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It was the gusty sort of February evening that chilled me inside and out. I had planned to make it back to Dart Hall before night fell, but I had stayed too long in town, playing Poacher with Jemis and then dispensing my errands. By the time I set out it was an hour before sunset. Even still I should have made it home by dinner, but a storm had descended from the Coombe and the roads were filling in with snow. I stumbled past the Lady’s Cross in snow up to my ankles and travel was becoming difficult indeed. I resigned myself to the dubious comfort of the Green Dragon Inn.I was not unknown in the establishment. I had been using it to conduct business with certain acquaintances since my return from Nên Corovel, but I had rarely seen the Inn so full, especially on such a miserable evening. I squeezed into the second to last place at the bar and nodded to the innkeep who bustled over. In the months since I had reestablished residency in Ragnor Barony I had earned an odd sort of reputation. People seemed unsure if I was a ghost, a spy for the Lady of Alinor, a Saint of the Lady of Green and White (though Jemis was rapidly becoming the focus of that particular rumor), or perhaps all three. Regardless, it boiled down to some exceptional customer service in most places of commerce.“What’ll it be then Jack?” The people of the barony invariably called me Jack, “Cold one out there tonight ain’t it?”“It is indeed Bertrand,” if they were all going to call me by my first name I would certainly reciprocate, and leave the punctiliousness to my son, “a warm whiskey and a bowl of stew would do nicely if you have both, and my thanks.” Bertrand nodded and then called out the order to the kitchen and busied himself over the fire to draw off the drink. “You’ve a fair bit of custom tonight considering the weather, something afoot?”“Ah, a wagon train stuck in the road by the white cross, wouldn’t you know. A dozen or so wagoneers and half as many more of their passengers, all looking for rooms. We’re sleeping two or three deep tonight, I tell you. If anyone else comes looking I’ll have to offer a bench in the common room.” I must have shown some chagrin at that, for he added, “Ah, you’ll be looking to stay then as well will you?”“No worries, I won’t overburden you more, I can make it back to Dart Hall, I’m sure.”“I’m not sure of that myself, they say there’s an ill wind coming down from the Coombe. I’ll make you up a spot by the fire, I’m sure sorry I can’t offer more.”“I assure you I've had much worse. I’ll be happy for the warmth. Besides, from what you say, I’ll be the only one with my own room–” The door opened with a crash and a howl of wind. A marvel of snow-encrusted multi-colored fabrics waddled in, staggering under a stray gust. The creature struggled briefly with the door and finally managed to slam it back into its jamb.“I’m afraid you might not at that, Jack” The barkeep said regretfully, eyeing the dishevelled figure dripping onto his floor.The person – gender being entirely indecipherable at the moment – toddled up to the empty seat on my right. From a distance the figure resembled nothing more than a parti-colored drumstick, but on closer inspection it appeared to be wrapped in many different layers of colorful blankets, ending in a pair of garish hose, one leg a bright fuschia and the other a blinding chartreuse. The blankets, layered haphazardly, represented almost every color I could name. The outermost had been entirely encrusted with snow when the person had entered, but was rapidly melting, creating a dripping, sodden effect over the entire mass.“Inkeep!” A mellifluous tenor intoned, “I demand a room for the night.” The man then began unwinding the wadded padding from his torso, letting them drop wetly to the floor. I watched with horrified fascination as the newly unencumbered gentleman (for that was obviously the correct modifier for both gender and class) revealed himself to be wearing a fully parti-colored suit of those two offensive colors, replete with an enormous and similarly divided codpiece.I realized I was staring at the man’s codpiece, snapped my mouth closed, and quickly buried my face in my whiskey.Bertrand the innkeep seemed almost equally flustered and was in the middle of his third survey of the man’s outfit when he finally managed to weakly say, “Full up I’m afraid, sir, but you can kip in the common room with Jack here if you like?” He smiled at me apologetically.The newcomer glanced at me dismissively and pronounced “That will not do, at all good sir, as you see, I am a very important playwright, and I have come to this stifling backwater to research my new project, a biographical study on the famous criminal Jemis Greenwing.” My blood ran cold. “I could not possibly sleep in a common room as I would be immediately overcome by the adoration of my many