Scalentine

Every now and then, someone decides they want to direct traffic.  Not one of my officers, whose job it may be.  Some citizen just feels the urge to wave their arms and make the carts go.  Or, more generally, not go.  There’s something about the idea that appeals to a certain sort of mind; often one a little bit sideways of most people’s reality.  Then again, this is Scalentine.  Flexible perceptions of reality can be useful.

It isn’t the sort of thing I usually deal with myself, since it doesn’t generally involve either murder or city politics.  But on this particular afternoon I’ve taken a break from the Barracks to go out for a stroll.  The constant click of game-tiles and the looks of guilt on people’s faces when I catch them playing Jorf instead of doing their jobs are driving me full-moon.  Besides, it’s good to walk the streets, catch any strange scents on the wind.

I get to the crossroads at Gravestone Yard and Sideways Street to find a state of confusion, and Officer Prokikk trying to persuade a citizen to stop waving his arms about and pointing, when said citizen shinnies halfway up a lamppost.  He looks about fourteen, and human, or mostly – I can tell due to the fact that he’s wearing not a stitch. It’s not that warm a day, either.

We don’t have laws about clothing in Scalentine.  With people from so many cultures living here, there’s little point – one person’s formal wear is another’s outrage, so everyone just has to get along and if they don’t like it they needn’t look.  However, we do have customs, and climbing lampposts in the nude while shouting at my officers violates several of them.

Officer Prokikk isn’t bothered by the nudity – for one thing she’s an Ikinchli.  They look a lot like handsome lizards and are generally as comfortable with skin – or scales – as with cloth.  For  another, she’s a good officer and isn’t going to let a little thing like that upset her.  However there’s already a fair old traffic jam forming and a few citizens getting hot under their various neck-apparel.  Along with gawpers and the ones who are stopping to see what everyone else is gawping at, things are getting potentially lively.  Officer Prokikk’s tail is beginning to twitch.

“You don’t understand!”  shouts lamppost-boy.  “I have to keep things moving….look, they’ve stopped!  They can’t stop!”  And he starts waving so vigorously I’m afraid he’ll fall off.

“Yes, well, sir, they’ve stopped because you’re there, you see,” Officer Prokikk says.  “Now if you’d just be kind enough to come along with me…”

“But they’re going the wrong way!”

“Generally, sir, they find their own way, and it just works out all right, as a rule,” she says, with the patience beginning to show in her voice.

“Can I be of assistance, Officer?”  I says.

“Well you see, Chief…well, you can see,” she says.

“Hmm.  All right Mr…”

“Legfrill.  Josephas Legfrill,” says the nude citizen.  “No, no no, not that way!”  He yells at a cart which is trying to manoeuvre its way past the lamppost.  “You’re the wrong colour!”

The cart-driver is one of Scalentine’s green-skinned citizens.  He gives Legfrill a look that suggests he is not happy with this description.  I do not need a riot.“Sir,” I says, “Could you explain to me exactly what it is you’re trying to do?”

“Well,” he says.  “That one’s red, you see, but it’s going crosswise.  There’s a blue one, look, that should be where that is, but it’s in front of a yellow one, and now that’s going backwards, yellow ones can’t go backwards!”

“I see,” I says.  And I do, suddenly.  “Is Sir purple or green?” I says.

“I’m purple,” he says, although frankly he’s pinkish with a tinge of blue and goosebumps for texture.

“Sir?” Officer Prokikk says, obviously worried that I’m going a bit sideways myself.

“It’s Jorf, Officer.  He’s playing Jorf.”

“That stupid game with the coloured tiles everyone’s been going mad over?”

“Well yes,” I say.  “Literally, it seems.  Now, Sir, if you’re purple, who’s playing green?”

For a moment he looks thoroughly confused.  “I…oh, my friend Prin.  He’s the one I usually play with.  Only he said he didn’t want to play with me any more…something about having a job…”

“Yes, well, I’ve just spoken to your friend Prin,” I said.  “He’s conceded the game.”

“He can’t do that!”

“It’s in the rules, I believe,” I say, hoping I’m right.

“I have a rule book somewhere, I’ll need to check, people always assume things about the rules and they don’t check…”

Apart from anything else I don’t want to discover where he’s keeping that rulebook, so I wave my notebook at him and say, “I’ve got it in here.  Why don’t you come and look?”

“No-one’s to move while I’m not looking,” he says.  “That would be cheating.”

“That’s all right, Sir,” I say.  “Officer Prokikk here will make sure no-one cheats.”

And down he comes meek as a lamb, and I give him my notebook and lead him to the station while he’s thumbing through it trying to read my handwriting.

I send one of the officers in ahead to make sure everyone gets their Jorf games out of sight.

We track down his mum.  I tell her to keep him away from Jorf boards and she says a few words I shan’t repeat and tells me she’s already thrown his out.

I ban the game from the Barracks. Not a problem since most of them have seen the state of poor Legfrill and the rest hear about it pretty quick.

