Patchwork Universe

Jones · Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 10:32 am Post subject: The Yellow Room

Jessica Jones collected linens from the cupboard at the top of the stairs and carried them into the Yellow room. Never knowing when they might have visotrs it was less trouble to make the beds up as they arrived, rather than endlessly be washing and rewashing so that the customers might spend the night in a freshly made bed.

The Yellow Room was not the best Jones' tavern had to offer, being a single room, but it was very near it. The mattress and pillows were stuffed with feathers, a looking glass stood on a handsome chest of drawers and a painted chiffarobe had ample space for cloaks and swords and the other items gentlemen needed to store.

True to form, Jones; had gone for the obvious in naming the guest rooms of his tavern. As the small brass sign on the door proclaimed this was indeed the Yellow Room. The walls were covered with paper, repeating the same design of bunches of daffodils, the chiffarobe had been painted in a lemony colour and the wooden furniture was a pale butter colour. As Jessica made up the bed with mustard coloured sheets and bankets she hoped the gentleman wasn't bilious.

Checking the chamber-po' was clean, she slid it out of the way just under the bed, and collected the jug next to the washstand, which would need filling the next morning. As she checked aroudn the room that all was in order a voice drawled:
"One of the hoi polloi is actually staying?"
"Don't let Dad here you talking that way about the customers," Jessica scolded automatically, glancing at her younger sister.

Jane scowled.
"Who's staying?" she asked. "It's not Larkin, is it?"
"That youn vagabond you were talking to? No it's not," Jessica said, smirking. "Although he'd let it be known he'd be partial to a bit of company so perhaps you'd like to take over this job?"
"No thanks," Jane sneered. "I'd sooner Larkin, one eye or not, than one of the rest of those hopless saps."
"Is that so, Miss Scarslice Adventurer?" Jessica said. "Well, you might not have to lower yourself so far. Dad's got a real prospect this evening. A gentleman came in just now that looks a bit beyond the, what you called it, holly polly."
"Oh God," Jane rolled her eyes. "That's all I need. Dad trying to marry me off again... Again, I'd sooner Larkin."
"Don't be so hasty," Jessica smirked. "You havem't seen the new chap yet..."

Karl Groever · Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 1:34 am Post subject:

There was a brisk knock at the door, and then Karl walked in. He was feeling more his old self again - the food and drink had done him good. He'd removed himself from the public bar, returned goods to carry - all, and then it hiked it tight across his shoulder. Took one last, bemused look at the bustling room of strangers all about him, and elected to try and broker conversation tomorrow morn, once his head was clearer.
As he'd come to the door, Karl had been able to discern the sound of muffled bickering. This had surprised him. Walking in, the first thing his eyes focussed upon was the room itself, and it caused him to break into a subtle smile. It was so reminscently...Constantite...and that he hadn't been expecting.
He turned his gaze upon the others in the room. The serving woman from downtairs who had preceded him, naturally, and, another woman, younger, whom he didn't recognise. And she was not what he had been expecting either.
His heart skipped. He composed himself.
'Well, he started, hoping to strike a note of insouciance' are you fair ladies perchance going to spend time,' he recalled the uncertainty expressed in the saloon, and chose his words carefully 'making conversation with me ? For, if not, then I would dearly like to get some sleep.'
He sat down on the bed, suddenly shaky, ran his fingers across his unshaven chin. His eyes flicked to the new girl momentarily again. Damn the woman, what was it about her that reminded him of Alex ?

Jones · Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 11:51 am Post subject:

Jessica smiled, her expresion edging into a smirk.
"I've work to be about," she said, bobbing her head in a nod as she stepped past Karl, carring the ceramic jug with her. Jerking her head at the younger girl she said: "But Jane doesn't seem to have anythign else to do, perhaps she'll make... conversation with you. Sir."

Whisking herself out of the room and possibly out of the way of the impending explosion, she headed back down stairs to the Public Bar.

Jones · Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 11:57 am Post subject:

Jane looled against the wall, ruffling her reddish brown hair into further disarray as she considered Karl. Her laughing eyes appeared to regard his skinny frame and moon shaped glasses with disparagement. And yet she didn't hasten out of the room as her sister had.
"You'll be lucky if you can sleep," she said abruptly. "All this yellow gives me a headache."

Shrugging a shoulder and flipping a hand in what might have been a gesture of greeting she added:
"I'm Jane. Jane Jones. Yet another interchangeable member of the Jones family."

