Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
Location: The Masterharper's Office, Harper Hall
Time: Afternoon on Day 9, Month 2, Turn 3
Players: Roa and Kazimir (NPCed by Benden)
Scene: Roa goes to the Masterharper to find out if he'll entertain a case against Telgar's Weyrleader.
Kazimir, of course, expects her. That might be why the door to his receiving room stands open, and why he inside has given over one of his precious horizontal surfaces to an assortment of drinks and finger-foods. The other possibility would be, perhaps, that he just chooses to nibble in his chambers today. Hard to say - for the man himself, in his awkward and unattractively billowy robe of Harper blue, is standing in the middle of the room, somewhere midpoint among the various clusters of furniture. He appears for all intents and purposes to have stopped there, to try to remember where he was going or why; he does have a thin, broad book in one hand, the kind in which a score is bound, but it receives none of his attention. He gazes up at the bookshelves, thoughtfully blinking.
This is what Roa sees then, when her slight figure blocks out a bit of the light from the hall and she raps lightly on the doorframe to announce her presence to the seemingly-drifting craftmaster. "Masterharper," the Reachian weyrwoman greets as she takes a single step inside. Her voice is soft, but it the quiet, it travels well enough. "Thank you for speaking with me. How are you, sir?"
"Oh," replies Kazimir, to his title; his head turns so he faces her, not the books, and his eyes light a bit. "It's you." Neither pleased nor bothered by this, but it does seem to come across as a bit of a revelation - perhaps she is what he forgot. A little too late for it to be useful he smiles at her. "Go on and shut the door, I think. There's some stuff in here you might want to eat, or I can get you a drink. We're in the back corner." He turns his back on her then and shuffles - shod in brown slippers that peek from beneath the robe - toward the furniture-cluster he prefers, the almost-horrible arrangement including the burnt ochre chair. They may be 'in' the back corner, but it's not like the other areas seem to be awaiting other reservations. "I'm a little older and not much wiser. You?"
She slips inside, turning to push the door until it seals with a faint click. "Thank you," Roa murmurs, her attention flicking towards the food and then back to Kazimir. As he shuffles, the weyrwoman walks over to the buffet and selects a few small, bready puffs of...well...she'll learn when she eats them. "Not much older, expected to be far wiser, and bluffing admirably, I think." A small pause so that Roa can pour a glass of juice before following after the Harper and moving towards the arrangement of offensive furniture. "Thank you for asking."
"I had half expected to entertain the both of you, you know. Supper. Or worse still," a comparative statement he makes thoughtlessly, without concern for whether she realizes its emphasis or not, speaking as if from stream of consciousness, "Come to the Weyr to visit for dinner. Not every new administration at a Weyr bothers with that sort of show, naturally, and as you're not Fort I wouldn't expect it - " He stops here, so as to hitch himself into his chair, having bypassed the food wholesale. "Anyway, how nice for you to visit without making a fuss of it." His head goes down a little, his mottled hands arranging the score over his robed knees, but his eyes stay up, watching the young weyrwoman's approach.
Settling on the edge of one of the dismally-colored couches, (the hue immediately does its work and makes even its occupant appear a little bit sickly) Roa lifts the hand that cups her flaky mystery puffs and studies them thoughtfully. "You know," she begins as the examination continues, "The Weyrleader and I both felt that High Reaches has had quite enough fuss for a while. A long while, one would hope. Mmm, well, except that I suppose I have come to create a little fuss of my own." The top little pastry is selected and bitten in half. Ah. Spinach.
"Well, I couldn't have hoped for worse," sends back the harper in a sarcastically cheerful tone. He lifts the score then and sets it aside on the end table closest to his chair, and after that scootches farther back into that chair's horrifically upholstered embrace.
The weyrwoman chews and swallows, and then, as the contents of the half-puff seem determined to flee their crusty confines, Roa is obliged to pop the other end in her mouth and slowly chew and swallow for a second time. Her free hand lifts, thumb checking for crumbs at the corner of her mouth before said mouth is finally used for speaking. "I've heard that you may be willing to entertain a case against Telgar's weyrleader, provided certain conditions could be met."
