One evening, a couple of weeks following his return, Jerod is exiting a Council meeting when he feels a light touch on his elbow. It's Folly.
"Hey, Jerod," she says quietly. "Got a minute?"
She seems a little uncomfortable.
Jerod stops flicking through the papers in his hands, various reports on some of the merchants and the contacts he's arranged with the captains of the ships he will be taking back home soon. He looks around momentarily, wondering for a second if he caught the words right.
"Sure." he says, putting the papers away into a leather case. "What's on your mind?"
Folly pauses while everyone else files out of the room, then walks to the sideboard to fix herself a cup of tea. She looks back at Jerod, wordlessly, to see whether he wants anything.
Jerod shakes his head, having probably finished a glass of something during the meeting.
Then she returns to the table and sits, not at it, but on it, with her feet propped in a chair, and stares into her teacup, taking a few moments to collect her thoughts. When she finally speaks, her words come more slowly than usual, as if she's still not sure she's using the right ones.
"I just... I wanted to, uh...." Pause. But then she looks up at Jerod, and something seems to click. "I don't understand you. Why is it so important to you to believe that everyone hates you?"
If Folly was looking for a surprised expression, it does not come. In fact, Jerod seems to accept the question in stride. "It's safer." he replies simply. "I always know who I can trust."
"But that's just it," Folly says, "you don't know who you can trust, because you don't trust anyone. It's like saying you smash all the eggs so you'll know how many unbroken eggs you have. Sure, you'll be right, but at what cost?" She frowns and fidgets with her teacup. "You smash an awful lot of eggs, Jerod, and I know you mean well, but it worries me."
Jerod smiles, one of his rare smiles that has nothing to do with diplomacy or politics or style. "Well, the concern is noted, though I think perhaps misplaced. I actually have a fairly good idea who I can trust."
He pauses for a moment before leaning back. "Let me ask you...how did you grow up? I mean, who were your parents?"
Folly thinks, trying to decide how best to answer the question. "They were... celebrities, of the sort you don't really have here. Athletes who became these world-famous personalities and really lived the life, y'know? Especially Mum -- the affairs, the rehab, the tabloid headlines, the whole big stinky burrito. I moved out as soon as I could."
She regards Jerod. "I think I know where you're going with this," she says, "but do, please, go ahead." She stops fidgeting with her cup long enough to take a sip of tea.
"Where do you think I'm going?" Jerod asks curiously. "I'm wondering because I'm curious if anyone else had the same opportunities that I had growing up. And I had some incredible ones. But those opportunities come with a price. For instance...what were you doing when you were ten years old?"
"At ten? School and music, mostly. Making nice with my parents' friends when I couldn't weasel out of it. Writing a lot, making mischief. Pretty typical stuff." She shrugs. "I suspect your point is that you, born of powerful people, got a lot of early life lessons in duty and honor and leadership, and a lot of expectations laid on you to behave a certain way, to make decisions a certain way, to... command a certain way; and that, either through your own early experiences or those of your parents, you learned to view human interaction very politically, with an eye toward maximizing your own advantage, or that of your people." She takes another sip of tea, then asks, "How'd I do?"
"Not bad." Jerod says with a smile. "You forgot one important element. My parents, both of whom were extremely powerful, and one of whom still is powerful, also had a common interest. Their son." and he pauses for a moment. "Despite what some people might think, they cared about each other. And they cared about me. My father could be a real son of a bitch if he wanted to be. If something needed to be done, he did it. But he never did it out of spite or malice. They wanted the best for me and they made damn sure I got it.
"One of the things they taught me early on, and I agree with it, is that I'm going to have enemies just because of who I am. It doesn't matter my personality or my behaviour either. People will hate me for being a prince. They will hate me for being rich or priviledged. They will hate me for being educated. They will hate me for being stronger. They will hate me for..." and he pauses a moment. "They will hate me. I could be the nicest person possible, and it won't matter. So they taught me to judge people...and to treat everyone the same way, as a potential adversary. Until I knew better about that person. Not a nice way to live for sure. I doubt very many people would want to live that way at all.