Karl Groever · Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2004 12:35 am Post subject:

Karl smiled more widely at these remarks. Stretched out his hand, lightly took hold of Jane's fingertips, squeezed upon them a moment, nodding his head at the same time, formally, and intoning :
'Herr Karl Groever, sometime of the City of Constant, at your service, ma damoiselle. The yellow will offer me few problems. I have a medico back home, Herr Doctor Guilemont, who has insured me against all manner of maladies. That includes jaundice.' For a moment, desolation tugged at him - how far the City seemed to be to him now.
But, then, abruptly, he laughed to himself, a mellow, pleasing sound. He removed his spectacles a moment, and shook his head. ' Please, sit down if you wish, Jane. My designs are entirely honorable. If you were here to bed me, then I would have ensured that the transaction was finalised era now. When I speak of conversing with you, I mean it.'
'Still,' he added, more wistfully, and wondering how much he should reveal, 'I was struck by you as soon as I entered this room. You seem to me far from interchangeable.'
'Look, to show my goodwill, what say I answer some questions you may initially have of me ? I am a long way from home, and a willing confessionalist, and I have some adventures to tell of, I should say.'

Jones · Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2004 12:50 pm Post subject:

"If you want then... Karl," Jane shrugged and hicked herself up to perch on the edge of a small wooden table at the side of the room, stretching her long legs out before her and admiring the tips of her blue boots for a a moment.

"I suppose bedding women must be mostly a monetary transaction where you come from," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "Sometimes I think for all my dad's morals he thinks of marriage the same way, always looking to see what he can get for it."

"But no, I don't much want to hear about your adventures," her brows drew together and she accorded him a black scowl. "T'was bad enough talking to Larkin earlier." She drummed her fingers in the side of the table with irritation. "I guess you noticed me because I'm the only one not dressed up like a peasant in a play. But even with that, who'd expect a tavern maid to have anything worth saying."

Having begun in almost friendly tones, she seemed to have argued herself into a bitterly resentful frame of mind. All without Karl having said a word to restrain or encourage her.

Karl Groever · Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 3:05 am Post subject:

Karl's grin was rueful. 'My exalted station never runs to mingling with the high and mighty on equal terms, ma demoiselle. It is precisely the tavern maid I talk to in hopes of enlightenment.'
'And my, but aren't you angry about something ? But hold a minute, here. You seem to fear I'll bore you to death with the tale of my exploits. Fine. You won't have it. They're little enough to me. A few old heartaches, and a festering wound or two. The offer was merely politesse, nothing more.'
He got up from the bed, and looked hard at Jane. All the tiredness of a moment previously seemed to have been replaced by bloody - minded determination.
'When I entered this room, I thought I saw in you a kindred spirit. I don't know why I felt this, only that I did. Now, you can, if you wish, take the next few moments to run back to the tap room and tell everyone that this latest paying guest is an arrogant mad - man, who deserves to be thrown out of the house. But I will admit, that would be a disappointment. I was hoping, Jane,' and here he smiled again, 'that you too would deign to talk to me because, secretly, you yearn to turn the world around you upside down, to rip it apart and reconstruct it from the bottom up again. At the very least, that you are an intelligent young woman, with a brain in her head and a witty tongue in her mouth, who labours constantly and tormentingly under the misapprehensions of others ?'
'Isn't that so ?' Karl finished with a final grin, and shrugged his shoulders.

Jones · Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 12:34 pm Post subject:

Jane eyed him suspiciously but the end of Karl's speech surprised a smile out of her.
"It's true..." she admitted, ruefully. "I just don't seem to be doing very well at it. It's stupid because it's the only way I'd have a chance to really do something is if I could make friends with some of the visitors. But since that's just what Dad wants us all to do, I end up getting angry instead. And it doesn't help that Dad's always the one they really want to talk to and yet he's the least likely person to set the world spinning... If I had have the opportunity he's had..."

She shook her head in frustration, and stood up from her seat, ajusting her sword unthinjkingly in a gesture that betrayed she had at least some knowledge of how to use it.
"But I can't explain, he doesn't want us to talk about ourselves, doesn't want us to attract attention."
She sighed, turning to meet Karl's eyes.
"Do you ever get the feeling everyone else is just a character in a play and you're the only real person? Can you imagine how it feels the other way around?"

Karl Groever · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 12:10 am Post subject:

Karl smiled back. But behind his grin, his mind was picking up feverishly on what Jane had said. He began to sense, somewhere deep inside, that something was wrong with this conversation. He hoped, fleetingly, that Jane was not suffering in some indiscernible way.
Snapped back to real - time, Karl nodded, and then began to set his thoughts to work. 'So, you mean that you feel that you're a character in a theatre, and everybody else is real ? Like me. And your father. And the others who traipse through your tap - room, hey ? Defeatist talk, ma demoiselle. Back home, the Collectiviste slogans say that All Individuals Should be Counted.'
But even as he said these things, cheeringly, he hoped, other ideas were gnawing at Karl's mind. He sat back down upon the bed.
'You know, Jane, you make things sound different to me. I promised not to bore you with my adventures, but let my guard slip a moment, and permit me to paint you this word - picture. I came here from my own land, far to the West, so I'm told. I traversed another to come here. Each time, I stepped through barriers, as if through doorways. And, you know, after initial disorientation,' and here he scratched his ear lobe a moment before continuing 'after initial disorientation, that intellectual mind of mine began to theorise what I, or rather my employers, or dare I say even my captors, had willingly pushed me into.
My deductions were outlandish, but elegant in their simplicity. Perfectly archaelogical, in that respect. I decreed that I was, somehow, and I knew not how, wandering from different world to different world, and each time, never knowing where I might end up. But you're throwing my suppositions, Jane. Do you mean to tell me you've never travelled beyond this place ? Though you've lived here all your life, and you're a curious girl, just like I'm a curious boy, you've never wandered over the borders to the lands next door ?'.
Karl elected to finish brightly 'Why, what say you, when I ready myself to go tomorrow, you come with me, and see the life beyond for once, maybe aid me to find my way back home ?'. But still his mind was thinking furiously - so much of this was failing to add up now that the intial shock and the adrenaline was dissipating from him. Irrationally, he visualised himself standing by the mist beyond the public house, tossing stones into the enchroaching greyness... for some reason, this seemed to sum up his predicament.

