He settled on “Be careful,” and moved into the first room.
There were two paths open to him. There’d be an exchange table, where he could put down items and a man roughly equivalent to a skiller would push him back a handful of coins for the tables. But the return on Marta’s nice things would be even less here than in the skiller shops. So he didn’t bother seeking exchange.
Which left the straw-boss. Somewhere onboard there’d be a man who laid down house rules and kept a private table for his own games and stakes. He’d be a man who didn’t have much use anymore for coin; the game would be the thing. And he’d be happy to make liberal valuations of Marta’s nice things, if he thought the game Malen proposed was interesting enough. Or so Malen hoped.
He wound his way through the haze of tobacco smoke puffing up from pipes and leaf-rolls. Men and women generally had one hand around a cup or mug and the other alternating between their game and the body of someone close enough to grope. There were boards of dice, tri-stick throwing games, a variety of plackard tables, number grids, and new sports with spinners and marbles.
But for all the chances being played, no one man seemed to hold himself separate from it all. No corner boasted a neat table where bettors wore long sleeves with starch-stiffened cuffs rolled back once—the gentry’s way of adopting a common appearance.
Malen found the stairs and went up a level. Which was smokier, if that was possible. And the coin stacks taller, the laughter over wins and losses louder. But he still hadn’t seen anyone looking aloof enough to be a straw-boss. So: up again, to the third deck. Here, the laughter was softer, but the smiles sharper, more wicked and insinuating. Here, bets were mostly made with markers—promissory notes that carried more weight than a barrel of thin plugs. And the tobacco had a sweet tinge to it. This was imported leaf, or dyed with cherry-stone bitters.
He wound slowly through the haze, watching men and women whose eyes held sharp looks. They played plackard games of immense complexity—High-Bow Check-Down, Three and Eight, Six and Gain. It was said only mathematicians out of Aubade Grove would ever master these gambles.
And it made him wonder. Why were the riverboats tolerated at all? It seemed to him that their whole purpose ran counter to League reform. They encouraged the citizenry to take financial risk, place hope in something beyond their control, rather than self-sufficiency wrought by learning in League schools. Why did the League suffer these barges and their temptations?
Before he could think more on it, he saw, through the smoke, what he’d been looking for. In the far corner, set apart by a waist-high wall, stood a table. A man and woman were seated there, grimly watching another man, whose hat had three feathers and was tipped so far back it was in danger of falling off. There could be no question: the straw-boss.
Malen’s blood began to race, and he put a protective hand around the bag at his waist holding Marta’s nice things. He squeezed once, gently, then went to the table. Two men just inside the low wall eyed him closely, gauging what threat he might pose. When he did nothing more than watch the current game play out, they relaxed hands that had edged close to weapon belts.
The gamblers here bantered very little. Impassive faces around the table watched every move of the others with careful scrutiny. There was the occasional thin smile. These may or may not have indicated the strength of down placks that the others couldn’t see. The wiles of sharp chancers. And here, not a single coin graced the table. Only slips of paper with written promises. From where he stood, Malen couldn’t read the offerings, but if history was any indication, these weren’t about coin or even rare metal. These would be favors, maybe physical voluntaries. The holder of such a marker could call it due when it was most advantageous to him, or when he needed a bedfellow, depending on the note.
He knew the game they played—a variant on High Dash. But really, the cards were immaterial. At this level, the gambler played the person. And the straw-boss appeared to be more than expert. Some of that, Malen guessed, probably stemmed from the fact that the man was in want of nothing. If losing had no impact on your life when you stood up from the table, then emotion never played you false. But then, the thrill would have gone out of it for him, too.
In a very real way, that’s what Malen was banking on.
Toward the end of the current game, markers got written down with more urgency—pens, ink vials, and small stacks of paper to the side of each bettor being put to quick use.
When it was over, the straw-boss smiled benevolently. “Tuomas, Cynthee, always a pleasure when you play at my table.” He gathered in the markers, stacked them neatly, and held them up with a playful wave. “I’ll talk with each of you soon, I’m sure.” His smile held a hint of deviousness.
The two gamblers muttered as they left the table, passing on Malen’s left. The straw-boss was tucking the markers into a pouch when, without looking up, he said, “You don’t have the look of man with ante enough for my table. If you’ve come to argue on behalf of a friend who lost his trousers… well, I guess I’d like to hear it, actually. Might prove a welcome distraction from the stream of losers.”
“I’ve come to play,” Malen said evenly.
The other looked up, his brows rising in new interest. “That so. Your last plug, I’m guessing. Chance for a new life. You’re good at wharf games, and so you think you can pass muster on a riverboat table. My table.” The man smiled good-naturedly.
“I don’t even have a plug,” Malen replied. “And I don’t play wharf games. But I’m no plebe at odds, either.”
“That so.” The man sat back and retrieved a pipe from an inner coat pocket. He began tamping some leaf into the bowl. “Then a cardsharp. Winning drinks in dock taverns.” The man shook his head at his own conjecture. “No, else you’d have two thin plugs to rub together. Must be a new life you plan to win. But with what?”
The straw-boss lit his pipe and after chuffing several thick, sweet-smelling clouds of smoke, fell into quiet appraisal of Malen.
One last time, he squeezed Marta’s nice things, and then untied them from his belt and stepped up to the table. Before explaining, he put out a hand, to shake, to have a sense of the straw-boss’s honor. Decent gamblers took a hand when it was offered. And the grip told you plenty about their intentions. This straw-boss stood. That was a good sign. And his grip: not too firm as to be compensating for something he might conceal; not too brief either, the way a man shakes when he’s already scheming in his head.
“I’m Gynedo, straw-boss here on the River Queen. And you are?”
“Malen.” And fully met, he gently emptied the bag on the table between them.
Gynedo looked down, puzzlement rising in his face. “The exchanger—”
“Would have robbed me blind on value,” Malen interrupted. “Which in these… isn’t obvious to the exchanger’s eye.”
The man sat back down, gesturing for Malen to do the same. He puffed at his pipe. “Explain it to me, then.”
So he did. He quietly gave the history of each item, why it was important to him, why it was important to his son, Roth. He exaggerated (a little) how much he’d miss these things if he were to lose them.