"But if you're faced with a situation and the only way for your child to survive the threats and the dangers of their life is to teach them this...you'll do it." and Jerod looks at her directly. "You would do the same for your own children. You might deny it, but given the choice between life and an unpleasant and possibly fatal alternative, you'd do it."
He leans back for a moment, pushing his hair back. "Now, having shown you what might appear to be a very depressing view of life, let me show you the other side. Not everyone in my life is my enemy. I have only a few friends, but they're good friends. I can trust them. And in this life we live, that means a lot. I guard my friends jealously...and anyone who pisses with them does so at the expense of their life. It makes up for what might seem to be a very cynical, very narrow way of life. I can trust those people with my life. I wonder how many people can actually say that."
"I can," Folly says quietly, "but I know I'm one of the lucky ones."
She falls silent, thinking over Jerod's words, before continuing, "Yes, some people will hate you just for who you are. I won't argue with that. What worries me is that your way of coping with those few might create more enemies -- not just for you, but for all of us.
"One of my early life lessons is that you reap what you sow. You don't need any sort of metaphysical abilities to find yourself stuck in a self-fulfilling prophesy; but if we of the Royal House of Amber really do shape reality by our very thoughts, how much more likely must it be for us?"
"We shape reality by our conscious thought and desire." Jerod says, making emphasis on the word. "At least, that was what I thought awhile ago. I've got some theories in the other direction but they're unproven as yet.
"Either way...I will take what you've said into account. I wouldn't expect any particular miracles if I were you though. I've lived here long enough to know that people can be very nice, or exceptionally nasty. The nice people, I treat nicely. The nasty ones...they get controlled or smacked." and he pauses a moment. "I'm not my father and it'll be quite a few centuries before I get as good as he was. So until then, I deal with people the best way I know how. So long as I'm alive, and my friends and family are okay, that's all I'm going to worry about for the moment."
Folly smiles. "Well, it's a start," she says, teasing but friendly. "Thanks, Jerod."
She sets her teacup aside, slides off the table, and heads for the door. When she gets there, though, she stops and looks back at Jerod.
"We're very different people," she says, "and we will often disagree. I hope we can keep in mind that, ultimately, we're on the same side: we're both trying hard to do what's right. Perhaps when we oppose each other, we can strive to do so not as adversaries, but as... as complementary colors, which become all the richer when they are brought side-by-side."
"An artistic temperment if ever I've heard one described." Jerod says, a smile of his own. "With luck you'll survive."
"Tell you what...as far as being complementary...we can try this. You be artistic and maybe you can show me a different way to deal with things. I promise to listen - I might not accept it, but I'll listen. I'll be a hard-ass and you can learn when you need to be one too." His expression is still polite, and there is no "adversarial" quality to it, but there is something firm about it, a conviction perhaps.
"Trust me when I say this Folly. You've got a good heart...may you never lose it. But you also need to learn to be hard at times. When that time comes, and it will - I'd prefer you agonize over what you do afterwards, instead of before. You'll be more likely to survive."
Folly nods slowly, more to acknowledge his words than to agree with them.
Jerod rises to his feet and collects his papers. As he reaches the door, he looks down at her again. "And personally...I like it when my family survives."
Folly smiles up at Jerod -- although if he were a more sensitive sort, he might think she looked a little sad -- and reaches out to squeeze his hand. "Me, too," she says.
Then she turns away and sets off down the hall, leaving Jerod to go about his business.
Jerod turns to walk away as well, a slight smile on his face.
You now have the crews of 50 ships in harbor. This has some good points and some bad points.
[Paige smirks and giggles in a very unladylike way about some of the bad points being good ones...]
Folly and Reid, who spend time in the docksides, notice that people are both excited at the idea of serving the foreigners, and somewhat nervous about the prospect of dealing with so many. There is money to be made, but great risk.
