A long while back, in a wood-panelled office in the middle of a bustling AGO campus, William Belafose had been called in by Manton Stockwell to get scolded. He had made a faux-pas to the wrong person, a senator from Tullos, a traditional sort of man. The specifics of the interaction were completely lost to time, but William still remembered what Manton said, after he finished with the castigation. “You should know someone in the Diplomatica, someone to teach you what not to say, and Enoch is a very good friend of mine, so for God’s sake Will, please be polite.”
William remembered thinking the whole thing was an overreaction, and given he didn’t recall the details he was inclined to agree with his past self, but he would say at this point, he too, had a sturdy friendship with Enoch Larreau, as much as one could be friends with a politician. The issue was, Enoch came with requirements. They weren’t friends because they liked each other, they were friends with purpose, and with purpose, came expectations. Enoch wanted to meet at newly opened breakfast houses to complement the owners while they were trying to run their mess of a kitchen, or coffee-houses full of pseudo-intellectuals for debates, or dreaded events… and Enoch liked a showing once a month, at the very least.
This was how William found himself packed like a sardine in a too crowded cafe in what was objectively the worst district of the city one hour before what would be a miserable meeting with his commanding officer.
He was in a piss poor mood.
He was doing an admirable job of hiding it.
Enoch was a good teacher, but if William Belafose was nothing else, he was a fantastic student.
“Am I going too quick?” Enoch sat across the table from William with bright eyes and a tilt to his head. “Apologies, I get caught up.”
William looked back to Enoch from his gaze over the crowds, and waved a hand in dismissal, fork still between his fingers. “How long did the ICA hold the podium for?”
“Oh, six hours or so. I got home at one-thirty.” Enoch maintained the tilt in his head and looked over William. He had a perpetual inquisitiveness about him. “You have something else on your mind.”
“No, no.”
“Don’t lie.” Enoch said with a smile. “You always have something else on your mind.”
“You know it’s not my topic.”
That was the thing with Enoch. He could hold a polite conversation about anything, sure, but what he wanted to be talking about was politics. William supposed if one were to get a job like Enoch’s you’d have to live and breath it, it wasn’t like he was much different himself, not nearly as bad of a case though… in William’s opinion.
“For what it’s worth,” Enoch said, “I think you would do great in the chamber.”
“No, I’d put a bullet through my head within the month.” William said.
Enoch broke his gaze and took his turn to look out at the overcrowded cafe. “If you play your cards right you could get the gunman of the chamber to do it for you.”
William had picked an unfortunate time to take a sip of his orange juice. He found himself struggling not to choke on it. Enoch politely waited for him to finish coughing.
That was the other thing with Enoch, something that, for a long time, William found confounding. He’d been introduced to Enoch to learn how to rub elbows with Asieeran elected officials. William had a formal military education, but even that didn’t prepare him for the song and dance those people demanded. Despite being his teacher in this matter, it became abundantly clear after no more than a few meetings that Enoch would say whatever he liked to most anyone. He was good at toeing the edge, he had kind eyes and a cunning smile, and a demeanor that made people feel like they were in on the joke. To Enoch, there wasn’t a line to cross, there was a smudge, like impasto in a painting.
It was ridiculous how crowded the tables were, completely unacceptable in the Cliff’s District, the least dense of the three inner districts of the city. Even cafes in the Dock’s didn’t pack their patrons in like this. A passing bump from a waiter joggled the pile of swords on the far side of the table. William reached out to steady them by reflex. Enoch turned to the noise and watched with a cat-like indifference.
“How has work been?” Enoch asked. “Any recent stories?”
William pushed the eggs about his plate. “Nothing of note.”
“Any news with the Hostis? Oh, that’s a grave look from you.”
William speared a strawberry.
“Completely unofficial. I ask only out of personal curiousity.”
“You’re more nosy than you should be.”
“I’m the correct amount.”
Enoch had always displayed a perverse interest in guard drama. William suspected it was why he was so keen to maintain their friendship, Manton too. He wasn’t lying, when he said the curiousity was personal.
Nonetheless, it wouldn’t change the feeling that any question about the Hostis was an interrogation in disguise. “I can’t hunt ghosts, Enoch.” Not that William got to engage in the hunting himself anymore, anyways.
“It’s been months though, hasn’t it? It’s never taken you lot that long when you put your minds to it.”
“It’s impossible to pin down people who aren’t making mistakes. Everyone needs to be patient. Nothing else has happened anyways.”