Jones · Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2004 11:09 am Post subject:

Jane stared at him with wild surmise, caught by the prospect of travel beyond the pub farmland. But she still had doubts, as yet unassauaged and she said doubtfully:

"Dad says if we cross the edge without him we'll vanish." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that."
She paused, looking at her fingers and repeated:
"Just like that. Nothing left. It's why he doesn't let us travel beyond the edge without him."

Karl Groever · Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2004 5:51 pm Post subject:

'Wait, wait, a moment, ma demoiselle,' Karl spluttered. He was still thinking hard. 'So,' he gestured artlessly, ' what you are telling me is that you will...disappear...if you step into the mist at the borders ? Is this some kind of folk tale that your father tells you, in order to keep you safely at home, under his stern paternalistic gaze ?'. Karl shook his head. Such nonsense, to shackle a headstrong, and, yes, beautiful, youung woman to the hearth like that! And yet, he retained odd misgivings. Somewhere, in the back of his thoughts, the image of throwing stones came back to him.
'Have you been beyond the borders, then,' he continued 'with your father ? What did you find out there ?'

Jones · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 12:37 pm Post subject:

"He hasn't taken me anywhere yet," Jane's eyes shifted away from Karl's in a strange look of embarassment.
"You see he, he doesn't leave here very often nowadays and when he does it's not very far. But he took my brother and my sister on long trips each... when they met the people they married..."
She flushed suddenly.
"He said he'd take me with him soon but... I said I wouldn't go." Her brows tightened into their accustomed frown. "I won't go... like that. Even if it means staying here for the rest of my life..."

Karl Groever · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 11:51 pm Post subject:

Karl was momentarily disarmed by Jane's sudden demureness. He spoke softly 'Ah...an arranged marriage, hey ? They don't go in for them much back in the City. Used to, in the old days of the Empire. And the Zayshi...the people of the Desert on my world,' he hesitated, thinking how strange that distinction sounded, ploughed on, regardless, 'yes, the Desert people, they do something similar, I believe.'
Karl tailed off. He looked at Jane, and gave her another slight smile.
'Well, Jane,' he said, more cheerily, 'I have found it fascinating to talk, and I would love to continue doing so tomorrow morn, only now I really believe that I should be getting to bed. But before I do, here's what I'm thinking. How would you like to go with me tomorrow to the edge of the border...and over the edge of the border ? Would you be ready and willing to go out there, and see what the next world hosts ? If you think you can get past your father somehow, then I would love the company.'

Jones · Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 12:38 am Post subject:

Jane hesitaed.
"I'll think about it," she finally said, jumping up and heading for the door.

She hunched her shoulders as if to deflect any parting words from Karl as she slipped through the door and closed it behind her.

Karl Groever · Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 3:44 am Post subject:

Karl sat on the bed for a time, staring blankly at the door through which Jane had departed. He wasn't quite sure whether they had managed to part on good terms or not. Still, perhaps, he thought sourly, tomorrow would bring him the answer to that question.
He stood up, and began readying himself for bed. Took off his spectacles and laid them on his washstand, folded up his suit jacket neatly and hung it over the bed rail, unclipped braces, rolled up shirt sleeves. Then he checked through his shoulder bag - paper, pencils, compass, rope, pepperbox, torch, matches etc. - all in place. Then, he cleansed his face, coated his teeth in the powder from the pot of Alberstein's Patent that came out from the recesses of the bag. He rinsed his mouth out, checking his face in the mirror as he did so, noting that it looked unwontedly tired, and haggard, and wan.
He sank gratefully under the sheets, still half - clothed, and sleep quickly enveloped him. Before he lost consciousness completely, however, he had a brief vision that he could not fully grapple with - a face, somehow familiar, but remote, and he heard a voice, harsh, somehow forcing him on against his will - and then the picture and the voice and everything else was lost as the whirling storms clouds of descending blackness overtook his mind.