Prompt Serial: Part 2
Part 2 of my prompt serial. Our protagonist, one Finmauw by name, is making that she's dotted as many i's and crossed as many t's as she can before she leaves the city in search of her friends and the party member that replaced her in their group. That quest is leading her to some...interesting places.
This piece runs to 3,186 words and I hope that you enjoy it.
Index page.
The population of Gallowsshadow would best be described as somewhat goblinoid, this being a description of the individuals, not just the population as a whole. Unless you were around Frumenty Lane and Green Mare Court, in which case the other contributing bloodline was bullywoggle. As many have said over the centuries, both more crudely and more eruditely, you can always find a human somewhere who will happily breed with any other race.
Finmauw was used to the faces that thronged through the district. Skeith lived here in a boarding house run by his Aunty Peg, who was actually some sort of cousin to his mother, and the rest of the group had visited often. Sometimes you needed to talk about work in a place that wasn't connected to work, and for a reasonable sum, Aunty Peg would let them be alone in the private parlor and keep everyone else away. She also made biscuits that made your mouth water just from the memory, so none of the others had objected to Skeith bringing them over to Gallowsshadow when they wanted privacy.
Aunty Peg opened the door when Finmauw knocked and said, "I told you, Renfrew, I don't have any rooms available now. Try Missus Forn-. Hello, Finmauw. Sorry about that, I thought you were someone else. Come in and have some biscuits." Finmauw went in, and after the hefty, green haired woman had closed the door behind her guest she said quietly, "He's not back, you know."
"I do," replied Finmauw. "That's why I came to see you."
"Best we take our tea and biscuits upstairs then," said Aunty Peg firmly. "You know the way to the private parlor, I'll just grab the things from the kitchen."
Aunty Peg's house may not have been the best address in the city, or even the best in Gallowsshadow but it was sturdy, well maintained, and clean on the inside. The stairs were wide and even, and a fully armoured orc could have used them and the hallways with ease. From what Skeith had said, that would have been Aunty Peg's maternal great-grandfather. The private parlor was one flight of stairs up and down the hall at the corner. All the bedrooms let off the hall on the street side of the building with windows on the right overlooking a yard at the back of the house, while the parlor was part of a tower-like structure sitting in the yard that shared two walls with the hallway. There were two floors of tower above the private parlor, and Finmauw had no idea what was in them. The furnishings of the parlor itself were sturdy, if worn. It may have been a fashionably dressed room at some point, but Finmauw suspected that neat, tidy, and respectable had been the guidelines when it was furnished.
Aunty Peg arrived five minutes after Finmauw, bearing a tray with a pot of tea, teacups, saucers, and plates for two, plus a plate of shortbread biscuits and a second plate stacked with fruit cake sticky with pieces of dates, sultanas, and preserved cherries. "Get the door will you, love?" she asked as she put the tray on the low table central to the chairs. "We might as well enjoy our visit in private."
The older woman removed the calico bag of tea leaves from the pot as Finmauw came over to the chairs and sat opposite her. As she poured out the tea into each of the cups, she said, "I hadn't begun to worry about Skeith just yet. He came to see me before they went away - to pay his rent, all that sort of thing. When he was here, he told me that the job was going to take longer than the Guild thought it was going to. I almost asked him why, but he had that look when he said it, you know the one I mean."
"I do," replied Finmauw calmly as she stirred her tea with one of Aunty Peg's non-matching silver spoons. Skeith was good at estimating how long an assignment or a commission would take, and when you asked him, he could explain exactly how he had come to that conclusion, except that sometimes he just said, "He had a feeling about it. I understand why he doesn't want anyone prodding at that, but it happens just often enough...."
"I know," said Aunty Peg, nodding and taking a shortbread as she did so. "Being an oracle is no life at all. What he did say was that they were going up into the Mumbles and he thought it was going to be more complicated than anyone expected. There was something, I think, about a letter that he thought he was missing something about."
The Mumbles was the area north of the city, west of the Sendry, and south of the mountain fed marshes that formed the Sendry's headwaters. City dwellers said that the people who lived there mumbled their words half the time, but Finmauw suspected that they were complaining under their breath a lot about being cheated when they came to the city.
Aunty Peg went on, "What I didn't understand was why you weren't going with them." She ate the shortbread.
"The new Assignments Master took me off the team," replied Finmauw. Then she added, "I think he doesn't like me, and I've no idea why. The day he was announced as Assignments Master was the first time I'd ever seen him, and the day he took me off the team and gave them that assignment was the first day I'd ever spoken to him or he to me. As far as I know, I've never done ill to him or his."
"Some people just don't like some other people," commented Aunty Peg as she pushed the plate of biscuits in Finmauw's direction. "But, you know, all the Masters in the Guild House are going to change eventually - it's inevitable with the passage of time. I know the Guild House is your home and the permanent staff are your family, but it might be time to consider moving out and getting a place of your own. The trick is to make new arrangements while it's your choice. Before there are more Masters who either don't know or don't care about your history with the Guild."
