Great Lakes and Expectations ch5

Osafune was the chief of police samurai, or something like that. On her third morning in Iron Country she followed him along his morning routine. It involved inspecting some kind of training going on. Regina squinted, trying to decide if mustaches were a sign of authority here or something. None of the young men suffering through athletics had facial hair, but all of the men supervising had at least a short beard.

'What if you can't grow facial hair?' She wondered. 'Are you just ineligible for promotion? Maybe you have to transfer to a public relations department? Do you borrow some hair and glue it on?'

She looked at Osafune and considered asking.  

He was standing with a straight back and hard expression, hands at his side. Osafune impassively watched shouting supervisors pacing up and down the rows of trainees. They all seemed very conscious of being supervised.

'Maybe I'll ask later. I think we are being dignified right now.'

They continued being dignified into a place that had a lot more mustached people, assisted by some people without any, and ended up in what had to be Osafune's office. He had her sit in a chair and drink tea while he did some kind of paperwork. She considered asking for a coloring book, because it was clearly 'bring someone's child to work day'.

After less than an hour, someone came in with two separate letters. He handed one to Osafune and then one to her. Regina took it, giving the messenger a confused but pleased look. He gave her a quick smile and then stood like he was waiting for orders.

The letter was from Tomiko- maybe both of them were?  

'I'm going to do the first three interviews this morning. Huh.'  

She considered it. 3 interviews before lunch, and 3 more the next day.

That raised one more question that didn't get answered until she talked to Osafune. He told her, unprompted, that one of the men had been taken to the hospital. That made sense. Being shipwrecked was probably bad for your health.  

The man who had brought the letters was apparently her babysitter for the day. While Osafune was there, at least, he was far too professional to chat with her. He led her out of the Important Mustache Man center and to what appeared to be a police station.

Regina followed her escort into the police station and decided that she probably needed to thank Jiraiya. The first group of fellow outsiders she’d met in this place were crowded into two jail cells, skinny and tired. There were three men in each cell.

'I'm glad that no one put me in a jail cell. I like not being there. I really hope that Mr. Mifune does not want to put me there. I feel like I'm going to be sick. When am I going to see him, anyway?'

One man was leaning on the bars facing the door, watching them come in.  His eyebrows shot up. He was definitely staring at her.  

She nodded at him and then pretended to be very absorbed in listening to the mustached samurai talk with the two police men in the room. Most of it went over her head and she didn’t try to focus on it. Tomiko-san had already given her detailed instructions and passed on directions for the escort to convey on her behalf, so there wasn’t any need.   

A police officer drew her aside and indicated for her to take a seat in a room behind the desk. She let him pull out her chair and put the over-cape she’d worn off to the side.  

He left.   

Regina folded her hands, looked at the table, and wondered about what she was doing.

This isn’t just about me, is it? They are clearly on edge about foreigners here and at the very least suspicious of motives. I knew that they were taking care of me because Jiraiya claimed me, but… His vouching for me is probably the only reason they’re considering trusting my judgment on this. Jiraiya must have a fairly solid reputation. He seems like a ridiculous person, but he isn't a joke, and he must meet baseline standards for honesty and respectability if his name is buying me so much trust.’  

Well. So that needed to be separated out into the topics of evidence of Jiraiya being a good dude, and evidence that being a cultural outsider was a Problem. That level of negative sentiment did explain why the exchange program had failed, or maybe it had resulted from it.   

‘Now I’m curious why this group came here. Were they just hoping to start trade anyway? Did they get lost?’  

The police officer brought her hot tea and paper for notes on each interview. She thanked him and drank the tea hastily. She was just setting it to the side when the door opened and a prisoner was led in.  

“Good morning,” Regina offered.  

The sailor offered her an uncertain nod as he was guided to sit down. “The same to you, ma’am.”   

‘He has one of those accents, too. England? They were the ones sailing all over.’  

He glanced at her clothes and then back up at her face with a small frown. 

He was pretty young-looking, honestly. She might guess late twenties, early thirties. Maybe he was around her age, if she subtracted a couple years from an ‘at-face value’ assessment. Doing a physical job outside with hard sun and winds would age you a bit faster, right?  

