"Did you hear?"
He sat up blearily from his place on the table, trying not to think about pain and its variety of definitions. The warbling haze of his eyesight settled on Mirabelle, who's delicate fingers were wrapped snugly about the edges of a paper, fresh off prints and presses. Fresh enough that she had ink staining her fingertips. Such tiny fingertips. Like the pinpoints of quills, touched at the nail with a faint tint of pviolet that he could never quite figure out how she managed to maintain. It matched the supple sheen that stained her lips, which rarely saw a smile or anything but the sardonic these days. Which, he decided right there and then, was a shame. He squinted, flushing tears from his eyes, which he wiped away with what he thought was where his index finger was, but instead seemed to be his wrist. Her bounty of red curls came into view, albeit briefly and he allowed himself a momentary wandering of sights toward the pert flash of pale, pale, palest breast that leaped out above her black leather bodice.
"Giancarlo?" He caught her eyes, side-long down her nose, head tilted aslant, neck curving with the motion to expose a delicate throat of careful cords and slightly open jaws. The pink of her lips pulled back from her teeth in a vague showing of ferality. "My Tits are for customers, Dear."
He grunted, swallowing around some lodged nugget in his throat, head already descending toward the table and the rather comfortable puddle of...something, he'd been using for a pillow. His eyes slipped shut, the light tickle of floating hair sending a hum past his throat and through his nasal cavity. It rippled his tiny pillow pond and he smiled almost dreamily.
"Giancarlo-" He winced slightly, which disrupted his ripples. He could feel her gaze settling on him then. The one thing about all good Harlots was their penchant for letting you know when you had their attention. Gaining yours was not so much a talent as it was expected and Mirabelle had a thousand different methods, not all of them pleasant, to gather up his attentions quite quickly. At this very moment, she was employing a rather patient stare that spoke more volumes than were coming out of her bodice.
He decided that today would be the day he would ignore such things. Defy the common rule and response. He feigned a soft snore into his puddle.
And for a few blissful seconds, it was the only sound available to his ears. Excepting of course, the various low-life mutterences from the surrounding patrons of the bar they were in. He had made it a point not to look at much when they had entered, simply told Mirabelle that he wanted someplace dark, dank and all together discontinuous with the remainder of civilization. She had found something called Il Resto Chioccia, in a part of Venice that he was fairly sure did not exist in any other state but when thoroughly drunk. Or engaged in business of a most lewd nature, as Mirabelle often was.
For those few precious seconds, however, he found he could think about nothing and know a sense of happiness.
"Giancarlo!" The shriek came about his ear, a feathering touch combined with a hell-piercing pitch and topped off with the clapping of that dainty hand into his puddle, the sharp inhale snorting long streams of stale beer into his nasal cavity, where it did it's level best to drown him over the span of a half minute. Mirabelle remained nearby, calmly returning her attentions to the paper in her hands, which she perused most fastidiously. Of the other patrons, none had been disturbed from their own stupors by her clarion.
He finally recovered enough to lean his elbows on the table, hands wrapped around the back of his head and ears hugged to his wrists. He groaned out something foul and, thankfully, unintelligible to which she offered a soft snort, the sort reserved for ladies.
"Welcome back. I'm quite sure whatever business you were hoping to pay for tonight, did not account sleep." He grumbled again, a little more coherently or...perhaps simply more heated. Enough at least to get her attention, which came very close to his tucked in arms, which only cinched tighter about his head at her proximity. She whispered. He heard her anyway. He hated that.
"Do you find yourself wondering sometimes about just what sort of life led you to this? How it is you came to preside over such a storm of Merda that would place you firmly at war with your own memories? At war and losing I might add, if your state of mind and body-" She slapped at the pouch of a gut he carried out front of him, not gently "-is any indication. Really, I had thought you might have found, in all these years, some better way of coping with your sad upkeep of a life.”
He kept his eyes closed and his arms where they were, listening to her breathing softly near the outside of his wrist. He gripped his molars to one another, as hard as he could, listening to the enamel grate by fractions of inches. It seemed to last forever, but only a moment later and she was leaning back in her chair, one leg over the other, the stretching groan of sashaying petticoats, cut just short of immodesty, drifting out across her thighs, tattered here or there for invitation’s sake. The paper was once more in her grasp and she returned to studying it’s writings with inquisitive attention.
He eventually came up for air, a loud gasping inhale that shot his eyes wide open. He blinked several times without recognition of his surroundings, before the blurry promise of the bar counter and the stout and sleeping mountain of a keeper and felt a sudden and powerful urge for a new drink.
Someone had gone and spilled his last one, rather unkindly, the excess dripping down the side of his face.
“Are you ready to hear the news then?”
He answered with a loud scraping of chair legs, pushed back along the floorboards. He near, threw himself to his feet, steadying with planted hands on the table they were sharing. The motion was repeated, throwing himself into forward motion in hopes of picking up enough momentum to strike the bar’s top-most fourth and fifth feet of height with arms across it, rather than into the thick oaken paneling that made up it’s lower First to Third feet.
He heard Mirabelle clear her throat, that oh so pleasant voice reaching out toward him even at a distance, tickling his ear as if she had followed along in his footsteps.
““Tragic are these times, we live in” says Arturo Mezzino, chief publisher and scribe for these our-” She paused, the paper ruffling sharply “-Chronicles of the Canal. “That we are chosen to receive such appalling description as transpired not a night ago.””
He struck the bar at some point around description, sprawling desperately as his momentum caught up to and surpassed his co-ordination. His arms and chin and neck caught most of the force, a spittle laced cough spraying the bar as he doubled up and over the wood, in search of his gag reflex and a working pair of lungs.
“”The Family Eisler of Austrian descent, around Steiermark, found themselves born of what could only be the Devil’s very own hand. Some call foul magics and others claim the Untested Sciences as the culprit, but the tragic shortening of Sir Bernhardt Eisler of the Aus-...Aues-”...I’m beginning to think our would be occupiers came up with a language so vastly difficult, as to ward off any would be conquerors who could not realize it was a Country. “-...Some Austrian Military presence I don’t care to try and pronounce any longer, remains a mystery even at this time. What is known are the strange and haunting calamity that bled through our Fair streets within the City, rousing many from the night’s ablutions to find a temporary lunacy plaguing the lanes and bridges. Normal citizenry were turned to hysteric animals and the Constabulary were called nearly to a man, to apprehend and calm much of the seemingly unhinged collective that had witnessed Sir Eisler’s unpleasant demise.”
He didn’t remember ordering anything over Mirabelle’s description and voice but at some point, a tankard was set into place between his out-stretched arms, his eyes bleeding open to regard the mountain of a Barkeep who was staring at him with one good eye and a tongue prodding the inside of one cheek. He made a note to burp an .apology and began the long interlude to pick himself back up and prepare for the return trip. This would take some care as the contents of the mug were precious and spilling would not be acceptable.
He heard the door creak open as more bodies shuffled in from the afternoon sun, a cluster of voices suddenly muted and dull under Mirabelle’s continuing description.
“”The Doctorate and Apothecarian Guild have been put on standing notice by the Austrian Dignity, putting to rights all those minds present at the unfortunate event who suffered visual trauma” Hah! How much you want to wager the only minds on that list are those within the Aut-community. “Meanwhile, the hunt continues for those witnesses as yet to be apprehended for consideration and assistance-” Now isn’t that just tragic to hear, Giancarlo?”
He climbed to a standing position, both hands wrapped around the heavy tankard, his gaze finding the frothy surface and then- Aha! Lightning! He put a hand over the top of the Tankard, grinning at the genius of it. The voices by the door and the boots they belonged to, were moving through the bar now, loudly and with purpose. Heavy set steps, the sort of authority one wore on a belt and a vest.
“Giancarlo.”
He grunted, nodding his swaying thanks to the Barkeep.
“Have you been paying attention to what I’ve been saying?”
He soured his expression with his back still turned, slightly fearful of her reaction should she catch it, though he had no way of knowing if she possessed some feminine method of identification even without line of sight-
“I can see you in the mirror, Giancarlo. Hardly charming.”
He winced and cursed (‘Merda’) beneath his breath, tonguing around the inside of his sticky mouth (when was the last time he had any water?) before allowing a sigh to escape. He looked up into the mirror to give Mirabelle a rather frank sort of stare, only to discover she was no longer alone at their table.
The men around her wore the livery of the Military collective of Austria. Occupiers one and all, each bearing a waxed moustache to keep with the times, each slightly different in colour or thickness than his fellows. Their garments were long sleeveless coats, trimmed gold and colour a naval blue, while the simple rectangularly askew hats atop their heads spoke of an authority he couldn’t quite get up the muster to respect. He did a quick check of their numbers (four at the back, two on either side of Mirabelle, one standing out and directly up front) and found that they’d brought enough of a compliment to be expecting trouble and a Lieutenant alongside who’s sour expression said this was less a duty and more of a punishment for some mishap or other.
“Signore Giancarlo Baptiste Luardo?”
He grunted at the mirror, their reflections doing much to peel away whatever authoritative airs they may have wanted to present. Mirabelle piped in with a casual tug of one of the nearby soldiers. He watched the man glance down, catching a full eyed view down the generous and perfectly positioned fulsome of her pushed up cleavage, while she spoke in some low husk.
“That’s Bernado, Dear.” A pause from her, eyes casting glances without a hint of a curled lip, toward the Soldier’s nethers and back. “And your accent is atrocious.”
Who, thankfully, did not understand what she was saying and took cues more from her flirtatious expressions and gestures, than anything else. His veneer of professional militancy cracked just slightly, a brow perking and a slight flicker of a smile coming to one corner of his lips.
He repressed the urge to roll his eyes, least the Lieutenant’s reflection suddenly become firm. Well...firmer, than it happened to be. He cleared his throat, leaning forward against the bar, mug hovering before his jaw, a sudden stability creeping into his movements as the cold hand of sobriety found it’s way into his brain and tongue. He wasn’t sure if that was a gift or curse, but felt no need to dissuade the reflex.
“Sono interessata a ciò che la comunità Austriaca ha richiamato i problemi con questo o qualsiasi altro giorno fino alla fine della mia sospensione, signore.” He drained half of the mug he’d been given, glancing at the Barkeep as he did, who was gauging him in return, rubbery lips puffed out in a slightly confused and fearful frown.
The Austrian Lieutenant stood at stiff attention, not bothering to speak. His soldiers glanced at one another absently, then back to their commanding officer. He took another sip of the beer, licking froth from off his moustache, sucking on the tips to get at each drop. He heard Mirabelle offer a sigh and repressed a smirk.
“I believe what Signore Bernado is trying to say, Gentleman? Is Er ist auf Urlaub. So lassen ihn allein.”
To which he finally turned around to stare quizzically, brow furrowed, lips peeled back in a slight smile of surprised. Mirabelle turned her attention toward him, one well sculpted brow perked, the newspaper on the table before her, hands primly set one over the other, to touch those dainty fingertips to the table. She fluttered her lashes with expert ease.
“A lady needs to know many languages, if she’s to assure all men of their adequacies, Giancarlo.”
It was the Lieutenant’s turn to clear his throat, with none of the put on airs of accident. A purely attention grabbing gesture, that had him step forward smartly, hard heeled boots clacking against the floorboards. Their uniforms were stiff, their attire, entirely ceremonial and though fit for duty, he imagined it would make them poor runners. A man could play hide and seek with them for ages in Venice’s tight corridors.
The Lieutenant thrust out a hand, within it, a neatly folded piece of parchment with an Austrian Seal on it’s lip. He reached out gingerly to pluck it from the Lieutenant’s hand, a wariness creeping into his system, even as the tinkling silver of Mirabelle’s laughter, hardly humoured or humourous, drifted in with a guess.
“Methinks, Giancarlo, my love of loves, your vacation is over.”
He pulled back the seal, to flip the page open, the stationary mark of Paulo Marzetti, Chief of Venice’s Constabulary and his Commanding Officer within the immediate vicinity leaping out to at him before word one of anything. It told him all he needed to know, but did the Lieutenant the courtesy of reading it through.
His head was shaking and his smile was gone by the time he got to the end of the page, Mirabelle’s laughter suddenly growing in volume until she was teetering in her chair, proud bosom capturing the attention of no less than four of the six men who walked through the doors. He ignored her, folding the letter over and slipping it into one ragged pant pocket.
The Lieutenant glanced at his face, scrutinizing for some sign of trouble or concern before, with some hidden glimpse of satisfaction, he turned on his heel and marched toward the door without another word, his soldiers dragged in his wake by the chain of authority attached to each. Several lingered a little longer on Mirabelle’s breasts, but eventually, the pair were left to the Bar again. By themselves, it would seem, as most of the other patrons had decided to flee rather than face down the Austrians themselves.
“My Poor Giancarlo. Just when you believe you are free to obliterate yourself? They go asking you to be proper again.”
He sneered across at her. That brought a fresh round of lush mirth.
“Fanculo!”
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Murder most Nights 2 BY ME
"Was it you?"
His voice behind her ear. His hands at her waist. The high-ceilinged room lost in shadow. Gas lights turned low in the sconce by the door, and the red-orange glow of a slowly dying fire in the antique grate. The wood smoked for hours before the damp was burned out of it, so the air smelled of soot and bitter myrrh and crushed styrax of sacred incense, and cut through with the sweet, woody musk of ambergris and and artemnesia still clinging to her sweat-damp hair.
"Tighter." She watched the moonlight move across the waters, the dull flicker of lights on Giudecca. Through the half-shaded Arabesque windows, the hum of the city's turbines a low and constant drone. Took a deep breath and braced herself to feel the familiar bite of the metal stays into her skin. "You have to lace them more tightly than that."
Just before sunset the rains had cleared away. Sunlight washed across the horizon as the clouds swept west. The pollution from the belching smokestacks of Mestre on and Malcontenta and Porto Marghera, on the mainland to the east, washed out by the constant rains, and so the sky was briefly clear. The peaks of the Alps visible in the distance capped with snow. The jagged evening light, that living, rose-window glow that enveloped the city gave way to this: a rare, clear, autumnal night. The moon riding the gently rocking waters of the lagoon.
"You Anglish women. You won't be able to breathe."
"We don't breathe. Far too vulgar. We just sip the air."
His laughter was quiet, his voice low. "Let me unlace them." Insinuating, just behind her ear. He wore no more than a dressing gown, the red robes of office strewn across the fainting couch. "Stay the night."
There were lights in the Redentore. Burning through the clerestory of the San Giacomo. And it struck her then that he did not mean Kitty Bridlington, but instead the family in the Campo of St. Ives. The husband. The girl. The atomized in the air. The responsive knot in her stomach uncoiled, then. Inappropriate laughter lodged itself in the back of her throat. She took one breath, then another, to swallow it back, voicelessly.
He took this for invitation. Wrapped his hands around her waist, and bent to lay a gentle kiss on the curve of her bare shoulder. "Well?"
"Don't you have souls of the dead to pray for?" Aspersion in her tone.
"I'm in private contemplation tonight. The wonders of mortality. The fragility of mankind." Mouth drifting along her bare skin; voice a low hum. "Was it you? If it was you, you should confess to me." His hands tightened at her waist, and he pulled her back, against him.
She did not yield.
"The stays, Galaxio."
Nor did he.
"Take the sacrament. Let me pry the iron nails of mortal sin from your tender soul. Save you from the flames of hell." Insistent. "The husband. The child, murdered at prayer."
"Your god, would she really listen to you? Look at all the vows you've shattered this eve alone."
"Your god, too. Converso."
"No." Her tone crisp and clear. "It was not me." Kitty Bridlington's dead blue eyes in the back of her mind. The distorted, bloated corpse surfacing in the blue-green waters of the canal. The wretched, hollow stare of her husband when the Garda called upon him to name her before a magistrate, the sweet scent of decay heavy in the air of that paneled room.
"I do wonder if the girl was really murdered. Or perhaps instead transported somewhere. Still, is this a suspicion you are actually entertaining, Gallo? Do you really believe me capable of cold-blooded murder."
"Mmph." His low laughter, wry, hands slipping from her waist to find the laces of her stays. "Not really. Or, should I say: Only in service to a cause."
His voice behind her ear. His hands at her waist. The high-ceilinged room lost in shadow. Gas lights turned low in the sconce by the door, and the red-orange glow of a slowly dying fire in the antique grate. The wood smoked for hours before the damp was burned out of it, so the air smelled of soot and bitter myrrh and crushed styrax of sacred incense, and cut through with the sweet, woody musk of ambergris and and artemnesia still clinging to her sweat-damp hair.
"Tighter." She watched the moonlight move across the waters, the dull flicker of lights on Giudecca. Through the half-shaded Arabesque windows, the hum of the city's turbines a low and constant drone. Took a deep breath and braced herself to feel the familiar bite of the metal stays into her skin. "You have to lace them more tightly than that."
Just before sunset the rains had cleared away. Sunlight washed across the horizon as the clouds swept west. The pollution from the belching smokestacks of Mestre on and Malcontenta and Porto Marghera, on the mainland to the east, washed out by the constant rains, and so the sky was briefly clear. The peaks of the Alps visible in the distance capped with snow. The jagged evening light, that living, rose-window glow that enveloped the city gave way to this: a rare, clear, autumnal night. The moon riding the gently rocking waters of the lagoon.
"You Anglish women. You won't be able to breathe."
"We don't breathe. Far too vulgar. We just sip the air."
His laughter was quiet, his voice low. "Let me unlace them." Insinuating, just behind her ear. He wore no more than a dressing gown, the red robes of office strewn across the fainting couch. "Stay the night."
There were lights in the Redentore. Burning through the clerestory of the San Giacomo. And it struck her then that he did not mean Kitty Bridlington, but instead the family in the Campo of St. Ives. The husband. The girl. The atomized in the air. The responsive knot in her stomach uncoiled, then. Inappropriate laughter lodged itself in the back of her throat. She took one breath, then another, to swallow it back, voicelessly.
He took this for invitation. Wrapped his hands around her waist, and bent to lay a gentle kiss on the curve of her bare shoulder. "Well?"
"Don't you have souls of the dead to pray for?" Aspersion in her tone.
"I'm in private contemplation tonight. The wonders of mortality. The fragility of mankind." Mouth drifting along her bare skin; voice a low hum. "Was it you? If it was you, you should confess to me." His hands tightened at her waist, and he pulled her back, against him.
She did not yield.
"The stays, Galaxio."
Nor did he.
"Take the sacrament. Let me pry the iron nails of mortal sin from your tender soul. Save you from the flames of hell." Insistent. "The husband. The child, murdered at prayer."
"Your god, would she really listen to you? Look at all the vows you've shattered this eve alone."
"Your god, too. Converso."
