“I want to kill cultists! I want to fight Khaldon! I want to kill them, by goddess! I want to kill them in her name!”
Uncle Treistan had always had a powerful voice. Having been bred to the sea from a young age and groomed to become Clannarch, he had finished puberty with a roar already in-built. In older age, it had grown somewhat airy but still it was booming, though perhaps somewhat difficult to decipher at times through the old man’s thick mainland accent; a pronunciation that had been hammered into him at a boarding school he’d been dragged to by a father he’d already become sick of. So it was no surprise upon entering the waiting room to Arlo, twenty years later to be able to make out each and every word his Uncle was saying even though there was still another wall between them.
Nor was it much of a surprise to hear furniture being smashed to timbers, though this was mostly due to context clues provided by the sound of the raving which came before it and supported by the growling that came after it. The steward seemed completely unmoved by it for sure, as did the other three occupants of the well-appointed room. Arlo figured it must have been going on for some time, the way that every visitor seemed entirely inured to the lunatic shouting in the next room. Perhaps it could also be that they were simply comfortable, though none of them sat in any of the velvet-cushioned chairs arranged around a handsome redwood table which itself had an incredibly detailed scale model of the Dawnstorm as its centerpiece. They all stood more or less at ease and placid, the only sound on their side of the door leading into Treistan’s audience chamber being the wood-block tick-tock of the old fashioned schoolhouse clock hanging on the wall at the end of the table. They barely even seemed to take Arlo in when he entered, eyes mainly on the steward who glided smoothly to the other end of the room and placed two fingers on the handle of the door without turning it.
Arlo paid attention to them, however.
The first one he noticed was the smallest, a person in the resplendent uniform of an Imperial Tribune. A tall peaked cap and wide-lapelled greatcoat in matching green cotton sateen were worn perfectly crisp, with the badge depicting crossed sword and rifle over a sickle moon carefully polished. A Holy Eye gently glimmered in the center of the badge and also in the center of a brooch the Tribune wore in her lapel. And it was ‘her’, at that, Arlo decided at last. At first, he thought he had been looking at a young boy from just her stance alone. But after a more thorough examination he could see that she had light brown hair woven into three fat braids that were themselves woven into an even fatter braid which she coiled around the back of her neck and draped over her clavicle so she could keep her collar raised. Also, in contrast to her trim and smart coat and hat she dressed almost like a boy underneath. Her linen shirt was unbuttoned plungingly low and tucked into close-fitting riding pants with appropriately matching jackboots. But for as much as this may have invited approving looks, her hard and dangerous face seemed to ward them off. She seemed haughty, and superior; admittedly the way a Tribune should, but also constantly mildly disapproving. The right side of her face was taken up with a nasty burn scar that traveled from the bottom of one eye and across the corner of her mouth until it disappeared beyond polite examination into her plunging neckline. The left side of her face was also occupied by a sickle moon represented in green tattoo. With cold brown eyes she appraised Arlo in return, and as he found himself lacking; so he turned to instead size up the next person waiting.
“You go upstairs,” Treistan was growling now, “You go up those blood-cursed stairs and you tell Commodore Rickets that if he does not think this force suffices to take Redbrook Bay, I will thump his arse all the way up to Blood Moon’s end and come back here to do it myself!”
Another voice in the other room, too quiet to make out, could be heard asking a question.
“No!” Treistan shouted back amidst more crashing furniture, “Of course I don’t jolly well want you to actually go do that!”
Arlo busied himself with sizing up a much larger woman now. Pretty wisps of strawberry blonde hair were very inarticulately arranged over a very serene; and perhaps serenely stupid face. With almost pink eyes and pale porcelain skin, it seemed odd that the woman was so toweringly huge when her features suggested she be dainty. And yet here was this ogress of a woman taller than Arlo with the dopiest, most vacant half-lidded goofy bovine smile he had ever seen in his entire life. She was wide, too, though it was impossible to say exactly by what means because she wore a heavy cassock of natural linen with flowing capes and sleeves as well as an elegantly-embroidered prayer shawl in green and gold over a heavy plate cuirass whose width suggested she was either very heavily endowed or extremely corpulent. The black lacquered surface of the breastplate was etched in gold with many religious symbols. In gold as a centerpiece of the breastplate was a hellebore, with two inward-facing sickle moons, themselves flanked by a symmetrical image of lower jawbones from some predator with the fangs removed and marrow leaking from the open wounds. Gold leaf was piled around the edge of the armor plate for additional flash, so that the entire cuirass stood out from the plainness of the linen robes beneath it. Another item holding the outfit together was a careworn leather belt with a row of pouches ending in a holster with the angled wood-clad grip of a case-hardened handgun emerging from it. Arlo considered that perhaps somebody with such a dopey smirk and empty eyes was probably not the best person to be carrying around an Oath, but then he also considered that on the other side of her belt was a narrow-shafted hammer as ornate as her cuirass and she would probably smash anybody with it if they tried to take her gun away from her.