“My name is Regina, and I will be asking you some questions today on behalf of the local authorities.” She tried to look official but approachable, channeling how she’d acted when teaching to undergrads. “Name, age, and place of birth, please?”  

He shifted in his seat. “Richard Aldrich. 26 years of age, from Lancaster, originally. Ma’am.”   

“Occupation?” She took notes, assuming she was spelling his name right. Right enough, anyway.   

“Able Seaman,” he answered. “Foreign Merchantile.”   

'Is that a job title, or is he claiming to be a particularly proficient seaman? Maybe the next guy is a mediocre seaman, or a fantastic seaman.’   

Regina pretended that all those words made perfect sense to her. “What port did you leave from, and what have you been trading?”  

His answers meant pretty much nothing to her, although she documented them meticulously. His crew had come from the United Kingdom, sailed… under Africa, she thought? And traded away cloth, metal goods, and –

“herbals,” Richard said evasively,

—uh, probably opium. In China? They had picked up spices, ceramics, and 3 cannons (!?!). The cannons were to be traded at a port en route, the spices and ceramics to travel all the way to England.  

She leaned back in her seat a bit and considered the man across the table. He was sunburnt, far too thin, and had dark circles under his eyes. His mousy brown hair had been fingercombed at best, and probably needed a cut. 

“Mr. Aldrich, I am afraid to say that you are not in Great Britain,” Regina said blandly. “Very sorry.” 

He let out a laugh. The policeman watching flinched, eyes darting between the two of them.   

Aldrich glanced at their watcher and his amusement faded. “That’s so,” he agreed. “We have gone rather off course. Five days out of port we were set on by pirates, who took our food and water. We attempted to return to the closest port, were blown off course by a storm. We began to take on water. We decided to try to head for the closest land, trusting to hope that the locals here would be more forgiving than the seas.” He looked wry.  

‘Well, these men aren’t dead. So there’s that. But clearly the local authorities are not throwing open the doors for a feast, so it could have gone better.’  

"All of that sounds really unfortunate,” Regina said, more to herself than anything. She took notes on the details of days and events and considered what to say. “You left with a crew of 7 for that journey?” That seemed really low to her.  

Aldrich swallowed, looking sick. He shook his head. “No.” He cleared his throat. “From England to Shanghai, we were 11. Including the captain, we lost 4 from injury and thirst. We had rations- cook had hid away some things the pirates didn't find, and we caught a fish or two. Wasn't enough. Made us weak. Maybe we'd have done better otherwise.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” she said quietly. But she had to ask. 

Aldrich looked at the table more and more, recounting the sad circumstances within Able Seaman Benjamin Cheyne had died first, of infection after a struggle with the pirates. Able Seaman Thomas Neville had been second, of sickness (diarrhea, to be unfortunate and exact.) Captain Clark Bland had been weakened also by injuries and died of weakness the day after the storm. The last casualty, the ship’s purser James Finessey, had gotten a head injury during the storm and succumbed in his sleep some days later, about 2 days before the ship had seen land.  

‘This is all incredibly depressing. I know that people can die from diarrhea, but goddamn, what a way to go. And Finessey almost made it. That really sucks.’  

“We buried them all at sea.” Aldrich cleared his throat. He was looking through her now. He seemed a lot less upset. Numb, probably.   

'They were all together for so long that the crew probably knew each other very well.’  

She was stuck on the fact that Finessey’s body was floating a maximum of 2 days travel from the port. Was that close enough that he might wash up on the shores? That seemed like the kind of thing to warn the authorities about, so they didn’t go investigating a murder or something.   

‘Seems like something to tell Tomiko-san about.’  

“I don’t know how burial at sea works,” Regina admitted. “Is there a service? Is it done right away?”   

“Yes, usually the Captain speaks.” With effort, Aldrich dragged his focus to her. “The First Mate spoke for the Captain and Finessey.” He blinked rapidly. “And it's best practice to put the bodies overboard as fast as possible, so sickness doesn’t spread.” His throat twitched and he made a really unsettling weird sound, like he was halfway to crying. He cleared his throat twice. “Within a couple hours is best. Usually wrapped up in their blankets.”

Regina leaned back cautiously. Aldrich looked nauseous.   

‘Fair enough. Seeing someone go from friend to disease vector would be horrifying.’  