There’d been some minor politization of the affair early one, a high profile blackmail situation. It was enough to rile a few individuals with a modicum of influence. William was used to dealing with matters of a certain visibility, but those who have staked their interest were not particularly used to patience, in this case. The group responsible, this so called ‘Hostis’, had been skulking around the docks, smuggling things, causing minor disturbances amongst longer term vagrants, for months already. It wasn’t like William was out of options, he rarely was, but it was at the point that new definitive actions were of the variety only to be utilized very, very gently.
“It’s a real shame the timing.” Enoch said.
William stabbed another berry. It was satisfying, how the fork pushed aside the flesh.
It seemed Enoch had nothing else to say on the matter, which suited William just fine. He knew the man across the table was just barely biting back the offer to involve himself, to throw his political weight around to achieve a better end. It would be nothing but a win for Enoch, his name attached to such a pragmatic cause. William knew this, because Enoch had asked a month or so back. William had declined.
“So what exactly,” William said, “do you do with yourself when the ICA holds up the podium for six hours?”
That broke Enoch out of his internal calculations on how to phrase a question William didn’t want to hear. He gave a hearty laugh, and easily slipped back into his favorite topic. Enoch was a brilliant conversationalist, truly. The he could make politicking sound anything other than how dull and boring it was in actuality was a testament to his impressive skills, and William was happy to listen to him embelish his tales, he always was. It was better than talks of the Hostis, although that bar wasn’t high. When the waiter returned with the bill Enoch lavished upon him praise that was a little difficult to listen to, and then, like always, Enoch picked up the tab. William instead picked up their pile of swords, and he did his best to navigate around the other patrons, mostly successfully, until they were both back out in the open air.
William slipped his thin sidesword back into his belt with ease, then the parry dagger on his back. He watched Enoch strap back on his own. William only carried his around because he was expected to, that’s not to say he never used them, he had, but he hardly expected to get into a fight while out to lunch with Enoch, and to be frank, if he did, that’s what the revolver concealed behind his right hip was for. William was a better shot than swordsman anyway. As for the ornate thing strapped to Enoch, tradition and fashion would dictate as it would, but William was near certain the blade had never seen a fight. Enoch wore it because he too, was expected to, all senators were, something about being ready to cross blades for their constitutents or some other dribble. Enoch knew how to hold it, probably, but he didn’t spar, or William had never seen him spar. He didn’t look like he sparred.
Enoch gave a little motion of the wrist, and the two of them began their walk to the Regia. They passed the intermittent tram, gliding down the wider streets, but for the distance it wasn’t worth the effort (and Enoch had been known to prefer a private cab anyhow). He kept pace with William and prattled on about all sorts of intrigues and intracacies. The sky hung wide overhead, because the buildings in the Cliffs didn’t crowd it out in competition. It was all just as old, if not older, than the structures in the Docks, but here they didn’t build over, rather, they renovated. The gardens and trees along the walk were provided the space they needed to grow. The closer they got to the Regia, the higher percentage of buildings built up of pitch white stone.
In a matter of minutes they reached the front steps of the Regia, the longest, widest, and tallest collection of white stone in all of the State of Asier. Enoch bid his farewells and took to ascending up the steps alone. William’s desination was elsewhere, another wing of the sprawling compound. He could cut through the buildings, of course, and would have done so if the weather was poor, but William was relishing the fresh air on his skin. It had been a long winter (most of them were), and there were less suits and uniforms outside to stare at the Captain’s rank slides on his shoulders.
It was a little strange. William had never had a problem with the Regia. It was fun to visit, even, grand and sparkling, full of interesting corners, but William did not like the Cliff’s AGO, even before the Captain business he did not like the Cliff’s AGO. It looked not unlike Bell Yard. It was full of people who looked like the people in Bell Yard and things that were the same as the things in Bell Yard and yet… It did not stand on it’s own two feet alone in it’s district, but rather found itself attached to the Diplomatica seat of power, and William was astute enough to smell the different between the two.
Into the building full of cousins wearing the same blue and silver as him, and up the stairs was the Commissioner General’s office, and subsequently, her meeting rooms, where she insisted on holding her discussions, all of them, and there were three guard offices in the city proper (of which the Docks was the furthest from the Regia). This meant two of them had to make the trek, every time. William was finding it more and more difficult to will himself up those stairs, biweek after biweek, and it had started hard. So, with each step he repeated to himself a little mantra. She couldn’t do anything to him, she could not force him to comply, Cinne Bahlin, in respects to her relation to the Captain of the Docks, had far, far less power than she would prefer. Outside the door he took a deep breath, ran a few fingers around the armband on his left, adjusted his collar, then opened the thing up.
Inside three individuals sat at the table in silence, as they tended to. They looked to William as he entered, he looked to the clock, twelve-twenty-seven. He wasn’t late.
