Warlock! Something is Rotten in Grim Biskerstaf...

Banio remains seated. He chooses one of the patrons at random and pretends an idle interest in something about them: posture, dress, speech or gesture, anything will do. He is not looking at the Hissainian and the watchmen, for why would he? Surely they can't be looking for him.

Inside the Manky Mermaid

It takes a moment -- several of them, really -- for the man from Far Hissain to cross the tavern floor, with all its unruly and now riled-up patrons.

"You!" he finally says to Banio when he arrives with a pair of guards in tow. An accusing finger accompanies his angry words. "You lied to me! Stole from me! Fool! Ingrate! Do you know what happens to thieves in Far Hissain!?"

"Touchy subject, that." Lambert responds with feigned innocence.

"Fella in there lost all his toes on one foot… I heard. Poor bastard will never waltz the Biskerstaf Step again, I reckon. Shame that."

"No sign of the rest of them, I see. The Captain. And where’s that dwarf with our coins! Bet he’s pilfered them!"

Foghorn drifts back towards the Fergan sisters as the chaos settles. He watches Trusova and Lambert both slip outside, but makes no move to follow. His gut tells him Banio's about to wriggle out of this new situation with ease, and he'd like to see how. Oddly he doesn't see Rausimod right now, but Foghorn puts off for later a more intent search for the dwarf.

Banio raises his eyebrows. His lips pucker with a blend of confusion and distaste.

"Beg pardon, your worship, but we are not in Far Hissain," Banio says, loudly enough for those around him to hear. His tone verges on the oratorical. "We're in Grim Biskerstaf, where a man need not meekly stretch his neck beneath the foreigner's perfumed slipper. Perhaps in Far Hissain, guilt and innocence are measured by the silk of a man's gown or the wax that curls his precious mustache, but here in Grim Biskerstaf, humble though she be, we judge matters according to proof. I suppose that you have some, master? Proof, I mean. Of this wild accusation of yours."

Outside, Trusova and Lambert meet up. As they talk, another figure they recognize slinks from the Mermaid -- Rausimod! But rather than making his way towards the pair, the bearded, stoutly-made priest turns the other way, grumbles something to himself, and hurries his way up the cramped, lamplit street.

---

Inside the Manky Mermaid

The crowd gathers as Phelbt doesn't immediately melt under the foreign man's glower, and his accusations. In point of fact, Banio's retort pulls a few howls and titters from the growing audience, but the onlookers quiet when the mustachioed man slams his fist on the table, then sweeps Banio's cup onto the floor.

"You will pay me back what's owed, you son of a whore! Every coin! Everyone one!"

Behind the colorfully garbed man, the city watchmen cast glances at one another, a little less certain now of what the Hissainian has been telling them. Where was the proof?

If the Hissainian is hoping to frighten Banio by knocking over his drink, it isn't going to work. The little man merely tilts his head and blinks up at the glowering foreigner. Innocently, delicately, he spreads the jaws of his trap.

"And how are we to know that they are your coins, master? A man may have money in his purse and be no thief, I think. Were it otherwise, then yourself and every man here should hang."

Lambert looks to Trusova, checking that he had indeed seen what he had just seen.

"Did that… did that dwarf just try to leg it with our coin?"

Inside the Manky Mermaid

The brown-skinned visitor's gaze burns into Banio as the smaller man plays to the crowd, and as he sways the watchmen who have accompanied the outraged Hissainian from the docks. He turns to look at the calloused hand of one of the guards when it comes to his shoulder in a restraining fashion.

"What proof do you have?" the clean-shaven but shaggy-haired watchman asks. "Is this merely your word, 'gainst his?"

Jelir D'Almed, Sultana Kasia's right hand man, shakes his head but makes no move to free himself. Instead, he cocks his head an smiles at Phelbt, a white smile full of malice.

"Check his pockets," he says confidently. "You will find coins. Not coins minted here in these savagelands, but in Hissain! Silver and gold, they are, minted by the coinsmiths in Piras. Check them! You will have the proof you seek!"

The watchman holding D'Almed back looks at Banio, raising an eyebrow.

Lambert takes off after the dwarf, waving for his out-of-pocket companion to follow along. He tests the water, by calling out:

"Rausimod, you silly bastard. You seeing drakes down that way, too? We’re gathering up back here!"

Banio Phelbt brightens. After all, this is the moment he's been waiting for.

"Ah, so the coins are as foreign as their former master!" he cries. "We can unriddle this mess after all."

Without further ado, Banio upends the meager contents of his money pouch onto the tabletop. The silver pieces tumble and chime over one another in a cheerful fashion, for each is as much a native of Fesselmark as his brother; Banio palmed the Hissainian coins off to the road warden Trusova, who is no longer in the bar.

Banio spreads the silvers with his fat fingers. He surveys them; he turns them over; he picks up one or two and studies them in the lamplight, as if he might be missing some mark of its foreign ancestry. At last, with a hopeless shrug, he spreads his hands to the Hissainian.

"Why, these are all good humble Biskerstafians like myself, your worship. I see none of your supposed exotic currency here. Do you?"

"Now how did the little bugger manage that?" Foghorn wonders. He didn't actually see Banio fleece the foreigner, but he has no reason to doubt the truth of the allegations either.

Outside the Manky Mermaid

Turning to look over his shoulder at Lambert and Trusova, Rausimod mutters something loudly under this breath, then breaks into a run, scurrying up the street with a big chunk of the group’s payment in his purse. As the surprised pair watch, the dwarf darts into the first alley he comes to — out of sight.

Inside the Manky Mermaid

"Well then, it’s settled," says the guard with the restraining hand on the outraged Hissainian. "No coins here but those we’ve minted ourselves, in these savage lands. I’m afraid you must have the wrong man, Syid D’Almed."

Jelir’s dark eyes burn like coals above his twitching mustache, but after a moment his expression changes.

"Yes. Yes, good watchman. I have erred — this is not the man at all who stole from the coffers of the Sultan himself. This man, before me, would never be so foolish — for he would realize what it means to steal from the Sultan." Brushing the guard’s hand from his shoulder, he bows to Banio, and the the assembled crowd. "Apologies, all of you. Sultana Kasia holds great excitement in her heart for visiting your fair city. I should not have let some scoundrel distract me from our grand purpose here."

Again facing Phelbt, the foreigner smiles broadly. "Good eve to you sir. Sorry to have bothered you with my petty troubles. I hope to see you again, under improved circumstances."

"Of course, master. No harm done," Banio says. "Give the Sultana my regards, and tell her that I hope to be of some use to her during her visit."

That said, Phelbt goes about returning his silver coins to his pouch, clink by methodical clink. It gives him something to do, something to focus on besides D'Almed's not-very-veiled threats. Banio's not going to let the Far Hissainian see him sweat, although he feels rather like doing so.

That's gold that Trusova can't afford to lose, for Whiskeyjack's sake. She joins in Lambert's pursuit of the dwarf, but feels it necessary to give him fair warning of the trouble she's in.

"Hey, I should tell you there's some people looking for me. Bandit types, but I think it's political.

She let the word political hang in the air a bit, to let it sink in that people with power might be involved and willing to being her harm.

"I thought I had given them the shake but they caught up with me just now in the Manky Mermaid. We sent them running, but I'm sure they'll come back eventually. I don't want to bring any heat down on the rest of you, especially with your eyes closed to it."

Maybe she did want to murder those thugs after all. Before it was just her taking on the risk, but now people that associated with her could get hurt, and that didn't sit well with her.