James Moriarty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
awesome_binomial_theorems) wrote2012-10-08 10:27 pm
awesome_binomial_theorems) wrote2012-10-08 10:27 pm
(no subject)
Moriarty should be happy.
Prince Drago’s murderers have been identified. He has performed his service. Major Moran certainly seems satisfied enough with the outcome, even if Rache and Doctor Watson have escaped into the city’s underbelly. He questions the wisdom of that choice, if not the logic: The police will not pursue them into the rookery, not without a great commotion, but more dangerous –
worse
- things roam those streets, drawn in by desperation, the gin-slurried melancholy, the creeping edge of madness that comes with hunger and disease.
On that matter, at least, Moriarty would consider himself an expert.
He is called the Viceroy, or the Grey Man, or the Lord Lieutenant, and in appearance he is not so different from a man.
Every year, he runs a methodical tour of Erin. Attendants are picked from the young women, sportsmen from the young men; traitors are hanged from the neck until they are dead; there is entertainment; and there is the paying of tithe and tribute.
James does not expect the Viceroy to approach. He is very tall, very tall indeed, looming over James’ father. He is dressed in the manner of a hunter or horseman, in a double-breasted jacket the colour of arterial blood, dotted with gold buttons. His flaking grey mane is combed and oiled and bound in brightly coloured beads and ribbons.
There is a woman on his arm. Small – so, so small, and pale as porcelain so that she looks comically doll-like next to the Viceroy’s looming mass of hard muscle and swollen appendages and rotting wire. She has bright red hair, recently washed, James can smell flowers and fruit, that clashes with her scarlet dress. She did not choose the dress, he can see that, and it is new – he notes how she tugs at it when she thinks the Viceroy is not looking, how it is always in a constant state of adjustment and readjustment.
The Viceroy approaches.
James can hear his younger brother begin to have one of his Moments, the shaking setting in to his frail body, the choking laughter bubbling up past his lips, the churning of bile and grit. He can see his older brother, the biggest and strongest boy in the village, square his shoulders and stand up tall. It’d be a great honour if he were picked were sporting, and the Viceroy would compensate the family.
They all bow. The earth is grey.
But it is not either of James’ brothers that the Viceroy is interested in. He slides long fingers around James’ face, and draws in a deep, rasping breath.
Then he makes an offer.
The taverns on the docks are more vicious than any, but the law has fewer eyes here. Sailors will be sailors, after all, and it’d scupper trade if all of them had to be arrested. Let them have their fun.
They serve rotgut here. Moriarty couldn’t say if it’s rum or gin or whiskey, or just bilge water with ethanol added, but it provides a pleasant buzz. He is tempted to join the opium smokers that have taken one of the tavern’s many rooms for their own, but he already knows what he’ll see in the smoke.
Rache.
There’s no more point chasing him through opium fog than there is a dragon.
“Oi.”
Burly, large frame, heavy physical strength, graceful - the sound of the man’s footfalls give that much away. He smells of salt, blood, disinfectant, so it follows that he is a sailor of low rank, doomed to clean the ship so often that the stink of cleanliness is now impossible to get rid of. Moriarty catches the tiniest whiff of perfume – cheap perfume, scented like violets. From the man’s tone and the fact that his hands are now vicelike on Moriarty’s shoulders, though, he has not achieved any relaxation lately, so Moriarty must assume the perfume is from a woman who rejected him.
Londoner, estuary, but the accent is ever-so-slightly affected, there is a hint of something more elongated beneath it. Middle class, then, but disgraced, and some time ago too. Not drunk, Moriarty can’t smell any on his breath. Anger stemming from a sense of powerlessness and shame, then, instead of anger stemming from intoxication. Moriarty guesses that he was occupying the room devoted to bareknuckle brawling, where the crowds gather around the fenced off circle and place their bets.
Moriarty doesn’t like being touched.
“Good evening to you too,” he says slowly, sipping his drink, “am I in your way? I can still shuffle my seat in a little more, I’m sure.”
“Move, taig,” the Angrily-Powerless-Sailor growls, and Moriarty feels the hands on his shoulder tighten, “my friends and I will be sitting here.”
When Moriarty recounts what happened to Sebastian later, he will say that he calmly considered the situation and decided that while societal mores hold that he (as one of the degenerate races) should have moved for the fellow, it would only set a bad example in regards to foreign relations. When he politely refused and explained this to the man, his anger dissipated, and after a companionable drink they rounded off the evening with a pleasant one-two match –
(following acceptable and civilised rules, naturally)
- in the fighting rooms.