“This is for my boy!” Treistan was shouting, and it sounded like he had a hammer of his own, crushing a chair and then a shelf, moving to a different piece of furniture with every blow, “This is for my favorite captain! This is for my sister, you animals! You disgusting red-painted animals!”
Amid the sound of twanging strings from a mandolin being smashed, the steward finally gently pressed the handle down and slipped silently into the room. Arlo examined the final person in the waiting room now, though in a way he had been pulled to this person consistently throughout the entirety of his uncle’s ravings. Now, upon hearing the phrase ‘red-painted animals’ he found himself curiously looking at who he had been trying to avoid from the start. Mainly this was because the person in question was nearly seven paces tall with fire-engine red skin and an explosion of wild white hair that had the same texture as a lion’s mane. His mouth was set in an expression of neutrality with two sharpened tusks emerging from between gently pursed lips. Making him more unreadable was the fact that he wore some sort of brass headset which covered his eyes in an occlusion of teal-mist that seemed to be trapped inside a pair of wide goggles. His shallow bulb nose had a pair of thin hoses streaming from it to match the numerous electrodes wired to his temples and neck, their leads disappearing down into an open crimson silk robe covered with flaring orange diamonds and starbursts. A network of brass bracework ran down his arms and his legs, all connected to an interesting and bizarre sort of ‘backpack’ strapped to his back. Arlo’s eyebrows must’ve climbed expectantly towards this creature at his uncle’s outburst about ‘red-painted animals’, because at this point the Tribune felt the need to speak up.
Her voice was sandy and deep for a woman’s, but she seemed kind enough. “Not him. The Clannarch is angry about cultists.”
Arlo mouthed a quick thanks for the information and the little Tribune smiled at him. It somewhat softened her impressive demeanor, but also endeared her to him slightly. She reached into her coat next and ruined this endearment by speaking to him like a child. “Do you love the Jade Queen, lad ?”
“Yes, mum.” Arlo replied evenly with his features schooled into careful neutrality. At this, the stupid looking woman in the linen robes and armor wiggled a little dance in place with a slight growth of her dopey smile in a way that made Arlo think she was the one who ought to be spoken to like a child instead of him.
“Would you like a treat?” the Tribune asked next. When Arlo nodded, she presented him a stick of shortbread to match the ones that had been placed in the offering dish and he nibbled on it complacently enough. The condescending smirk on her face made him rankle, but her power to execute him without a trial somehow kept him from complaining about his treatment.
Watching him eat his shortbread, the larger of the two women, the massive one in the robes wiggled another little dance and very gently clapped her hands together before saying in a very sweet and smooth high-pitched voice that didn’t match her grand stature, “He’s a good man.”
Arlo found himself blushing now, and turned to the red creature at the end of the room expecting to somehow be humiliated by it next; only to get nothing but unmoving silence. He finished his shortbread and produced his mother’s comb to run through his bushy beard in case he’d been crumbed up. After all, he looked bad enough as it was in his plain clothes, with the beard, having only bathed in seawater for months; crumbs would’ve just made him feel like a beggar. As he was slipping the comb back into the front of his waistcoat, the steward leaned back out of the door he’d disappeared into before and said, “Arlo? The Clannarch will see you.”
Being brought in before the two women who made him feel somewhat embarrassed did return some of Arlo’s perceived honor; and though he kept his face neutral while being led in he was absolutely certain that he radiated an aura of incredible smugness. His sense of superiority was replaced with fear, concern, and grief when he saw what lay on the other side of the door; and this pit in his stomach was amplified by the sound of the latch behind him as he was shut into this room with his ruined Uncle.