"No." Her tone crisp and clear. "It was not me." Kitty Bridlington's dead blue eyes in the back of her mind. The distorted, bloated corpse surfacing in the blue-green waters of the canal. The wretched, hollow stare of her husband when the Garda called upon him to name her before a magistrate, the sweet scent of decay heavy in the air of that paneled room.
"I do wonder if the girl was really murdered. Or perhaps instead transported somewhere. Still, is this a suspicion you are actually entertaining, Gallo? Do you really believe me capable of cold-blooded murder."
"Mmph." His low laughter, wry, hands slipping from her waist to find the laces of her stays. "Not really. Or, should I say: Only in service to a cause."
Murder Most Nights BY HARV
The air overlooking the canals was something vaguely unpleasant. A mixture of tars, tepid waters, sloshing perfumes and the stink that came off the end of day Markets when the food, unsold, was disposed of. Custodian Sweepers moved through the marketplaces, collecting the organics of the various vendors and pushing them into the Mangiare-Carro (Most of the English within Venice simply dubbed them the Goblin Wagons), which was simply a large box of black tar, thick wooden beams of ash and a half dozen brass feed tubes, gunked and stained by the various black remnants of ages old produce. It's wheels were banded iron and each was built with the sturdy utility of an armoured Siege-engine.
(A fact supported by all the populations of Venice, since the early times of this dubious invention, saw the make of a much lighter and much more decay susceptible vehicle, each of which had the penchant for bursting open on a hot day like some gaseous-plugged corpse, fouling a good four blocks of laneway and alley with the ripened stench of it's innards. Policia had been forced to evacuate whole sections of the City in some circumstances, for fear of mass fainting spells among the population, incapable of breathing beyond their own out-turned stomachs and clogged airways)
He often found himself resisting the urge to spit off the edge of the Belfry's stonework, just to cleanse his pallet. Not out of some noble sense of propriety, but more for the possibility of discovery.
Assassination, afterall was hardly a work supportive of anything but secrecy.
His fingers, draped in fine leather gloves, ran across the delicate fixture of the object they had given him. A fine piece of artifice, the likes of which had yet to make the shores of the public eye or mind. It had been assembled in a half dozen different European cities, the power-source developed and appropriated from some American institute with an unhealthy obsession and attitude toward the Weather. He had yet to hear much more about the Technology he was now holding and quietly clamped down on a budding giddiness to put it to use. Still, professional courtesy and reflex kept him still and quiet in the dark of the Belfry, overlooking many of the broad blocks and walkways of the Plaza below;
The markets stretched in a half-hundred different directions, from the very base of the Church he had been occupying for the last three days, all the way into the higher plumbed areas where the palazzo's made their homes and the rich and well-off fancied themselves safe from the depravities and debauchery of the less fortunate or mindless. One could walk the length of a hillside's down-slope and see the none-to-gradual decline of the architecture from it's archaic wonder of ruins and well aged demesnes to it's lower heights, where steam gouted from the sides of buildings, staining the walls of their neighbours in peeling grout and shifty mortar. The dampness beyond Fastol Avenue hung so thickly in the air, that the fluidic cough was a common ailment among the population. Mornings could be heralded as much by the mucus filled cough of a hundred waking souls as it could be by the Cock's crowing.
The distant sun was beginning it's easy descent for the day, gleaming reds and pungent oranges, diluted against the grainy press of clouds, beneath which had been broken by a momentary clarity to the far West, where the Oceans began to peel away from the land and sported a vast unknown quality even in these unenlightened times. He cradled his newly acquired contraption closely to his chest, feeling the weight of it settle firmly against one hip. The Stock was made from a light wood that nonetheless, dug into his side. He could feel the density of the metal inside the smoothed wood, a pressure that made the long length of the piece, rear-heavy but then he remembered the twitchy fellow with the spindly hair and the eyes too wide to sleep mentioning something about the Current Dynamo embedded in the stock being what's going to keep him on the right side of the weapon's reaction.
He felt more then heard something shift below his feet, the ancient stonework of the Belfry subject to subtle and heavy motions. The steam engines littering much of Venice's underbelly and structural framework had a strangely tectonic mimicry that shook his bones on occasion, depending on which part of the city he found himself in. He felt a vague cringe in his guts at the thought of all that pent up pressure, one day, shaking Venice to pieces and sending it crashing into the river but it was his vague unease versus a thousand Austrian opinions and Italian artificers over a few hundred years. He didn't blame the population for choosing to believe the latter.
He felt the Tower shiver, the bell behind him creaking suddenly on a timber thick enough to dwarf the width of his shoulders and resisted the urge to turn and look at it. Dusk was approaching and with it the wandering footfalls of the evening mass would begin to fill the deserted markets, eagerly seeking out the communion blessing at the Church's front doors. The clergymen were often the doddering, forgetful and well-aged, bringing their sense of peace and goodwill senility to those who might listen to their ancient and stutter filled ramblings about a true Faith, beyond Austrian Rule, Purity of the Self and Somnambulist Hypnotism (Austrian nobility had brought with them a disturbing amount of Sleep doctors, who specialized in expelling the threat of disease and psychosis from their patients, VIA sleep induced psychotropic states of stress and will reduction; this often involved lengthy sessions of blacked out fever dreams at the hands of questionably sane MDs incapable of speaking outside of their native tongues. Still, the practice's popularity could not be denied).
Many of the nobility partook of these moments, deigning to escape the cloistered confines of their proper world, to pay homage and faithful tribute to Saint-Ives of Blunders who presided over these very grounds; a Saint of Impeccable taste, Saint-Ives had been a devout Catholic some seven hundred years ago, who, in his fervour to find God amongst the clouds, enough that he walked off an unfinished bridge and drowned while staring at some clouds. Prayers and tribute were paid, many for the guidance to seek God in all things, but mostly to ward against accidents, stubbed toes and potential mis-steps in etiquette'd conversation.
He felt the building shiver again, the coiled rope twitching slightly, a wound tongue jutting from the broad mouth of the iron bell that fed to the curtained station below. Come the failing of the last rays of the Sun, the rope would be plucked at by a young balded cloister child and the bell rung to announce the beginnings of the Sermon proper. Most of the mass knew the requisite times and it was often a hotly contested effort to be the first ones to arrive who did not seem rushed in the process. Often times, furiously calm patrons could be seen flooding the streets for nearly half a league, marching with the deliberately tense slowness of the faithfully competitive. No few communions were heralded by the odd tension of a mob approaching the large banded doors of the church, however eerily silent it was. The torchlight and candles didn't help any to dis-spell that image.
With the inevitable presence of many of the nobility, fresh from Austrian Borders marking the frontlines by way of station, presence and sheer gadfly eagerness.
He reached into a side pouch, plucking out several sections of soft wax, the malleable white gel pasted generously over either ear until the volume of his surroundings and the power of the distant winds off the water, were a muffled whisper lost somewhere by the edge of his earlobes. He tilted his head, yawning slightly to pop some of the pressure that had gathered, resisting the urge to plug his nose and mouth to blow it out. The discomfort was minimal and he was already beginning to catch sight of several torches in the distance, winding their way solemnly through the carved out guts of Venice's many bridges, walkways and lanes.
He brought the weapon up, setting it's coiled barrel on the edge of the stonework, being sure to place the hardened resin rubber against the mortar to ensure none of the metal made contact. The spiralled copper was near as long as his arm and the assortment of wires attached to it were so prolific, he had trouble deciphering the solid shape of the coil beneath them all, wrapped snugly around where the copper filaments fit into neat little grooves concentrically filed all along the strange 'barrel', while their opposite ends fit into a sooty black set of rings that jutted at regular intervals over the revolutions of the coil; one every five rungs, all the way back to the weapon's base, where one hand gripped a secondary resin-rubber grip, thick and heavy with internal windings and coglinks. He paid careful attention to the strange jutting bulbs atop the resin chamber he was holding, slanted out like a pair of pointed rabbits ears, their interior filaments as thin as hair fibre, as frail looking as a stand of powder.
The Torchlight below was beginning to seep through the various openings that led into the market-square, emptied of all but these patrons to Saint-Ives who shuffled into place alongside one another with predictable familiarity. No few of the less fortunate halted their progress briefly as the veiled and stately looking individuals, some in military dress, others in the finest of Austrian Fashions (which were somewhere between a laced carnival motif and the rebel flag for a bloody coup) and many others yet dressed in the traditional whites and reds of Faith that had been the tradition for decades among the Italian families, who still had some place within the occupied streets. Candles could be seen, gripped in the hands and ornate holders of several family collectives, the bonneted and capped children clutching their parents hands with the earnest unease of disquiet.
He took several steadying breaths, settling into a crouched position that was comfortable, ignoring the creak of his aging bones and the flush of fluids that locked his left knee into place. It would be painful getting back up and he silently released the grip of tension in his jaws, eyes slipping shut in anticipation-
Clang!
Came the bell's toll, a rumble behind him that concussive broke against his cloaked shoulders and spine. He felt his heart hum in response, a quickening that drove the breath out of his lungs and sucked it right back in again a moment later. He flicked the indented switch, a tiny tear-shaped bit of metal that clacked against it's metal alcove, hard enough to reverberate in the pinched fingers of his grip around the resin-stand. The air suddenly whined to life around his head and he felt the pressure gather under his jaws, unbidden this time, his ears thrumming as the captured pressure behind the wax grew to it's own concussive balloon. Quite suddenly the discomfort had become a dull ache that was spreading from some nebulous pinpricked spot somewhere in his brain, outward.
Below, the great doors of the Church, fit snug into the darkened trench of the dull masonry blocks that made up the foundation and walls, swung wide, showering the cobbles ahead of them with a wavering orange light. Faint wisps of white smoke, poured out and pooled on the cobbled stretch of the market square and sent a tremble of order through the gathered numbers in the crowd of worship. A neat semi-circle formed amongst the noble ranks, which went nearly two bodies deep, children thrust up front of their parents, held before well-tailored cuffs of gold and embroidered brown or laced gloves of candy-stripe pink and white.
The censor smoke gave way to kindly, bent and corrugated priests, decked in the white robes and red mantles of the Church, swinging the false gold chains and orbs with slow and deliberate strokes, pink tongues tucked in concentration, between teeth and lips, while the man upfront, his head decorated by a the symbolic hat of Saint-Ives, a pair of white cloth fronds, frilled at their tips, spread as if in offering to either side, the humped shoulders of each depicting a shrug of helplessness and harmless mercy. The priests spread out, with slow methodical steps to gather at the fringes of the crowd, the censors continuing to swing as they reached out free hands to grasp and clasp with those arms and hands that reached out toward them, seeking comfort and reassurance.
The pressure was beginning to flood his senses and his lips had been driven back from his teeth, gritted as they were molar to molar with the rising cord of his neck and spine. The weapon hummed in his hands, oddly still even under the pressure of the tolling bell behind him, with it's concussions of regularity driving new tremors through him. He fit the Stock to his shoulder and settled his chin on the upraised stirrup that sighted one eye down the length of sooty rings until his gaze was focused on the crowd below. He turned slightly in place, hunching one shoulder until a muscle spasm locked it down next to his ear. The ache had become a throb and he snorted an exhaled blast to relieve some of the tension. It returned all too quickly.
The head clergyman stopped before the gathering, a mere few feet away, raising his hands out to either side with a patting motion demanding silence. The wave of kindly authority spread with the help of the nobility, who's nudging elbows and over-the-shoulder glares at the less fortunate, flooded obedience in the agitated number still looking for recognition from the Faith. Soon enough, torches were raised high and the assembled were at a hush he thought only capable before Queens and Kings. Reverence had it's power, it would seem.
The priest garbled something he couldn't hear, not over anything, least of all the wax in his ears keeping the worst of the pressure and tolling at bay. He knew, for the presence of a small family stepped forward at some unseen sign. The woman wore a demure hat that bent upward on either wide brim's side, Tied in place by a broad scarlet scarf, which bobbed at the top of the hat, her dress the frilled pink and red of hemmed sin, trimming the edge of a glittering white he swore was worth the lives of at least a dozen or more in the crowds. The man was a stately sort, sporting a broad moustache that eliminated nearly the entire lower half of his face behind it's enunciation proclamation of business and solemnity. His hair was a waved partition to either side of his head. His collar was high, depicting the pair of golden symbols too distant to make out but could not be anything else but a military designation. His white jacket over dark brown pants, was resplendently sophisticated or might have been had the garish gold of his cuffs not been the ruination. Lastly, was the young slip of a thing, clutched at the shoulders by her father's large, brutish hands. She wore a dress similar to her mother's, with white stockings and a pair of slippers one might be tempted to call dainty. Her hair was brought up into a neat pony tail and braided down one shoulder, while her face turned up in an obvious mask of courage hiding a looming fear of the wrinkled creature standing infront of her and her family.
He sighted down the coiled barrel, over the edge of the hundred and one filaments attached to it and past the slender cross at the tip of the coil which, he swore, sparked quite suddenly. The tension was growing toward an unbearable level and he could not unhinge his jaw from it's current grit. His knee was beginning to buckle and all noise had been replaced by a dull roar.
The Priest bent forward to receive the family and they in turn looked as if they might bow to their knees, the Mother taking a brief moment to spread something infront of them, that the dirt of the market floor not soil any of them in the benediction.
He exhaled through his teeth and flicked the tear-shaped switch once again, the clack profoundly audible or...perhaps that was simply his relief:
The weapon discharged, though his indication came not from the piece in his grip but from the sudden, almost explosive swoop of released tension, flooding down his limbs, through his muscles and into the contraption which hummed under his grip with the subtle and gentle sibilancy of a poised snake. Some sort of warped distortion ricochetted through the centre of the oddly spiralled barrel and struck the tip before vanish in the open air before the Belfry. It took a second for something to happen and then, calamity struck it's chord with the next Bell Toll.
The Family was halfway to the ground, when the man suddenly seized in place. Bolt upright, he seemed to tremble in his uniform, which suddenly took on the appearance of flexed stiffness, as if a space had suddenly been created between his flesh and it's cloth. The little girl and the Mother turned as one and backed away from him with horrified alarm, while the crowd's concentrative faith was sent a tremor by the disturbance in the air; as if the palpable quality of this moment had reached out to all, even those without eyes on the front of the procession.
The priest's head was bowed forward, his eyes more than likely closed for he did not move or shift place. The military man's moustache flexed and bristled, sprouting outward on a reddened face, while his hair climbed upward with a life of it's own, the orderly wave turning into a frazzled mess that sought to escape into the night air.
Someone nearby was screaming. A sound that was joined by several others.
He felt something in his chest grow erratic for a few moments, could not fathom that it was his own heart in the aftermath of an adrenal exhale. He tried to calm his body, leaning forward against the ledge of stone slightly, the weapon swinging into his lap, still and calm once more. His gaze found the scene below, rapt and attentive.
The Man was raising his limbs with some measure of fierce difficulty, spittle flecking his lips and his eyes bulging in their sockets. His face was the colour of pale pomegranate and he stumbled to the left a few paces, almost colliding with his daughter who shrieked in response and turned to dash toward the far end of the Semi-circle. The man's wife made a move forward, shouting something in their Native Austrian, dropping the candle she'd been clutching as she moved to chase the young thing. The Husband's hands reached out toward his Wife, while the Priest finished whatever benediction he'd been murmuring about and raised his head.
That's when the dropped candle slid under the Husband's foot and sent him pitching backward, his hand snagged in the ribbon binding his wife's hat into an upturned curve. His wife reached up toward her hair, exposed and bundled atop her head, shrieking anew. The Priest gave a confused shiver and the Military Man fell backward with a strangled groan, striking the ground with a concussive thud.
A thud that suddenly turned into a wet sploosh that sent a spray of arterial red, flecked white and burst pink up and outward, across the crowd for a good thirty feet in all directions. The wife was painted a rich smear of Scarlet Husband and the Priest layered thickly by the sudden detonation. Their stunned silence infected the crowd which stared at one another in muted but rapidly growing shock.
A few precious heartbeats passed and then-
Clang!
The Bell tolled again and Calamity returned with a rich clarity. The Wife began to scream, uncontrollable and triggered the same in the crowd, which wavered, buckled and broke in a hundred different directions, this great moving mass that clogged the alleys and lanes and streets with moving, breaking and crashing bodies that left no few trampled in it's wake. Torches were dropped and sent pin-wheeling through the air while the howling insanity of the mob spilled out into the city to share and infect the grisly news with every Inn, Bar and neighbour's window passed. Lights were already beginning to strike the distant streets of the Constabulary even as the market emptied of all but the dead, dying and catatonic.
He just sat there for a time, staring, ignoring the throbbing pain in his knee and the distinctly hollowed out sensation in his skull and chest. He tried to swallow a few times and managed on the sixth. Then he sucked in a slow breath that was meant to calm and steady and, with shaking hands, began to carefully take apart the various sections of the weapon, his grip inside the gloves having turned his knuckles white, as if his own blood feared his fingers and what havoc they might unleash next. He reached up to dig the wax from his ears as best he could, flicking the remains against the wall, before blowing out the rest with plugged nose and closed mouth.
Whistles were sounding in the distance now. He could hear the disorder rousing the city from it's early evening home-life. All at once, reflex took over and he creaked to his feet, wincing with the flare of pain that bounced through his knee. The components were tucked safely into their travelling, the segments locked and folded together. He began to drag it toward the nearby window and the six foot drop down to the Bailey roof.
Behind him, down in the square, a woman dripped and screamed in the street. They would dub her clinically insane and after several weeks of attempted therapies, lock her away.
And of the young girl, there would be no sign.
A Job Done. His employers would be pleased. He had earned his sovereigns, which was good. He'd need them to drown the hollow that had been left behind.
(A fact supported by all the populations of Venice, since the early times of this dubious invention, saw the make of a much lighter and much more decay susceptible vehicle, each of which had the penchant for bursting open on a hot day like some gaseous-plugged corpse, fouling a good four blocks of laneway and alley with the ripened stench of it's innards. Policia had been forced to evacuate whole sections of the City in some circumstances, for fear of mass fainting spells among the population, incapable of breathing beyond their own out-turned stomachs and clogged airways)
He often found himself resisting the urge to spit off the edge of the Belfry's stonework, just to cleanse his pallet. Not out of some noble sense of propriety, but more for the possibility of discovery.
Assassination, afterall was hardly a work supportive of anything but secrecy.
