Accidental War Mage

“No, no relation whatsoever,” insisted the man who looked like a balding and slightly grayer older brother to the young nobleman.

“I’m just an old mechanic who’s done a fair piece of work with them – we’re good friends, nothing more. I worked with her husband, used to manage the accounts during his longer voyages, as I get most seriously sea-sick off solid ground. Even the riverboats up to the coast are too much for me. That was before they inherited the estate from her uncle, of course. Now the estate staff handle all the books, and I only come visit the manor on social occasions.”

I peered more closely.

The mechanic’s nose was a similar great beak as the young nobleman’s, large with a distinctive downward bend, almost hooked. The matron, known to be the mother of the latter and unrelated to the former, had a nose that was pert; small and straight but for a slight upturn at the end and. Both the mechanic and the young noble had earlobes that attached to the head all the way down their length. The matron’s earlobes, by contrast, hung free. Both of the men had the same lively green eyes, while the matron’s were a clear calm blue.

In addition to the little facial details, both the mechanic and the young nobleman were a bare inch taller than Katya, and quite similar in bulk, built compactly but solidly. The two men both had long bony fingers, with unusually short pinky fingers, while the matron’s fingers were uniformly stubby, short and slightly plump.

From observing how they walked, I could guess that both men numbered among the population whose second toes were longer than their big toes. By contrast, the matron’s gait suggested the more common pattern of a shorter second toe. While I had not seen the bare feet of any of the three at any point, I would cheerfully bet a solid silver Romanian denarius against a copper Imperial kopek that there was a common difference in foot structure based on the obvious difference in gaits.

“My apologies for the mistake,” I said, remembering belatedly that not all familial relationships are acknowledged ones and that this topic becomes particularly sensitive with noble families. “I am, you understand, not from around here, and you all look a little alike to my eyes. I’m just lucky I erred with someone who wouldn’t take offense from it. Imagine if I had mistaken the lord of the manor for being your kin, instead of the other way around!”

“Hard to do,” he said. After checking to make sure we were talking about the same family, he informed me that the lord of the manor had been blond, with unforgettably piercing blue eyes. The lord had also been a head taller than him with a bulk that had made the artificial arm look proportionate. He had been all around quite a bit more impressive-looking than the mechanic’s own modest self.

“Speaking of smaller and larger folks,” I said, deciding that I needed to get down to business and avoid discussing the matron’s evident infidelities, “I have a fairly small woman here, missing two limbs, and a very large arm offered to her as a gift. I’m sure no offense was intended, just as I meant no offense with my guess that you were yourself of noble heritage, but it is a little awkward. Especially, as you see, my lovely little lady just doesn’t have as much arm left as the great lord did.”

I carefully pulled Katya’s shirt aside to expose what was left of her shoulder. She had a sour look on her face at that point; I wasn’t entirely sure why, as it was clearly necessary to show the man what we had to work with in terms of attaching an artificial limb.

“Leaving aside the problem of size, she simply doesn’t have a stump left that can fit into the bracing socket here,” I said.

“I see! Yes, a most unusual problem. I’ve never dealt with a case quite that bad before. I wonder...” The mechanic frowned, then felt around the site of the amputation. Katya gave him a dirty look, then turned the dirty look to me, to my exasperation.

“Hold still, I’m going to need to take some measurements.”

After taking measurements around her shoulder (what was left of it) and her chest, he paused, then lifted Katya’s skirt up to check on her other missing limb. As I prevented Katya from striking him (the usual reflex of a lady in polite company having her skirt unexpectedly pulled up by a stranger), he (unaware of the danger) clucked his tongue.

“That’s what you’re using for a peg? It’s a wonder you can even stand on that! That, I can fix today.”

He ducked off into another room, muttering under his breath. I quietly whispered to Katya that while it might seem he was taking indecent liberties with her sense of modesty, he really did need good measurements to do a good job, and that it really was a better idea to refrain from killing the man who seemed our best hope for getting her some nice replacement limbs. She frowned, and then nodded reluctantly to me.

