprise, his smile broadening, “Goyette! Why, this is becoming quite the gathering.”

Returning Leveque's smile with the same automatic sincerity that he gave everyone else, Goyette bowed. "I am. I hope you will pardon my intrusion; I thought it was a good a time as any to introduce myself to you, sir. Since coming here six days ago and taking ill, I have not had the opportunity to meet everyone. My name is Goyette."

Daubigny nodded again. "And I am Lieutenant Nicolas Daubigny, late of the Néréide. You have been ill, sir?" He maintained a slight distance from the newcomer, wondering if his ailment was contagious still. He was reluctant to invite the man to join them, but no doubt Leveque would take it upon himself to do so. "I trust you are fully recovered?"

"Fully, sir, thank you," said Goyette cheerfully, noting the man's reservedness. Officers tended to hold him at arm's length anyhow, detecting in him some trace of the common that he had not been able to shake. "The Doctor was very good to me. I am headed to the village now to return the favor, if he'll have it."

Chevenier smiled broadly. "Well, sir, we are heading in the direction of town ourselves. It seems that now we shall make quite the procession, although we are not going as far as the Doctor's home."

"You know him, then?" said Goyette, falling into step beside them. "He is kinder than I expected any English to be, although I daresay his medical concoctions are bitter enough to make up for it."

Chevenier laughed. "I'd imagine they are." He shrugged at the question. "I've never met the man myself, but it is not an overly large village. One learns it rather quickly."

"How exactly are you going to return the favor?" Daubigny asked the newcomer. "Are you perhaps a man of medicine yourself?" Then he stopped and looked ahead, pointing at a cluster of buildings in the distance. "Oh! Is that the village there?"