fans.” He glanced appreciatively around the room, where everyone was indeed looking at him, though hard stares and dark muttering was not what I usually called ‘adoration’. He continued, unfazed, “You will have of course heard of my previous work, Three Years Gone, wherein I detail the heinous acts of Mad Jack Greenwing. You will be happy to hear that the deeds of the scion are even more scandalous and deranged than his ancestor!” The barkeep looked at me with wide, terrified eyes, I gave a minute shake of my head, best to hear everything this idiot had to say before I did anything about it. “That’s right, good sir, you have the paramount honor of hosting the unmatched skill and unparalleled talent of Jack Lindsary himself!” This last was said with a great oratory flourish, followed by a bow with many suspiciously familiar hand motions, and yes, I nearly laughed aloud, a heel click. What would this man say if he knew he was copying the etiquette stylings of my scandalous and deranged scion? The flourish and bow were obviously intended to be met with applause, and the ringing silence (an auditory condition almost unheard of in the Green Dragon) seemed to genuinely confuse the horrible fop.Bertrand blinked several times, first at Jack Lindsary, then at me, and back again. Finally he found his courage and firmly reiterated, “Sorry sir, we’re full up. It’s the common room or nothing. And begging your pardon, but the Greenwings are customers and friends and I won’t be hearing aught ill of them.”Lindsary perked up at once, bent to rummage through the damp and discarded bedclothes, emerging a moment later with a leather satchel, from which he extricated a writing kit. He quickly set up a page of notes, quill, and ink across the bar in front of both of us, wetted the tip of the quill and held it expectantly over his page. “You know Jemis Greenwing? Please, you must tell me everything!”Bertrand looked askance at the paper, shot another pleading look towards me, and then wandered off towards the kitchen muttering about stew.“I know the Greenwings.” I said as cheerfully as I could manage. “What would you like to know?”“Oh, perfect!” He crowed, “That innkeep seemed to lack the critical intelligence I need for my first person accounts of the Greenwing family’s crimes.”“Oh, undoubtedly,” I agreed affably.“Firstly, how long have you known Jemis Greenwing?”“His entire life.”“Oh fantastic! And did you know Mad Jack as well?”“Indeed I did, and still do, also for his entire life.”Lindsary looked at me confusedly. “Sir, you seem to be implying that Major Greenwing is still alive, but I’m sorry to say that he’s quite dead.”I leaned forward conspiratorially, “He’s come back, again.”Lindsary’s eyebrows quirked, and his mouth made a sharp pout. We were both leaning in, faces quite close. “Sir, are you trying to throw me off the scent through some sort of misplaced loyalty? We are discussing the most nefarious of criminals, and everyone on the continent surely knows that Mad Jack Greenwing tragically killed himself after returning three years after his great betrayal at the battle of Loe to find his wife taken up with another man!”“The New Salon reported he’s back just last week.” I said with a wide grin. Jemis and I had had a great deal of fun reading the newspaper together and laughing. What a joy he was.Lindsary turned back to the bar, “I say Innkeep!” He shouted lustily, “Have you the New Salon?” He turned back to me and added in a whisper, “I usually never miss an issue, but I’ve been travelling over hill and dale, experiencing all sort of tribulations these last weeks, I cannot begin to tell you how intolerably incompetent the drivers of my wagon train were, they should be criminally charged.” In short order Bertrand returned with my stew and the newspaper. I accepted the bowl with my best twinkling smile, he shook his head and stalked off muttering.The waterlogged playwright shook out the paper atop his writing implements, further encroaching on my space so that I had to pick up the bowl, or lose it beneath the paper. The headline printed across the top read “RESURRECTION RUNS IN THE FAMILY”. Lindsary gasped. A very peaceful couple hours followed as I finished my stew, and then another warm whiskey, and Lindsary read the newest issue from end to end, followed by the second, third and fourth newest issues which he had apparently also missed, and which detailed the veracity of Jemis and Perry’s sainthoods, the excoriation of the Indrillines, and many and sundry falsehoods. By the time he completed his reading, and a fair amount of dramatic moping, the common room had all but cleared out, I was deep in a conversation with a crofter from Yellton about the price of seed since the bad business in Orio City had started, and Bertrand was calling for last orders.When the crofter downed the last of his brew and stumbled off towards the stairs I turned back to find that Lindsary and I were now entirely alone in the common room, and that he had wilted on his bar stool like a particularly ugly wildflower.