The balding man returned with a toolbox. “I have a brilliant idea. I’ll have to build the attachment for the arm from scratch completely, and the old lord’s arm is heavy enough to make that even more difficult. Bracing, you understand? However, while you probably would have never thought of it, this old monster is practically the right size to make a replacement leg for the lady.”

He looked at us. It seemed natural enough of an idea; I’d made the comparison earlier. We nodded, and he seemed disappointed at our lack of surprise. In a very short time, he had removed the thumb, switched the joint attachment, and by the strategic addition of bracing transformed the hand into a passable foot.

“Hop up on this table, and we’ll see about getting it fitted and adjusted,” he said.

Katya perched herself on the table and gingerly pulled up her skirt to reveal her stump. The fitting process took a little while, and I busied myself poking around his workshop. He had quite a collection of tools, and also (as I drifted to the part more resembling a sitting room – the man clearly lived in his shop) quite a collection of history books and knick-knacks.

I was halfway through a treatise exploring possible methods of automating sail-handling when I heard the characteristic clatter of a workman putting away his tools after he is confident the job has been completed.

“And there we are!” The mechanic announced this in a grandiose manner, as if he were a servant preceding a high-ranked noble into a tavern of an unfamiliar town, wishing to make sure his master was accorded an appropriate number of awed looks from the peasantry upon his entrance.

I turned to look and saw a thin-lipped Katya narrowly avoid falling over.

“It’ll take a little bit to get used to it,” the mechanic told her. “I’m sure you’ll be back up to full speed in no time.”

She took another determined step, and I hastened to offer my arm. She continued lurching forward, practically dragging me out of the workshop.

“Wait!” When Katya didn’t stop, the mechanic put down his toolbox and hastened after us, consternation visible on his face. “There is the small matter of payment!”

Katya continued forward. Too excited with being able to walk under her own power, I supposed.

“It is no problem,” I said over my shoulder, trying to sound like a noble who didn’t care about money and wasn’t to be bothered about it. “I’m sure your rates are fair.”

“I suppose I’ll send you the bill, then, Colonel Raven,” he called out, as we turned down the street. He looked confused.

Once well out of earshot, I whispered to Katya. “What’s gotten into you?”

“He kept squeezing my butt,” she said. “Not to measure it. Because I did not do anything about it.”

I stopped, angry, and turned to head back to the shop.

“Wait, Mikolai. Is it not better to ‘refrain from killing’ the man who is making me a new arm?” There was a little bit of an angry edge to her voice. “Or until after he finishes it? I have already paid the price of ’indecent liberties.’ I may as well get a new arm out of it.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic. “I’m sorry,” I said.

***

The merchant tapped his fingers on the counter. “I can even see the tool marks. With the work being this crude, it’s probably got all the gold content of my grandmother’s brass candlesticks. You simply don’t work in precious metal with a piece of this mass, not without spending a lot more on craftsmanship.”

“I told you, it’s old.” I hefted it, testing the mass. It was clearly too heavy to be brass. “They didn’t have as sophisticated metalworking techniques back then. Look, feel the weight of it. Solid silver or lead wouldn’t weigh this much. It’s not perfectly pure gold, of course, but it’s more than half gold by weight.”

“And I suppose you want even more for it, on account of it being an artifact of great antiquity!” The merchant hefted the necklace, and frowned. “It does have an honest sort of weight to it,” he admitted. “I could have an alchemist assay it and see if there’s any gold in here. I can’t promise more than metal value, though.”

“Sure. We’ll leave it with you. You do that,” I said, and handed him a card, on which I’d scribbled the address of our headquarters. “Send a message here. Tell them to ask for the colonel. That’s me. The sooner the better.”

It was like a light went off inside the man’s head. His eyes and mouth lit up; even his nose seemed to brighten, and he adjusted his posture subtly.

“Ah. I see. Colonel Marcus Corvus! My deepest apologies, I hope no offense was taken.” He twitched the card into a pocket, beaming a bright smile in my direction.