"Harper would be willing to pursue a case against any criminal, were some evidence of crime present," remarks Kazimir, folding his hands up in his lap. They seem ill-inclined to stay that way, wanting to twitch and tap fingertips against opposite knuckles. "And we are accustomed to mediating in cases where Weyr oversight is challenged. To be honest, Weyrwoman, I would be surprised if you felt a need to come to me to confirm these things." He does not seem surprised. He seems a little tired.
A second puff goes the way of the first, and if Roa is aware that she is being rebuffed, her expression remains neutral, save for the shifting her face is obliged to perform while she chews. Swallow. "And if there was someone willing to claim that a crime had been committed, would you yourself be willing to hear said person? Possibly at a place other than Harper Hall?"
Kazimir obviously feels no need to keep his mood private; he pulls a face, a nasty one, nose wrinkled, mouth curled, eyes squinty, 'yuck.' "Were there grave enough cause, or the suspect of such rank that none of the masters might do, I suppose it could be required."
"I would prefer if it was you, sir," is Roa's soft and simple reply. Then her lips inch just a wee bit upwards. "I will even make sure that there is an ochre chair waiting for you."
"Why?" Kazimir's 'yuck' face dissolves into one of abject failure to comprehend. "What I might like most, young - pardon me, weyrwoman, would be to be advised in advance of the location to which I'm obliged to travel; of what I should expect to need to do there; of how long I will have to stay; and whether I may bring along another - Master Ysidro, perhaps - and last of all - " He must breathe here, so does so, shallowly. "Why you are involved in this, in the first place. I cannot quite think Telgar, of all places, has actually done High Reaches any harm."
"I can understand why you would wish for such things. Certainly none of them are unreasonable, sir." The last puff is eaten and her hands are dusted free of crumbs before they settle into Roa's lap. "I cannot, at this time, offer you any specifics on where or when, as I do not yet have them. When I do, I will be certain to inform you. I...would be interested to know why Master Ysidro, sir. I have met him, before. In some ways, I was unimpressed." The weyrwoman leans back into her chair and draws in a thoughtful breath. "If Telgar's weyrleader has committed the crime he is suspected of, then he harms all of us, regardless of what Telgar and High Reaches other ties may be. I knew him once, sir. I wish I could say my knowledge of his character disavows these dismal rumors. I cannot."
Kazimir might have replied - but he is not quick to speak, and Roa goes on after only that thoughtful breath, so he is spared the trouble and tends, for now, to the issue of Telgar's weyrleader instead, or rather, the Reachian weyrwoman's concern with him. "That would explain why you were involved in this issue prior to your ascension? Or have you some more benevolent interest at heart?"
"My benevolent interest is that the weyr in which I grew up not be lead by a man with the willingness to utilize such practices." Roa's ankles cross. "I have thought, long and often, for a scenario that might validate such treatment, and I cannot find one." A wide-eyed blink. "Could you, sir?"
"Yes," replies Kazimir, absolutely grave, absolutely indifferent. "Yet as far as I know, were such a scenario present, even Telgar's weyrleader would have chosen to inform the rest of his peers." A little light silence to allow some room for reflection on these words, though not much. "I presume you haven't seen any letters on the subject that your predecessor might have overlooked."
"Then we disagree," Roa says with a dismissive shrug "on the first topic and agree on the second. If he had a criminal whose crimes affected Pern, the decision was not Telgar's alone to make." Her head tips to the side at the mention of letters. "I have not," she begins slowly, "but I should like to, if such letters existed and might be seen." Another beat before she asks again, "Why Ysidro, sir?"
Kazimir breaks form and answers not her most recent question, but something which was not a question at all: he does so while his left foot begins to describe a slow circle, slipper dangling off the heel. "My suspicion is that he did not have such a thing, weyrwoman." He unfolds his hands so one of them can drum a soft staccato of fingertips across the back of the other, then idly turns to glance at the score set aside. Then to reach for it. "He might have, were he an older man, in another time, but that time is past, and digging it up only threatens to undo things better left done."