“Kind of you to join us Captain.” Cinne Bahlin said. The second hand on the clock passed the upmost point, ticking over to twelve-twenty-eight. William pulled out the closest chair and took a seat.
“Now that we’re all here…” She rustled through her stack of paperwork and began her spiel of status updates and topics and whatever else, and William listened only closely enough to not be caught out. Captain Orikass of the Cliffs was wearing his usual scowl again, William had learned somewhat quickly to not take the look on his face seriously, even if it was leveled at him seriously. Captain Levalor of the Gates had finer features, but she too, tended to a look of sternness over much of anything else. They were both older than William, Bahlin too. Hell, they were all older than Manton, back when he had to deal with this instead. William always felt every bit of his age in this room.
Bahlin always saved William for last. She proded away at Orikass and Levalor while William sat in stoney silence, demanding status of things that had reached her ear, answers to how inefficiencies would be addressed, issues that the Commissioner General considered of high import. Multiple topics for the two of them, William would only have one, in all likelyhood.
She flipped a page, filled with lines of her careful script, cursive in blue ink, with that same black pen she favored. He got a full page of text, or maybe more, William didn’t know how many in that stack belonged to him, there were only six letters anyone here cared about.
She turned to him. “What of the Hostis?”
“What of them?”
William remembered how the Commissioner used to look at him. Before he’d be in her vicinity Manton would always putter about him like a preening bird, fixing this, straightening that, all for Cinne to look down her nose at him anyways, like he was… not vermin, nothing worthy of so much disdain, something mundane and commonplace, who’s presence was nonetheless not overly appreciated, like a puddle in the way. She sure didn’t look at him like that anymore.
“Has there been any recent activity?” Bahlin probed.
“Certain smuggling operations we’ve tracked might be attributed to them.” Not like the smugglers would say, though.
“Have you made progress?”
“Since two weeks ago? No.”
Bahlin looked at William with one of the plainest looks of impassivity he had ever known. “Since you seem unable to manager the manpower to handle this task, Captain Orikass will be providing support to the Dock’s Distric.” ‘Will’ this time, a graduation from last weeks ‘strongly encouraged’.
“I’d be more inclined to accept assistance from the Gates than the Cliffs,” Leavalor leaned forward in William’s peripheral, “but I think I’ve said it enough at this point, we won’t be accepting any additional guard presence in the Docks, and Orikass can’t deploy in our district without our permission.” The two other Captains had both approached him, actually. Orikass first to make a declaration only slightly less forceful than Bahlin, then Levalor, who at least was diplomatic about it. You catch more flies with honey, as they say, although the Docks weren’t an open meadow, and William wasn’t an insect.
“Your flippancy is not appreciated.”
“It’s not a-”
“The Diplomatica is incredibly concerned about the Hostis’s activites.”
That the Diplomatica had a name for the group was ridiculous in and of itself. The ‘Hostis’ didn’t call themselves that, nobody knew what they called themselves, if they even did. William always called unknown groups of concern by the last three digits of their combine number until his hand was forced otherwise (five-zero-four in this case).
“It’s not a manpower problem, we’ve been over this already.”
“You need to be making progress, and you are not.”
“I think I’ve explained enough that patience is required in this situation.”
“It has been months.”
Seven weeks since any progress, and a lack of meaningful activity to match, but Bahlin had been going on like this since those Guild leaders got blackmailed and the Hostis earned their name. For a moment at the beginning (and maybe still, in the back of his mind) William had to wonder if this was a group that held a grudge against him specifically. Causing a public ruckus and then all but disappearing into the shadows was a perfect recipe to make William’s job miserable, but William tended to keep good track of his enemies, and none who would do this came to mind.
“If this was something with the processing office I’d be more inclined to cooperate.” William said. He was getting really sick of this conversation. “But organizations is my field, and I won’t ruin an operation that’s only sin is not progressing fast enough.”
She didn’t look at him like he was dust anymore. Now she stared him right in the eyes, wearing the same, unimpressed frown whenever he was in the same room as her. Her chin was tilted up slightly and her eyes were cold, but they’d always been like that.
“We have nothing to discuss, then.” Bahlin closed her paperwork up in her folder. “Out, all of you.”
Captain Orikass pushed out his chair and marched out of the room, a little unlike him, William noted, but he didn’t know him well. William stood and Bahlin kept her eyes on him. He turned his back to her and could only assume she kept the gaze as he exited the room. Levalor followed him out and walked up next to him, and oh, looked like she wanted to say something.
“What is it?”
She took a moment, enough of a pause for it to be evident. “I fear your underestimating the importance of cooperation with the Commissioner General. I know you are new to the-”
“If Cinne Bahlin wanted cooperation she had eight weeks to accept my candidacy. Have a good day, Captain.”