A book...is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.

[westin-sagert.livejournal.com]

[Late morning of Thursday, June 17 (day 382)]
[Sagert's Books]

It is rather a pleasant day; blustery but not cool. My legs feels rather better today, and I spend the morning on light errands. A stop by the library (really, I must suggest that they see about shimming up some of the shelves; I find that I am rather tired of the occasional volume dropping on me), and then the General Store and the bakery, and a pleasant stop at the Miskatonic before returning home.

I actually do manage an hour or so in the basement. Just planning, really, but I have a few ideas I would like to note down...

I am feeling quite refreshed when I come back up. Not exactly enough to go out again, but I set the sign out to indicate I am open, and brew up a cup of tea. Perhaps someone shall stop in; if not, well, I can certainly look forward to sitting and reading for a moment.

[Open to Samuel, and possibly others]

Comments

[westin-sagert.livejournal.com]

"Oh? You have a most welcoming and inclusive community indeed," and-- really, I hadn't thought of it as my community. I don't suppose I have much of a reason to stay--beyond Morningstar, of course. Perhaps I should--well, I certainly shan't pester the man. Nonetheless, a polite gift might open up the way to asking if there was anything in particular he wanted done. I should think on it. "I must wonder, is it a result of your settlement's rather unusual success? Or was it the cause?"

"I couldn't in all fairness speak to that," I say thoughtfully. "I suspect there are mercantile considerations as well; I understand the town has grown quite well since the weekly market was instituted. The one feeds into the other, perhaps." Of course, there has always been some disdain for the carnival, but I would not count that as uninclusive. Simply a distinction of propriety.

"Your mortician, this... Glass." He frowns a little. "A woman? With an extensive folk knowledge of herbs?"

"Ah." I am rather blinking. "That could be her, yes. Tall for a woman, quite dark with black eyes?" I always rather suspected some form of aniridia, although that wouldn't address all the characteristics... In any case. "Glass Beddau. I understand she's been here three years now." Really, that would make him the third person she's known from her travels to have come to Excolo. Peculiar, but I have certainly seen stranger things.

"Wherever any group of people comes together, there is an economy of confidences. Investment. Transaction. Exchange. Depreciation. Dividends." He closes his eyes, and I imagine he is seeing... perhaps an interwoven network, the growth and change of history. "Maybe even as a species, we aren't so much defined by having secrets as by the need to tell them..." Durand grows positively eloquent for a moment, and I think of Constantine, and what I have said of him.

Everyone has someone's secrets to barter."

"Do you find," I say thoughtfully, "that moving so quickly through communities limits your position for such barter?"

"In the end, though, it boils down to this: for the purposes of my work, I'm not interested in 'who' people are, only in 'what' they are. What they represent in the greater order of things. I'm discreet, I don't share what I've learned, and I'm never around long enough to threaten anybody's reputation."

Reputations, I suspect, might be more delicate than a man who is used to moving on truly understands, but I simply nod. Durand politely declines the offer of tea, and I murmur an of course as he continues. "An alienist? Very quaint. If he hadn't moved on, no doubt I could have learned something. Though mostly the wrong sort of thing. Not exactly a big-picture profession."

"It always rather struck me as wool-gathering done in tandem," I say. Empty pontification, people who can't command interest buying it instead... I shake my head. "I mention it more a comment on people's desire to speak of themselves, really." I brush the matter away.

"In all honesty, I would not want to begin today," I say, gesturing towards his maps. "I have most of what is required, but I would want to gather everything necessary first--" I think linen will be in order, an anchor in the place of signatures-- "and plan out the work. I'd be quite happy to hold them, of course, but given the work involved in their creation I of course understand if you would rather they be out of your possession as little as possible."

[samuel-durand.livejournal.com]

"That could be her, yes. Tall for a woman, quite dark with black eyes? Glass Beddau. I understand she's been here three years now."

"That sounds about right." It could be that I'm mistaken, that the disconnected images of that tall woman streaked with road dust were not spurred by his words, but planted by them. Memory is a tricky thing. It's why I write everything down. "How fortuitous, to see so many familiar faces in a place like this. Perhaps the charms of Excolo naturally draw travelers of a certain stripe into its orbit."

In truth, I'm not all that pleased. I need to consult my notebooks and see what I wrote down about her. I don't think there was any bad blood between us, but that's not my primary concern: my concern is whether my different cover personas are about to collide in a spectacularly ugly fashion. This may require delicate handling.

"Do you find that moving so quickly through communities limits your position for such barter?"

"Oh yes." It's the simplest answer, though the truth is slightly more complicated. "I could never completely overcome outsider status in just a few days or weeks. Quite often I have to operate through local intermediaries." And they come in all shapes and sizes. "A community is a broad and interconnected web. With as many points of access as there are members." Or even trusted non-members, for that matter.

He then turns back to business, and I lean forward attentively. When he comes to the subject of whether I should keep them until he is ready to begin the work, I consider for a moment. It's true that I dislike leaving them with others, but ultimately I settle on the gesture of trust. The horror with which he reacted to the tale of the inept binding told me enough. "Keep them. A man who takes himself and his profession seriously can be trusted to keep them safe. I can be reached at the Whitechapel, if we do not see each other again until you are done. And I understand, better than most, that quality work takes time."

I do not mention payment. Men of a certain sort often find such talk gauche and beneath them, as though their concerns were purely mercantile. It is unspoken: he may name his compensation, and I will make it.

I rise, and offer my hand. "It's been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Sagert. Many thanks for the tea, and for a most enlightening conversation."