His memory of Treistan Haradin was that of a bluff, friendly man who tousled his hair a little too hard and a little too often. But he’d always seemed impressed by little Arlo, and he had never stopped taking the time to compare him to some long-lost cousin or aunt. He had seemed generally happy every time they met and even happier to see the six-year-old boy who shyly hid behind his mother’s dress.
Now here was a man who seemed like he would have rather had the same child cooked and eaten for dinner. Sweat poured out of close-cropped white hair. His sun-barkened face was red with exertion as he sat on his knees hunched over, his eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, his thick white mustache completely matted back against drool-covered cheeks. Veins throbbed at his temple, and among the liver-spotted skin of his bare chest.
At some point Treistan had torn his shirt and then thrown it aside. Now his flabby gut and broad arms were on display, rippling musculature twitching beneath them while he heaved on the floor in the throes of his latest rage. Arlo looked up to see who else was in the room with them and saw the ruins of three chairs, a desk, a mandolin, a painting, and a typewriter. Standing in the center of them, holding onto a heavy silvery claymore glowing in lambent teal which she’d just picked up off the floor, was a woman Arlo recognized as House Haradin’s Infochandler.
Like Treistan, Agatha Cormley had aged a great deal even though Arlo had seen her more recently. When he was nineteen, she had only been a senior scribe who was dispatched to make arrangements for his schooling abroad at his mother’s request. She stayed at Harkon Manor for three months and Arlo had something of a crush on her then. The woman who was looking at him now lacked every ounce of wonder and interest she had only seven years before. Either the job or the man; or perhaps both had done poorly for her. Now she was an overstretched willow branch in an orange and red robe, brown hair bound in a tight bun, and eyes with heavy dark bags staring out unfeeling at the world. Wheeled contraptions were braced to her arms and legs with huge bulbous magnifiers trained on little ticket-sized pages full of information she could summon through subtle movements of her fingers. She had slipped her wiry hands out of this device only long enough to retrieve Treistan’s dropped sword and offer it to him.
Treistan said nothing for a long while. He swayed before getting to his feet, and took the sword without thanking Agatha. He examined it cooly, and then roughly jabbed it into one side of the broken desk so it would stand up. Wordlessly, he moved to his torn shirt and wiped sweat from his brow and drool from his cheeks. When he was reasonably less damp, he dropped the shirt onto the crossguard of the huge sword and turned to Arlo at last.
His green eyes bulged slightly, one lid twitching, while he scanned over his nephew for the first time in twenty years. He seemed skeptical, and Arlo didn’t blame him. He seemed not quite to know what to say for a while. Arlo had presumed the steward announced him, but now was wondering if he had been introduced as simply ‘your nephew’. Treistan had numerous nephews in other branches, Arlo was sure.
“Arlo,” Treistan’s voice was a powerless granite rattle, but he tried to sound casual as though Arlo had come into the most natural thing on the Stone Unfurled. “Did you know, Arlo, that Agatha here was adopted into the clan?”
It was fairly common for any Great House to adopt its Infochandler upon appointing them. The position was such a privileged one with access to so much sensitive information, it was important to create a deeper stake for whomever occupied it. Still, Arlo had not thought about it. He nodded respectfully to Agatha. “Cousin.”
Her reply was neither kind nor hostile, just a simple, more confident reflection of his greeting.: “Cousin.”
They all stood in silence a while longer before Treistan’s mouth curled slightly at the edges and he said, “Lad, you have your mother’s eyes and you do them disgrace looking like so much dog shite while you wear them.”
Arlo bowed slightly. “I’m sorry, Uncle. If you could spare some hospitality, I would be happy to come as close to honoring them as my humble face could.”
Treistan lifted himself more upright and the burst blood vessels in his wide nose swelled as he took in a deep breath, and attempted to once more comport himself with the dignity that was accorded to the rare citizen whose loyalty and acumen allowed him to be permitted by royal decree to possess any amount of wealth he could earn with no limits. His income taxes funded infrastructure for entire provinces, and his companies provided no undue share of the logistics and manufacturing that made up the backbone of Imperial strength. He was no man to be screaming shirtless and having childish temper tantrums in an elegant drawing room.