His fingers, draped in fine leather gloves, ran across the delicate fixture of the object they had given him. A fine piece of artifice, the likes of which had yet to make the shores of the public eye or mind. It had been assembled in a half dozen different European cities, the power-source developed and appropriated from some American institute with an unhealthy obsession and attitude toward the Weather. He had yet to hear much more about the Technology he was now holding and quietly clamped down on a budding giddiness to put it to use. Still, professional courtesy and reflex kept him still and quiet in the dark of the Belfry, overlooking many of the broad blocks and walkways of the Plaza below;
The markets stretched in a half-hundred different directions, from the very base of the Church he had been occupying for the last three days, all the way into the higher plumbed areas where the palazzo's made their homes and the rich and well-off fancied themselves safe from the depravities and debauchery of the less fortunate or mindless. One could walk the length of a hillside's down-slope and see the none-to-gradual decline of the architecture from it's archaic wonder of ruins and well aged demesnes to it's lower heights, where steam gouted from the sides of buildings, staining the walls of their neighbours in peeling grout and shifty mortar. The dampness beyond Fastol Avenue hung so thickly in the air, that the fluidic cough was a common ailment among the population. Mornings could be heralded as much by the mucus filled cough of a hundred waking souls as it could be by the Cock's crowing.
The distant sun was beginning it's easy descent for the day, gleaming reds and pungent oranges, diluted against the grainy press of clouds, beneath which had been broken by a momentary clarity to the far West, where the Oceans began to peel away from the land and sported a vast unknown quality even in these unenlightened times. He cradled his newly acquired contraption closely to his chest, feeling the weight of it settle firmly against one hip. The Stock was made from a light wood that nonetheless, dug into his side. He could feel the density of the metal inside the smoothed wood, a pressure that made the long length of the piece, rear-heavy but then he remembered the twitchy fellow with the spindly hair and the eyes too wide to sleep mentioning something about the Current Dynamo embedded in the stock being what's going to keep him on the right side of the weapon's reaction.
He felt more then heard something shift below his feet, the ancient stonework of the Belfry subject to subtle and heavy motions. The steam engines littering much of Venice's underbelly and structural framework had a strangely tectonic mimicry that shook his bones on occasion, depending on which part of the city he found himself in. He felt a vague cringe in his guts at the thought of all that pent up pressure, one day, shaking Venice to pieces and sending it crashing into the river but it was his vague unease versus a thousand Austrian opinions and Italian artificers over a few hundred years. He didn't blame the population for choosing to believe the latter.
He felt the Tower shiver, the bell behind him creaking suddenly on a timber thick enough to dwarf the width of his shoulders and resisted the urge to turn and look at it. Dusk was approaching and with it the wandering footfalls of the evening mass would begin to fill the deserted markets, eagerly seeking out the communion blessing at the Church's front doors. The clergymen were often the doddering, forgetful and well-aged, bringing their sense of peace and goodwill senility to those who might listen to their ancient and stutter filled ramblings about a true Faith, beyond Austrian Rule, Purity of the Self and Somnambulist Hypnotism (Austrian nobility had brought with them a disturbing amount of Sleep doctors, who specialized in expelling the threat of disease and psychosis from their patients, VIA sleep induced psychotropic states of stress and will reduction; this often involved lengthy sessions of blacked out fever dreams at the hands of questionably sane MDs incapable of speaking outside of their native tongues. Still, the practice's popularity could not be denied).
Many of the nobility partook of these moments, deigning to escape the cloistered confines of their proper world, to pay homage and faithful tribute to Saint-Ives of Blunders who presided over these very grounds; a Saint of Impeccable taste, Saint-Ives had been a devout Catholic some seven hundred years ago, who, in his fervour to find God amongst the clouds, enough that he walked off an unfinished bridge and drowned while staring at some clouds. Prayers and tribute were paid, many for the guidance to seek God in all things, but mostly to ward against accidents, stubbed toes and potential mis-steps in etiquette'd conversation.
He felt the building shiver again, the coiled rope twitching slightly, a wound tongue jutting from the broad mouth of the iron bell that fed to the curtained station below. Come the failing of the last rays of the Sun, the rope would be plucked at by a young balded cloister child and the bell rung to announce the beginnings of the Sermon proper. Most of the mass knew the requisite times and it was often a hotly contested effort to be the first ones to arrive who did not seem rushed in the process. Often times, furiously calm patrons could be seen flooding the streets for nearly half a league, marching with the deliberately tense slowness of the faithfully competitive. No few communions were heralded by the odd tension of a mob approaching the large banded doors of the church, however eerily silent it was. The torchlight and candles didn't help any to dis-spell that image.
With the inevitable presence of many of the nobility, fresh from Austrian Borders marking the frontlines by way of station, presence and sheer gadfly eagerness.
He reached into a side pouch, plucking out several sections of soft wax, the malleable white gel pasted generously over either ear until the volume of his surroundings and the power of the distant winds off the water, were a muffled whisper lost somewhere by the edge of his earlobes. He tilted his head, yawning slightly to pop some of the pressure that had gathered, resisting the urge to plug his nose and mouth to blow it out. The discomfort was minimal and he was already beginning to catch sight of several torches in the distance, winding their way solemnly through the carved out guts of Venice's many bridges, walkways and lanes.
He brought the weapon up, setting it's coiled barrel on the edge of the stonework, being sure to place the hardened resin rubber against the mortar to ensure none of the metal made contact. The spiralled copper was near as long as his arm and the assortment of wires attached to it were so prolific, he had trouble deciphering the solid shape of the coil beneath them all, wrapped snugly around where the copper filaments fit into neat little grooves concentrically filed all along the strange 'barrel', while their opposite ends fit into a sooty black set of rings that jutted at regular intervals over the revolutions of the coil; one every five rungs, all the way back to the weapon's base, where one hand gripped a secondary resin-rubber grip, thick and heavy with internal windings and coglinks. He paid careful attention to the strange jutting bulbs atop the resin chamber he was holding, slanted out like a pair of pointed rabbits ears, their interior filaments as thin as hair fibre, as frail looking as a stand of powder.
The Torchlight below was beginning to seep through the various openings that led into the market-square, emptied of all but these patrons to Saint-Ives who shuffled into place alongside one another with predictable familiarity. No few of the less fortunate halted their progress briefly as the veiled and stately looking individuals, some in military dress, others in the finest of Austrian Fashions (which were somewhere between a laced carnival motif and the rebel flag for a bloody coup) and many others yet dressed in the traditional whites and reds of Faith that had been the tradition for decades among the Italian families, who still had some place within the occupied streets. Candles could be seen, gripped in the hands and ornate holders of several family collectives, the bonneted and capped children clutching their parents hands with the earnest unease of disquiet.
He took several steadying breaths, settling into a crouched position that was comfortable, ignoring the creak of his aging bones and the flush of fluids that locked his left knee into place. It would be painful getting back up and he silently released the grip of tension in his jaws, eyes slipping shut in anticipation-
Clang!
Came the bell's toll, a rumble behind him that concussive broke against his cloaked shoulders and spine. He felt his heart hum in response, a quickening that drove the breath out of his lungs and sucked it right back in again a moment later. He flicked the indented switch, a tiny tear-shaped bit of metal that clacked against it's metal alcove, hard enough to reverberate in the pinched fingers of his grip around the resin-stand. The air suddenly whined to life around his head and he felt the pressure gather under his jaws, unbidden this time, his ears thrumming as the captured pressure behind the wax grew to it's own concussive balloon. Quite suddenly the discomfort had become a dull ache that was spreading from some nebulous pinpricked spot somewhere in his brain, outward.
Below, the great doors of the Church, fit snug into the darkened trench of the dull masonry blocks that made up the foundation and walls, swung wide, showering the cobbles ahead of them with a wavering orange light. Faint wisps of white smoke, poured out and pooled on the cobbled stretch of the market square and sent a tremble of order through the gathered numbers in the crowd of worship. A neat semi-circle formed amongst the noble ranks, which went nearly two bodies deep, children thrust up front of their parents, held before well-tailored cuffs of gold and embroidered brown or laced gloves of candy-stripe pink and white.
The censor smoke gave way to kindly, bent and corrugated priests, decked in the white robes and red mantles of the Church, swinging the false gold chains and orbs with slow and deliberate strokes, pink tongues tucked in concentration, between teeth and lips, while the man upfront, his head decorated by a the symbolic hat of Saint-Ives, a pair of white cloth fronds, frilled at their tips, spread as if in offering to either side, the humped shoulders of each depicting a shrug of helplessness and harmless mercy. The priests spread out, with slow methodical steps to gather at the fringes of the crowd, the censors continuing to swing as they reached out free hands to grasp and clasp with those arms and hands that reached out toward them, seeking comfort and reassurance.
The pressure was beginning to flood his senses and his lips had been driven back from his teeth, gritted as they were molar to molar with the rising cord of his neck and spine. The weapon hummed in his hands, oddly still even under the pressure of the tolling bell behind him, with it's concussions of regularity driving new tremors through him. He fit the Stock to his shoulder and settled his chin on the upraised stirrup that sighted one eye down the length of sooty rings until his gaze was focused on the crowd below. He turned slightly in place, hunching one shoulder until a muscle spasm locked it down next to his ear. The ache had become a throb and he snorted an exhaled blast to relieve some of the tension. It returned all too quickly.
The head clergyman stopped before the gathering, a mere few feet away, raising his hands out to either side with a patting motion demanding silence. The wave of kindly authority spread with the help of the nobility, who's nudging elbows and over-the-shoulder glares at the less fortunate, flooded obedience in the agitated number still looking for recognition from the Faith. Soon enough, torches were raised high and the assembled were at a hush he thought only capable before Queens and Kings. Reverence had it's power, it would seem.
The priest garbled something he couldn't hear, not over anything, least of all the wax in his ears keeping the worst of the pressure and tolling at bay. He knew, for the presence of a small family stepped forward at some unseen sign. The woman wore a demure hat that bent upward on either wide brim's side, Tied in place by a broad scarlet scarf, which bobbed at the top of the hat, her dress the frilled pink and red of hemmed sin, trimming the edge of a glittering white he swore was worth the lives of at least a dozen or more in the crowds. The man was a stately sort, sporting a broad moustache that eliminated nearly the entire lower half of his face behind it's enunciation proclamation of business and solemnity. His hair was a waved partition to either side of his head. His collar was high, depicting the pair of golden symbols too distant to make out but could not be anything else but a military designation. His white jacket over dark brown pants, was resplendently sophisticated or might have been had the garish gold of his cuffs not been the ruination. Lastly, was the young slip of a thing, clutched at the shoulders by her father's large, brutish hands. She wore a dress similar to her mother's, with white stockings and a pair of slippers one might be tempted to call dainty. Her hair was brought up into a neat pony tail and braided down one shoulder, while her face turned up in an obvious mask of courage hiding a looming fear of the wrinkled creature standing infront of her and her family.
He sighted down the coiled barrel, over the edge of the hundred and one filaments attached to it and past the slender cross at the tip of the coil which, he swore, sparked quite suddenly. The tension was growing toward an unbearable level and he could not unhinge his jaw from it's current grit. His knee was beginning to buckle and all noise had been replaced by a dull roar.
The Priest bent forward to receive the family and they in turn looked as if they might bow to their knees, the Mother taking a brief moment to spread something infront of them, that the dirt of the market floor not soil any of them in the benediction.
He exhaled through his teeth and flicked the tear-shaped switch once again, the clack profoundly audible or...perhaps that was simply his relief:
The weapon discharged, though his indication came not from the piece in his grip but from the sudden, almost explosive swoop of released tension, flooding down his limbs, through his muscles and into the contraption which hummed under his grip with the subtle and gentle sibilancy of a poised snake. Some sort of warped distortion ricochetted through the centre of the oddly spiralled barrel and struck the tip before vanish in the open air before the Belfry. It took a second for something to happen and then, calamity struck it's chord with the next Bell Toll.
The Family was halfway to the ground, when the man suddenly seized in place. Bolt upright, he seemed to tremble in his uniform, which suddenly took on the appearance of flexed stiffness, as if a space had suddenly been created between his flesh and it's cloth. The little girl and the Mother turned as one and backed away from him with horrified alarm, while the crowd's concentrative faith was sent a tremor by the disturbance in the air; as if the palpable quality of this moment had reached out to all, even those without eyes on the front of the procession.
The priest's head was bowed forward, his eyes more than likely closed for he did not move or shift place. The military man's moustache flexed and bristled, sprouting outward on a reddened face, while his hair climbed upward with a life of it's own, the orderly wave turning into a frazzled mess that sought to escape into the night air.
Someone nearby was screaming. A sound that was joined by several others.
He felt something in his chest grow erratic for a few moments, could not fathom that it was his own heart in the aftermath of an adrenal exhale. He tried to calm his body, leaning forward against the ledge of stone slightly, the weapon swinging into his lap, still and calm once more. His gaze found the scene below, rapt and attentive.
The Man was raising his limbs with some measure of fierce difficulty, spittle flecking his lips and his eyes bulging in their sockets. His face was the colour of pale pomegranate and he stumbled to the left a few paces, almost colliding with his daughter who shrieked in response and turned to dash toward the far end of the Semi-circle. The man's wife made a move forward, shouting something in their Native Austrian, dropping the candle she'd been clutching as she moved to chase the young thing. The Husband's hands reached out toward his Wife, while the Priest finished whatever benediction he'd been murmuring about and raised his head.
That's when the dropped candle slid under the Husband's foot and sent him pitching backward, his hand snagged in the ribbon binding his wife's hat into an upturned curve. His wife reached up toward her hair, exposed and bundled atop her head, shrieking anew. The Priest gave a confused shiver and the Military Man fell backward with a strangled groan, striking the ground with a concussive thud.
A thud that suddenly turned into a wet sploosh that sent a spray of arterial red, flecked white and burst pink up and outward, across the crowd for a good thirty feet in all directions. The wife was painted a rich smear of Scarlet Husband and the Priest layered thickly by the sudden detonation. Their stunned silence infected the crowd which stared at one another in muted but rapidly growing shock.
A few precious heartbeats passed and then-
Clang!
The Bell tolled again and Calamity returned with a rich clarity. The Wife began to scream, uncontrollable and triggered the same in the crowd, which wavered, buckled and broke in a hundred different directions, this great moving mass that clogged the alleys and lanes and streets with moving, breaking and crashing bodies that left no few trampled in it's wake. Torches were dropped and sent pin-wheeling through the air while the howling insanity of the mob spilled out into the city to share and infect the grisly news with every Inn, Bar and neighbour's window passed. Lights were already beginning to strike the distant streets of the Constabulary even as the market emptied of all but the dead, dying and catatonic.
He just sat there for a time, staring, ignoring the throbbing pain in his knee and the distinctly hollowed out sensation in his skull and chest. He tried to swallow a few times and managed on the sixth. Then he sucked in a slow breath that was meant to calm and steady and, with shaking hands, began to carefully take apart the various sections of the weapon, his grip inside the gloves having turned his knuckles white, as if his own blood feared his fingers and what havoc they might unleash next. He reached up to dig the wax from his ears as best he could, flicking the remains against the wall, before blowing out the rest with plugged nose and closed mouth.
Whistles were sounding in the distance now. He could hear the disorder rousing the city from it's early evening home-life. All at once, reflex took over and he creaked to his feet, wincing with the flare of pain that bounced through his knee. The components were tucked safely into their travelling, the segments locked and folded together. He began to drag it toward the nearby window and the six foot drop down to the Bailey roof.
Behind him, down in the square, a woman dripped and screamed in the street. They would dub her clinically insane and after several weeks of attempted therapies, lock her away.
And of the young girl, there would be no sign.
A Job Done. His employers would be pleased. He had earned his sovereigns, which was good. He'd need them to drown the hollow that had been left behind.
A discovery 4 - BY HARV
George had been patient thus far.
In situations like these, he often let Harmon take the lead, if only because his genteel upbringing (of which George was forbidden to call Shenanigans on) provided them with a certain edge to moments such as these, attempting to push their way through the gatehouse and it's brow-perked, stuck-up, flush-faced, shell-scalped, nose-shaving Troubadour seeking a certain level of comatose courtesy from them. The footman had been offered little more than a few pence and some charmingly appropriate words of confusing, long-winded and nebulous report, Harmon speaking loudly and often to the young fellow and marching without cease through the gates and his supposed guard. He had no doubt the young Boy was more than happy to leave them to the Butler they were now standing in front of, confident Mr. Shambottom (who's name was not quite that pronunciation as he had been adamant in telling Harmon upon introductions being shared, but Harmon seemed incapable of lifting off his accented Essex tongue) had the wherewithal, determination and strength of character to see to the disheveled Ruffians trying to barge into the Society.
Mr Shambottom’s stalwart regard was matched only by the fierceness of his gaze and the resolute belief that he could simply glare away all problems and situations of ill-repute. George firmly believed that Mr. Shambottom firmly believed that a stiff lip and a waxed moustache glare, could send the War home should it ever come knocking at Italy’s borders. So when Harmon sauntered up with a tip of his short brimmed, tall stacked hat (a refuse find, dusted with perfume and patched with skills George wasn’t entirely certain where Harmon had discovered) and a ‘Good Morrow!’ there was a very brief scrutiny and a none too subtle dance of the aging old butler’s eyes across them both. The entirety of which lasted a full ten seconds before, with an imperious clearing of his throat, Mr Shambottom declared with a throated mum of monosyllabic distinction.
“No.”
At which point Harmon did his best impression of shock and outrage, flailing hands covered in the richest of white satins (or what might have been, had they not been through a bar fight, a deck fight and three months worth of travel best left to the place where forgotten memories go to drink) and bulging eyes not a slight bit reddened by their lack of sleep and fast approaching sobriety.
To which Mr. Shambottom seemed entirely immune, weathering the spectacle from Harmon and George’s own rapidly dwindling features, which bristled into an unidentifiable mask of facial hair whenever his temper was in danger of being lost. Many had claimed when George’s face vanished entirely, whole legions were bound to suffer for it.
It would be several minutes of this dual fusillade, as the pair ended the entire thing looming over the stoic butler who continued to remain robustly calm in the face of them, before the chamber door leaning into the Palazzo, would creep open from afar and a woman would stand upon the chipped stone steps with the expectancy of the perturbed.
At which point, Mr. Shambottom, or whatever pronunciation was proper, turned to regard this new blockade and offered the clearing of his throat once more to the pair, who glanced up once at the woman too distant to detail and then back to the Butler as he spoke in that same breathy murmur.
“Mrs. Hogsbender will see you, apparently.”
And that was number two.
The third was the Woman. Hogsbender the Round. Hogsbender the broad. Hogsbender, the Redoubt, the Bastion, the Bitch bull of the Society house and many others that she would later be known and called by Harmon over a half dozen pints and those? Just the few he would remember the following morning. The young Tavern Woman they have acquainted themselves with upon first arrival would regale them neatly of Harmon’s sermon of prose entitled “Hogsbender; Enemy to the Unfairest Gender”.
She sat within her sitting room, a creature fond of dens and cozies. A Mother Bear, a Clucking Hen, a Vicious Ape and mountains to feed small nations of young nips, a fact Harmon sought to mention almost out of the gate. The response with something icy and a demure reassurance that The Hogsbender’s personal lives were quite beyond the ken of courteous and polite conversation.