"Begging your pardon and with all due respect to your thoughts, suspicion is not good enough. It is my intention to find out for sure." Roa shifts her gaze from the armrest of the Masterharper's chair to his face. "Older men in other times have made their choices and the world is as it is because of them. This particular choice, however, is mine. Why Master Ysidro, sir?"
To Roa's initial remarks the Masterharper lifts his hand from the score it reached for, leaving the book where it lies so he can make a gesture of bending fingers and a single, perhaps-approving nod for the weyrwoman's intention. But the rest of her words draws out from him not the answer she requests, but a little shifting forward in his chair and a narrowing of suddenly rather sharp regard. "Why is it yours, Weyrwoman, and not your peers'? Why is it yours, and not your people's?"
"It is mine and not my peers', sir, because I am the one that is here." Roa's hands clasp lightly, one foot twisting in a slow circle at the ankle, an unintentional similarity to the Masterharper's own twitches. "They either have not the means to provide proof or they lack the inclination to speak with you. It it my people's choice as well, sir, but sometimes a single voice may speak for the many. I do not expect I could fit all of the weyr into your office."
"And your proof?" Kazimir pauses. Maybe it takes him a moment to decide whether he'd like to be this blunt or not. His reputation, however, does not suggest he should need a moment to make that decision. "Would she do the same as you're doing, had she her own choice here to make?"
"I don't know sir," is Roa's thoughtful reply, her clasped hands tightening just a little. "I suppose, if one considers the ideals which would have sent her away, perhaps she would. And if one considers that I do not intend to force anyone to speak, only let it be asked that they do, then should I, in the near future, have a location and a time for you, I suppose that shall be your answer."
"I suppose it will be," Kazimir replies with something not entirely unlike the threat of laughter in his voice, but it's not quite enough to win for her his smile, whatever it might look like. "You had - some other question?" A weary prompt, his voice almost crackling. Some other question that he's clearly all but forgotten.
"I did, sir," Roa agrees, the twitch of her lips attempting to conceal her own bit of mirth. "Why it was you wished to bring along the other master you mentioned...I forget his name, now."
"Master Ysidro." The name comes too easily to hand; she was prompted, and provided the correct response. "He is a specialist in defense. He has some personal experience in the defense of doomed cases, even above what you have witnessed. What is your objection to him, again?"
"His interest was in winning, rather than in the well-being of his client or even, really, the defense of him." Roa sighs softly. "His ideas were original, though," she offers grudgingly, "if unsuccessful in that particular instance."
"Sometimes a defender is unable to locate any personal empathy for the accused," allows Kazimir with what passes as a shrug - more like a hunching, then unhunching, of robed shoulders. His foot takes up circling again, a little quicker. "As a journeyman he assisted one of the masters who defended the rebels. You were a little girl, then." A pause. There is one fabled memory here, and one memory that is a well-kept secret. Kazimir lifts up his head a little and lets Roa have an uncommonly bright, focused look for a moment, as though he recalls a little girl's features. "I think he might be useful to have along - and it's not as if you can rely on me, alone, anyway. It would be foolish of you to expect a case to stand with only one harper's word, even if that harper is this one."
The little weyrwoman holds Kazimir's gaze evenly and blinks slowly. To his pronouncement of her age during the trials she only says, quietly, "I would have been, yes." As Ysidro is mentioned as a defender of the legendary trial, she looks down to her knees to mask the way her gaze goes distant and then sharpens again. "I do not wish to be foolish," Roa informs the Masterharper, her head lifting once more. "I'll abide by your suggestion, sir."
"I appreciate it, Weyrwoman." Not so careless, this remark; it might sound as though he really does. "Might I offer one more?"
A small nod before Roa replies simply. "All right."
"Find someone to undertake the coordination of this task besides yourself." Having said this, the Masterharper shifts forward, slipping his foot back into the dangling slipper just as it lands on the floor in front of the chair. "It is a quicker solution than learning to control your eyes, and kinder to your heart." A few shuffling steps put him before her; he offers a mottled, older-than-his-age hand. "A suggestion, Weyrwoman; nothing more."
"One I will think on, sir." The weyrwoman of High Reaches slips her small, pale hand into the Masterharper's aged one, and allows herself to be helped up and out of her seat.