She thanked him for his time, shook his hand, and answered the few questions she was allowed to before sending him away. The police officer stood when she looked at him. 「ありがとう。次の人来てくれて、お願い、」she requested quietly.  

Aldrich gave her a long-suffering look on his way out, body language docile and clearly respectful to the police officer urging him to stand up. “You’ve been here a while, Miss,” he observed. 

It was the first personal comment he had dared to make. She chose not to respond to it.  

Regina took a moment to just breathe while she was alone. She needed to think.   

Nothing in what Aldrich had said had seemed off to her. He certainly looked like a man who had been living off of rainwater and the occasional fish for two weeks. He had claimed that the group who had rescued them had salvaged the ship’s cargo, which would be pretty good proof that the sailors were just merchants. 

‘So what’s the problem?’ Regina ran her hands through her hair and frowned. ‘They’re not in prison for no reason. It could be just that local sentiments are strongly negative towards foreigners, but I haven't really seen that in the way people treat me. And I think that Tomiko-san would argue for international trade, if she trusted them.’   

Either Tomiko-san or the Dutch person they’d asked had come to a conclusion that made them hostile to the sailors. Something about them being dangerous, or at least bad people.  

‘I guess that means either that this guy lied, or that for some reason someone thought the sailors lied. What would be bad reasons for them to be here?’   

Regina strained her intensely minimal knowledge of historical maritime activities and Japanese isolationism and tried to think of theories. Someone could be afraid that the sailors were actually pirates, or spies?   

‘They couldn't integrate into Iron Country, obviously, but they might have been watching from the sea to monitor activities or something.’  

But that seemed kind of stupid. It couldn’t have been spying on behalf of the British military. They wouldn’t even think of entering a campaign into a country so far away, would-  

No, Regina reflected. Any argument predicated on the British Empire avoiding difficult conflict didn’t work. In fact, if they were in their Empirical heyday now, she needed to make sure Iron knew about that. Letting the British into your country had almost never worked out well for anyone. Hm.   

Still, it didn’t seem like a good plan. One ship, with just a few people on it? It would take a very long time to report any information back. And why look to the Elemental Nations, and not China, which they already knew was absolutely full of things that British people found very valuable? And why wouldn’t they be dressed like military types? That seemed like the kind of thing the British navy would be strict about.  The plan seemed even stupider when you factored in that there were people who could suddenly change faces here, but then, the British wouldn’t know about that.  

She interviewed one more man- the First Mate, Mr. Hall. He was 34 and handsome, with broad shoulders and one of those voices that should probably be voicing over movies. His testimony lined up with that of his crew member, in every detail except one, and it included information about why the plan had changed.   

“Captain Bland, God rest his soul, thought to take a loan from an old business partner remaining at port. We were to resupply, then make our way on our original path.” Mr. Hall paused to clear his throat. 

Regina noticed that she had leaned in at some point to listen. She rubbed her thumb along the pen in her hand and nodded for him to go on.   

“We had made it back 2 days toward the port when a sudden squall rose and took us off course.” Mr. Hall was perfectly steady and poised reporting this.   

He was, Regina thought, probably a very reassuring boss to have in times of trouble.  

He gave her a small smile. “We had left at the very end of the season, barely before the autumn storms begin. I’m afraid we got caught up in the first one.”  

“Bad luck,” Regina observed.   

Mr. Hall nodded as though she had said something clever. “It was a rush to take down the sails so that we didn’t get blown over, and our purser, Mr. Finessey, got quite a good hit to the head in the thick of things. He never did recover.”   

His expression didn’t really change as he said that. But Regina thought his dark eyes might have looked just a bit sad.  

‘Is he really well composed, or just not that shaken up?’  

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Regina said. She worked not to break eye contact. “He passed away, didn’t he?”  

“Yes,” Hall said, and yes, he definitely looked sad in his eyes. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Just four days before we were rescued.”  

She was already concentrating so much on looking sympathetic that it was easy not to react to that. Regina thanked him for his time, sent him away, and asked the policeman to give her a few minutes before bringing the next person in.  

Once she was alone, she put her head in her hands for a moment to think.  

‘Confused, or lying?’ Regina wondered, checking her notes once more to be sure that she hadn’t misremembered something. 'One of them either made a weird mistake, or is lying. Why? That's such a fact. There is no ambiguity, there is no box for the cat. There can't be confusion. Either Finessey died 2 days before they were rescued, or 4 days before.'  