The interview would devolve from there. Casual wit was thrown back and forth between a viper’s tongue in Harmon and the scalding pot of Mrs. Hogsbender, trading mentions of decor, garments and the inevitable deductions of proper education in each other’s speech that often came from the Highly Sociable. All performed with the most polite of airs, airs that had George curling smaller and smaller in his standing place, for fear that sitting might break the brittle staves and supports of the ancient relics that Mrs. Hogsbender kept around her sitting room walls. Decorative at best.
At one point, her bi-spectacled gaze found George and glanced up at the flopping hat that danced down one side of his head, her neatly trimmed brow perking over slightly plump cheeks and a primly set mouth. George’s eyes nearly vanished into his brow and moustache meeting and with great reluctance and a rumble of incoherent english, reached up to pull the hat off and crush it between his hands, the spraggledee reach of his wisping hair, circling a bald spot, given a cursory glance.
About as long as the glance at the maligned ear that had been hidden beneath with it’s strangely crooked point at either end. Mrs. Hogsbender’s brow rose a fraction higher, something both Harmon and George would comment to one another about in startled shock and relieved camaraderie (“I’ve not seen a woman look so questioning about so little in all my life” “I know, roit?!”) though she, perhaps wisely, did not comment on the fact and returned to berating Harmon about his choice of coloured dress and how inappropriately brilliant it was, no doubt serving as the sign post for their early carnivaling efforts amidst the circuses of England.
The Footman enters toward the height of the situation, a hammer fisted George bundled together in bristling anger, bellowing a
“Now see ‘ere!”
And leveling an accusatory finger, the size of Mrs. Hogsbender’s wrist, toward the unmoved woman. The footman is hesitant and seemingly shaken, as Harmon, twig and slim and dandy of a creature, Harmon, is the only thing standing between them and the brutish George, satin gloves pushing into the stout body of his fellow, a firm voice and eye cast up into George’s face as the pair argue over just what sort of manners could be taught with a proper switch and the right arse.
At which point, Mrs. Hogsbender had received her message and the Footman was gratefully sent on his way. The pair would freeze in place, locked in grips around each other’s vests and jackets, to stare at Mrs. Hogsbender as she offered a cleared throat and a vaguely displeased mention of the Lady wanting their company and attention.
To which Harmon had replied with the most careful of pleasantries, smoothing down his clothing and releasing George to offer Mrs. Hogsbender a stately bow and a
“Most kind, Madam, most kind.”
In situations like these, he often let Harmon take the lead, if only because his genteel upbringing (of which George was forbidden to call Shenanigans on) provided them with a certain edge to moments such as these, attempting to push their way through the gatehouse and it's brow-perked, stuck-up, flush-faced, shell-scalped, nose-shaving Troubadour seeking a certain level of comatose courtesy from them. The footman had been offered little more than a few pence and some charmingly appropriate words of confusing, long-winded and nebulous report, Harmon speaking loudly and often to the young fellow and marching without cease through the gates and his supposed guard. He had no doubt the young Boy was more than happy to leave them to the Butler they were now standing in front of, confident Mr. Shambottom (who's name was not quite that pronunciation as he had been adamant in telling Harmon upon introductions being shared, but Harmon seemed incapable of lifting off his accented Essex tongue) had the wherewithal, determination and strength of character to see to the disheveled Ruffians trying to barge into the Society.
Mr Shambottom’s stalwart regard was matched only by the fierceness of his gaze and the resolute belief that he could simply glare away all problems and situations of ill-repute. George firmly believed that Mr. Shambottom firmly believed that a stiff lip and a waxed moustache glare, could send the War home should it ever come knocking at Italy’s borders. So when Harmon sauntered up with a tip of his short brimmed, tall stacked hat (a refuse find, dusted with perfume and patched with skills George wasn’t entirely certain where Harmon had discovered) and a ‘Good Morrow!’ there was a very brief scrutiny and a none too subtle dance of the aging old butler’s eyes across them both. The entirety of which lasted a full ten seconds before, with an imperious clearing of his throat, Mr Shambottom declared with a throated mum of monosyllabic distinction.
“No.”
At which point Harmon did his best impression of shock and outrage, flailing hands covered in the richest of white satins (or what might have been, had they not been through a bar fight, a deck fight and three months worth of travel best left to the place where forgotten memories go to drink) and bulging eyes not a slight bit reddened by their lack of sleep and fast approaching sobriety.
To which Mr. Shambottom seemed entirely immune, weathering the spectacle from Harmon and George’s own rapidly dwindling features, which bristled into an unidentifiable mask of facial hair whenever his temper was in danger of being lost. Many had claimed when George’s face vanished entirely, whole legions were bound to suffer for it.
It would be several minutes of this dual fusillade, as the pair ended the entire thing looming over the stoic butler who continued to remain robustly calm in the face of them, before the chamber door leaning into the Palazzo, would creep open from afar and a woman would stand upon the chipped stone steps with the expectancy of the perturbed.
At which point, Mr. Shambottom, or whatever pronunciation was proper, turned to regard this new blockade and offered the clearing of his throat once more to the pair, who glanced up once at the woman too distant to detail and then back to the Butler as he spoke in that same breathy murmur.
“Mrs. Hogsbender will see you, apparently.”
And that was number two.
The third was the Woman. Hogsbender the Round. Hogsbender the broad. Hogsbender, the Redoubt, the Bastion, the Bitch bull of the Society house and many others that she would later be known and called by Harmon over a half dozen pints and those? Just the few he would remember the following morning. The young Tavern Woman they have acquainted themselves with upon first arrival would regale them neatly of Harmon’s sermon of prose entitled “Hogsbender; Enemy to the Unfairest Gender”.
She sat within her sitting room, a creature fond of dens and cozies. A Mother Bear, a Clucking Hen, a Vicious Ape and mountains to feed small nations of young nips, a fact Harmon sought to mention almost out of the gate. The response with something icy and a demure reassurance that The Hogsbender’s personal lives were quite beyond the ken of courteous and polite conversation.
The interview would devolve from there. Casual wit was thrown back and forth between a viper’s tongue in Harmon and the scalding pot of Mrs. Hogsbender, trading mentions of decor, garments and the inevitable deductions of proper education in each other’s speech that often came from the Highly Sociable. All performed with the most polite of airs, airs that had George curling smaller and smaller in his standing place, for fear that sitting might break the brittle staves and supports of the ancient relics that Mrs. Hogsbender kept around her sitting room walls. Decorative at best.
At one point, her bi-spectacled gaze found George and glanced up at the flopping hat that danced down one side of his head, her neatly trimmed brow perking over slightly plump cheeks and a primly set mouth. George’s eyes nearly vanished into his brow and moustache meeting and with great reluctance and a rumble of incoherent english, reached up to pull the hat off and crush it between his hands, the spraggledee reach of his wisping hair, circling a bald spot, given a cursory glance.
About as long as the glance at the maligned ear that had been hidden beneath with it’s strangely crooked point at either end. Mrs. Hogsbender’s brow rose a fraction higher, something both Harmon and George would comment to one another about in startled shock and relieved camaraderie (“I’ve not seen a woman look so questioning about so little in all my life” “I know, roit?!”) though she, perhaps wisely, did not comment on the fact and returned to berating Harmon about his choice of coloured dress and how inappropriately brilliant it was, no doubt serving as the sign post for their early carnivaling efforts amidst the circuses of England.
The Footman enters toward the height of the situation, a hammer fisted George bundled together in bristling anger, bellowing a
“Now see ‘ere!”
And leveling an accusatory finger, the size of Mrs. Hogsbender’s wrist, toward the unmoved woman. The footman is hesitant and seemingly shaken, as Harmon, twig and slim and dandy of a creature, Harmon, is the only thing standing between them and the brutish George, satin gloves pushing into the stout body of his fellow, a firm voice and eye cast up into George’s face as the pair argue over just what sort of manners could be taught with a proper switch and the right arse.
At which point, Mrs. Hogsbender had received her message and the Footman was gratefully sent on his way. The pair would freeze in place, locked in grips around each other’s vests and jackets, to stare at Mrs. Hogsbender as she offered a cleared throat and a vaguely displeased mention of the Lady wanting their company and attention.
To which Harmon had replied with the most careful of pleasantries, smoothing down his clothing and releasing George to offer Mrs. Hogsbender a stately bow and a
“Most kind, Madam, most kind.”
A discovery 3 - BY ME
The Ladies' Perambulation society is housed in an old palazzo of a long-since fallen first family, with one grand, water-logged facade facing the blue-green waters of a narrow canal and the other brooding over a narrow courtyard the opened into one of the little squares - the little campos that stud the city.
One other genuine palazzo - this one far more decayed than the Ladies' own - braces the square, along with a warren of other buildings, and of course one of the cities' ubiquitous chapels, dedicated to the martyr-saint Liliane, rose windows and terracotta rooftile and quite directly in the middle of the little campo - an elegant stone founting, the bronze-patina'd central figure a most realistic expression of Liliane's martyrdom, her body a bristling explosion of enemy spears, arching outward from the central spine, face turned to heaven, frame near-naked.
In eminently baroque style, the water falls not from the buckets she is carrying, but from the wounds themselves. Trickling down the glistening bronze surfaces to collect in the marble basin, which glows golden in sunlight and blue-white in gaslight and merely dark on these long, gloomy autumn days full of shiftless clouds and pouring rain.
So here, this slumping palazzo, half-way to glory, half-way to ruin, on a gloomy afternoon with a cold wind from the Adriatic beginning to kick up choppy little waves even in the narrowest and most protected of the city's canals, arabesque windows in rust red and deep purple wrapped in wilting black bunting that looks rather as if someone loosed a haberdasher's 'prentice boy on the home of his rival, the bunting - draped about the windows sometime in the days since the discovery of the [how does one say body in polite company?] shell of their countrywoman, drowned in the canals - bedraggled from the torrential autumnal rains. The windowboxes, with their cheerful array of pansies, have been covered over with fine black netting.
The smallest plaque, slowly weathered bronze, bolted into the cracked Venetian plaster on the pillasters framing the wrought-iron gate:
The Ladies'
Perambulation
Society
-
No one is walking today. Not with the familiar brisk steps and hushing murmur of petticoats, the bracing straightforward style the Ladies have adopted, as if the side streets and listing alleys, the labyrinthine backstreets and hidden cul-de-sacs of Venice were the no more frightening than some country Lane in Sussex, the mid-day sun in the sky, the farmers in the fields, the word of bees a humming buzz amidst the blooming hedgerows. There, in gloomy Angleland, one dreams of sun-drenched Italia. Peeling back the layers of whale-boned corsets and heavy fushine silks, the waves of tuille in exchange for some cotton nothing, not much more - perhaps even less - than an undergarment, sun setting on the Apinine hills while the rhythmic music of scythes cut through golden fields bisected by Roman roads shaded by stone pines planted - perhaps - by some long-dead, barely dressed Legionnaire himself.
And here, in romantic, water-logged Italia, one remains as Anglish as ever. So it seems.
Still - the square is deserted, where normally there might be a half-dozen women walking arm and arm around the square, determinedly not looking directly at the naked breasts of poor martyred Liliane and the water trickling down her transfixed frame.
Just a slip of a girl, with the sort of prettiness like to turn mousy as soon as she opens her mouth, shrouded in an impractical velvet cloak, followed by a mustachioed gondolier with drooping eyes and the rolling gait of someone born to water rather than dry(ish) land.
-
George - or more specifically Harmon, must talk his way past a trio of gatekeepers before the pair first set eyes on one of the ubiquitous ladies. First, a supercilious footman, who appears to be no more than a local boy dressed up in some old velvet livery and given a powdered wig from a half-century ago to add some gravitas to his appearance. Then, a slit-eyed and even more supercilious butler all in black, his receding hair shellacked to a hardness that might well protect him from missles on the battlefield, or at least from bricks tossed from behind a barricade. Barrel-chested, with a wide cumberbun and an elaborately tied cravat and no less than four timepieces on his person, each of which he consults in succession as his snears his way through their interview before he at last passes them off to Mrs. Hogsbender, the aptly named housekeeper.
Mrs. Hogsbender.
Here, at last, is an obstacle worthy of their time. For all the pomp and polish of the footman and the butler, both were easier to sap than the two-foot walls around a pleasure palace. Mrs. Hogsbender, though is a redoubtable, formidable woman, with a shelf of a bosom and a black bombazine dress like a mainsail and the brisk efficiency of the doyenne of a great house, never mind that the staff of the Society numbers no more than four or five, and half those on loan from milady's own establishment. She receives them in her sitting room belowstairs, which faces the canal proper, perhaps a half-storey above water level. The room is papered in elaborate rose damask, though there is something seamed about the application, as if it had been rescued from elsewhere before being installed here. Papered in rose damask, stuffed full of dark, heavy furniture, pine most-like, though painted and stained to have the look of dark, heavy mahoganies, the shelves positively stuffed with bric-a-brac of all sorts.
Porcelain birds and mechanical ladies, the sort that plink out the latest Viennese waltzes while stuttering above a table's surface, starched crinolines stiff and yellowing with age. Autonomic thread-winders and an old-fashioned pair of "knitting hands" clacking away at a straight line of garter stitch. Water clocks and embroidery stools and wind-up tea kettles and fine memorial pottery to commemorate the Queen's this or the Crown Prince's that or Nelson's Victory At Sea crowded up 'gainst dark little daguerrotypes of a stiff lipped man with bristling sideburns long enough that he might have combed them up and over his gleaming bald pate. Or braided them, in imitation of one of those Fierce Merican Natives that were all en vogue amongst the bluestockings.
Mr. Hogsbender, that. And all of thise, all of it wrapped about with silk or paper roses, padded with embroided rose-laden pillows, framed with dried rose petals, and Mrs. Hogsbender, all in gleaming back, perched with improbable daintiness on an elegant stool in the midst of it all frowning at them over the edge of a pair of half-spectacles gone blind with light, clucking doubtfully, inserting questions about their cleanliness and the potential for Parasites About Their Persons (which seem less personal than general. The woman Abhors a Parasite), clearly quite ready to send them off with a brisk "I am sure that madam needn't be bothered - "
When the door opens and the close confines of the room (which smells of roses, not the fresh sort, but the cloying overapplication of rosewater, as in a room where a wake is being held, and the undertaker has soaked the curtains in it in an effort to cover over the unfortunate effluvia of the recently deceased. Heavy enough that not even the brisk scent of freshly brewed tea does more than cut a lazy line of scent through the miasma) are sliced open by the re-appearance of the supercilious footman in his absurd wig, which slides forward nearly to his eyebrows as he bends to murmur something in Mrs. Hogsbender's ear and -
she looks up, mouth curling as if she had just caught wiff of the rotten potential undergirding that sweet-rose scent. "Well." Clipped and closed, the tone. "It seems that my lady is in."
Mouth pressed together around the words, the frozen expression souring by the merest degree.
"And will see you, after all."
One other genuine palazzo - this one far more decayed than the Ladies' own - braces the square, along with a warren of other buildings, and of course one of the cities' ubiquitous chapels, dedicated to the martyr-saint Liliane, rose windows and terracotta rooftile and quite directly in the middle of the little campo - an elegant stone founting, the bronze-patina'd central figure a most realistic expression of Liliane's martyrdom, her body a bristling explosion of enemy spears, arching outward from the central spine, face turned to heaven, frame near-naked.
In eminently baroque style, the water falls not from the buckets she is carrying, but from the wounds themselves. Trickling down the glistening bronze surfaces to collect in the marble basin, which glows golden in sunlight and blue-white in gaslight and merely dark on these long, gloomy autumn days full of shiftless clouds and pouring rain.
So here, this slumping palazzo, half-way to glory, half-way to ruin, on a gloomy afternoon with a cold wind from the Adriatic beginning to kick up choppy little waves even in the narrowest and most protected of the city's canals, arabesque windows in rust red and deep purple wrapped in wilting black bunting that looks rather as if someone loosed a haberdasher's 'prentice boy on the home of his rival, the bunting - draped about the windows sometime in the days since the discovery of the [how does one say body in polite company?] shell of their countrywoman, drowned in the canals - bedraggled from the torrential autumnal rains. The windowboxes, with their cheerful array of pansies, have been covered over with fine black netting.
The smallest plaque, slowly weathered bronze, bolted into the cracked Venetian plaster on the pillasters framing the wrought-iron gate:
The Ladies'
Perambulation
Society
-
No one is walking today. Not with the familiar brisk steps and hushing murmur of petticoats, the bracing straightforward style the Ladies have adopted, as if the side streets and listing alleys, the labyrinthine backstreets and hidden cul-de-sacs of Venice were the no more frightening than some country Lane in Sussex, the mid-day sun in the sky, the farmers in the fields, the word of bees a humming buzz amidst the blooming hedgerows. There, in gloomy Angleland, one dreams of sun-drenched Italia. Peeling back the layers of whale-boned corsets and heavy fushine silks, the waves of tuille in exchange for some cotton nothing, not much more - perhaps even less - than an undergarment, sun setting on the Apinine hills while the rhythmic music of scythes cut through golden fields bisected by Roman roads shaded by stone pines planted - perhaps - by some long-dead, barely dressed Legionnaire himself.
And here, in romantic, water-logged Italia, one remains as Anglish as ever. So it seems.
Still - the square is deserted, where normally there might be a half-dozen women walking arm and arm around the square, determinedly not looking directly at the naked breasts of poor martyred Liliane and the water trickling down her transfixed frame.
Just a slip of a girl, with the sort of prettiness like to turn mousy as soon as she opens her mouth, shrouded in an impractical velvet cloak, followed by a mustachioed gondolier with drooping eyes and the rolling gait of someone born to water rather than dry(ish) land.
-
George - or more specifically Harmon, must talk his way past a trio of gatekeepers before the pair first set eyes on one of the ubiquitous ladies. First, a supercilious footman, who appears to be no more than a local boy dressed up in some old velvet livery and given a powdered wig from a half-century ago to add some gravitas to his appearance. Then, a slit-eyed and even more supercilious butler all in black, his receding hair shellacked to a hardness that might well protect him from missles on the battlefield, or at least from bricks tossed from behind a barricade. Barrel-chested, with a wide cumberbun and an elaborately tied cravat and no less than four timepieces on his person, each of which he consults in succession as his snears his way through their interview before he at last passes them off to Mrs. Hogsbender, the aptly named housekeeper.
Mrs. Hogsbender.
Here, at last, is an obstacle worthy of their time. For all the pomp and polish of the footman and the butler, both were easier to sap than the two-foot walls around a pleasure palace. Mrs. Hogsbender, though is a redoubtable, formidable woman, with a shelf of a bosom and a black bombazine dress like a mainsail and the brisk efficiency of the doyenne of a great house, never mind that the staff of the Society numbers no more than four or five, and half those on loan from milady's own establishment. She receives them in her sitting room belowstairs, which faces the canal proper, perhaps a half-storey above water level. The room is papered in elaborate rose damask, though there is something seamed about the application, as if it had been rescued from elsewhere before being installed here. Papered in rose damask, stuffed full of dark, heavy furniture, pine most-like, though painted and stained to have the look of dark, heavy mahoganies, the shelves positively stuffed with bric-a-brac of all sorts.