Time: Afternoon on Day 9, Month 2, Turn 3
Players: Roa and Kazimir (NPCed by Benden)
Scene: Roa goes to the Masterharper to find out if he'll entertain a case against Telgar's Weyrleader.
Kazimir, of course, expects her. That might be why the door to his receiving room stands open, and why he inside has given over one of his precious horizontal surfaces to an assortment of drinks and finger-foods. The other possibility would be, perhaps, that he just chooses to nibble in his chambers today. Hard to say - for the man himself, in his awkward and unattractively billowy robe of Harper blue, is standing in the middle of the room, somewhere midpoint among the various clusters of furniture. He appears for all intents and purposes to have stopped there, to try to remember where he was going or why; he does have a thin, broad book in one hand, the kind in which a score is bound, but it receives none of his attention. He gazes up at the bookshelves, thoughtfully blinking.
This is what Roa sees then, when her slight figure blocks out a bit of the light from the hall and she raps lightly on the doorframe to announce her presence to the seemingly-drifting craftmaster. "Masterharper," the Reachian weyrwoman greets as she takes a single step inside. Her voice is soft, but it the quiet, it travels well enough. "Thank you for speaking with me. How are you, sir?"
"Oh," replies Kazimir, to his title; his head turns so he faces her, not the books, and his eyes light a bit. "It's you." Neither pleased nor bothered by this, but it does seem to come across as a bit of a revelation - perhaps she is what he forgot. A little too late for it to be useful he smiles at her. "Go on and shut the door, I think. There's some stuff in here you might want to eat, or I can get you a drink. We're in the back corner." He turns his back on her then and shuffles - shod in brown slippers that peek from beneath the robe - toward the furniture-cluster he prefers, the almost-horrible arrangement including the burnt ochre chair. They may be 'in' the back corner, but it's not like the other areas seem to be awaiting other reservations. "I'm a little older and not much wiser. You?"
She slips inside, turning to push the door until it seals with a faint click. "Thank you," Roa murmurs, her attention flicking towards the food and then back to Kazimir. As he shuffles, the weyrwoman walks over to the buffet and selects a few small, bready puffs of...well...she'll learn when she eats them. "Not much older, expected to be far wiser, and bluffing admirably, I think." A small pause so that Roa can pour a glass of juice before following after the Harper and moving towards the arrangement of offensive furniture. "Thank you for asking."
"I had half expected to entertain the both of you, you know. Supper. Or worse still," a comparative statement he makes thoughtlessly, without concern for whether she realizes its emphasis or not, speaking as if from stream of consciousness, "Come to the Weyr to visit for dinner. Not every new administration at a Weyr bothers with that sort of show, naturally, and as you're not Fort I wouldn't expect it - " He stops here, so as to hitch himself into his chair, having bypassed the food wholesale. "Anyway, how nice for you to visit without making a fuss of it." His head goes down a little, his mottled hands arranging the score over his robed knees, but his eyes stay up, watching the young weyrwoman's approach.
Settling on the edge of one of the dismally-colored couches, (the hue immediately does its work and makes even its occupant appear a little bit sickly) Roa lifts the hand that cups her flaky mystery puffs and studies them thoughtfully. "You know," she begins as the examination continues, "The Weyrleader and I both felt that High Reaches has had quite enough fuss for a while. A long while, one would hope. Mmm, well, except that I suppose I have come to create a little fuss of my own." The top little pastry is selected and bitten in half. Ah. Spinach.
"Well, I couldn't have hoped for worse," sends back the harper in a sarcastically cheerful tone. He lifts the score then and sets it aside on the end table closest to his chair, and after that scootches farther back into that chair's horrifically upholstered embrace.
The weyrwoman chews and swallows, and then, as the contents of the half-puff seem determined to flee their crusty confines, Roa is obliged to pop the other end in her mouth and slowly chew and swallow for a second time. Her free hand lifts, thumb checking for crumbs at the corner of her mouth before said mouth is finally used for speaking. "I've heard that you may be willing to entertain a case against Telgar's weyrleader, provided certain conditions could be met."