It didn’t seem like the type of detail you’d forget. Why had Hall and Aldrich given different dates of Finessey’s death? All the other events had matched up.  

'Could be that one of them just made a mistake,' she told herself, feeling a little guilty for deeply examining the word choices of men who had obviously had a really terrible experience.  

She didn't know either one of them well enough to say who was more likely to lie. But Aldrich seemed more likely to make a mistake. He had barely seemed to remember where he was at some points when she had talked to him.

‘Aldrich could have been dissociating or something. Or lost track of time. When nothing happens for day on end, it could happen. I forget the day mid-week all the time and nothing is even wrong with me, aside from my personality and work habits.’  

But given that she knew someone had already decided these sailors were untrustworthy, it just didn't seem like a good sign to have already run into an inconsistency.

Feeling curious, she crept out of the room as quietly as possible to watch the men interacting.

One person, particularly small, was sitting in the corner of his cell looking down at his hands. He seemed to draw into himself even further as the door was opened and Mr. Hall was escorted inside.   

'Does Mr. Hall creep him out?' she wondered. 'Or is something else going on?'

It didn't prove anything was going on, but the body language was the first hint she'd noticed. May as well pursue that angle first.

「Regina姫様？」Her escort asked quietly, a frown turning his strong face serious.

She didn't like that much- he seemed like he liked to be friendly. Actually- Regina sidled a couple of steps closer and asked his name under her breath.

He blinked and ducked his chin just a bit. “坂本と言います。”

Right. Sakamoto. That was common and easy to remember. Regina mentally named him 'Mr. Hill Base', because that way she would never forget his actual name. She thanked him, keeping it just a little casual so it didn't come across as weird. She turned her head just a bit to indicate the young-looking man in Mr. Hall's cell. 次、あの人と話したい、”　she said.

Sakamoto followed her gesture and nodded. He said something back that included the word 'yes,' so she assumed that all was well.

Sailor # 3 was George Brown, the youngest man on the ship at 19. He was also the cabin boy.

Regina considered it. “You seem a little old to be a boy,” she pointed out.

George Brown looked a little irritated by that, with his nose pink from either sunburn or cold. His thin shoulders hitched up. “Cabin boys can be adults, or even women,” he said. “It's just the job title. I didn't pick it.” It sounded like he'd said that a lot.  

“Oh.” She blinked. “Is that common? Lady cabin boys?”

“Women, not ladies,” George corrected. His voice went sharp. “Ma'am.” He eyed her as though he wasn't quite certain that she had two brain cells to rub together. “It's not strange. More common on local ships, though. Working in the waters around England, usually only as far as Europe.” His nose twitched.

“How about you?” she asked, a little curious. “Is this your first trip far from home?”

George perked up a bit. “No, when I was fourteen I went to the colonies.”

Regina tilted her head to the side. England colonized pretty much every where they could get their grubby little lands on. “Which ones?” she asked, voice dry.

He gave her another scathing look. “The American colonies, of course.”

She sat up straight, a little offended. “There are no colonies there. We won that war,” Regina shot back. And then… uh. Had they won that war yet?

“Oh,” George said, leaning away from her. His nose wrinkled. “You're one of them.” He huffed. “That was France. Your people are traitors, and would still belong to England if it weren't for France. You have nothing to be smug about.”

A few ugly thoughts ran through her mind- but no. Regina forced herself to take a deep breath, and not even consider pointing out that his welfare depended on her assessment. Even if she was cold enough to give a bad report on someone just because he was a snot about her country, she was not cold enough to let that damn all his companions.

“Mr. Brown,” she said, picking her pen back up. “Please relate the events that led to the day you and your companions were found by the authorities here.”

His account was somewhere in between that of Mr. Hall and Aldrich in how much focus he'd paid to the interpersonal ship politics. He was very carefully respectful, more obviously sad about the captain's death, and he gave the same date of death for Finessey that Hall had.

After he finished her standard questions, Regina pursed her lips and thought it over. If anything… his body language had implied that he didn't like Mr. Hall. So his testimony agreeing with Mr. Hall's was a good indication of honesty.