Porcelain birds and mechanical ladies, the sort that plink out the latest Viennese waltzes while stuttering above a table's surface, starched crinolines stiff and yellowing with age. Autonomic thread-winders and an old-fashioned pair of "knitting hands" clacking away at a straight line of garter stitch. Water clocks and embroidery stools and wind-up tea kettles and fine memorial pottery to commemorate the Queen's this or the Crown Prince's that or Nelson's Victory At Sea crowded up 'gainst dark little daguerrotypes of a stiff lipped man with bristling sideburns long enough that he might have combed them up and over his gleaming bald pate. Or braided them, in imitation of one of those Fierce Merican Natives that were all en vogue amongst the bluestockings.
Mr. Hogsbender, that. And all of thise, all of it wrapped about with silk or paper roses, padded with embroided rose-laden pillows, framed with dried rose petals, and Mrs. Hogsbender, all in gleaming back, perched with improbable daintiness on an elegant stool in the midst of it all frowning at them over the edge of a pair of half-spectacles gone blind with light, clucking doubtfully, inserting questions about their cleanliness and the potential for Parasites About Their Persons (which seem less personal than general. The woman Abhors a Parasite), clearly quite ready to send them off with a brisk "I am sure that madam needn't be bothered - "
When the door opens and the close confines of the room (which smells of roses, not the fresh sort, but the cloying overapplication of rosewater, as in a room where a wake is being held, and the undertaker has soaked the curtains in it in an effort to cover over the unfortunate effluvia of the recently deceased. Heavy enough that not even the brisk scent of freshly brewed tea does more than cut a lazy line of scent through the miasma) are sliced open by the re-appearance of the supercilious footman in his absurd wig, which slides forward nearly to his eyebrows as he bends to murmur something in Mrs. Hogsbender's ear and -
she looks up, mouth curling as if she had just caught wiff of the rotten potential undergirding that sweet-rose scent. "Well." Clipped and closed, the tone. "It seems that my lady is in."
Mouth pressed together around the words, the frozen expression souring by the merest degree.
"And will see you, after all."
A discovery 2 - BY HARV
"There's a fly in this soup, George."
George chuckled, a low thing made up of gravel, whiskey and heavy tobacco. He brushed his hand across the thick bristle of his beard and moustache, wiping clean what few crumbs still clung from the fresh loaf of bread they had delivered to their table, the same bread he had been sopping up the remains of the beef-suggestible stew laden into a wooden bowl before him. He jammed the soggy mess into his mouth before it had a chance to disintegrate, licking his fingers and then his chops with the earnest comforts of a seafarer long since surrendered to the possibility of shrimp and fish for the remainder of his days; that is to say, greedily. He didn't bother to answer Harmon right away, choosing instead to enjoy his moment of settled hunger and blissful fulfillment with an ear rattling belch and a dangerous creak from his wholly insupportable chair.
He blinked from beneath his cap, a floppy thing that drooped off to one side, eclipsing the top half of his right ear. He stared at Harmon, the man's dainty fingers pushing something around in his soup with a spoon almost as big as his palm.
"I swear it, George, a fly! Look! As big as a beggar's last farthing."
"They don't have Farthings out this way, 'Armon. Ain't the good ole Merry Mother."
"I'll say. A sight and a sliver better on our conscience and wallets at that." He watched the wispy moustache, thin and waxed, writhe about distastefully on Harmon's upper lip, curious how a man with blush on his cheeks and a sense of taste that appreciated Mauve in all it's resplendent possibilities, could even manage a few hairs let alone an entire pencil twist bristle amongst his very many attempts at artistry and aristocratic leanings.
"I mean, really, George. Who ever thought breaking a penny into quarters would be a wise decision in a market and commonwealth that prides itself on being expensive about the best parts of life? Were they trying to complicate things?"
"Just e'nuff to give tha' poor somethin' to feel stupid about, 'Armon" He elicited another belch, ignoring the sudden glare of several nearby patrons, who's tables were close enough that they all might as well be at a banquet or a feast. He ignored the thick necked and proud faced labourers, patting his generous stomach with something like contentment. Harmon pushed his spoon about one last time before, with a sniff of regret, set the utensil down and gingerly pushed the bowl forward until it was well out of all sight but the peripheral.
"Are we done here then, George? I feel as if it might be time we get on with…well, getting to what we came here for?”
“Oh? ‘n what might tha’ be, ‘Armon?”
“Well…” He watched the slim young man, suck in a breath and puff out his cheeks on the exhale, head tilting to one side in an effort to theatrically express his boredom. “I feel as if we might be stuck-“
“Stuck?”
“Yes George, Stuck. In a rut perhaps.”
“A rut?” He perked a brow, one eye nearly squinting into a narrow slit. “Wha’s at ‘en?”
“It’s the pair of lines cut into the cobbles for the wagons to run through.”
“Huh. ‘n Why ‘Armon, would we be stuck ‘n ‘em, wha’ wit’ us not ‘avin’ ‘rselves a Wagon ‘n all?”
“It’s what’s known as a figure of Speech, George. Like in some of my poems. A metaphor.”
George was about to turn and pay Harmon a piece of mind about bringing up the scrawl and mishap that was Harmon’s attempts at enlightened poetics, when he heard a commotion erupt at the door. The Tavern was a sty of a pig of a place, filled with ruffians, vagabonds and the off-shore labourers of good seafaring vessels. It had been the first part of their new lives that they had found coming off the galleon that brought them from a dingy little island filled with many ugly things, ugly people and an air that had threatened to choke them both more surely than the raw potatoes they served in their stews.
The door to the place was a squat thing, charged with bands of iron that reinforced it’s solidity and the hinges upon which it rested, as if the owner of the establishment had grown used to the barging in of various riffraff and had simply grown accustomed to anticipating havoc within said establishment rather then preventing it. Protect your investment and let the locals be merry how they pleased.
Which is probably why when a rather large fellow, who’s shirt was too small, pants were too big and his belt was a tangled rope of frayed twine, so dirtied, it was difficult to tell some of the ribbons from the hair growth that stormed up his stomach and vanished beneath the tight shirt’s hemline. His face was a thousand calamitous bar fights, all broken teeth and upturned protrusions, one eye hiding behind a patch black and furry. His skin tone might have been swarthy were that word not generously claimed by the handsome and academic and his hair was a mopping mess of sea-brine, that hung down like seaweed, alternating between drying out and wrinkle-soaking the space around his eyes.
He was currently holding the door open with one thick hand, scarred and nicked like it had been through the cutting board of a hundred well-intentioned mothers fattening up skinny children. He was also cursing rather vehemently in another language which had garnered no small amount of attention from the rest of the Tavern’s population.
Many of them were looking scarce-in-place, ducking their hats or covering their brows behind their hands and eyes, while others were openly staring at the fellow, listening as he threw his bulk and tirade down the few steps separating the outside and the in and a rare few couldn’t be bothered lifting their attentions from their own business to pay him any mind. That really only involved the drunks passed out in a puddle of their own making, the bartender who, as was mentioned previously, confident in the iron bolted into various parts of his establishment and both Harmon and George, who continued their conversation with nary an interruption beyond George’s brief glance of regard.
“We ain’t ‘n a rut, ‘Armon. We’r’ jus’…find’n our way ‘n ah world. Like…a cup’le a babes, fresh crawl’n ‘round Mums ole’ Kitch’ eh?” He reached across the table to poke Harmon in the shoulder, elbows planted with certain rudeness, the patches of his thickly padded long coat, soaking up some of the spilled ale from the half dozen patrons that populated this tiny table toward the back before them.
Harmon, flinched slightly and followed that up with a rather dead pan stare and a brief smoothing of his uniform hair, greased down as was one of the popular styles within the court proper of Venice’s upper class. He’d even gone to the trouble of attaching a small red ribbon at the nape where the black streaks came to en end. With the yellow cravat and blisteringly blue jacket, he seemed ready for court at a moment’s notice. That or a parade.
“If that were True, George, we would be off on adventures around this most wondrous of cities, exploring sites, enjoying the population and immersing ourselves within the Italian lifestyles that I’ve heard so much about-“
“Since when ah you ‘eard enything ‘bout the Eye-ties, ‘Armon?”
He watched Harmon blink, astonishment painting his blushing features. The tables nearby were beginning to erupt in a loud assortment of scraping chair legs, as if people were rising in a hurry and clearing a path for some ponderous boulder. Funnily enough, it was growing somewhat louder with each passing second.
“I’ve heard plenty! Just because you’re some-“ A foppish hand, dressed in a white glove Harmon had been doing his desperate best to keep that colour, flapped at him “-vagabond determined to meet an ignorant end, doesn’t mean I’m bound to the same destiny, George!”
“Awww, now don’ be like ‘at, Armon, ole Chum! I ain’ mean enything by my pontificat’n. Jus’ muse’n out loud.”
“Well you and your muse can- Say now what exactly is all this ruckus?”
They both turned to stare into the paunch heavy mid-drift of the same ugly creature that had stormed the door down not moments ago. His breathing at this distance, was near as loud as cannon fire, thanks in no small part to the snuffling upturn and slight right angle of his nose, that looked as if someone had punched it in with a hammer on an occasion. Or a hundred fists on several occasions. The man’s hands slammed down into the table, making their soup bowls jump. Neither man flinched, simply lifted their gazes and leaned back in their chairs.
“Oye! ‘Armon!”
“Yes, George.”
“You figur’d out ‘ow tah Spek eye-tie yet?”
The wheezing monstrosity was jawing rather loudly, switching from being in George’s face to melting some of the grease out of Harmon’s hair with breath better suited to Krakens.
“Alas, no, George-“
“Well. S’bit humil’ate’n now ain’ it? ‘Ere tha’ lad’s got ‘emself a problem ‘n we ain’ got ‘erselves ‘n idea ‘ow tah fix ‘it.”
There was a brief pause, the crushed face expression that could have been constipation, hunger or rage with equal chances, was bandying his head back and forth between George and Harmon’s own features. The ball of his fists on their table seemed to suggest Rage was the call of the day, however.
“Do you think he realizes we don’t comprehend him?”
The pair dodged around the hulking creature to give each other a knowing stare, then glance up into the mashed face of their table’s recent addition. The result was a second smash of balled fists into the planked wooding furnishing, both soup bowls upending with a loud clatter, spilling their remaining contents out onto the floor and out of sight. Both men stared at the commotion and frowned, returning their gazes to the large bellied fellow.
“That was highly uncalled for.”
“Paid good monay fer tha’, lad!”
“Good money for bad food wasted is double the insult!”
“Reckon tha’s right!”
Another incomprehensible bellow erupted from the large creature who, some might call misfortunate, when he chose to perform the noise directly into Harmon’s face.
“Oh really no- My God, what does this man consume to smell like that?!”
“’Ear now, dun’ think ‘e roit ‘preciates your candid tone then, ‘Armon.”
Evidenced, by Harmon suddenly being hoisted up by the lapels, gripped in a pair of meaty fists and left to dangle not a few feet off the Tavern floor, a moment that lasted only a few precious seconds of course, as Harmon’s eyes widened and a the blush of his cheeks suddenly spread in a liquid red across his powdered pale face. There was quite suddenly a vivid movement of those dainty white gloves and the sudden stiffening of the hands at his lapels. A moment later and Harmon, who jostled himself quite gently within the ugly giant’s grip, slid through those ham-fisted fingers and back to his own two booted feet.
George watched him dust himself down, sneering in disgust at the greasy fingerprints left on his rather fashionable jacket and cravat.
“Animals! Have you never heard of Bathing and Hygiene?!”
Which might have been lost in the Tavern’s din, had the Tavern not gone deathly quiet and all eyes and patrons turned in their direction with something like astonishment and disbelief. No few, were creeping to their feet. Still, the giant of a bellowing man, had yet to move or even make a sound, his head canted up toward the ceiling eyes wild and wide and as frozen as the rest of him.
“Poors poor everywhere, ‘Armon. Soaps fer tha’ luxury o’ an arse proper stick’d.”
George climbed to his feet, weathering the tongue jutting look of disgust on Harmon’s features, who was scrubby busily at his lapels with a laced kerchief. By now, half the Tavern was on their feet, mumbling and murmuring to one another. The occasional bit of English crept through the din and George hooked a hand around his left ear, the other with thumb in a belt loop, leaning out toward the Crowd.
“Wut’zat? ‘Eard a few words jus’ then. Cam’on speak up ‘eh?”
To which a young thing, broad of hip, dextrous of hand and tanned in the way that reminds a good sailor of a sunset; all golds and polished lovely, moved around the edge of a pair of thick armed sailors to give them an eye and a twist of her lips, her tray with no less than eight mugs still perched on it’s surface, not moving an inch outside of her control during the maneuvering.
“They say-“ She said with a heavy accent, one George made a squint at, so as to hide the fact he was also busily inspecting the cleavage she had on obvious display “-he-“ And she tipped a head of long curled hair, black as the raven’s wing, at the man still standing stock still between the pair of men “-came ‘round to fetch a price.”
“A price?” Harmon paused in his scrubbing to regard the woman.
“Yes. A price, apparently on your heads.”
“Wut? Already?”
Harmon snorted, returning to his futile attempts to scrub the lapel clean.
“He say you kill someone. Throw them into the River like some-“ She spat to one side, none of the patrons bothering to step out of her way “-dog found on the street. Some lady or other-“
“-Wut? ‘Ow they go figur’n tha’?”
She shrugged again. “You are Foreigner.”
“Roit.” He flicked a glance around at the crowd, still bulging with the rapidly traveling word of a Bounty in the Room.
“’ere now, you lis’sen-“ George levelled a finger at the girl, who remained unmoved, but seemed to shrink as large chunks of the crowd suddenly animated and puffed up large. “We ain’ ev’n ‘ad ourselves a chance tah do no wrong ‘ere ‘bouts. Need me a meal, a wench ‘n a nice ole snooze ‘for I git me’self-“
“-and Me, more often than not-“
“Thaz roit, ‘n ole ‘Armon ‘ere ‘n’tah eny sort’a trouble. Ain’ go look’n fer no Barney ‘n Certain ain’ got no girlie under me mits, tha’ I ain’ fixed tah please.” George pulled on his own less fashionable lapels, an impressed waggle to his moustache. “I don’ ‘urt no Women.”
The Tavern stared at them both, another brief silence jumping into the moment, challenged only by the swish-swish-scrape of Harmon’s insistent cleanings. The Server was the first to speak up, shrugging with one shoulder, and spare hand on hip, head tossing about at the patrons of the Bar.
“They say, they not believe you. They also think you are Foreigner. Mostly though? I think they hear ‘price’ and ‘on your head’ and stop thinking-“
“Well…can’ say I blame ‘em fer tha’, luv. Might well ‘ear that too ‘n cut a man’s reason off at the gibs.”
“Yes. Too bad they do not pay more attention to the fat one who tried first-“
She nodded toward the still standing figure who was trembling slightly now. Harmon glanced up, pausing his efforts and took a generous step back from the table. George did the same, only a moment before the body that was once a bellowing man, came crashing down into the table, slumping to a thunderous halt. Both men then stepped back into their original positions, staring down at the Meat and then at each other.
“Wut’tha’ ‘ell you do to ‘em now?”
“He was being rude!” Harmon chirped defensively, hands dropping from his lapels to settle at his hips. His foot began to tap, a sharp clipped sound that made George’s teeth ache. The larger man grimaced behind his thick bristling facial hair and hooked a thumb at the crowd.
“Tha’ wut ya gonna tell ‘em then?”
“No, I won’t be telling them anything, George. The ignorant drunks would have as much ability to understand me as did the fellow who has so effortlessly ruined our table, our lunch and our air of sophistication-…well, my air, anyway.”
A rumble of displeasure flooded the crowd, most of which were now fully on their feet. Several fists were clapping into several open hands and several more hands were reaching for nearby stools, chairs and no few mugs. Harmon and George turned as one to look at the crowd, then at the young Server who was leaning back to speak to several of the Patrons with broad gesticulations and in their own tongue. Upon noticing their attention, she leaned forward again. The tray had yet to move in her grip.
“I translate for them what you say, so you might explain you are innocent.”
Both men stared, mouths slightly agape.
“They no like what you say.”
George sighed, already beginning to unload his jacket onto the chair behind him, loosening the smudged tie he wore over his soiled shirt and under his precariously buttoned vest.
“No, luv. I ain’ reckon they did.”
Tables and chairs were being flung out of the way or pushed to the walls by the crowd now and Harmon’s brows perked high on his head. He didn’t bother removing his gaze from the rapidly swelling crowd, as he spoke to George next.
“My God, what are they doing?”
“I don’ think they much lik’d you call’n ‘em ignorant, ‘Armon.”
“And it is only the Ignorant who truly fear the Truth, George.”
“’Armon?”
“Yes, George.”
“Shut’it.”
The crowd roared and charged.
* * * *
Afterwards, the pair stepped over bodies and around broken furniture, brushing themselves down and dusting off their shoulders. Harmon was, once again, smoothing down his hair, trying desperately to reapply some of the grease that he’d lost to some man’s arm-pit during the fray. His moustache was frizzy at either end, but George had decided not to inform him of such things until they were beyond the Tavern’s threshold. For now, they approached the bar, the serving girl standing behind it, having found the safest place amongst drunks to keep out of the fight: Beside the Alcohol.
Her hands were planted on the bar, a rag pinned down beneath one of them, her rather lovely features left in a smoulder of displeasure as she exchanged glares between the two, who leaned against the bar and feigned vague shock and bristling annoyance. George, opted for the Shock, while Harmon remained annoyed.
“Well, now tha’ that’s ‘oll sett’eld ‘ows ‘bout you tell us ‘bout tha’ Lady wut’ got’erself murder’d like?”
She left her gaze on George for a few scalding seconds then snapped them at Harmon almost questioningly.
To which the reply inevitably came:
“Precious, I’m in no mood to explain the vagueries of his levels of seriousness when it comes to queries to the likes of you. Just answer his question and you’ll find him out of your hair and establishment that much quicker.”
Which earned Harmon a few moments of scalding as well, before she sighed and turned to cup two fingers under George’s chin and pull his gaze up to meet her eyes once more.
“She was lady from the House on the Hill. One where all ladies who wish to be Ladies go, when they do not wish to be Ladies for Men, any longer.”
“Ahhh, them lot.”
“What?”
“Talk’n ‘bout tha’ Femme types, ‘Armon.”