“The one and only,” I said, with a flourish and bow that I hoped seemed like the correct response to his sudden transformation in manner. “I’m sure you’re a very busy man, we’ll be on our way now and out of yours.” I strolled out the shop and Katya followed, not saying anything.

She hadn’t said anything at all to me that day. The last couple of days had been full of tension between Katya and myself. Following the eventful fitting of her new leg, we had a lengthy discussion on the topic of who had permission to grab her derriere and exactly what should happen to someone who did so without permission.

After having accidentally ordered her to let a local mechanic do so while fitting her for a new leg, my own derriere-grabbing privileges proved to be endangered, in spite of my fervent apologies and my insistence that I had every intention of helping maintain the exclusivity of that privilege. We had never really talked about that before. Looking back on it now, I think my efforts to conceal my jealousy had worked against me.

When we walked out of the merchant’s shop, I heard a familiar voice around the corner, echoing out of the alleyway.

“So what else can you tell me about Colonel Marcus Raven?” It took me a minute to place the voice. It was the mercenary, the one with the fancy sword-cannon, working for Captain Winslow. A clinking noise spoke of the exchange of two – no, three – coins. French deniers, minted relatively recently by the crisp sound of their anti-shaving ridges; I would have found that sound unfamiliar before my arrival in Dab, but the border town saw all kinds of currency clinking about.

“Well, guvnor, there was this pony, see,” said a voice that sounded worn, old, and a little drunk.

It was early in the day for drinking by ordinary standards, but then, the speaker was evidently familiar with the seedier parts of town and was able to relate the story of the pony at great length (somewhat more embroidered than any of the versions I had yet heard, but these things have a way of growing in the telling), so it was probably not a remarkable situation for him.

I stood in front of the shop front, uncertain as to whether I should stay and listen, or make a quick exit from the scene so as to avoid a direct encounter with the Loegrian mercenary. If he was asking questions about me, that wasn’t a good sign. In fact, that he was here instead of patrolling the deep woods with his captain was a bad sign in and of itself. I shook my head, to clear it. Then again, he was a mercenary, and I was purportedly a mercenary. He could be looking to sign on to my company, or looking on behalf of his current employer to offer me a job.

Still, it didn’t feel quite right, and I didn’t want to walk into the situation of trying to explain the less respectable antics of my soldiers during their first night out on the town again. I walked the other direction. This was away from the warehouse serving as our headquarters; so in case my movements were being watched, I stopped at a bakery and bought some pastries (which cost me the remaining contents of my pockets) to provide an explanation for my detour. Haggling with the baker took a while, and when I came out, I saw Katya bent over, a young boy whispering in her ear. I froze, and busied myself counting the pastries, pretending not to have noticed. She stood up.

“Do not worry,” she said, tousling the boy’s hair. “I trust Marcus. If he wanted to do something bad to me, it would have happened before. The person who sent you is wrong.”

She handed him a local copper pfennig, and shooed him off on his way.

“What did he tell you?” I asked, very quietly.

“Not here,” she said, her voice tight with tension.

When we arrived back at headquarters, she tearfully told me that the boy had been looking for Leontina Odobescu, and had brought Katya the message that she was in grave danger because I was secretly in service to the Golden Empire. She added that her pistol would have been too loud, and that she didn’t think she could drag the boy into an alley to cut his throat without being noticed, so she had simply told the boy he was wrong about everything, hoping he would believe her. However, she was fairly sure she could pick him out of a crowd from a rooftop with a pistol, though she cautioned me that it might take a little while and she wasn’t sure who else he might tell in the mean time.

A chill ran down my spine as I thought of Katya setting up on a roof somewhere and shooting at children. I told her to stop crying, that she had exercised good judgement in playing it cool, and that since the boy had probably been told that by whoever had sent him to find her, the boy himself wasn’t really our chief worry in any case. She didn’t have to go shooting people from the rooftops, and I thought I had a good idea who might be the source of the rumor.