“Please give me your personal impression of the characters of each member of the crew,” Regina decided. “Starting with Captain Bland.” She tried not to put any special emphasis on Hall or Aldrich when she got to them.

“Captain Bland was a good man,” George said immediately. “I worked under him two years. He had friends at every port.”

On Aldrich-

“Reliable,” George decided. “Strong, good worker.”

On Hall-

“A very practical man,” George said. He was choosing his words carefully. “He was ready to take command. Things might have gone differently if he had been Captain from the start.”

Regina frowned, feeling her eyebrows pull down just a bit. “Do you think he would have done a better job than Captain Bland?”  

George inhaled loudly. He seemed pained by the question. “Different,” he decided. “Who can say if things would have been better or worse? But he would have made different decisions.” He pressed his thin lips together and it was almost a smile. He seemed to be thinking, leaning back in his chair. “He certainly changed the plan quickly after Captain Bland passed.”

“Right,” Regina agreed, remembering this part. “Mr. Hall decided to try for the nearest land, rather than making it to a friendly port. Do you think that was a good decision?”

George gave her an annoyed look. “I really couldn't say. But clearly we ain't all dead, so.” His jaw muscles worked. It took him a long moment to finish. “So Mr. Hall's choices can't be all wrong, then.” George crossed his arms and looked away.

She pressed her lips together. It was reckless, but… The men were all together. They might talk anyway. “Mr. Brown, this morning I talked with Misters Hall and Aldrich. Their accounts of events differed, specifically the death of Mr. Finessey.”

George went completely stiff. He looked at her, mouth tense and eyes hard.

'Well, that's not a bad sign at all.'

“Why is that?” Regina pushed. She put down her pen and put both of her hands on the table. She leaned forward a bit, trying to be a bit intimidating. “Can you tell me why they would tell me different stories?”

George swallowed. He shook his head. “I can't say, ma'am.” He was back to sounding respectful. But he had closed-off.  

'I'm not going to get a good answer from him.'

She nodded and stood up. “I see.” George stiffened, but she had turned her attention to the policeman observing things.  “前で話すと人ともう一同しゃべたいです,” she decided.  

His brow wrinkled a bit, but he nodded.  

But I can't have them talk to each other yet- She bit her lip and sucked in a breath. “その三人と話せないで,” she tried. These three people cant talk to each other? Is that how to say that?

The older man was perfectly impassive, except for a faint line of concern pressing his lips down. He did not look like he understood what she was asking for him to do.

Apparently not. She used her hands to illustrate separation. “も一つ質問を聞きたいのでです。その三人と分けて下さい。”  

'I have one more question I want to ask. Please separate these three people.' She ran her mind over what she had said. 'There's no way to misunderstand that, right?'

The policeman nodded, confusion clearing up into decisiveness. “はい。出来ます。” He gestured to George, who was watching them with wide eyes from his chair. “ブロウンさんはここで待っています。Regina姫は一緒に行って下さい。”

She nodded and then turned her attention back to George. “Please wait here,” Regina translated. He wasn't going to have a choice, but it still seemed a little nicer to let him know what was going on. He was already pale.

Regina and the officer went out into the main room. The officer said something fast to the young man sitting at the main desk and retrieved keys. The younger man bowed and hurried to open up two more rooms.

Sakamoto sidled over, expression questioning. Regina explained the basics quietly.

At this point, the men watching from the cell had realized that something had changed. A man who Regina had not interviewed yet stood up and prowled the four feet to the closest wall of his cell. He wrapped long, hairy fingers around the bars and scowled at them. “What's going on?” he called. He seemed not to expect an answer.  

She considered it, but… “There is no cause for concern,” Regina said, voice only raised a little. “There's one more question that I need to ask Misters Aldrich and Hall.”

Those two looked up, with expressions that both varied on wariness. Hall glanced at Aldrich, frowning slightly.

She got the men separated and then asked them the one question- why had their testimony differed?

Aldrich-

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said, sounding genuinely confused. “Finessey? Mr. Hall said something different about Finessey? What did he say?”

Hall-

“Ah.” Mr. Hall sucked in a deep breath. Pain flickered across his face. “That.” He looked away. He swallowed.

“Mr. Hall?” Regina asked, knowing that her voice was hard.