“Let’s sort you out. What have you got, there, nephew?” Treistan asked. He pointed to the cloth-wrapped parcel, and Arlo knelt to untie the bundle. It was Arlo’s first time checking out the contents of his ‘doggy bag’ as well, and he found himself both amused and embarrassed to find that inside the waxed cardboard box beneath the cloth was a bottle of brandywine, a clean and empty mess kit, and three more tins of the accursed dog treats that he’d been snacking on from his desk in the Lemur’s cabin.
“Well-wishes from the ship that brought me here, a free-trader called the Lemur.” explained Arlo with his cheeks coloring. “The dog biscuits are not a sort of joke; they were under the impression that I ett them as a snack.”
“Why is that?” the question came from Agatha, who had wheeled her contraptions and herself forward to examine the contents in person.
Arlo felt his blush deepening, “Because, eh– Due to somewhat foggy circumstances, I, ah, occasionally ett them as a snack.”
“And what’s this on your back?” Treistan asked next, having spotted the white tubular satchel. As before, Arlo set it down and opened it. He had to unroll it half way to display all it contained, and for good measure and perhaps a touch of drama he went ahead and emptied his pockets as well. All told, he looked more like a junk shop owner than the blood relative of a Clannarch. The iron toy Trinket piece, his mother’s comb, broken sword, and fake pewter half-moon coin seemed almost like artifacts on display at a museum. ‘Behold, the treasures of the spoiled fop!’ Arlo imagined a barker exclaiming, ‘See how he clings onto anything of any conceivable value!’
Finally, Arlo unknotted the rotting cord from the bottom buttonhole of his waistcoat and drew out his pocket watch. The loud ticking of the turnip watch enhanced the awkwardness Arlo felt displaying his trash, and amplified the silence in the room such that he felt the need to say, “What you see before you is the sum total of my possessions at present.”
Agatha pursed her lips either in disapproval or outright disappointment, but Treistan had a bit more charity in his disparaging face. His features became even more turbulent and he reached for the watch. He turned it over in his hand and looked at the rough engraving on the back of the stylized moon and star. He brushed his thumb over it to feel the ridges in the metal for a few seconds before asking, “Leliana carved this herself, didn’t she?”
Arlo nodded gently. “I asked for this watch as a boy because I liked the sound of the pinset. I couldn’t bear to part with it when I left for university. Mother took the backplate into her studio and did this for me.”
There was a deeply sad smile on Treistan’s face at the answer. “She could do anything she set her heart to, my little sister. I dearly wish she had allowed me to abdicate my position to her when you went off like I’d asked.”
“Because she would have been suited to your job, or because she would still be with us?” asked Arlo solemnly.
Treistan took Arlo’s hand and pushed the watch into his palm somewhat forcefully, declaring, “Both, lad. Grab up what of your little artifacts you wish to keep and stuff them into your bag. The rest go in the box.”
Dutifully, Arlo took back the iron toy, his comb, and the mess kit– though mainly because he suspected it contained Moriah’s contact information. Seeing no reason to waste perfectly good food and drink he took the brandywine and despite Agatha’s judging expression the dog treats as well. After some consideration, he begrudgingly dropped the sword and the false coin into the box. When he raised up again and reslung the bag, Treistan snapped up the box and tossed the cloth that had been wrapped around it inside as well. The tins of dog treats swelled his bag somewhat awkwardly, but shifting it around and shaking it somewhat helped them settle into a position that made it work. The noise of them clanking around with the mess kit was a little irritating, but not intolerable.
“How much do you know of how I come to be here, Uncle?” Arlo asked as Treistan yanked free his claymore from the desk and rested it against his bare shoulder.
“Agatha?” Treistan signaled the infochandler, and she gave a half-bow before flicking her fingers inside the machinery of her mechanical index to switch through a whirlwind of little placards.
“Ninety-seven days ago the seafort at Lost Pip’s Rock was attacked by the Sovereign Seafarer’s Guild Twenty-Ninth Free Marines, landed by boats launched from Guild Job Fleet Tallboy. The Job Fleet dispatched destroyer Gee-ess-ess Champagne Tree, which was intercepted by the local fensible gunboats and, having the range advantage it destroyed them with no significant damage. No further reports arrived from Lost Pip’s Rock at this point. Based on reports throughout the previous months, the seafort is presumed lost due to underequipment.”
Agatha stopped talking for a moment, but Treistan kept his eyes firm on Arlo while Agatha’s machine clicked and clacked to change cards for her.