"I'll give it real thought when I get back," promised Finmauw. "Speaking of which, how is Skeith fixed up for rent?"
"Well in advance," Aunty Peg assured her. "He likes to be beforehand with the world does our Skeith." She gave Finmauw a sly smile and added, "And even if he wasn't, the thought of him being so means that I can turn the likes of Renfrew from my door."
"The other thing I was hoping to do when I came down here was to see if I know anyone who has any contacts in Straun's mob. There are a couple of things I want to check if I can. They probably won't come to anything, but I'd like to eliminate a few possibilities before I go tearing off around the countryside." Finmauw took a biscuit and bite it carefully in half, trying to minimise the crumbs that would tumble down the front of her clothing and stick there.
"This'll be something about Alladel and that cat girl that hangs around with Straun's mob, won't it?" Aunty Peg gave Finmauw a shrewd look.
"It is," replied Finmauw calmly.
"Don't tell me unless you think I need to know," answered the older woman. "If it turns out to be Straun's business, I don't want to have my nose in it unless it has to be. Do you know Argan Mousedriver? He has the oddments shop down at the corner of Frumenty Street and the Overwind Stairs. I understand that he has connections through the trade up and down the Sendry and even up into our north end. Perhaps he can help you."
"Thank you," Finmauw let herself sound grateful, because she truly was. Argan Mousedriver ran an oddments shop, but his main business was as a fence. She had sold some things properly acquired in the course of her assignments to him herself, not because they were stolen but because he had offered the best price for them. He, in return, had told her that he appreciated having the provenance of the items in question, truncated as it was.
So it was, after consuming a pot of tea and the best part of two plates of food with Aunty Peg, Finmauw strolled around to Argan Mousedriver's shop feeling rather good about the world in general. Mousedriver, a small goblin-sized figure of a man with large ears, long fingers, and a bald head, was behind the counter when Finmauw entered, the bell attached to the top of the front door jingling away as she swung it open and closed. "So, what can I do for you today, little mistress?" He sounded pleased to see her which made Finmauw think that he'd done well out of their previous transactions.
Finmauw was apologetic. "I'm hoping that you might know someone who might know someone. I need to find out if certain things have been happening up in the northern end of the city, nothing that any of the someones I mentioned might be doing," she hastily assured him, "but that they would be in a position to know about."
He looked at her with both suspicion and concern, and asked, "Who is the someone that someone I know might know?"
"Someone in Mr Straun's organisation," she told him. Polite and respectful was the way to go if she was going to get what she wanted and not a set of bravos come to take her to task about her lack of respect for their boss and organisation.
Mousedriver looked at her seriously, obviously weighing up his courses of action and no longer exuding joviality. Finally he said, "I have a business associate in Scallionwick," naming an area in the north of the city, "who may have a nodding acquaintance with someone near to that organisation. I can give you a note for him as an introduction, if that would work for you."
"It would," she nodded gratefully to emphasis her words. "I am intending to go up there as soon as I can after I leave here. Do you want me to run you any errands on the way?" They both knew that her offer would let him send a direct message faster than she could travel so the person at the other end would know to expect her.
"Actually, yes." He was smiling again. "I've a parcel here for your Quartermaster. I've been waiting for someone from your Guild to come by so I can hand it over for delivery." Then he gave a smile that was practically wicked, "And it just so happens that I have something that needs running up to Marigold's on Loskey Square - some idiot lifted some of their cutlery when he ate there last week. I gave him the usual deal, they've paid the recovery cost, and if you could just drop the objects in question off on your way from the Guild to Scallionwick, everyone will be square."
Finmauw set off for the Guild house five minutes later carrying a small box for her friend the Quartermaster and a calico bag containing calico wrapped silver cutlery for Marigold's. Her stay at the Guild was short and sweet. The Quartermaster was in, and glad to see his parcel. Finmauw went on her way and left him to verify the contents and send back a receipt.
Marigold's was an exclusive establishment catering to those with male tastes and the money to indulge them. Finmauw went to the back door, which was answered by a large gentleman positioned to catch those who wanted to avoid the front door charge, and explained her errand. The large gentleman at the door checked her story by looking in the bag, and then had her escorted to the man in charge of the good cutlery - in an upper class home he would have been the butler, but here Finmauw don't know what he was called. He checked the contents of the bag in front of her, two place settings of solid silver cutlery, thank you very much, and marked them off in his register. He assured Finmauw that the receipt would be sent along to Mr Mousedriver, and thanked her for her time. She wasn't booted out the back door, but it was clear that they were thankful for her assistance but now it was time for her to leave.