“What? Colonists?”
“No, ‘Armon. Them wut’ come from tha’ isle o’ Lesbo, I think.”
“George. You’re being ignorant again.” And then Harmon turned to regard the Woman, leaning forward to meet her confused gaze once again. “Pray tell, does this House and it’s Lady population bare a name, Dear?”
“Mmm, yes.” They watched as the girl struggled to string together the proper pronunciation in the English tongue, failing abysmally along the way. It took a minute or more of gesturing, at which Harmon and George guessed with wild, often lewd (George) and Academic (Harmon) abandon, as well as frustrated huffs and one incited shriek of ‘Enough!’ from the Server, who’s name she gave eventually as ‘Isabella’ when George’s constant indications of ‘Luv’ grew tiresome, to finally stretch all the syllables out before the pair.
“Tha’ Per’am’blu-“
“Perambulation, George. A Ladies society, as it were. Quite popular within the boundaries of Venice, I hear.”
“We jus’-“
“If you ask me again how I know about Venice I’m going to leave you here to flounder as you always do, George.”
“A’roit, A’roit dun’ git yer pettis ‘n a wedge, ‘Armon.” George turned to Isabella then, leaning forward to tug on the brim of his over-volumed hat. “We ‘preci’ate all your ‘elp, Mum-“ Isabella sank a little behind the counter, eyes rolling in frustration at the new pet name “-‘n sorry ‘bout tha’ mess.”
Neither man, turning as they were toward the door, saw the rather unpleasant gesture she delivered to their backs. They made their way across the bodies, picking out the clear spaces until they reached the steps and pushed the door open out into the world.
“So what was that business all about then, George?”
“Why…I think I may’a found us sum’ work ‘n ‘Armon.”
“What? Doing what?”
“Why seems tah me, only one body’s got more worry ‘n a Man wut’ kill’d a Lady.”
“And that would be?”
“Well, tha’ res’ o’ tha’ Ladies not look’n tah be kill’d.”
It took a moment for Harmon to follow George’s logic and then, as with most times he suddenly had a deep a sinking feeling come over him, began to curse in well an articulated French. George took that as his usual cue to begin grinning at the fun ahead.
George chuckled, a low thing made up of gravel, whiskey and heavy tobacco. He brushed his hand across the thick bristle of his beard and moustache, wiping clean what few crumbs still clung from the fresh loaf of bread they had delivered to their table, the same bread he had been sopping up the remains of the beef-suggestible stew laden into a wooden bowl before him. He jammed the soggy mess into his mouth before it had a chance to disintegrate, licking his fingers and then his chops with the earnest comforts of a seafarer long since surrendered to the possibility of shrimp and fish for the remainder of his days; that is to say, greedily. He didn't bother to answer Harmon right away, choosing instead to enjoy his moment of settled hunger and blissful fulfillment with an ear rattling belch and a dangerous creak from his wholly insupportable chair.
He blinked from beneath his cap, a floppy thing that drooped off to one side, eclipsing the top half of his right ear. He stared at Harmon, the man's dainty fingers pushing something around in his soup with a spoon almost as big as his palm.
"I swear it, George, a fly! Look! As big as a beggar's last farthing."
"They don't have Farthings out this way, 'Armon. Ain't the good ole Merry Mother."
"I'll say. A sight and a sliver better on our conscience and wallets at that." He watched the wispy moustache, thin and waxed, writhe about distastefully on Harmon's upper lip, curious how a man with blush on his cheeks and a sense of taste that appreciated Mauve in all it's resplendent possibilities, could even manage a few hairs let alone an entire pencil twist bristle amongst his very many attempts at artistry and aristocratic leanings.
"I mean, really, George. Who ever thought breaking a penny into quarters would be a wise decision in a market and commonwealth that prides itself on being expensive about the best parts of life? Were they trying to complicate things?"
"Just e'nuff to give tha' poor somethin' to feel stupid about, 'Armon" He elicited another belch, ignoring the sudden glare of several nearby patrons, who's tables were close enough that they all might as well be at a banquet or a feast. He ignored the thick necked and proud faced labourers, patting his generous stomach with something like contentment. Harmon pushed his spoon about one last time before, with a sniff of regret, set the utensil down and gingerly pushed the bowl forward until it was well out of all sight but the peripheral.
"Are we done here then, George? I feel as if it might be time we get on with…well, getting to what we came here for?”
“Oh? ‘n what might tha’ be, ‘Armon?”
“Well…” He watched the slim young man, suck in a breath and puff out his cheeks on the exhale, head tilting to one side in an effort to theatrically express his boredom. “I feel as if we might be stuck-“
“Stuck?”
“Yes George, Stuck. In a rut perhaps.”
“A rut?” He perked a brow, one eye nearly squinting into a narrow slit. “Wha’s at ‘en?”
“It’s the pair of lines cut into the cobbles for the wagons to run through.”
“Huh. ‘n Why ‘Armon, would we be stuck ‘n ‘em, wha’ wit’ us not ‘avin’ ‘rselves a Wagon ‘n all?”
“It’s what’s known as a figure of Speech, George. Like in some of my poems. A metaphor.”
George was about to turn and pay Harmon a piece of mind about bringing up the scrawl and mishap that was Harmon’s attempts at enlightened poetics, when he heard a commotion erupt at the door. The Tavern was a sty of a pig of a place, filled with ruffians, vagabonds and the off-shore labourers of good seafaring vessels. It had been the first part of their new lives that they had found coming off the galleon that brought them from a dingy little island filled with many ugly things, ugly people and an air that had threatened to choke them both more surely than the raw potatoes they served in their stews.
The door to the place was a squat thing, charged with bands of iron that reinforced it’s solidity and the hinges upon which it rested, as if the owner of the establishment had grown used to the barging in of various riffraff and had simply grown accustomed to anticipating havoc within said establishment rather then preventing it. Protect your investment and let the locals be merry how they pleased.
Which is probably why when a rather large fellow, who’s shirt was too small, pants were too big and his belt was a tangled rope of frayed twine, so dirtied, it was difficult to tell some of the ribbons from the hair growth that stormed up his stomach and vanished beneath the tight shirt’s hemline. His face was a thousand calamitous bar fights, all broken teeth and upturned protrusions, one eye hiding behind a patch black and furry. His skin tone might have been swarthy were that word not generously claimed by the handsome and academic and his hair was a mopping mess of sea-brine, that hung down like seaweed, alternating between drying out and wrinkle-soaking the space around his eyes.
He was currently holding the door open with one thick hand, scarred and nicked like it had been through the cutting board of a hundred well-intentioned mothers fattening up skinny children. He was also cursing rather vehemently in another language which had garnered no small amount of attention from the rest of the Tavern’s population.
Many of them were looking scarce-in-place, ducking their hats or covering their brows behind their hands and eyes, while others were openly staring at the fellow, listening as he threw his bulk and tirade down the few steps separating the outside and the in and a rare few couldn’t be bothered lifting their attentions from their own business to pay him any mind. That really only involved the drunks passed out in a puddle of their own making, the bartender who, as was mentioned previously, confident in the iron bolted into various parts of his establishment and both Harmon and George, who continued their conversation with nary an interruption beyond George’s brief glance of regard.
“We ain’t ‘n a rut, ‘Armon. We’r’ jus’…find’n our way ‘n ah world. Like…a cup’le a babes, fresh crawl’n ‘round Mums ole’ Kitch’ eh?” He reached across the table to poke Harmon in the shoulder, elbows planted with certain rudeness, the patches of his thickly padded long coat, soaking up some of the spilled ale from the half dozen patrons that populated this tiny table toward the back before them.
Harmon, flinched slightly and followed that up with a rather dead pan stare and a brief smoothing of his uniform hair, greased down as was one of the popular styles within the court proper of Venice’s upper class. He’d even gone to the trouble of attaching a small red ribbon at the nape where the black streaks came to en end. With the yellow cravat and blisteringly blue jacket, he seemed ready for court at a moment’s notice. That or a parade.
“If that were True, George, we would be off on adventures around this most wondrous of cities, exploring sites, enjoying the population and immersing ourselves within the Italian lifestyles that I’ve heard so much about-“
“Since when ah you ‘eard enything ‘bout the Eye-ties, ‘Armon?”
He watched Harmon blink, astonishment painting his blushing features. The tables nearby were beginning to erupt in a loud assortment of scraping chair legs, as if people were rising in a hurry and clearing a path for some ponderous boulder. Funnily enough, it was growing somewhat louder with each passing second.
“I’ve heard plenty! Just because you’re some-“ A foppish hand, dressed in a white glove Harmon had been doing his desperate best to keep that colour, flapped at him “-vagabond determined to meet an ignorant end, doesn’t mean I’m bound to the same destiny, George!”
“Awww, now don’ be like ‘at, Armon, ole Chum! I ain’ mean enything by my pontificat’n. Jus’ muse’n out loud.”
“Well you and your muse can- Say now what exactly is all this ruckus?”
They both turned to stare into the paunch heavy mid-drift of the same ugly creature that had stormed the door down not moments ago. His breathing at this distance, was near as loud as cannon fire, thanks in no small part to the snuffling upturn and slight right angle of his nose, that looked as if someone had punched it in with a hammer on an occasion. Or a hundred fists on several occasions. The man’s hands slammed down into the table, making their soup bowls jump. Neither man flinched, simply lifted their gazes and leaned back in their chairs.
“Oye! ‘Armon!”
“Yes, George.”
“You figur’d out ‘ow tah Spek eye-tie yet?”
The wheezing monstrosity was jawing rather loudly, switching from being in George’s face to melting some of the grease out of Harmon’s hair with breath better suited to Krakens.
“Alas, no, George-“
“Well. S’bit humil’ate’n now ain’ it? ‘Ere tha’ lad’s got ‘emself a problem ‘n we ain’ got ‘erselves ‘n idea ‘ow tah fix ‘it.”
There was a brief pause, the crushed face expression that could have been constipation, hunger or rage with equal chances, was bandying his head back and forth between George and Harmon’s own features. The ball of his fists on their table seemed to suggest Rage was the call of the day, however.
“Do you think he realizes we don’t comprehend him?”
The pair dodged around the hulking creature to give each other a knowing stare, then glance up into the mashed face of their table’s recent addition. The result was a second smash of balled fists into the planked wooding furnishing, both soup bowls upending with a loud clatter, spilling their remaining contents out onto the floor and out of sight. Both men stared at the commotion and frowned, returning their gazes to the large bellied fellow.
“That was highly uncalled for.”
“Paid good monay fer tha’, lad!”
“Good money for bad food wasted is double the insult!”
“Reckon tha’s right!”
Another incomprehensible bellow erupted from the large creature who, some might call misfortunate, when he chose to perform the noise directly into Harmon’s face.
“Oh really no- My God, what does this man consume to smell like that?!”
“’Ear now, dun’ think ‘e roit ‘preciates your candid tone then, ‘Armon.”
Evidenced, by Harmon suddenly being hoisted up by the lapels, gripped in a pair of meaty fists and left to dangle not a few feet off the Tavern floor, a moment that lasted only a few precious seconds of course, as Harmon’s eyes widened and a the blush of his cheeks suddenly spread in a liquid red across his powdered pale face. There was quite suddenly a vivid movement of those dainty white gloves and the sudden stiffening of the hands at his lapels. A moment later and Harmon, who jostled himself quite gently within the ugly giant’s grip, slid through those ham-fisted fingers and back to his own two booted feet.
George watched him dust himself down, sneering in disgust at the greasy fingerprints left on his rather fashionable jacket and cravat.
“Animals! Have you never heard of Bathing and Hygiene?!”
Which might have been lost in the Tavern’s din, had the Tavern not gone deathly quiet and all eyes and patrons turned in their direction with something like astonishment and disbelief. No few, were creeping to their feet. Still, the giant of a bellowing man, had yet to move or even make a sound, his head canted up toward the ceiling eyes wild and wide and as frozen as the rest of him.
“Poors poor everywhere, ‘Armon. Soaps fer tha’ luxury o’ an arse proper stick’d.”
George climbed to his feet, weathering the tongue jutting look of disgust on Harmon’s features, who was scrubby busily at his lapels with a laced kerchief. By now, half the Tavern was on their feet, mumbling and murmuring to one another. The occasional bit of English crept through the din and George hooked a hand around his left ear, the other with thumb in a belt loop, leaning out toward the Crowd.
“Wut’zat? ‘Eard a few words jus’ then. Cam’on speak up ‘eh?”
To which a young thing, broad of hip, dextrous of hand and tanned in the way that reminds a good sailor of a sunset; all golds and polished lovely, moved around the edge of a pair of thick armed sailors to give them an eye and a twist of her lips, her tray with no less than eight mugs still perched on it’s surface, not moving an inch outside of her control during the maneuvering.
“They say-“ She said with a heavy accent, one George made a squint at, so as to hide the fact he was also busily inspecting the cleavage she had on obvious display “-he-“ And she tipped a head of long curled hair, black as the raven’s wing, at the man still standing stock still between the pair of men “-came ‘round to fetch a price.”
“A price?” Harmon paused in his scrubbing to regard the woman.
“Yes. A price, apparently on your heads.”
“Wut? Already?”
Harmon snorted, returning to his futile attempts to scrub the lapel clean.
“He say you kill someone. Throw them into the River like some-“ She spat to one side, none of the patrons bothering to step out of her way “-dog found on the street. Some lady or other-“
“-Wut? ‘Ow they go figur’n tha’?”
She shrugged again. “You are Foreigner.”
“Roit.” He flicked a glance around at the crowd, still bulging with the rapidly traveling word of a Bounty in the Room.
“’ere now, you lis’sen-“ George levelled a finger at the girl, who remained unmoved, but seemed to shrink as large chunks of the crowd suddenly animated and puffed up large. “We ain’ ev’n ‘ad ourselves a chance tah do no wrong ‘ere ‘bouts. Need me a meal, a wench ‘n a nice ole snooze ‘for I git me’self-“
“-and Me, more often than not-“
“Thaz roit, ‘n ole ‘Armon ‘ere ‘n’tah eny sort’a trouble. Ain’ go look’n fer no Barney ‘n Certain ain’ got no girlie under me mits, tha’ I ain’ fixed tah please.” George pulled on his own less fashionable lapels, an impressed waggle to his moustache. “I don’ ‘urt no Women.”
The Tavern stared at them both, another brief silence jumping into the moment, challenged only by the swish-swish-scrape of Harmon’s insistent cleanings. The Server was the first to speak up, shrugging with one shoulder, and spare hand on hip, head tossing about at the patrons of the Bar.
“They say, they not believe you. They also think you are Foreigner. Mostly though? I think they hear ‘price’ and ‘on your head’ and stop thinking-“
“Well…can’ say I blame ‘em fer tha’, luv. Might well ‘ear that too ‘n cut a man’s reason off at the gibs.”
“Yes. Too bad they do not pay more attention to the fat one who tried first-“
She nodded toward the still standing figure who was trembling slightly now. Harmon glanced up, pausing his efforts and took a generous step back from the table. George did the same, only a moment before the body that was once a bellowing man, came crashing down into the table, slumping to a thunderous halt. Both men then stepped back into their original positions, staring down at the Meat and then at each other.
“Wut’tha’ ‘ell you do to ‘em now?”
“He was being rude!” Harmon chirped defensively, hands dropping from his lapels to settle at his hips. His foot began to tap, a sharp clipped sound that made George’s teeth ache. The larger man grimaced behind his thick bristling facial hair and hooked a thumb at the crowd.
“Tha’ wut ya gonna tell ‘em then?”
“No, I won’t be telling them anything, George. The ignorant drunks would have as much ability to understand me as did the fellow who has so effortlessly ruined our table, our lunch and our air of sophistication-…well, my air, anyway.”
A rumble of displeasure flooded the crowd, most of which were now fully on their feet. Several fists were clapping into several open hands and several more hands were reaching for nearby stools, chairs and no few mugs. Harmon and George turned as one to look at the crowd, then at the young Server who was leaning back to speak to several of the Patrons with broad gesticulations and in their own tongue. Upon noticing their attention, she leaned forward again. The tray had yet to move in her grip.
“I translate for them what you say, so you might explain you are innocent.”
Both men stared, mouths slightly agape.
“They no like what you say.”
George sighed, already beginning to unload his jacket onto the chair behind him, loosening the smudged tie he wore over his soiled shirt and under his precariously buttoned vest.
“No, luv. I ain’ reckon they did.”
Tables and chairs were being flung out of the way or pushed to the walls by the crowd now and Harmon’s brows perked high on his head. He didn’t bother removing his gaze from the rapidly swelling crowd, as he spoke to George next.
“My God, what are they doing?”
“I don’ think they much lik’d you call’n ‘em ignorant, ‘Armon.”
“And it is only the Ignorant who truly fear the Truth, George.”
“’Armon?”
“Yes, George.”
“Shut’it.”
The crowd roared and charged.
* * * *
Afterwards, the pair stepped over bodies and around broken furniture, brushing themselves down and dusting off their shoulders. Harmon was, once again, smoothing down his hair, trying desperately to reapply some of the grease that he’d lost to some man’s arm-pit during the fray. His moustache was frizzy at either end, but George had decided not to inform him of such things until they were beyond the Tavern’s threshold. For now, they approached the bar, the serving girl standing behind it, having found the safest place amongst drunks to keep out of the fight: Beside the Alcohol.
Her hands were planted on the bar, a rag pinned down beneath one of them, her rather lovely features left in a smoulder of displeasure as she exchanged glares between the two, who leaned against the bar and feigned vague shock and bristling annoyance. George, opted for the Shock, while Harmon remained annoyed.
“Well, now tha’ that’s ‘oll sett’eld ‘ows ‘bout you tell us ‘bout tha’ Lady wut’ got’erself murder’d like?”
She left her gaze on George for a few scalding seconds then snapped them at Harmon almost questioningly.
To which the reply inevitably came:
“Precious, I’m in no mood to explain the vagueries of his levels of seriousness when it comes to queries to the likes of you. Just answer his question and you’ll find him out of your hair and establishment that much quicker.”
Which earned Harmon a few moments of scalding as well, before she sighed and turned to cup two fingers under George’s chin and pull his gaze up to meet her eyes once more.
“She was lady from the House on the Hill. One where all ladies who wish to be Ladies go, when they do not wish to be Ladies for Men, any longer.”
“Ahhh, them lot.”
“What?”
“Talk’n ‘bout tha’ Femme types, ‘Armon.”
“What? Colonists?”
“No, ‘Armon. Them wut’ come from tha’ isle o’ Lesbo, I think.”
“George. You’re being ignorant again.” And then Harmon turned to regard the Woman, leaning forward to meet her confused gaze once again. “Pray tell, does this House and it’s Lady population bare a name, Dear?”