“Report from Royal Navy Coxswain Jonah Lately sent three days before the attack, quote: ‘Attack is imminent, have informed governor, have recommended requisition of boats from Viola, governor gives no response.’ Urgent report from Holy Gunnery Captain Grant Limble sent sixteen days before attack, quote: ‘This is my third message. Official munitions shipment has been delayed again. Recommend governor purchase private shipment from Viola. Recommend taking collection for purchase of private shipment from Viola. No response from governor.’ I have one more, just a moment…”
While she was flicking from one card to another, Arlo scratched the back of his head bashfully and said, “I didn’t have any money to do that, I’d just come back from an auction and a gala on Viola.”
“Complaint from Marine Lieutenant Gaelin Paladin sent to Royal Marine command twenty-nine days before attack, quote: ‘The batteries depleted their shells scaring off the destroyer this time. Normal replenishment has been delayed, but we are told we will be updated in a few days. My captain and our commanding officer have been clashing over whether she is to declare an emergency and relieve the governor of His Honor’s duties and enough assets to purchase private stocks.’ That’s all I have. Radiography says there are seventeen more reports available, but I felt this drew a clear enough picture.”
“Does it, nephew?” Treistan asked.
Arlo gulped his next breath. “I hope it’s at least clear that I did not realize the gravity of the situation.”
“Did your batteries repelling a destroyer full of Guilders not give you at least a little downward tug, boy?” Treistan snapped in outrage with his hand tightening to a white-knuckled grip on the hilt of the greatsword laying across his shoulder.
“It’s not like that!” Arlo exclaimed with his hands held up in surrender, then fell to his knees explaining pitifully, “The first time it happened, I had a meltdown! I couldn’t sleep for days! I tried to summon a fleet to go out and hunt them down! ‘No, don’t worry, Your Excellency’ they all told me! ‘Guild dogs probe our borders all the time, Your Honor!’ And so I tried to make the best of it. How was I supposed to know that sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t!?”
Treistan squatted down so he could be eye-to-eye with Arlo and laid the sword across his knees so he could prod his own temple and then flick Arlo’s to instill painful meaning. “Think, lad! That’s all you had to do. While you were panicking about your first attack you should have thought ‘my batteries will chase them off’. When you found out your batteries could no longer do so, you should have thought ‘I must fix my batteries’! You were first a coward, and then a fool. And it sounds as though you wasted your pay as well. Galas and auctions, forsooth!”
The one thing Arlo felt like all of his critics had in common was their complete and utter inability to just put themselves in his shoes. It wasn’t as though he felt blameless, and he certainly didn’t take his failure lightly; but at the same time every thing he had done at the time felt appropriate. He felt like the Guilders were the true villains, and everybody seemed to regard them as predictably dangerous wild beasts to be expected and prepared for.
“People died for your galas and auctions, for you sticking your head in the sand, and for your failure to think!” Treistan snarled, then rose to his feet bouncing the flat of his sword on his shoulder and obviously trying not to burst into another tantrum.
Arlo looked down at his knees in complete shame and misery. It wasn’t really his Uncle’s opinion that had really cut him this time, however. The last sentence had brought to his mind his last memory of Major Gromlaw, the strange mad fool of a woman who had given her life out of some poetic idea of love for him. Her eyes watching from above as he sailed off on the Sea Haven she’d heaved him down onto. He didn’t think people had died for his galas and auctions. Maybe they’d died by indirect result of them. He had certainly failed as a governor for reasons he could never seem to articulate to satisfy other authority figures. But Gromlaw had actually died for him. She had given her life to save his, she a worthy officer with a forty-year career and he a pompous overeducated imbecile. Arlo crushed his knees with his palms and shook his head, at once deeply grateful and ashamed of her sacrifice while also desperately reminding himself that he had never asked for it so he could keep his head above the guilt instead of drowning in the maudlin emotion.
Finally, he just said, “I don’t know what to do, Uncle. I thought you might.”
“Strike him from the will at once.” Treistan ordered Agatha with sneering contempt that made Arlo hunch even lower. While her fingers instantly began working the machinery beneath them, Treistan looked down at Arlo and said, “I’ll give you two options, boy. First: I will strike you from the family as well and give you a job as a clark in our counting house on the mainland. You will never starve, but you will never live well again. You will never be a Limiter, and most importantly you will never get the chance to disappoint me or Her Most Divine Majesty ever again.”