"Harper would be willing to pursue a case against any criminal, were some evidence of crime present," remarks Kazimir, folding his hands up in his lap. They seem ill-inclined to stay that way, wanting to twitch and tap fingertips against opposite knuckles. "And we are accustomed to mediating in cases where Weyr oversight is challenged. To be honest, Weyrwoman, I would be surprised if you felt a need to come to me to confirm these things." He does not seem surprised. He seems a little tired.
A second puff goes the way of the first, and if Roa is aware that she is being rebuffed, her expression remains neutral, save for the shifting her face is obliged to perform while she chews. Swallow. "And if there was someone willing to claim that a crime had been committed, would you yourself be willing to hear said person? Possibly at a place other than Harper Hall?"
Kazimir obviously feels no need to keep his mood private; he pulls a face, a nasty one, nose wrinkled, mouth curled, eyes squinty, 'yuck.' "Were there grave enough cause, or the suspect of such rank that none of the masters might do, I suppose it could be required."
"I would prefer if it was you, sir," is Roa's soft and simple reply. Then her lips inch just a wee bit upwards. "I will even make sure that there is an ochre chair waiting for you."
"Why?" Kazimir's 'yuck' face dissolves into one of abject failure to comprehend. "What I might like most, young - pardon me, weyrwoman, would be to be advised in advance of the location to which I'm obliged to travel; of what I should expect to need to do there; of how long I will have to stay; and whether I may bring along another - Master Ysidro, perhaps - and last of all - " He must breathe here, so does so, shallowly. "Why you are involved in this, in the first place. I cannot quite think Telgar, of all places, has actually done High Reaches any harm."
"I can understand why you would wish for such things. Certainly none of them are unreasonable, sir." The last puff is eaten and her hands are dusted free of crumbs before they settle into Roa's lap. "I cannot, at this time, offer you any specifics on where or when, as I do not yet have them. When I do, I will be certain to inform you. I...would be interested to know why Master Ysidro, sir. I have met him, before. In some ways, I was unimpressed." The weyrwoman leans back into her chair and draws in a thoughtful breath. "If Telgar's weyrleader has committed the crime he is suspected of, then he harms all of us, regardless of what Telgar and High Reaches other ties may be. I knew him once, sir. I wish I could say my knowledge of his character disavows these dismal rumors. I cannot."
Kazimir might have replied - but he is not quick to speak, and Roa goes on after only that thoughtful breath, so he is spared the trouble and tends, for now, to the issue of Telgar's weyrleader instead, or rather, the Reachian weyrwoman's concern with him. "That would explain why you were involved in this issue prior to your ascension? Or have you some more benevolent interest at heart?"
"My benevolent interest is that the weyr in which I grew up not be lead by a man with the willingness to utilize such practices." Roa's ankles cross. "I have thought, long and often, for a scenario that might validate such treatment, and I cannot find one." A wide-eyed blink. "Could you, sir?"
"Yes," replies Kazimir, absolutely grave, absolutely indifferent. "Yet as far as I know, were such a scenario present, even Telgar's weyrleader would have chosen to inform the rest of his peers." A little light silence to allow some room for reflection on these words, though not much. "I presume you haven't seen any letters on the subject that your predecessor might have overlooked."
"Then we disagree," Roa says with a dismissive shrug "on the first topic and agree on the second. If he had a criminal whose crimes affected Pern, the decision was not Telgar's alone to make." Her head tips to the side at the mention of letters. "I have not," she begins slowly, "but I should like to, if such letters existed and might be seen." Another beat before she asks again, "Why Ysidro, sir?"
Kazimir breaks form and answers not her most recent question, but something which was not a question at all: he does so while his left foot begins to describe a slow circle, slipper dangling off the heel. "My suspicion is that he did not have such a thing, weyrwoman." He unfolds his hands so one of them can drum a soft staccato of fingertips across the back of the other, then idly turns to glance at the score set aside. Then to reach for it. "He might have, were he an older man, in another time, but that time is past, and digging it up only threatens to undo things better left done."