He sighed and wiped at his face. “We lied,” Hall said bluntly. He looked her in the eyes now. “We were hoping to keep up morale. James took a bad blow to the head. It's true that he never woke up. None of us are any kind of doctor, and-” He cleared his throat. “Well. We had him convalescing in the captain's quarters for privacy. Thought the quiet might do him good, and Captain Bland didn't need them anymore, rest his soul. When Ja- Mr. Finessey passed away, I couldn't bear to tell the crew right away.” His eyes seemed to be pleading with her to understand. “They were in a bad way,” he justified. “Hearing another death- so soon after the good captain- I feared that it would have turned to despair.”

“So you lied,” Regina said. She shuddered. “For two days.”

“Yes,” Mr. Hall admitted. “I did.”

“Who is we?” she asked. “Obviously the group does not include Mr. Aldrich.”  

“None of the able seamen knew,” Hall admitted. “We kept them out of the sickroom. But the duties of Mr. Large, Mr. Brown and I kept us near the captain's quarters. We agreed to keep it quiet.” His brown eyes bored into her. “You understand, don't you?”

'No,' Regina thought. 'Not really. You couldn't keep the secret forever. You had to know that you were buying a couple of days at best. Did that really help the crew?'

But in a way, she was lying to herself. Who wouldn't want to put off telling bad news? Who wouldn't want to spare someone else fear and grief?

'I've never been in that position. I really can't say.'

It took her a long moment to respond. “No, Mr. Hall,” Regina said quietly. “I don't think I understand. I have never been in a position to have to make such a decision. But I can empathize. That must have been terrible. I am sorry.”

She had Hall, Brown, and Aldrich sent back. She didn't have to tell them not to talk- Hall and Brown had clearly already decided to keep a secret. Regina felt heavy and sad as she gathered her things and left for the day.

None of it sat right. It was disturbing and sad and she didn't like any of it.  

'One thing that I really don't like,' Regina decided, 'is that I can't tell if I'm being too paranoid or not.'

George Brown, a person who presumably knew Mr. Hall quite well, had unprompted decided to describe the first mate as very practical. He'd listed off situations that supported that assessment, but she didn't know enough about sailing to really assess his judgment. The one judgment call that she could imagine trying to make herself was what had happened with Mr. Finessey.

That wasn't practical. It wasn't decisive. Buying yourself only two days to avoid giving bad news was an emotionally-driven decision. It was a decision that probably a lot of people would make, and obviously people were complicated, but it just didn't seem to fit with the one character assessment she had of the man who had made it.

'Maybe I just have a really sick imagination,' Regina thought.

SNOOPFROG

Shizune scowled at the collections letter and put it to the back of the pile. The next item was a postcard. She wrinkled her nose at the weird naked, wrinkly animal on the front and flipped it over to read it. There was no signature… “Tsunade-sama, I think that this is for you.” She put the card by her mentor's elbow and took a prudent step backwards.

Tsunade-sama snatched the card up and held it close to her face. She was already red-faced from drinking to keep away the cold. “What the hell?” she said, more conversational than mad. She squinted at the bold, beautiful handwriting.

Shizune waited.

“I'm writing from a metallic land to tell you that congratulations to me are in order,” Tsunade read aloud. Her left hand curled into a fist on the table. “For the birth of my daughter in the year of the-” she choked on outrage. “In the year of the dog? Shizune, what year is it?”

“The year of the rooster,” she said promptly. She'd anticipated this question and already done the math.

Tsunade's voice went up in furious pitch. “So he's telling me- he has a kid who is 8 years old, or 20 years old?”  

“Or possibly 32,” Shizune added in the interest of fairness. “Jiraiya-sama is old enough to have a child of that age.”

“I am going to kill him,” Tsunade-sama said calmly. She crumbled the postcard and stood up. She was flushing the alcohol from her system, so that her porcelain skin returned to its usual beauty. “I am going to go to Iron Country and I am going to kill him.”

The bartender had prudently fled at some point.

Shizune sighed. “As you say.” She thought that Jiraiya had probably done things this way for a reason- he was long-gone, or maybe… Well. He was probably perfectly willing to get beat up one side and down the other, as long as it meant that Lady Tsunade was paying attention to him. “I'll get the bags from our rooms,” she said, resigned to it.