“Find what you were looking for?” I asked pleasantly. I did not, as a rule, enjoy other peoples’ misery, but all rules have exceptions.“Jemis Greenwing is a Saint? Jack Greenwing is alive? And not only is he alive, but apparently, with sworn testimony by General Halioren himself, he’s the hero of Loe, not the traitor. Furthermore, they’re accusing my patron of any number of things, absolutely none of which I was aware of in the slightest, racketeering, bribery, smuggling, a drug empire? Really, I’m not certain what to believe.”“Normally I don’t hold the New Salon as a paragon of journalistic integrity, but I do happen to know that all of those statements, at least, are true. Well, that’s to say the sainthood is rather odd, but as far as I understand it I suppose he actually is at that.” I stood up and stretched. Bertrand, good as his word, had laid two pallets in front of the fire for us. It was a large hearth, but even so, to maximize warmth there was little more than a foot of space between them. “Do you still plan to write a play about Jemis?” I asked with feigned disintrest.“How could I? Public opinion seems to have shifted entirely in his favor. Viscount St. Noire, honestly, who could have imagined? I think I met him now that I think of it, in Orio City before he escaped from the prison. Now that would make an exciting play. Here, you said you know him, do you think he’d talk to me about it?”I looked at Lindsary in a mild state of shock. Did this man have no common sense or understanding of honor? “I… think he’s planning on publishing a monograph about it, I’m sure you could read that.”“Oh, no, that won’t do at all. Tomorrow you must take me to see him, and convince him that I’m the only one who can save his unfortunately damaged reputation.”“Wasn’t it you who damaged it?”“Definitely don’t say that to him! Unfortunately, I spent most of my advance for The Runner Runs on this benighted expedition, but I can offer you a 1% share of the proceeds from this new work to compensate you for your help! Think about it, it could be very lucrative.”This was, apparently, where I stopped feeling entertained by the situation.“I think tomorrow you should leave Ragnor Barony, Mr. Lindsary, and certainly never come back.” I delivered in the cold, hard tone I used to address the enemy. “Furthermore, if you ever threaten to write anything about Jemis Greenwing again I will personally bury you in lawsuits so that you never enjoy a single penny of your proceeds again.”Lindsary prickled. “I’m not sure that I caught your name sir.” He said haughtily.“It’s Jack.”He snorted, “It seems we have a surfeit of Jacks of late, have you a surname?”“Greenwing.”For the second time that evening the common room of the Green Dragon was utterly silent. A log popped in the fire and Lindsary jumped.“You intentionally misled me.” He hissed.“You wrote a play based on me that was entirely libelous.” I rejoined.“I had reason to believe otherwise!”“You had funding to believe otherwise!”“So what if I did? I’m good at what I do and I deserved a break, and I got one! Are you honestly upset with me for following my passion?”“I’m mildly disgusted with you for writing a play that you didn’t properly research or verify. I’m upset with you for your lack of compassion towards real people whose lives you extort to line your pockets. I’m furious with you for every moment you have made my son feel ashamed of himself or his family.” I delivered this last at a volume that was almost certainly audible by every resident of the inn. I’m sure they had been waiting for it.Lindsary stared at me, mouth agape, sodden frippery hanging from him in unbecoming swags, and suddenly burst into tears. I stood frozen, unable to reconcile a grown man who I had only ever scorned noisily sobbing in front of me. Well, good. I toed off my boots and arranged my possessions along one edge of one of the pallets, dimmed the lantern wicks around the room and then climbed into bed, my back resolutely towards the other pallet and the intolerable popinjay.Sometime later the messy hitching of Lindsary’s breath calmed to a low panting hiccup and I heard an uncomfortable slurping and sucking sound followed by a sickening thwap. I couldn’t stand it and chanced a look. Ah, of course, he was attempting to undress himself but he was so thoroughly soaked it wasn’t going well. I burrowed again into my pillow, closing my eyes.The sounds continued, punctuated now and then by very pathetic sighs.“Would you like some help?” I asked, annoyance obvious in my tone.“No. Thank you.”“It’s just that you’re incredibly noisy and I would like to sleep at some point tonight.”“Perhaps I shall just sleep in my wet things then, I wouldn’t dare disturb your precious rest!” He stomped towards the hearth. I rolled my eyes and got out of bed.