“Mmm, yes.” They watched as the girl struggled to string together the proper pronunciation in the English tongue, failing abysmally along the way. It took a minute or more of gesturing, at which Harmon and George guessed with wild, often lewd (George) and Academic (Harmon) abandon, as well as frustrated huffs and one incited shriek of ‘Enough!’ from the Server, who’s name she gave eventually as ‘Isabella’ when George’s constant indications of ‘Luv’ grew tiresome, to finally stretch all the syllables out before the pair.
“Tha’ Per’am’blu-“
“Perambulation, George. A Ladies society, as it were. Quite popular within the boundaries of Venice, I hear.”
“We jus’-“
“If you ask me again how I know about Venice I’m going to leave you here to flounder as you always do, George.”
“A’roit, A’roit dun’ git yer pettis ‘n a wedge, ‘Armon.” George turned to Isabella then, leaning forward to tug on the brim of his over-volumed hat. “We ‘preci’ate all your ‘elp, Mum-“ Isabella sank a little behind the counter, eyes rolling in frustration at the new pet name “-‘n sorry ‘bout tha’ mess.”
Neither man, turning as they were toward the door, saw the rather unpleasant gesture she delivered to their backs. They made their way across the bodies, picking out the clear spaces until they reached the steps and pushed the door open out into the world.
“So what was that business all about then, George?”
“Why…I think I may’a found us sum’ work ‘n ‘Armon.”
“What? Doing what?”
“Why seems tah me, only one body’s got more worry ‘n a Man wut’ kill’d a Lady.”
“And that would be?”
“Well, tha’ res’ o’ tha’ Ladies not look’n tah be kill’d.”
It took a moment for Harmon to follow George’s logic and then, as with most times he suddenly had a deep a sinking feeling come over him, began to curse in well an articulated French. George took that as his usual cue to begin grinning at the fun ahead.
A discovery 1 - by JESS
They found her in the water, skin like wax, lungs full of water, eyes blank and staring. Her hair tangled in Giancarlo's pole as he pushed his boat along, and he choked when he saw her dragging on it, her fingers skimming just above the surface of the water, the unblinking gaze he took for one heart-stop second to belong to one of the water witches. Foreigners didn't believe in water witches. Foreigners thought they were charming inventions of the opera. Foreigners thought that the canals of Venice didn't take the spirits of those whose bones were given to them, but that's because foreigners lacked common sense.
Giancarlo knew that the water witches, rarely seen, but often heard about, were there. He knew just how to weight a body down so that it wouldn't bob to the surface again. He knew that giving a body to the canals was giving the body's secrets to the spirits of the water and that sometimes the spirits had Other Ideas, and that's why what was dead and lost didn't always stay dead and lost. He knew what water witches did to boat drivers in Venice if they caught them alone and they hadn't said their prayers, and for one heart-stop second -
But she wasn't a water-witch or a vengeful nereid. She was Mrs. James Bridlington, former member of the Ladies' Perambulation Society, and she was quite dead.
Giancarlo knew that the water witches, rarely seen, but often heard about, were there. He knew just how to weight a body down so that it wouldn't bob to the surface again. He knew that giving a body to the canals was giving the body's secrets to the spirits of the water and that sometimes the spirits had Other Ideas, and that's why what was dead and lost didn't always stay dead and lost. He knew what water witches did to boat drivers in Venice if they caught them alone and they hadn't said their prayers, and for one heart-stop second -
But she wasn't a water-witch or a vengeful nereid. She was Mrs. James Bridlington, former member of the Ladies' Perambulation Society, and she was quite dead.
A Day Among Artifacers 2 BY HARV
He picked his way through the rubble and refuse, trying his damnedest, which was not his hardest but was surely damn enough to be considered pride-worthy, not to kick at anything. The vast majority of detritus to be found in the former grounds of an Artificer Mainhouse bore at least five times the density of the top of a human skull, reportedly said to be the hardest part on the human body. He did not need a limp to go along with his shredded dignity.
The Merchant's Audit had come and gone like some force of nature.
Alesandro Botanya, Chief Availer and Ledgerman to the Constables of Taxation for the Alchemical Society, had paid him a rather prompt visit not long after the brief and rather spontaneous collapse of their rigging systems and the Titan's chassis, which had miraculously not punctured through the two meagre feet of wooden planking and into the Canal beneath. He had been stumped at trying to explain how to the three apprentices who hadn't run screaming off into the morning dawn during their frantic and futile attempts at 'repairs and maintenance'. The Chief Availer, nicknamed 'l'Orchidea', had been prompt, no nonsense and baring the vaguest hint of amusement at the entire spectacle that had greeted him not long after dawn. He hadn't even said anything to him, simply turned to regard the remaining apprentices and spoken several brief phrases in that poetic language of theirs. He had felt the smugness in the Ledgerman's voice however and had seen the rather deflating dreams and desires of the apprentices, soon to be re-fitted to a new career and life within the Accountancy.
The Ledgerman had then sniffed at the wreckage, given him a brief glance and made a sweeping motion at it all with one gloved hand, before, his stately robes plucked up by a pair of ring clad pinched fingers, sauntered his way onto the next ruination that demanded his attention. He had spat in the man's wake, removing the sourness from his pallet for a moment. It hadn't lasted long and since then, he'd reached into the boundaries of his private stock and dug free one of the remaining single malt's he had left from his journey's here. Some of the others had been smashed by the calamity, including his prized Dublin Quashling Griulsh, which was the pride of some of the Hillfolk on the Isles, who about trusted foreign humanity as they did one another, which was to say, not at all.
He found one of the stabilizer gears, half buried in the floorboards of the broad Hanger that once served as the Mainhouse smithy, no doubt sprung loose during the Titan Chassis' fall and, powered by inertia and spite, embedded itself there against removal by any and all means, short of total disintegration. He took it upon himself to pluck the single malt bottle from one of the now many empty hovels in his spotted apron, the cork plucked out between the bite of his molars and settle himself down with a grunt and no few creaks of no few inferior human joints onto the stabilizer to enjoy his last meal as Artificer.
"Better to have a noble dream then a shite empire." He lifted the bottle to the horizon, which remained hazy and mugged by the still brewing chug of steam from off the submerged Drive in the bay. The Ledgerman hadn't a clue as to what to do about it and he harboured a secret mirth born out of revenge at the thought of the Minutemen in their stuffy rooms, puffing cigars and trying to figure out how much money they were going to waste just being able to fish it out of there, nevermind contain it properly. He allowed himself a chuckle and a second swig at that, wincing as the fire settled in his chest and then dulled everything in it's wake just a little bit at a time.
By the time he was on his fifth quick swig and third chuckle, he was numbed through to his fingertips. Enough that he didn't notice the shadow attached to the figure of a man until he was standing directly in the high glow of the noon-day sun, just outside the Hangar doors.
"Are you Edward Macahue?"
He felt an brand new urge to spit. No one called him Edward, let alone Macahue unless they were with some sort of outfit and he had quite had enough of outfits for a time and a spell, perhaps even a permanent one at that. Rather than spit, however, he grunted and took another swig, not bothering to lift his eyes at the outline, which drew slightly closer, encouraged perhaps by his non-committal noise.
"Mr. Macahue I represent the interest of an individual who would prefer to remain guarded about her privacy-"
"You aren't one of the Olives."
The outline stilled, frozen almost under the glare of the sun at it's back, by now, distanced with the Hangar roof overhead. Still, he didn't raise his eyes past the fellows boots (A nice stained leather, browns threatening deeper reds, almost arterial, with the supportive shine of silver buckles. Expensive sort. Definitely an Outfitter.) and offered a slight sneer.
"I beg your pardon-"
"The olives. Eye-ties. Meat-sops. Italians."
"Right, yes-"
"-Which means you're part of the Import number, 'cause your boots are way too shiny to be part of the Rabble out of Europe Proper." Europe Proper, was of course, no place to be these days. Or any day, really.The war effort to the North, deep into the mainland had sent no few people flocking into the quiet respects of the Southern countries, where peace whispered comforts to all ears and the borders resounded with proper defences to keep those ears and those attached, safe.
"Which means whatever business you have here with me today, must involve some sort of work or shipment or degree of Engineering feat that I am, alas, incapable of providing due to my stunning lack of funds, freedoms, shop, tools, workers or...well..." He hefted the bottle with a snicker "Sobriety" And took another swig, this one somewhat long to drown out the sudden onrush of facts that had seemed a lot funnier only a moment ago.
"Mmmm, as much as I would find comfort in assuaging your obvious descent into an oblivion of your choosing, I must admit a grievous error in your logic." the note of deadpan whimsy finally brought his attention up toward the features of a well dressed man. His hat was doffed in a gloved hand, clutched at the brim with a comfortable air of patience and calm, his attire an almost stately decoration of long coat and stiff vest. The collar was high, nearly to his ears as if he could shrink into it like some hermiting turtle. It served a purpose, though. The man, once bereft of his hat, was bald of all hair, brows or cheek, his features carved up by some insidious blade and long since scarred over and his skin was near the colour of charcoal. It made the whites of his eyes, slim as they were, of a brilliance he didn't care to compare to anything.
"I am Attul. Personal servant to the Madam Kerrigan."
There was a brief pause in which neither man spoke. Attul cleared his throat gently, lifting a gloved hand to cover his mouth in the process.
"Pardon, I had thought perhaps the name might endear some recognition. I see I was mistaken."
"Obviously."
"Mrs. Kerrigan is a Lady of-"
"-some reputation that does not extend to the wharf side. I recommend you skip the formalities, as they won't mean anything to me and you'll just be wasting all that articulation you seem to have made a hobby."
"Of course, Sir." That word came off his tongue much too easily. Attul was obviously a man very used to being given orders and carrying them out. Either a pride that had been surgically removed or a creature so secure that no other word but 'Dangerous' could well describe him. The more he thought about it, the more he seemed to err in the direction of the latter. Attul stared at him expectantly and he cleared his throat in response, leaning out one elbow to rest on one knee.
"So I've never heard of this Mrs. Kerrigan, but she's heard of me I take it?"
"Yes, she has expressed an interest."
"And that interest would be?"
"A job."
He stared at Attul with something like blank hostility, forgetting his previous mental mandate on respecting the threat of the man before him in favour of sudden unguarded irritation. He swung the bottle about himself, careful to keep it looking hostile without spilling a single drop. Years of practice, that.
"You taken a look around lately? This isn't exactly up to snuff, par or whatever word you might be fond of calling 'utter disaster zone'! I don't have a business to do you whatever job you're wanting done, Mate."
Attul seemed to rear back slightly, though the motion carried no malice in it. He felt himself flinch anyway, even as the, now that he noticed it, rather tall fellow lifted his gaze to travel the Hangar's ruined innards, a slow and methodical inspection that eventually led back down to him, sitting there on the Stabilizer.
"I think you misunderstand the Madam's intentions. She does not want to hire your creations. She wishes to hire you."
He stared again. Blankly this time, minus the hostility. As if comprehension had been made difficult by some foul potion or other. Couldn't have been the whiskey, perish that.
"Recently, the Madam has had the off luck to terminate her most recent Engineer. An unfortunate affair that saw them part ways without a chance for future reconciliation. This opening will not do as the Madam is currently under-going several key, important and must-complete projects of which she is now shy one Engineer. I trust, this is still making sense?"
"Yeah? Why wouldn't it?"
"You're swaying. Rather dangerously-...and are now on the floor."
"Hmmm...yes I can see how that might be a touch worrisome to you."
"Shouldn't it be?"
"No no. I do a lot of my best work from here."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"I take it your recent career hitch then was not indicative of that workload, else I might draw that your best is found at the bottom of a bottle and revolves around vacated lunches and oddly...steaming...dockside anomalies-...is that going to be dangerous at all?"
"Hardly. Don't have anything to put it in."
"So you threw it in the Canal?"
"Seemed like the best option. Doubt it'll eat up the entire river."
"You doubt?"
"Never really was one for guarantees."
"How charmingly reassuring coming from a man responsible for large parts of the structural integrity of the city we live in."
He blinked, struggling to climb back atop the Stabilizer, the journey fraught with several flailing hands and loose grips. He felt an insistent tug on his apron, grunting as whatever he had caught held him fast, half-way back onto his seat and half on the floor. Attul had the patience and courtesy to allow him his dignified attempt to perform this feat alone. He thought about putting the bottle down to free up his other hand, but something in the back of his head giggled, rather girlishly and he stubborn clung to it's thin neck.
"Why does she want me?"
"For the same reason most wanted you, up until a few years ago. You are possibly one of the most talented Engineers within the borders of Italy at this time and despite your...colourful history, the Madam is probably one of the last to recognize that fact."
"Huh."
He was quasi-successful in regaining his perch, laid out across the curved metal part, belly flatted in the grooves along it's cylindrical side. He tried to take a sip from this position, only to have the liquid dribble out over his lip as he swallowed against gravity. His hands rose and a whimper escaped him, trying to save the precious drops that didn't make it past his exhale.
"I'm beginning to belief the Madam might have been wrong about you."
"Oh really now?"
"Yes and I do not say that lightly. Questioning the Madam's rights and wrongs often ends in a Queen of Hearts sort of way for most."
"What?" He slurred his way through the 'T' that time and for some reason has having trouble remembering if he had legs or not. He did a mental check and found himself somewhat detached. That was probably not the best of signs.
"Nevermind. I'm fairly sure anything I say to you right now would probably end in some insult or other about my Mother or your undying profession of love for some nostalgic piece of toolery."
That reminded him. He had yet to locate his lucky 3/4 wrench. He loved that wrench.
"I believe we've reached that point in the conversation where I assure you of your manhood, despite having lost everything and promise that when you wake up on the 'morrow Mr. Macahue, that the pain in your head will be second only to the harm you will most likely suffer should you say No to the Madam's offer."
He felt a sudden dislocation about his entire frame, as, jostled to and fro, the Man Servant Attul, plucked up Mr. Edward Macahue with one gloved hand, hoisted him over one shoulder and turned to move with stunning alacrity down the wharf and toward the innards of Venice. Pick-up complete. Delivery in progress.
The Merchant's Audit had come and gone like some force of nature.
Alesandro Botanya, Chief Availer and Ledgerman to the Constables of Taxation for the Alchemical Society, had paid him a rather prompt visit not long after the brief and rather spontaneous collapse of their rigging systems and the Titan's chassis, which had miraculously not punctured through the two meagre feet of wooden planking and into the Canal beneath. He had been stumped at trying to explain how to the three apprentices who hadn't run screaming off into the morning dawn during their frantic and futile attempts at 'repairs and maintenance'. The Chief Availer, nicknamed 'l'Orchidea', had been prompt, no nonsense and baring the vaguest hint of amusement at the entire spectacle that had greeted him not long after dawn. He hadn't even said anything to him, simply turned to regard the remaining apprentices and spoken several brief phrases in that poetic language of theirs. He had felt the smugness in the Ledgerman's voice however and had seen the rather deflating dreams and desires of the apprentices, soon to be re-fitted to a new career and life within the Accountancy.
The Ledgerman had then sniffed at the wreckage, given him a brief glance and made a sweeping motion at it all with one gloved hand, before, his stately robes plucked up by a pair of ring clad pinched fingers, sauntered his way onto the next ruination that demanded his attention. He had spat in the man's wake, removing the sourness from his pallet for a moment. It hadn't lasted long and since then, he'd reached into the boundaries of his private stock and dug free one of the remaining single malt's he had left from his journey's here. Some of the others had been smashed by the calamity, including his prized Dublin Quashling Griulsh, which was the pride of some of the Hillfolk on the Isles, who about trusted foreign humanity as they did one another, which was to say, not at all.
He found one of the stabilizer gears, half buried in the floorboards of the broad Hanger that once served as the Mainhouse smithy, no doubt sprung loose during the Titan Chassis' fall and, powered by inertia and spite, embedded itself there against removal by any and all means, short of total disintegration. He took it upon himself to pluck the single malt bottle from one of the now many empty hovels in his spotted apron, the cork plucked out between the bite of his molars and settle himself down with a grunt and no few creaks of no few inferior human joints onto the stabilizer to enjoy his last meal as Artificer.
"Better to have a noble dream then a shite empire." He lifted the bottle to the horizon, which remained hazy and mugged by the still brewing chug of steam from off the submerged Drive in the bay. The Ledgerman hadn't a clue as to what to do about it and he harboured a secret mirth born out of revenge at the thought of the Minutemen in their stuffy rooms, puffing cigars and trying to figure out how much money they were going to waste just being able to fish it out of there, nevermind contain it properly. He allowed himself a chuckle and a second swig at that, wincing as the fire settled in his chest and then dulled everything in it's wake just a little bit at a time.
By the time he was on his fifth quick swig and third chuckle, he was numbed through to his fingertips. Enough that he didn't notice the shadow attached to the figure of a man until he was standing directly in the high glow of the noon-day sun, just outside the Hangar doors.
"Are you Edward Macahue?"
He felt an brand new urge to spit. No one called him Edward, let alone Macahue unless they were with some sort of outfit and he had quite had enough of outfits for a time and a spell, perhaps even a permanent one at that. Rather than spit, however, he grunted and took another swig, not bothering to lift his eyes at the outline, which drew slightly closer, encouraged perhaps by his non-committal noise.
"Mr. Macahue I represent the interest of an individual who would prefer to remain guarded about her privacy-"
"You aren't one of the Olives."
The outline stilled, frozen almost under the glare of the sun at it's back, by now, distanced with the Hangar roof overhead. Still, he didn't raise his eyes past the fellows boots (A nice stained leather, browns threatening deeper reds, almost arterial, with the supportive shine of silver buckles. Expensive sort. Definitely an Outfitter.) and offered a slight sneer.
"I beg your pardon-"
"The olives. Eye-ties. Meat-sops. Italians."
"Right, yes-"
"-Which means you're part of the Import number, 'cause your boots are way too shiny to be part of the Rabble out of Europe Proper." Europe Proper, was of course, no place to be these days. Or any day, really.The war effort to the North, deep into the mainland had sent no few people flocking into the quiet respects of the Southern countries, where peace whispered comforts to all ears and the borders resounded with proper defences to keep those ears and those attached, safe.
"Which means whatever business you have here with me today, must involve some sort of work or shipment or degree of Engineering feat that I am, alas, incapable of providing due to my stunning lack of funds, freedoms, shop, tools, workers or...well..." He hefted the bottle with a snicker "Sobriety" And took another swig, this one somewhat long to drown out the sudden onrush of facts that had seemed a lot funnier only a moment ago.