Some words in this story are accurate.
Moriarty smiles. The rotgut is thrown over his shoulder with a quick flick of the wrist, splashing into the man’s eyes.
James’ education is eclectic.
The Viceroy pleads his case to the Queen, funds his passage through university at the tender age of fourteen. Each year is split up: Three months at the Miskatonic University in the New World; three months at Oxford University; three months at the University of Naples. The remaining three months of the year is spent at the Grey House, the Viceroy’s estate just off Erin’s coast, under his tutelage.
James is seventeen when he meets the Viceroy’s new wife. Emily, the red-headed girl, is still there, but she is burnt out. Her hair is ragged and falling out, streaked through with white, her brilliant eyes are blind, her skin is nearly as grey as her husband’s. She is ushered by servants to where she needs to be, fed and bathed by a maidservant. The Viceroy has dictated that she be fed only fruit, water, and honey.
When James plays the violin (‘the Devil’s Trill’ is the Viceroy’s favourite), she perks up slightly. She lifts her head and sways slightly to the rhythm. James gets into the habit of playing the violin whenever he can.
In the day, the Viceroy teaches him politics, economics, literature and art – all the things for which James lacks any talent whatsoever. At night, James plays his violin, or watches the stars. It is while playing the violin that the Viceroy’s new wife comes to him.
Her name is Catarina. She’s older than the Viceroy’s other wives over the decades – he has always preferred younger women, but Catarina will be in her mid-twenties in a few years, a socialite and actress from France, and defiant besides. She wears white, or sometimes blue, instead of the Viceroy’s preferred shades of red and grey.
James inclines his head as she enters. Two servants follow, laying on the bed a silk shirt in emerald green, an expensive black-and-green waistcoat, an equally expensive pair of trousers and a set of shiny, leather boots that must have cost a fortune.
“Lady Catarina?” He asks, lifting an eyebrow.
She dismisses the servants with a wave of her hand.
“James. Lift your chin.”
The command is so imperious that James automatically tips his head back as far as it will go. Catarina examines his chin and neck, brushing delicate fingertips over it and making dissatisfied sounds. “Still, it’ll have to do. You are more inclined to roughness of features, after all.”
“As you say, ma’am.”
Catarina eases away from him, and he somewhat nervously lowers his head again. She slides over to the bed, tapping the clothes laid out. “Get changed, I shall have to see how these fit.”
James does so, setting down the violin. He tries not to be self-conscious of Catarina watching. “This is very extravagant, ma’am.”
“I’m aware,” she says sharply. “My husband wishes to take you on a short expedition, after Friday’s – feasting.”
James looks up halfway into the silk shirt. He hadn’t heard about a feast. Catarina’s gaze has shifted to her pointy shoes, and she is smoothing back her hair anxiously.
“My husband wishes to take you on a short expedition,” she repeats, “to the city of R’lyeh, the home of his grandmother.”
James doesn’t tense up. He doesn’t know if he feels nervous about that. He doesn’t know if he feels anything about that. “It will be an honour.”
Buttons. The buttons of this shirt are inordinately fiddly. Catarina makes a sound that might be affirmation, and James doesn’t look up to try to confirm it. When he is dressed, Catarina eyes him critically. He stands still as she circles him three times – standing, crouched, standing once more.
With a discontented noise, she adjusts the waistcoat. “Fine clothes on a fine model, but you have no idea how to wear them. Neatness is everything, James. Exact balance.”
“As you say, ma’am.”
She is still adjusting the waistcoat when she speaks next: “You’ve been studying at Naples, have you not? Is Mad Old Auditore still there? There was a scandal over some of his more seditionary ideas. He even suggested once that the Old Ones are – that maybe we would be better without them.”
It’s a test.
James knows that there has never been a Mad Old Auditore at the University of Naples.
“Mathematically irrelevant,” he says mildly, “we have them.”
“The restorationists talk of a war.”
“We would lose,” James says immediately, and he means it. “We would lose more quickly and with more loss of life than we did seven-hundred years ago. They’re gods.”
Catarina doesn’t say anything, but she ceases her playing with his clothes and steps back, arms folded behind her back. “I won’t keep you from your violin playing. Everyone does so love it.”
“I’m glad to hear it, ma’am.”
Moriarty hurts everywhere.
The Angrily-Powerless-Sailor is on his back, spread eagle in the centre of the fenced area, blood dripping down his chest. Moriarty pokes him with his foot. He groans. Moriarty smiles.
There is a purse waiting for him upon exiting.
