Barkins grabbed Delvish's arm with an iron grip and pulled him across the tavern floor. Rather than resist, Delvish remained as calm and limp as he had been moments before, when he had been sitting alone in the dark with his drunkenness. Barkin's three compatriots crowded around him, grabbing him around the neck and limbs, and they hustled him out of the tavern into the rainy night. Charlon shouted something about payment, but Delvish and the men were already in the back of a covered wagon and heading quickly down the road before the matter could be resolved. One of the men was up front driving the horse and the other three were in the back, packed tight around Delvish, holding fast to him, as if he remotely possessed the strength or agility to make any sort of escape.
The old wagon lurched and rumbled along the old dirt road, and Delvish thought of sleeping in his bed at the inn, a once dreary proposition now keenly desirable. In the jostling darkness, the men around him muttered angry questions and accusations, but he brushed them off with a few well-worn aphorisms about patience and forgiveness.
Soon the wagon came to a stop and Delvish was dragged back out into the rain. Before him stood a large barn, its walls festooned with flowers, its interior flooded with light, looking much the same as it had when he left it a few hours previous.
"Well, do you remember this place?" Barkins demanded.
"Ah, I believe I stopped here for a moment to ask directions to the nearest inn. Was this the site of your Turnip festival?"
"Indeed."
"Ah, then the whole misunderstanding is revealed. I stopped by here for a brief moment and must have inadvertently interrupted your festival. My deepest apologies. Once I am returned to my inn, and I will back a solemn vow not to repeat this very trivial and understandable mistake."
"It was said that you were here much longer than a brief moment. You were here for hours, inciting all manner of revelries."
"Hmm... Time can be so subjective."
"Tell me, bard, if you were here just a moment, how were you able to make such an impression on our maidens? Why are they in such a state of excitement?"
"Maidens are prone to excitement. We need look for no reason beyond the fact that they are maidens."
"You weren't at any time playing your enchanted lute?"
"I don't recall that. Have you considered the idea that these maidens became excited for a different reason altogether?"
"And what would that be?"
Delvish straightened himself out and again sucked in his wine-bloated belly. "Well, I am a man of remarked-upon stature and grace. While I have not personally noticed it, others have said my eyes possess a certain sensitive allure. Their color has been liken to the ghostly mists over a morning's ocean."
Barkins looked at him with the hard, humorless eyes of a lifelong farmer. "And so what do you mean?" he asked slowly.
"Perhaps, quite inadvertently, my physical gifts caused a--"
"Absurd," Barkins shouted, and yanked Delvish toward the barn.
A moment later they burst through the doors into the barn proper, which was lit by several chandeliers and other innumerable candles and populated by mostly maidens but also a few older folk, all of which turned and gaped at Delvish as he was pushed into the crowded place.
"Here is our scoundrel!" Barkins announced. "We found him at the tavern. You could expect."
Under the hideous gaze of the crowd, Delvish smoothed his ruffled cloak down and adopted a detached, nonchalant pose.
A flutter of whispers rose up from a cluster of young women in the center of the room. They stared at Delvish with glittering eyes.