“If you sleep in those wet cold things today you’re likely to make yourself sick, and you’re even more likely to freeze to death tomorrow. Let me help.” I said, reaching for one of his cuffs. He hiccuped and allowed me to pull on his garments while he twisted out of them.We managed to divest him of shirt and undershirt in this way and I realized I had made a tactical error. The codpiece was tied to the hose. It would need to come off first. He definitely needed help with the hose. I wondered if I shouldn’t let him sleep in them wet after all… Lindsary seemed to come to the same realization that I had and padded softly to the bar, leaned over, grabbed a bottle and two glasses, then padded back.“Perhaps a nightcap before we’re entirely ready to turn in?” He asked, sloshing four fingers of whiskey into each glass. “After all, if one can’t drink to losing one’s life’s work and defeating one’s enemy what can one drink to?” He passed me a glass, clinked his against mine sloppily, and then downed half of it. Hell, why not? I joined him.We drank our first glass quickly, in near silence. The awkwardness of our compulsive acquaintance was difficult to overcome, but whiskey is a very compelling beverage. We were on our second glass, and Lindsary was animated, explaining the vagaries of the Oriolan theater circuit, which I wasn’t sure was what I had meant when I asked how he even got Three Years Gone made. He reached for his satchel to retrieve a program he had stashed there when he overbalanced, catching the strap on his foot, and the entire bag emptied in the gap between our pallets. A deck of Poacher cards sat on top of the pile.“You play poacher?” I asked, very casually.“I’ve been known to dabble.” He said, batting his eyes in a way that informed me he both did know how to play and was entirely unaware of the deeper game. Well, at least I would score a true victory against him, and perhaps see some of his soul in the process.“Care for a game?”“Certainly, but I haven’t a thing to wager,” He paused for a moment, feigning thought, then exclaimed, “Ah! But we could wager our clothing! It seems I’ve already paid my ante, Mr. Greenwing, your turn.” He shuffled and dealt the cards while I removed my shirt and undershirt.I tracked his eyes as they lit on my scars. The coy playfulness he had landed on evaporated into a more serious mood. “Are those from Loe?” he asked quietly.“No.” I said, unwilling to give him any more information about myself or my family. He poured us each another whiskey, and we began.The game was short, but not disappointing. There was none of the syrupy feeling of cartomancy in the air as there was with Jemis, but Poacher never failed to reveal what was in a player’s heart.Jack Lindsary, it would seem, was entitled, opportunistic, and morally flexible. He was also forthright, creatively talented, and wildly curious. Furthermore, he was in the later stages of wireweed withdrawal, a condition I wouldn’t have spotted before my recent education on the symptoms in the mind.Between the drink and these revelations, I found it difficult to maintain my icy indifference. By the end of the game – which was a jolly kind of rout filled with very tall tales indeed, Jack was a mediocre player but a superlative storyteller – we were both laughing so hard we kept falling over onto our respective pallets (it never occurred to us to move to a table). Finally, our hands laid out, it was clear that I had won by a great deal. Lindsary smiled coyly again, leaned back on his elbows and shimmied his hips.“I’m going to need your assistance after all, Mr. Greenwing.” He said in a new sultry tone of voice that went directly to both of my heads.We had had quite a bit to drink at this point, and though a small part of my head was screaming at me to stop and think, I found my hands grabbing onto his hips, and dragging him forward to the edge of the pallet. He rearranged his long legs on either side of my body, dropped onto his back and began to unlace the codpiece. His angle was such that it was difficult for him to see his own hands, and his whiskey-addled fingers weren’t making much headway. I batted his hands away and quickly unlaced the ties, pulling the triangle of padded fabric down to reveal a perky erection.Lindsary giggled, “Go on then Jack, claim your forfeit.” He moved his foot into my lap and pressed it into my groin, rubbing against my own stiffened length. “Or maybe you want to finish unwrapping me first?”It turned out I did. I flipped him onto his stomach in one motion, then gripped the waist of his hose and peeled them off his ass, pulling wet fabric and pushing against his chilled skin until the inverted garment was finally free of the man. He was panting, on his hands and knees, ass stuck prettily in the air for me.I wiggled out of my trousers and thermal hose, stopping to marvel at the fact that he had walked a mile through that snow with nearly bare legs, perhaps he wasn’t as soft as he appeared. I ran my hands over his hips, palmed his cheeks, thumbed the line of his cleft. I was drunk. Potentially embarrassingly so. This man was not a friend, not a lover, not anything other than…“You can slap me.” He said, looking back over his shoulder.