“And second?” Arlo meeped from below.
“You will stay in the family; though still struck from the will. You will be given a warrant commission to serve my direct bidding, and you will do dangerous work, and you will learn to be the kind of citizen who takes his last chance to serve The Jade Queen or die trying.”
“If I survive trying?” asked Arlo next, “I mean sincerely trying, Uncle. Is death the only price of failure from here-on-out?”
Tristan snorted. “How many last chances do you want, boy?”
Arlo got to his feet, and faked it. He put a look of hard determination on his face. He dug down deep inside himself searching for some reserve of the Imperial ideal; some sense of the selfless duty-minded identity he imagined he was supposed to have. Maybe if he faked it long enough, it would start to stick. He couldn’t just spend his entire life doing everything just to get to the next glass of wine, pretty girl, or slice of cheese. “As many as I can get. As many as it takes to make me into Her champion.”
“That’s the spirit!” It was Agatha who’d said it, much to Arlo’s surprise. She had shown no extreme emotion whatsoever the entire time they’d been in the room together, but when Arlo snapped his glance over to her, he found that she had wide eyes and was watching him with the same anticipation a person watches a rat solve a maze. More unsettling, she didn’t change this expression when their eyes met.
Treistan laughed and bounced the sword on his shoulder again. “Right! There’s a lad. Come with me, then. Let’s get you kitted out.”
The old man kicked open the doors to the waiting room. The two women inside turned with interested expectant looks, though the Tribune seemed somewhat concerned to see a shirtless Clannarch. The beastman remained still and silent. Treistan pointed to the three of them and said, “You lot stay here. Since you didn’t have the good sense to leave when I told you, you’ll be handled by my new Warrant Agent. He will take care of you.”
At this, the Tribune looked mildly outraged. The huge woman in the armor just clapped her hands again with that extremely stupid-looking smile and did a little more of her wiggling-in-place dance while chanting, “Goddess be praised!”
Treistan ignored them and continued leading Arlo out of the room. Agatha departed from them when they reached the stairs and disappeared into another corridor, while Treistan shamelessly strode the halls with his bare chest on full display. A pair of servants materialized a few moments later, one with a set of folded clothes and the other with the scabbard for the sword. Treistan refused to let them take the box full of things Arlo had decided to dispose of, but did hand over the sword.
“Don’t keep it in the scabbard, just find another hanger to put it back on the wall in there.” he ordered, “I destroyed the last one.”
The servant bowed and left immediately with only a hasty, “Sire.”
Arlo held the box for Treistan while he slipped into the plain white shirt and buttoned it up. Next came another steward with a tray bearing some fruit that Treistan refused as well. They descended deeper into the tower and Arlo felt the chill on his bare feet as the carpet disappeared again in favor of metal deck plates. They soon arrived at the office of the clan’s quartermaster and master artificer. One wall was taken up entirely with books and files while the other was taken up by one example of every piece of equipment in regular issue to House Haradin servants and officers.
“Master Balkan!” Treistan entered with the command already on his lips. He deposited the box on the desk of a humorously muscular man to be wearing such tiny golden spectacles. “You like assorted junk. I have a job of work for you, my good man.”
The bespectacled bodybuilder adjusted his slightly too-tight uniform and peeked down into the box curiously.
“Overnight a real sword for young Arlo, here. Get your best smiths on it.” directed the Clannarch, “Not junk like this thing in here. Something that will make it his fault if he dies. A sidearm as well, something fit for an officer who will distinguish himself in service to House Haradin.”
Balkan held up the fake coin between thumb and forefinger with a grin growing across his face. “I will get my fittest lads and lead the work personally, sire. I’m feeling inspired already.”
Then, with a look at Arlo, he added, “What experience with blades do you have, young Arlo?”
Arlo bowed respectfully. “I have two gold mastery stars with the Hargrave Manual and a letter of recommendation from the Master Duelist Jaspin Crane.”
The artificer sized him up a little longer and then speculated, “Tall, thin fellow like yourself, you must favor reverse-middle guard and hanging guard, right? I’ve made arms for your sort before.”
“I trust your wisdom, sir.” Arlo replied with another bow. “My true sabre was stolen and this one is broken and decorative, so I have no hope of avoiding the chore of learning another.”