“He will have medical care to pay for, I’m sure,” Moriarty says, waving it off as he heads to the door.
One bar looks much like another, when you’re walking quickly.
Prince Drago’s murderers have been identified. He has performed his service. Major Moran certainly seems satisfied enough with the outcome, even if Rache and Doctor Watson have escaped into the city’s underbelly. He questions the wisdom of that choice, if not the logic: The police will not pursue them into the rookery, not without a great commotion, but more dangerous –
worse
- things roam those streets, drawn in by desperation, the gin-slurried melancholy, the creeping edge of madness that comes with hunger and disease.
On that matter, at least, Moriarty would consider himself an expert.
He is called the Viceroy, or the Grey Man, or the Lord Lieutenant, and in appearance he is not so different from a man.
Every year, he runs a methodical tour of Erin. Attendants are picked from the young women, sportsmen from the young men; traitors are hanged from the neck until they are dead; there is entertainment; and there is the paying of tithe and tribute.
James does not expect the Viceroy to approach. He is very tall, very tall indeed, looming over James’ father. He is dressed in the manner of a hunter or horseman, in a double-breasted jacket the colour of arterial blood, dotted with gold buttons. His flaking grey mane is combed and oiled and bound in brightly coloured beads and ribbons.
There is a woman on his arm. Small – so, so small, and pale as porcelain so that she looks comically doll-like next to the Viceroy’s looming mass of hard muscle and swollen appendages and rotting wire. She has bright red hair, recently washed, James can smell flowers and fruit, that clashes with her scarlet dress. She did not choose the dress, he can see that, and it is new – he notes how she tugs at it when she thinks the Viceroy is not looking, how it is always in a constant state of adjustment and readjustment.
The Viceroy approaches.
James can hear his younger brother begin to have one of his Moments, the shaking setting in to his frail body, the choking laughter bubbling up past his lips, the churning of bile and grit. He can see his older brother, the biggest and strongest boy in the village, square his shoulders and stand up tall. It’d be a great honour if he were picked were sporting, and the Viceroy would compensate the family.
They all bow. The earth is grey.
But it is not either of James’ brothers that the Viceroy is interested in. He slides long fingers around James’ face, and draws in a deep, rasping breath.
Then he makes an offer.
The taverns on the docks are more vicious than any, but the law has fewer eyes here. Sailors will be sailors, after all, and it’d scupper trade if all of them had to be arrested. Let them have their fun.
They serve rotgut here. Moriarty couldn’t say if it’s rum or gin or whiskey, or just bilge water with ethanol added, but it provides a pleasant buzz. He is tempted to join the opium smokers that have taken one of the tavern’s many rooms for their own, but he already knows what he’ll see in the smoke.
Rache.
There’s no more point chasing him through opium fog than there is a dragon.
“Oi.”
Burly, large frame, heavy physical strength, graceful - the sound of the man’s footfalls give that much away. He smells of salt, blood, disinfectant, so it follows that he is a sailor of low rank, doomed to clean the ship so often that the stink of cleanliness is now impossible to get rid of. Moriarty catches the tiniest whiff of perfume – cheap perfume, scented like violets. From the man’s tone and the fact that his hands are now vicelike on Moriarty’s shoulders, though, he has not achieved any relaxation lately, so Moriarty must assume the perfume is from a woman who rejected him.
Londoner, estuary, but the accent is ever-so-slightly affected, there is a hint of something more elongated beneath it. Middle class, then, but disgraced, and some time ago too. Not drunk, Moriarty can’t smell any on his breath. Anger stemming from a sense of powerlessness and shame, then, instead of anger stemming from intoxication. Moriarty guesses that he was occupying the room devoted to bareknuckle brawling, where the crowds gather around the fenced off circle and place their bets.
Moriarty doesn’t like being touched.
“Good evening to you too,” he says slowly, sipping his drink, “am I in your way? I can still shuffle my seat in a little more, I’m sure.”
“Move, taig,” the Angrily-Powerless-Sailor growls, and Moriarty feels the hands on his shoulder tighten, “my friends and I will be sitting here.”
When Moriarty recounts what happened to Sebastian later, he will say that he calmly considered the situation and decided that while societal mores hold that he (as one of the degenerate races) should have moved for the fellow, it would only set a bad example in regards to foreign relations. When he politely refused and explained this to the man, his anger dissipated, and after a companionable drink they rounded off the evening with a pleasant one-two match –
(following acceptable and civilised rules, naturally)
- in the fighting rooms.
Some words in this story are accurate.
Moriarty smiles. The rotgut is thrown over his shoulder with a quick flick of the wrist, splashing into the man’s eyes.