"Begging your pardon and with all due respect to your thoughts, suspicion is not good enough. It is my intention to find out for sure." Roa shifts her gaze from the armrest of the Masterharper's chair to his face. "Older men in other times have made their choices and the world is as it is because of them. This particular choice, however, is mine. Why Master Ysidro, sir?"
To Roa's initial remarks the Masterharper lifts his hand from the score it reached for, leaving the book where it lies so he can make a gesture of bending fingers and a single, perhaps-approving nod for the weyrwoman's intention. But the rest of her words draws out from him not the answer she requests, but a little shifting forward in his chair and a narrowing of suddenly rather sharp regard. "Why is it yours, Weyrwoman, and not your peers'? Why is it yours, and not your people's?"
"It is mine and not my peers', sir, because I am the one that is here." Roa's hands clasp lightly, one foot twisting in a slow circle at the ankle, an unintentional similarity to the Masterharper's own twitches. "They either have not the means to provide proof or they lack the inclination to speak with you. It it my people's choice as well, sir, but sometimes a single voice may speak for the many. I do not expect I could fit all of the weyr into your office."
"And your proof?" Kazimir pauses. Maybe it takes him a moment to decide whether he'd like to be this blunt or not. His reputation, however, does not suggest he should need a moment to make that decision. "Would she do the same as you're doing, had she her own choice here to make?"
"I don't know sir," is Roa's thoughtful reply, her clasped hands tightening just a little. "I suppose, if one considers the ideals which would have sent her away, perhaps she would. And if one considers that I do not intend to force anyone to speak, only let it be asked that they do, then should I, in the near future, have a location and a time for you, I suppose that shall be your answer."
"I suppose it will be," Kazimir replies with something not entirely unlike the threat of laughter in his voice, but it's not quite enough to win for her his smile, whatever it might look like. "You had - some other question?" A weary prompt, his voice almost crackling. Some other question that he's clearly all but forgotten.
"I did, sir," Roa agrees, the twitch of her lips attempting to conceal her own bit of mirth. "Why it was you wished to bring along the other master you mentioned...I forget his name, now."
"Master Ysidro." The name comes too easily to hand; she was prompted, and provided the correct response. "He is a specialist in defense. He has some personal experience in the defense of doomed cases, even above what you have witnessed. What is your objection to him, again?"
"His interest was in winning, rather than in the well-being of his client or even, really, the defense of him." Roa sighs softly. "His ideas were original, though," she offers grudgingly, "if unsuccessful in that particular instance."
"Sometimes a defender is unable to locate any personal empathy for the accused," allows Kazimir with what passes as a shrug - more like a hunching, then unhunching, of robed shoulders. His foot takes up circling again, a little quicker. "As a journeyman he assisted one of the masters who defended the rebels. You were a little girl, then." A pause. There is one fabled memory here, and one memory that is a well-kept secret. Kazimir lifts up his head a little and lets Roa have an uncommonly bright, focused look for a moment, as though he recalls a little girl's features. "I think he might be useful to have along - and it's not as if you can rely on me, alone, anyway. It would be foolish of you to expect a case to stand with only one harper's word, even if that harper is this one."
The little weyrwoman holds Kazimir's gaze evenly and blinks slowly. To his pronouncement of her age during the trials she only says, quietly, "I would have been, yes." As Ysidro is mentioned as a defender of the legendary trial, she looks down to her knees to mask the way her gaze goes distant and then sharpens again. "I do not wish to be foolish," Roa informs the Masterharper, her head lifting once more. "I'll abide by your suggestion, sir."
"I appreciate it, Weyrwoman." Not so careless, this remark; it might sound as though he really does. "Might I offer one more?"
A small nod before Roa replies simply. "All right."
"Find someone to undertake the coordination of this task besides yourself." Having said this, the Masterharper shifts forward, slipping his foot back into the dangling slipper just as it lands on the floor in front of the chair. "It is a quicker solution than learning to control your eyes, and kinder to your heart." A few shuffling steps put him before her; he offers a mottled, older-than-his-age hand. "A suggestion, Weyrwoman; nothing more."
"One I will think on, sir." The weyrwoman of High Reaches slips her small, pale hand into the Masterharper's aged one, and allows herself to be helped up and out of her seat.