“You will be pleased, sire.” the artificer assured him, already taking up the box and its contents with the air of a person who has tricked his masters into letting him play and call it work. They swept out of the office without another word and Treistan led Arlo into a much more nicely appointed lift than he’d traveled in with Darwin.
Agatha was waiting inside for them, and without being prompted she immediately began reporting, “Four guest rooms are being prepared in the larboard conning gallery. I have taken the liberty to lodge a complaint with Commodore Rickets about his hesitation. He suggests a planning meeting after breakfast at his table tomorrow morning.”
Treistan snorted in faux amusement, but did not react otherwise. Agatha busied herself with her indexing device until the doors opened and they were let out onto an observation deck. It was something akin to a bridge, in some respects. A semi-circular array of window panes opened up to the world like a clamshell, showing all of Peppernuts laid out before them beneath a few tiny wisps of cloud. Other islands were vaguely visible peeking out of the more distant reaches of the horizon, and all the various ships on the ocean were like little pieces on a Trinket board so visible that Arlo wished he had the courage to approach the glass and look for the Lemur. Every department had a station with a wooden lectern or console covered in dials, lamps, and vacuum tubes both up here and down on an armored battle bridge in the heart of the starboard hull, though there were some functions that just simply needed their own compartments. Officers in grey jackets or waistcoats and khaki trousers tucked into brown boots were manning the stations with headsets on, communicating to the underlings in various compartments throughout the ship. In the center of it all was a navigators station, which for a homeship was a partially reclined full-body chair with gloves, braces, foot pedals, and a headset that could be used to view various points of interest with cleverly placed mirrors around the ship. As they entered, one of these mirrors flipped down from the ceiling of the chamber and reflected back a gigantic brown eye that blinked at them a few times while its pupil slightly altered size before the mirror flicked back up and folded away. The man in the chair, for as little of him could be seen, moved subtly and in small ways.
“Mister Keening.” Treistan greeted him, “You remember Arlo.”
Keening did not reply for some time, but eventually did at least say, “He’s much taller, this time around.”
“That he is, which is why I came up here.” Treistan agreed, a sort of odd pride coming over him that caused the old man to pat Arlo’s shoulder. “Listen up, all.”
The people at the various posts carefully removed their headsets and perked up expectantly. Treistan stepped forward and propped his hands on his hips to say, “Starting today, for the time being Arlo here shall act as my personal agent. A warrant is being drafted for him as we speak. He will have a badge, but I will need it handed down to the captains of the fleet and people in various offices that he conveys my will– though he will not be entitled to give direct or specific orders, only relay my own.“
A woman with long, straight brown hair and a very skeptical expression on her face leaned over and pointed to Arlo, asking, “Will he continue to look like that, sir?”
Though Treistan had remarked on Arlo’s appearance before, he suddenly seemed to notice it for the first time. He ran his tongue thoughtfully around his gums and then prodded Arlo in the side, causing him to release a tiny yelp. “What are you, forty-four fingers?”
“I’m sorry?” Arlo asked with his brows tilted.
“Bust size, lad.”
At once, as though speaking to a salesman at the shops, Arlo spat out, “Boot size ten wide, thirty-six finger hips, thirty-four finger waist, forty-two finger bust, rise and inseam–”
“Any of you lot who has a thirty-six trousers and a forty-two jacket, have a midshipman or one of the servants go and get your cast-offs and your hand-me-downs sent to my quarters.” Treistan ordered, “If you care to spare a shoregoing rig or…”
Treistan paused and pinched the hem of the rough waistcoat Arlo was wearing, then flipped it up to look at the garrison belt underneath. Satisfied it was fine, he turned back to the officers and finished, “If you can spare a shoregoing rig or decent field gear, I will happily buy it from you at new-price.”
At once, officers began speaking into their headsets. The woman who’d spoken before blushed to confess, “I have very large feet for a woman, sir, I can supply his boots.”
“All the better to stand on cultists’ necks, Lieutenant Giltnam.” Treistan shot back with a wry smile.
Once he was satisfied that Arlo could be clothed, Treistan whispered something to Agatha that caused her to half-bow and roll herself to a station in the corner. She took up a headset of her own and began rattling off a number of quick orders while Treistan took Arlo by the shoulder and guided him back to the lift.
“Let’s get you down to my private quarters and have you bathed and shaved.” Treistan told him, “We’ll have you looking respectable again in no-time.”