"Mmmm, as much as I would find comfort in assuaging your obvious descent into an oblivion of your choosing, I must admit a grievous error in your logic." the note of deadpan whimsy finally brought his attention up toward the features of a well dressed man. His hat was doffed in a gloved hand, clutched at the brim with a comfortable air of patience and calm, his attire an almost stately decoration of long coat and stiff vest. The collar was high, nearly to his ears as if he could shrink into it like some hermiting turtle. It served a purpose, though. The man, once bereft of his hat, was bald of all hair, brows or cheek, his features carved up by some insidious blade and long since scarred over and his skin was near the colour of charcoal. It made the whites of his eyes, slim as they were, of a brilliance he didn't care to compare to anything.
"I am Attul. Personal servant to the Madam Kerrigan."
There was a brief pause in which neither man spoke. Attul cleared his throat gently, lifting a gloved hand to cover his mouth in the process.
"Pardon, I had thought perhaps the name might endear some recognition. I see I was mistaken."
"Obviously."
"Mrs. Kerrigan is a Lady of-"
"-some reputation that does not extend to the wharf side. I recommend you skip the formalities, as they won't mean anything to me and you'll just be wasting all that articulation you seem to have made a hobby."
"Of course, Sir." That word came off his tongue much too easily. Attul was obviously a man very used to being given orders and carrying them out. Either a pride that had been surgically removed or a creature so secure that no other word but 'Dangerous' could well describe him. The more he thought about it, the more he seemed to err in the direction of the latter. Attul stared at him expectantly and he cleared his throat in response, leaning out one elbow to rest on one knee.
"So I've never heard of this Mrs. Kerrigan, but she's heard of me I take it?"
"Yes, she has expressed an interest."
"And that interest would be?"
"A job."
He stared at Attul with something like blank hostility, forgetting his previous mental mandate on respecting the threat of the man before him in favour of sudden unguarded irritation. He swung the bottle about himself, careful to keep it looking hostile without spilling a single drop. Years of practice, that.
"You taken a look around lately? This isn't exactly up to snuff, par or whatever word you might be fond of calling 'utter disaster zone'! I don't have a business to do you whatever job you're wanting done, Mate."
Attul seemed to rear back slightly, though the motion carried no malice in it. He felt himself flinch anyway, even as the, now that he noticed it, rather tall fellow lifted his gaze to travel the Hangar's ruined innards, a slow and methodical inspection that eventually led back down to him, sitting there on the Stabilizer.
"I think you misunderstand the Madam's intentions. She does not want to hire your creations. She wishes to hire you."
He stared again. Blankly this time, minus the hostility. As if comprehension had been made difficult by some foul potion or other. Couldn't have been the whiskey, perish that.
"Recently, the Madam has had the off luck to terminate her most recent Engineer. An unfortunate affair that saw them part ways without a chance for future reconciliation. This opening will not do as the Madam is currently under-going several key, important and must-complete projects of which she is now shy one Engineer. I trust, this is still making sense?"
"Yeah? Why wouldn't it?"
"You're swaying. Rather dangerously-...and are now on the floor."
"Hmmm...yes I can see how that might be a touch worrisome to you."
"Shouldn't it be?"
"No no. I do a lot of my best work from here."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"I take it your recent career hitch then was not indicative of that workload, else I might draw that your best is found at the bottom of a bottle and revolves around vacated lunches and oddly...steaming...dockside anomalies-...is that going to be dangerous at all?"
"Hardly. Don't have anything to put it in."
"So you threw it in the Canal?"
"Seemed like the best option. Doubt it'll eat up the entire river."
"You doubt?"
"Never really was one for guarantees."
"How charmingly reassuring coming from a man responsible for large parts of the structural integrity of the city we live in."
He blinked, struggling to climb back atop the Stabilizer, the journey fraught with several flailing hands and loose grips. He felt an insistent tug on his apron, grunting as whatever he had caught held him fast, half-way back onto his seat and half on the floor. Attul had the patience and courtesy to allow him his dignified attempt to perform this feat alone. He thought about putting the bottle down to free up his other hand, but something in the back of his head giggled, rather girlishly and he stubborn clung to it's thin neck.
"Why does she want me?"
"For the same reason most wanted you, up until a few years ago. You are possibly one of the most talented Engineers within the borders of Italy at this time and despite your...colourful history, the Madam is probably one of the last to recognize that fact."
"Huh."
He was quasi-successful in regaining his perch, laid out across the curved metal part, belly flatted in the grooves along it's cylindrical side. He tried to take a sip from this position, only to have the liquid dribble out over his lip as he swallowed against gravity. His hands rose and a whimper escaped him, trying to save the precious drops that didn't make it past his exhale.
"I'm beginning to belief the Madam might have been wrong about you."
"Oh really now?"
"Yes and I do not say that lightly. Questioning the Madam's rights and wrongs often ends in a Queen of Hearts sort of way for most."
"What?" He slurred his way through the 'T' that time and for some reason has having trouble remembering if he had legs or not. He did a mental check and found himself somewhat detached. That was probably not the best of signs.
"Nevermind. I'm fairly sure anything I say to you right now would probably end in some insult or other about my Mother or your undying profession of love for some nostalgic piece of toolery."
That reminded him. He had yet to locate his lucky 3/4 wrench. He loved that wrench.
"I believe we've reached that point in the conversation where I assure you of your manhood, despite having lost everything and promise that when you wake up on the 'morrow Mr. Macahue, that the pain in your head will be second only to the harm you will most likely suffer should you say No to the Madam's offer."
He felt a sudden dislocation about his entire frame, as, jostled to and fro, the Man Servant Attul, plucked up Mr. Edward Macahue with one gloved hand, hoisted him over one shoulder and turned to move with stunning alacrity down the wharf and toward the innards of Venice. Pick-up complete. Delivery in progress.
A Day Among Artifacers BY HARV
He stood on the edge of the dock, looking out at the water with the same sort of trepidation one saves for a distant glimpse of a well podded tentacle. No captain ever loved the idea of tangling with a creature from the depths, except perhaps Nemo and he was well documented as an Asylum level genius. Hardly a role model for children. His attentions were paid close to the falling sun, a glimmer of speed in it's descent as if it were in a hurry to fall away and leave the stars, clouds and moon to clean up after it. The colours made fire out of the chop not too far out, that splashed slight excess and green sludge up against the wharf's tree-trunk stocks and supports. He inhaled and felt the salt cling to the edges of his teeth and the gaps between, nostrils flaring as the sting of it touched the archaic scars gilding his sinuses from countless powder mishaps and mis-measurements.
Were it not for the frothing whorl of steam rising from the waters, not twelve feet off the piers edge, chains meant to moor a half dozen galleons by tensile strength jutting from the bubbling mess, he might think the colouration on the horizon was beautiful. Then, of course, that was the job. Finish it, then you can eat, sleep and dream, day and night, as much as you want.
“Artigiano?”
He grunted. The Italian still felt a little odd. He pulled himself away from the colours and steam, to catch the presence of a half dozen of the leather apron clad cretins they had shoved into his workshop some few days ago. Most of them were olive skinned ‘Slightlys’ who struggle to raise a wrench half the time, nevermind the cogs they were turning in place with them. Wet behind both ears and eyes half of the time, they never bothered to come and see him individually. It was always a small mob of them, thin pencil moustaches twitching, their goggles a rusted garden of fogged up lenses on their lanky heads.
“What?”
“Artigiano-“ One of them struggled, flicking a glance back over his shoulder at the others, his hands, in gloves two sizes too big for him, were held up in front of his face, as if blocking his thin lipped mouth might provide him a few precious seconds protection while he struggled for the English language. Since his rise to the head of the Guild, he had outlawed the use of Italian in his presence until either he learned to speak it or they learned to do their jobs without asking him questions.
So far, translations had been going poorly.
“Well?” He perked a brow at the kid, taking no small amount of relish from the struggles that had the apprentice shrinking by a couple of inches with each passing second.
“Artigiano, we…begin the…knowing of…the roooomm-“ Another glance back at his fellows who nodded sychophantically, encouragingly “-above…“ A hand rose, well over the apprentice’s head. Gestures had become a sort of grammatical stop-gap “…but have…no…” He tapped the side of his head “-...pensante…uhhh…Thinking? On where to…” Hands rounded and flapped at chest level, mimicked in perfect synch by the five others standing behind the lad.
“Begin?” His brow had yet to climb down from it’s amused heights. The word brought the student to a close, grinning broadly at the finished sentence, a celebratory huddle erupting among the five behind him.
“Well, gentleman, I’ll try to make this brief and to the point.” He levelled a hand with a pointing finger down at the bubbling steam that vomited from the sludge clinging waters off the pier. The students, hardly ones to let a lacking grasp of the English language stop them from being obedient, followed his finger’s direction.
“That is our Drive there, sitting in what can only be described as our cooling unit, because at this juncture, we’re sort of boned for anything else to provide us a means of super-conductive cryonics.”
His finger then leaped to point over their shoulders, toward a rather large dangling mess of torn up and perforated metal, hung from guy lines, pulleys and no small square tonnage of rope. The apprentices, diligently, followed suit.
“That is the remains of our housing containment. As you can see, the manifolds have been fused together at their joints and chokepoints, the housing for most of the insertion tubes contaminated by foreign slag from the alchemical reaction and the brass filaments that once lined the entirety of it’s interior have…for lack of a better word…evaporated.” He let his hand drop, clasping both behind his back, the squeak of the leather apron he was wearing accompanied by the dull clank of tools tucked into a hundred different pockets bringing the apprenticed attentions back around to him.
“The remains of our coolant fuel-“ He nodded casually out to the waters “-is currently floating in the Grand Canal, most of which was responsible for roughly a third of our budget and the constabulary dynamos that were meant to be fitted last-“ He pronounced this last word with a sharp and acute ruffling of his overly large grey beard and a narrowing of his eyes at the gathered apprentices, who all seemed to have recognized his tone by now and were making remarkable strides in hiding themselves behind the one who had spoken “-went up with the rest of the Powder Ingredients upon the initial Conflagration event.”
He paused. For effect, mostly, regarding the face of the trembling speaker and the variety of now goggled eyes, hiding behind each other’s shoulders.
“So when you come to find me with a curious little notion of where you’d like to begin as far as the dead obvious floor-plans for the Torso Chassis-“ He took a long look at the lead apprentice “-Which was the room you mentioned thinking about by the way-“ and then back to the whole “-I have an all too overpowering urge to strap the lot of you to a cannon charge and see what sort of distance I can get across the Canal.”
He turned, one hand shading his eyes to regard the sunset again, a light ‘Hmmmm’ drifting off his shaded lips.
“I figure based on rough trajectories and aeronautical graphing, I could put at least three of you somewhere in the vicinity of San Michele. A rough estimate, to be certain but eh-“ He shrugged “-a few leagues is an acceptable error margin in my ledgers.”
He turned around again to regard the empty pier, catching the tails of apron strings as the group scattered back into the workshop. A few moments later and the sound of buzzing, frustrated Italian tore it’s way out of the doors and into the night.
A chuckle ran off with his voice into the last dregs of the sunset. He folded ironworking arms over his chest and clapped rope-burned fingers over his ribcage. The wind was shifting and he could feel the heat off the steaming drive, nestled in the Canal for safe keeping turning the leather of his apron. The press of the warped material reminded him of their situation and doused the last of the momentary mirth.
Six days remained in the timetables, before the Alchemical Society sent their Ledgerman to inspect their books and inevitably call an audit. The separation of understanding Artificing and the Merchant class was profound, enough that any lack thereof usually resulted in a fine-toothed scrutiny of everything the Guild did to ensure all funds were being spent properly.
It also meant, hiding several hundred ingots worth of smelted, tempered and now, useless, iron and brass would be about as conspicuous as a Titan are Farlow Ave. during Rush Market; that is to say, quite and very.
The Duke would throw a fit and three firing squads in their direction before too long, no doubt with the repeater Flintlocks he had designed for the smug bastard at that!
Irony!
“Sad day, innit?” He turned to regard the whirling steam, squinting into the cloud bank as it shifted fully to nearly envelop him in it’s gushing white. He took several steps back, noting the humidity was already causing his tea-sweeper to droop and drip about his chin.
“You’d think genius would trump the Politico for worldly rule. Funny…”
Somewhere behind him, he heard a grand clamour, as if a half dozen apprentices had suddenly gotten into something they shouldn’t have. The next moment, a great crash resounded through the pier, shrieks and high-pitched squeals of alarm, followed closely by the rapid call of
“Artigiano! Artigiano!”.
He sighed. Loudly.
“Ok. Not horribly funny. Not terrifically at all.”
He pressed a finger to his nose, cleared one nostril and, wiping the excess on the back of one glove, turned and strode toward the Workshop, one wall of which was suddenly dented and tumbled outward under the weight of the Torso Chassis and it’s rigging.
Were it not for the frothing whorl of steam rising from the waters, not twelve feet off the piers edge, chains meant to moor a half dozen galleons by tensile strength jutting from the bubbling mess, he might think the colouration on the horizon was beautiful. Then, of course, that was the job. Finish it, then you can eat, sleep and dream, day and night, as much as you want.
“Artigiano?”
He grunted. The Italian still felt a little odd. He pulled himself away from the colours and steam, to catch the presence of a half dozen of the leather apron clad cretins they had shoved into his workshop some few days ago. Most of them were olive skinned ‘Slightlys’ who struggle to raise a wrench half the time, nevermind the cogs they were turning in place with them. Wet behind both ears and eyes half of the time, they never bothered to come and see him individually. It was always a small mob of them, thin pencil moustaches twitching, their goggles a rusted garden of fogged up lenses on their lanky heads.
“What?”
“Artigiano-“ One of them struggled, flicking a glance back over his shoulder at the others, his hands, in gloves two sizes too big for him, were held up in front of his face, as if blocking his thin lipped mouth might provide him a few precious seconds protection while he struggled for the English language. Since his rise to the head of the Guild, he had outlawed the use of Italian in his presence until either he learned to speak it or they learned to do their jobs without asking him questions.
So far, translations had been going poorly.
“Well?” He perked a brow at the kid, taking no small amount of relish from the struggles that had the apprentice shrinking by a couple of inches with each passing second.
“Artigiano, we…begin the…knowing of…the roooomm-“ Another glance back at his fellows who nodded sychophantically, encouragingly “-above…“ A hand rose, well over the apprentice’s head. Gestures had become a sort of grammatical stop-gap “…but have…no…” He tapped the side of his head “-...pensante…uhhh…Thinking? On where to…” Hands rounded and flapped at chest level, mimicked in perfect synch by the five others standing behind the lad.
“Begin?” His brow had yet to climb down from it’s amused heights. The word brought the student to a close, grinning broadly at the finished sentence, a celebratory huddle erupting among the five behind him.
“Well, gentleman, I’ll try to make this brief and to the point.” He levelled a hand with a pointing finger down at the bubbling steam that vomited from the sludge clinging waters off the pier. The students, hardly ones to let a lacking grasp of the English language stop them from being obedient, followed his finger’s direction.
“That is our Drive there, sitting in what can only be described as our cooling unit, because at this juncture, we’re sort of boned for anything else to provide us a means of super-conductive cryonics.”
His finger then leaped to point over their shoulders, toward a rather large dangling mess of torn up and perforated metal, hung from guy lines, pulleys and no small square tonnage of rope. The apprentices, diligently, followed suit.
“That is the remains of our housing containment. As you can see, the manifolds have been fused together at their joints and chokepoints, the housing for most of the insertion tubes contaminated by foreign slag from the alchemical reaction and the brass filaments that once lined the entirety of it’s interior have…for lack of a better word…evaporated.” He let his hand drop, clasping both behind his back, the squeak of the leather apron he was wearing accompanied by the dull clank of tools tucked into a hundred different pockets bringing the apprenticed attentions back around to him.
“The remains of our coolant fuel-“ He nodded casually out to the waters “-is currently floating in the Grand Canal, most of which was responsible for roughly a third of our budget and the constabulary dynamos that were meant to be fitted last-“ He pronounced this last word with a sharp and acute ruffling of his overly large grey beard and a narrowing of his eyes at the gathered apprentices, who all seemed to have recognized his tone by now and were making remarkable strides in hiding themselves behind the one who had spoken “-went up with the rest of the Powder Ingredients upon the initial Conflagration event.”
He paused. For effect, mostly, regarding the face of the trembling speaker and the variety of now goggled eyes, hiding behind each other’s shoulders.
“So when you come to find me with a curious little notion of where you’d like to begin as far as the dead obvious floor-plans for the Torso Chassis-“ He took a long look at the lead apprentice “-Which was the room you mentioned thinking about by the way-“ and then back to the whole “-I have an all too overpowering urge to strap the lot of you to a cannon charge and see what sort of distance I can get across the Canal.”
He turned, one hand shading his eyes to regard the sunset again, a light ‘Hmmmm’ drifting off his shaded lips.
“I figure based on rough trajectories and aeronautical graphing, I could put at least three of you somewhere in the vicinity of San Michele. A rough estimate, to be certain but eh-“ He shrugged “-a few leagues is an acceptable error margin in my ledgers.”
He turned around again to regard the empty pier, catching the tails of apron strings as the group scattered back into the workshop. A few moments later and the sound of buzzing, frustrated Italian tore it’s way out of the doors and into the night.
A chuckle ran off with his voice into the last dregs of the sunset. He folded ironworking arms over his chest and clapped rope-burned fingers over his ribcage. The wind was shifting and he could feel the heat off the steaming drive, nestled in the Canal for safe keeping turning the leather of his apron. The press of the warped material reminded him of their situation and doused the last of the momentary mirth.
Six days remained in the timetables, before the Alchemical Society sent their Ledgerman to inspect their books and inevitably call an audit. The separation of understanding Artificing and the Merchant class was profound, enough that any lack thereof usually resulted in a fine-toothed scrutiny of everything the Guild did to ensure all funds were being spent properly.
It also meant, hiding several hundred ingots worth of smelted, tempered and now, useless, iron and brass would be about as conspicuous as a Titan are Farlow Ave. during Rush Market; that is to say, quite and very.
The Duke would throw a fit and three firing squads in their direction before too long, no doubt with the repeater Flintlocks he had designed for the smug bastard at that!
Irony!
“Sad day, innit?” He turned to regard the whirling steam, squinting into the cloud bank as it shifted fully to nearly envelop him in it’s gushing white. He took several steps back, noting the humidity was already causing his tea-sweeper to droop and drip about his chin.
“You’d think genius would trump the Politico for worldly rule. Funny…”
Somewhere behind him, he heard a grand clamour, as if a half dozen apprentices had suddenly gotten into something they shouldn’t have. The next moment, a great crash resounded through the pier, shrieks and high-pitched squeals of alarm, followed closely by the rapid call of
“Artigiano! Artigiano!”.
He sighed. Loudly.
“Ok. Not horribly funny. Not terrifically at all.”
He pressed a finger to his nose, cleared one nostril and, wiping the excess on the back of one glove, turned and strode toward the Workshop, one wall of which was suddenly dented and tumbled outward under the weight of the Torso Chassis and it’s rigging.
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