James’ education is eclectic.
The Viceroy pleads his case to the Queen, funds his passage through university at the tender age of fourteen. Each year is split up: Three months at the Miskatonic University in the New World; three months at Oxford University; three months at the University of Naples. The remaining three months of the year is spent at the Grey House, the Viceroy’s estate just off Erin’s coast, under his tutelage.
James is seventeen when he meets the Viceroy’s new wife. Emily, the red-headed girl, is still there, but she is burnt out. Her hair is ragged and falling out, streaked through with white, her brilliant eyes are blind, her skin is nearly as grey as her husband’s. She is ushered by servants to where she needs to be, fed and bathed by a maidservant. The Viceroy has dictated that she be fed only fruit, water, and honey.
When James plays the violin (‘the Devil’s Trill’ is the Viceroy’s favourite), she perks up slightly. She lifts her head and sways slightly to the rhythm. James gets into the habit of playing the violin whenever he can.
In the day, the Viceroy teaches him politics, economics, literature and art – all the things for which James lacks any talent whatsoever. At night, James plays his violin, or watches the stars. It is while playing the violin that the Viceroy’s new wife comes to him.
Her name is Catarina. She’s older than the Viceroy’s other wives over the decades – he has always preferred younger women, but Catarina will be in her mid-twenties in a few years, a socialite and actress from France, and defiant besides. She wears white, or sometimes blue, instead of the Viceroy’s preferred shades of red and grey.
James inclines his head as she enters. Two servants follow, laying on the bed a silk shirt in emerald green, an expensive black-and-green waistcoat, an equally expensive pair of trousers and a set of shiny, leather boots that must have cost a fortune.
“Lady Catarina?” He asks, lifting an eyebrow.
She dismisses the servants with a wave of her hand.
“James. Lift your chin.”
The command is so imperious that James automatically tips his head back as far as it will go. Catarina examines his chin and neck, brushing delicate fingertips over it and making dissatisfied sounds. “Still, it’ll have to do. You are more inclined to roughness of features, after all.”
“As you say, ma’am.”
Catarina eases away from him, and he somewhat nervously lowers his head again. She slides over to the bed, tapping the clothes laid out. “Get changed, I shall have to see how these fit.”
James does so, setting down the violin. He tries not to be self-conscious of Catarina watching. “This is very extravagant, ma’am.”
“I’m aware,” she says sharply. “My husband wishes to take you on a short expedition, after Friday’s – feasting.”
James looks up halfway into the silk shirt. He hadn’t heard about a feast. Catarina’s gaze has shifted to her pointy shoes, and she is smoothing back her hair anxiously.
“My husband wishes to take you on a short expedition,” she repeats, “to the city of R’lyeh, the home of his grandmother.”
James doesn’t tense up. He doesn’t know if he feels nervous about that. He doesn’t know if he feels anything about that. “It will be an honour.”
Buttons. The buttons of this shirt are inordinately fiddly. Catarina makes a sound that might be affirmation, and James doesn’t look up to try to confirm it. When he is dressed, Catarina eyes him critically. He stands still as she circles him three times – standing, crouched, standing once more.
With a discontented noise, she adjusts the waistcoat. “Fine clothes on a fine model, but you have no idea how to wear them. Neatness is everything, James. Exact balance.”
“As you say, ma’am.”
She is still adjusting the waistcoat when she speaks next: “You’ve been studying at Naples, have you not? Is Mad Old Auditore still there? There was a scandal over some of his more seditionary ideas. He even suggested once that the Old Ones are – that maybe we would be better without them.”
It’s a test.
James knows that there has never been a Mad Old Auditore at the University of Naples.
“Mathematically irrelevant,” he says mildly, “we have them.”
“The restorationists talk of a war.”
“We would lose,” James says immediately, and he means it. “We would lose more quickly and with more loss of life than we did seven-hundred years ago. They’re gods.”
Catarina doesn’t say anything, but she ceases her playing with his clothes and steps back, arms folded behind her back. “I won’t keep you from your violin playing. Everyone does so love it.”
“I’m glad to hear it, ma’am.”
Moriarty hurts everywhere.
The Angrily-Powerless-Sailor is on his back, spread eagle in the centre of the fenced area, blood dripping down his chest. Moriarty pokes him with his foot. He groans. Moriarty smiles.
There is a purse waiting for him upon exiting.
“He will have medical care to pay for, I’m sure,” Moriarty says, waving it off as he heads to the door.
One bar looks much like another, when you’re walking quickly.