“What?” My thoughts were slow and spiraling.“You can spank me, while you’re back there, if you want. You have reason to, honestly.”“Do you want that?”“If you’re asking if I’d enjoy it then yes.”I blinked. It had been quite some time since I had been intimate with anyone. Before the galley, before Loe even. My prick was hard and heavy and wanting, and this man who I would happily never see again was obviously willing.I slapped him, hard, against both cheeks. He drew in a sharp breath and let out a little sigh. A sigh? He really enjoyed it?“Again?”“Don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with Major, but I don’t mind a little roughhousing.” I vaguely remembered, before Olive, before war and exile and enslavement, some very fun roughhousing.I slapped him again, eliciting another sharp sound, and again, and again. Each crack of my open palm on his reddening buttocks increased the pitch of his exclamations. I hit him until my palm stung and he was panting and squirming and telling me filthy things he wanted me to do to him. None of those distant memories had been this rough, I had never had sex like this before. I was aching, and raw and I wanted to do them too, I did.“In my bag, the ceramic pot,” he gasped between little cries of pain and pleasure. I reached down and found the pot. I opened the lid to find a slick salve that I recognized. I took a generous portion into my hands, rubbing them together as I surveyed Lindsary’s body, considering my next maneuver. We hadn’t prepared for this in any way and I didn’t think I could be gentle and intimate enough to be inside him. He had excellent thighs though.I stroked my prick with slick fingers, groaning at how good it felt. I pressed my other hand between his thighs and coated them liberally with the salve, reaching forward to fondle his sack and tease his prick. He convulsed and made a beautiful sound of wanting. I pressed the length of my prick along his cleft, jutting my hips roughly against his bruised cheeks as I leaned down over him to growl in his ear. “Knees together Lindsary, tight as you can.” He obeyed my command with satisfying alacrity.I centered myself behind him again, upright on my knees. Guiding myself with one hand and his hips with the other I pressed my aching prick between his slick thighs and thrust wetly against him. The head of my prick nudged his sack and he moaned with pleasure. I put my other hand on his hip so I could thrust forward and pull him hard against me at the same time. Sliding in and out between his thighs, pulling him on and off of my throbbing prick, slamming my hips against his aching ass, I set a rapid, insistent rhythm.He moaned and shrieked and said “Yes, yes, yesyesyesyes!” as I fucked him. I lost myself in the sensation of it. I forgot where I was and when. I was only my body and the pulsing pleasure and the whiskey in my blood, and the pounding in my ears, and the violent sounds of our coupling. I forgot who he was, why it mattered, all of the self conscious conspiracy of our animosity fell away before the rhythmic pounding of my dick between his thighs. He tensed below me and made a low guttural sound as he spent on the sheets of his pallet. I thrust into him for another minute, claiming him utterly, before I followed and burst across his thighs.We collapsed together. I laid on top of him panting, draining, relearning the world around me. He found my hand with his, and wrapped our fingers together, pulling our entwined hands to his mouth for a kiss. It’s possible we slept for a time, in the fuzzy afterglow of something I could not quite bring myself to call lovemaking.Eventually my head began to clear. I stood and took his hose to hang them above the fire. I then went and fetched his shirt and undershirt, and the sodden mass of blankets that were still piled next to his chair and hung or draped them all around the hearth to dry. When I finished I turned to find him watching me.“Why did you do that?” He asked.“You really will catch your death tomorrow if you only have wet clothes.” I said gruffly, uncomfortable with our sudden turn towards sincerity, and simultaneously realizing I was a touch unsteady on my feet.“Why do you care? I was awful to you.”“You thought I was dead,” I said, smiling, “You were awful to my son, but I don’t think you necessarily meant to be.”“I didn’t care about him, I just wanted the money.”“I know.”“You shouldn’t care about me either.”“Hush,” I kissed him. It was sweet and deep and tasted of whiskey and smoke.