Don’t understand it, myself. Trying to keep this city working’s a far more interesting game than moving some tiles about.  And I’ve never yet felt the need to take my clothes off to do it.

 

Hargur’s Casebook, Rivday, 16th of Prend

Mid-morning at the Barracks and Prethin Claivitch turns up with his son Brolin, who is looking very sulky. The Claivitch family are old gentry; but Prethin decided to turn fisherman.
“I found a ring in a fish,” Prethin says.  “A stolen ring. My son is a thief. I want him arrested and the ring returned to its owners. I know where he got it.”
“How about you come into my office and tell me all about it,” I say, so off we go.
“It’s a sign,” young Brolin says. “You find a family heirloom in a fish, how can it be anything except a sign?”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I say.
“Dad walked out on grandpa and grandma Claivitch, and said we had to have this horrible life…” Brolin says.
“An honest working life where you earn what you…” says Prethin.
“…and today we’re bringing in the catch and we pick out one for our tea and this ring turns up, it was a sign, that it was all wrong and he should go back to being a gentleman, you can’t argue with mystic!”
“Nothing mystic about it,” says Prethin. “You shoved it down the fish’s throat for me to find. He stole that ring off his own grandparents!”
“I never!” Brolin says. “Ask them, go on!”
“Oh, I know what they’ll say,” Prethin says. “’The boy just wants what’s his by right, he’s only young…’ How am I supposed to teach him right from wrong? I want you to arrest him. I want him to find out that actions have consequences.”
“You have proof of the origin?” I say.
Prethin sighs and hands me the ring, saying, “I recognise it.”
I look at it. It’s engraved, in lettering almost too fancy to read: ‘Hold Steadfast’.
Brolin doesn’t even look, up, he’s glowering at his hands.
“And it turned up in a fish,” I say.
“No, it turned up in my son’s pocket and he put it in a fish.”
Well, I’ve seen more than a few odd things in my time, but this definitely seemed the most likely explanation.  So I pop the lad in a cell overnight and send a message to the grandparents.

Next morning they turn up. Lord and Lady Claivitch, looking around as though they’ve never seen anything so horrifying as the Barracks on, frankly, a pretty quiet morning with no-one bleeding out all over the floor for once. And as Prethin thought they would, they say no ring’s been stolen; just lost. So I can hardly hold Brolin for theft, and I’ve just sent someone down to let him out when his dad turns up, and a fine old family spat starts.
“I just want him to learn an honest trade, stand on his own feet, can’t you understand that?” Prethin says.
“But he’s a gentleman,” says Lord Claivitch.
“He’s a thief,” Prethin says. “You think that’s all right, do you? You think stealing’s proper behaviour for a gentleman?”
“Certainly not,” Lord Claivitch says, and he gets flustered and pink and I think, oh ho. “He didn’t steal that ring.”
“Of course he…” then Prethin gets it.  “You gave it to him!  You told him to stuff it in that fish for me to find! Father, you shameless old…Well you can just take it back.”
I unlock the evidence box and hand the ring to Lady Claivitch, who frowns.  “But we gave him…” she blushes all the way to her painted-on eyebrows.
“So you did give it to him?”  Prethin says.
“We gave him a ring, yes,” Lady Claivitch says.  “It was a signet ring with a dark red stone.  This ring is one that got lost when we were out hunting, about three years ago.”
At which interesting point young Brolin arrives from the cells.  Seems he never actually looked at the ring that his father found, having made the not unreasonable assumption that if he’d stuffed a ring down a fish’s throat, that would be the ring his father found while gutting a fish for their tea.
Only it wasn’t.
“Well,” Lord Claivitch says, recovering from the shock remarkable fast, “seems obvious Fate has Intervened. Can’t argue with that.”
For a moment Prethin looks downright miserable. Then he starts to grin. “No,” he says, “you can’t.”
“You’ll be giving up this fishing nonsense then?” Says Lord Claivitch.
“No, I won’t,” Prethin says.
“But…”
“Look at what it says on the ring. Our family motto. Hold steadfast. Your signet, the one you gave Brolin, didn’t have a motto, did it? This one did. I got a message from the mystic, all right. Just wasn’t the one you meant me to get.”
And I have to hide a grin myself.
“Until he’s sixteen,” Prethin says, “the boy stays with me and learns to earn his living. Then if he’s of a mind to turn gentleman, that’s up to him. I guess he’s got the right to choose his life; but neither he nor you has the right to choose mine.”
And no word they can say will change his mind.
So I see everyone out. As Prethin’s leaving he says to me, “I wonder what happened to the signet ring. All the rest of the fish has gone to market by now.”
“Maybe there’s a lost Claivitch heir somewhere out there who’s just bought a nice bit of fish for their tea,” I say.
Prethin looks thoughtful, then he starts to laugh. “You never know your luck,” he says.
Which is true enough.

Hargur Bitternut, Chief.