Then she was on her way to Porter's Walk, Scallionwick. The store was labelled Appledore and Sons in the sort of script that you’d pay a lot for a signwriter to do, but which had been allowed to fade to a mellow green-grey because nothing in this neighbourhood was doing quite as well as it used to. The Appledores might not have been running a pawn shop, but it was just the right distance from the very best neighbourhoods and the area was just respectable enough that someone from the upper levels of city society running short of cash could safely and privately bring something over here and trade it for coins. Location, location, location as they say. The bell on the Appledores' door was more melodious than the one at Mousedriver's and the space was, although as cluttered as Mousedriver's had been, a better class of room to begin with and the oddments that cluttered it were a better class of oddment. The man behind the counter appeared to be entirely human and was dressed neatly and cleanly in clothes that placed him in the well-to-do merchant classes. His clothing colour of choice was grey with a white shirt and neckcloth showing up nicely against his weskit and coat. His hair had been black but was now trying to match the colour of his clothing. Finmauw walked up to the counter and enquired, "Good morning, are you one of the Mr Appledores?"
"And if I am?" His voice held the tone of one who was reaching for the weapon kept below the counter for difficult customers.
"My name is Finmauw Guildfoster, and if you are a Mr Appledore then I have a letter for you from Mr Mousedriver." She added judiciously, "You may be expecting me."
"I am Eraymus Appledore," replied the man behind the counter. "If I may see the letter, please?" He held out his hand and Finmauw placed the wax sealed letter in it. "Thank you, Mistress Guildfoster." he turned his attention to the folded paper sealed with wax push down and spread by Argan Mousedriver's thumb. "Not tampered with," he commented in an approving tone. "Are you not curious, Mistress Guildfoster, or are you simply trusting?"
"The point, Mr Appledore, is that I can be trusted not to take liberties with those I work with or for. Or those I ask for favours from." Finmauw looked at him steadily until he smiled, shifted his attention to the letter in his hand, and opened it.
"This is a letter of introduction from my most excellent associate, Argan Mousedriver. What can I do for you, Mistress Guildfoster?" He smiled, and Finmauw was certain that she would not like to be someone he took a dislike to.
"I have been hired through the Adventurer's Guild to find a Guild member whose party has now taken twice as long as expected to return from their last assignment. I am currently gathering information that I hope will make my task easier before I follow them out of the city. I have two questions touching upon one of the other party members that I believe might best be answered by members of Mr Straun's organisation. Nothing," she hurried to assure him, "about their activities but several things that they may have observed as they go about their lives."
Appledore looked up at her without moving his head. "Does it have to be Straun's people?"
"My questions do revolve around their acquaintance with one particular associate of the organisation." Finmauw was beginning to feel as if she was being watched. Which made sense - a shop with links to one of the nastiest organisations Finmauw knew of might well have means of observing customers from a back room or from a space above the ceiling.
"Please, come into my back room," said Mr Appledore with a charming smile and indicating the way past the curtain behind the counter with the hand that held the letter. "I keep it for negotiating with clients who don't want their financial dealings public to the world." He swept her into a room that opened of the right of the hallway behind the curtain, and Finmauw found herself facing two unknown men, "Also for private meetings. You will excuse me, I am sure, Mistress Guildfoster."
He stepped back and closed the door behind him. She was alone with two hard men.
The one in black with a white neck cloth said, "You were asking to speak to a member of Mr Straun's organisation, Mistress...Guildfoster. We are here as Mr Straun's representatives. I am his legal adviser, Aderis Milld. My card." He handed her a pasteboard card that declared that Mr Aderis Milld, Esquire, practiced law from the Skallion Chambers, Henckmen Street, Scallionwick.
"Mr Milld. A pleasure, I am sure. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today." Finmauw kept her voice even. "May I know the name of your associate?"
"I'm Zamberey," said the other man briefly. "I'm something of a claims assessor. Who owns what, who gets what, where the fault lies. All that sort of thing. I'm good at telling if people are telling me the truth or not. Do we understand each other?" He looked as if he was part reptile, with vestigial scales down his nose and along his lips. Two long, narrow upper teeth protruded from his upper jaw and lay flat across his lower lip. He had a whipcord build, wore a heavier and more unfashionable coat than Mr Milld, and Finmauw could tell where he was carrying three weapons. She assumed he had more.
Milld spoke. "The way this will work, Mistress...Guildfoster, is that you will tell us what you want to know. I will decide whether it is in Mr Straun's interests to give you an answer. Zamberey here will decide what it is worth to give you your answer. If we decide that you and your questions are a liability to Mr Straun, then I'm afraid that this will be a short interview with an unpleasant end for you."
"I understand," replied Finmauw. "Also, may I request that you not call me Mistress Guildfoster? It's not a name I am comfortable with - I usually go by Finmauw."
"Understood and fair." It was Zamberey who answered. Always best to plan to die under your own name. Now, what is it you want to know, Mistress Finmauw?"