He walked up to the shed and called out, “Harry? You still got a room at that table?”
The chestnut haired man popped his head out and exclaimed, “Mayn! You got back alive! How was it in there? Come in, come in!” Ushering Maynard inside, he closed the door to the shed and pulled out a spare chair. Unwilling to let the hospitality go to waste, Maynard sat down, put out his lamp, and sighed.
“I honestly don’t know if it was the vibe of the place, or me just jumping at shadows from the rumours, but I feel less sane for going down there. You all had the right idea by staying up here,” he said, nodding at each member of the group at the table. Including Harry, four other men sat at the table. They were all obviously miners, but they had cleaned up enough that they would not stain the varying sized piles of money that they had in front of them. The man who sat to Harry’s right held the smallest pile and his face was incredibly bitter about the situation, but all he could do was rub the odd stone in his hand and attempt to win things back. The other two seemed to be far happier about the whole ordeal, with their piles of small coins being the highest with very little difference between the two. A small, worn deck of cards sat in the middle of the table and immediately attracted Maynard’s attention. “What are we playing then?”
“Twenty-one,” said the man at the far end of the table, “I’m Fred by the way.”
“I’m Oliver,” said the man next to him, “You gonna’ be playing?”
“I just got paid in shillings and have nothing smaller on me, so if you’re willing to accept me buying in with that, then yeah,” Maynard replied, “Oh! I’m Mayn.”
“Y’hear that? Lad gets paid in bob for going down into our mine for two hours. Rich people have more money than sense, I swear,” Harry said with a laugh.
“Better him than me,” the last man replied. “You couldn’t pay me anything less than a guinea to go in there at night, especially not into the cordoned off areas. I’m Will.”
“Nice to meet you all.”
“And you,” said Oliver, “You can buy in with a bob, sure, It’ll just make the games more interesting.”
“I don’t intend to lose this time,” growled Will.
“I believe that’s the idea of gambling, yes,” Maynard said before thinking I should have probably not said that to someone I just met… Fortunately, his fears were brushed aside when Harry barked with laughter.
“You have no idea, Mayn. Will’s luck swings harder than a church bell, and he’s been losing for a month of Sundays as of late.”
“Alright, how about this? I’ll use my shilling to buy in, but we’ll count it as half that. If I win, I take the pot out and keep my shilling, and if I lose then I’ll just take the excess from my buy in and the winner keeps my shilling. That way we don’t have to raise the blinds too high and I’ll get some smaller coin denominations to play more evenly with you guys.”
The three men nodded at Maynard’s suggestion as he set out four shilling coins in front of them. “So you’re saying your shilling will stand in for sixpence then? You are a rich lad, huh?” Will asked with a growl, “Sounds good.”
As Oliver nodded in agreement, they threw their coins into the middle of the small table and Harry dealt out two cards to each of them. Maynard glanced around at his competitors before looking at his hand. With a five of clubs and a six of diamonds Maynard’s hand had potential, but it would take one of the sixteen ten-value cards in the deck for him to win the pot.
Harry turned to Oliver and asked, “Another card, or are you revealing?”
“Another card,” Oliver replied. Harry slid a card across the table and Oliver looked at it. He paused for a while and made a clicking sound before continuing, “And another”. Harry slid a second card across the table and the moment Oliver looked at it he frowned slightly. “I’ll keep these and raise the pot thruppence”.
Oliver passed a smaller coin into the pile and flipped over his four cards revealing a nine, a four, a two and a three for eighteen. Seeing the revealed hand, Harry nodded and Will grimaced. Maynard raised his fist to cover his mouth and thought, Four cards I don’t want out of the deck which means likelihood of victory is at sixteen out of forty-eight instead of fifty-two. One in three cards will let me reach twenty-one.
“Will?” Harry asked.
“Gimme’ one card. I don’t think I can handle more than that”. Harry nodded and slid a card across. The moment Will glanced at it, he smiled and threw in a larger coin, saying, “Pot’s now a shilling, so you won’t need to take your coin back. You’ll have to beat twenty though”. He flipped his hand over, revealing a four, a five, and an ace.
Maynard nodded, but Harry sighed, “You’re supposed to put the extra pot in before you play, not after you get your hand. My turn though.” After putting another sixpence coin into the pot Harry drew a card, glanced at Will, drew a second card and swore, flipping his hand over to reveal two sixes and two sevens. “Bust,” he said with another sigh.
Instantly all eyes turned to Maynard. He tapped the shilling in the pot to signify him paying in, and then glanced at his cards again. Sixteen out of forty-one. I have roughly a forty percent chance of drawing one of the cards I want, so I guess It’s time to test my luck. “I’ll take a card,” he said and watched as the top card of the deck slid across the table at him. He grabbed it and smiled, before looking at Will. “Sorry,” he said with a chuckle, before revealing a six, a five, and a jack. “Twenty-one.”
Will uttered a guttural growl before slamming the stone in his hand into the table. For the first time, Maynard got a proper look at the stone and realised it was an odd crystalline die. At first, it did not seem that impressive, but looking at it for a moment longer let Maynard notice an aura about the die that was similar to that of the shield he had found. Rather than it being obviously important, there was simply something in its nature that made him feel the need to prioritise it.
After Will’s outburst, they all threw their money into the new pot and Maynard was handed the cards. He quickly shuffled his deck and dealt out the hands before looking at his own. Like this the rounds continued over the next hour. For the most part, Maynard won more than he lost, but by the time it began to rain he had joined Will on the losing side of the table. Hand after hand went out, currency changed hands, but the only thing that was consistent was Will’s rage increasing with the weight of the weather. With each lost round, Will looked angrier and angrier at the die until finally he threw it into the pot in place of his last sixpence.
“That cost me a bob, so it can at least stand in place of my buy in. Perhaps one of you will have better luck with it, because I’m havin’ none.”
“You sure, Will?” Harry asked, “You’ve had that die for as long as I’ve known you.”
“And I’ve done next to nothing but lose for the last two weeks. It’s obviously not working, and I’m not gonna have an earth bath penniless”. With his last phrase, Will slashed across his neck with his thumb, miming a slit throat, before staring at Maynard. “Go on then, deal in.”