Lucas will do his best to make money.
[Solange]
Where do people think the biggest risk is?
[GMs]
Violence and general crime. (They're sailors.)
Folly spends an evening at the Pickled Grouse, getting a sense of how the foreigners are interacting with the locals. Jerod's stories gave the impression that the people of the Land of Peace might perhaps be more violent and less scrupulous than the average Amber citizen. Does Folly get the impression that the foreign sailors she encounters are especially different -- in manners, attitude, demeanor, or general "troublemaker vibe" -- than the typical Amber sailor?
Not necessarily, but they are strangers in a strange land, and they are, perhaps, less inclined to worry about fouling the nest here. Also, there are a lot of them and they are far away from home.
One of the things that Folly and Reid pick up from what they hear (and others will gather as well from Jerod and other contacts) is that the Land of Peace is of a higher tech level than Amber; it has steam trains, among other things.
It suddenly occurs to Folly to wonder whether the changes taking place in Amber include any sorts of entropic changes. She digs through her trinket box to find the pocketwatch she brought from home that stopped working as soon as she got to Amber. She winds it. Does it run at all?
Lucas and Ossian both hear through various gentlemen and ne'er-do-wells of their acquaintance that there are fortunes being made and lost at the docks, speculating on what will sell and what will not.
Lucas will join in. He'll use insider knowledge and unfair advantage to make greedy bastards look like assholes.
[Solange]
Interesting. Is this being done through gambling books at the
gentlemen's clubs, less formal agreements, or is Amber actually
developing something that begins to look like a stock exchange?
(reminds self to read more about economics in London in the early-
to-mid-1700s)
[GMs]
Amber's still not organized (and certainly isn't well-off) enough for a
formal stock market yet, but is moving towards one. Effective stock
arrangements are possible, though.
Go read _ Millionaire : The Philanderer, Gambler, and Duelist Who Invented Modern Finance_ by Janet Gleeson. Good stuff.
Ossian keeps his eyes and ears open; if any of the more important businessmen of Amber takes part in excess speculation he will advice them not to. (Ossian's main concern here is not the well-being of individuals, but he doesn't want Amber's economy hurt by speculation.)
Conner hears from Baron Kaliq that the Golden Circle ambassadors are all anxious to meet with the captains from the Land of Peace, and there are questions of new alliances, and possible ways home.
Michelle asks Paige about hosting some of the captains from the Land of Peace at the Prince. She has been asked to do so, but given the political implications ...
Paige thinks that Michelle, as manager, should do what's good for the club. She'd be happy to attend, and keep an eye on the procedings. Paige reminds Michelle that she has great faith in her, otherwise she wouldn't have trusted her with the club in the first place. She is interested to hear which of the members made the suggestion, though.
Gerard asks Solange and Robin to escort Captain Ramala on a tour of the city. Solange is to organize things; she will know what to do, of course. (She may solicit help if need be from Folly or Paige.)
Paige will be happy to help if needed.
Indeed, Solange will solicit help from both of them, for company if nothing else. Tour of the city...hmmm... well, those usually include notable landmarks, architecture, places to eat, and places of entertainment. The Sundering memorial park will obviously be an important stop. Considering that Amber's not big on museums and symphonies and whatnot right now, if we're treating Captain Ramala as a Distinguished Visitor rather than a mere working- class employee, we'll need to get him invited to some parties or something, so Solange will be paying a call on Aunt Felicity as well. She ought to do that anyway, to see what's been happening in those circles.
[GMs]
Captain Ramala is a she.
We may not have symphonies, but Folly knows where to find good music any night of the week. (Also good beer, if Captain Ramala is into that sort of thing.)
Some of this stuff is new to Robin, so she takes advantage of the opportunity to fill in the gaps in her own understanding of recent Amber history. Robin will be curious to see if Solange is as cold a fish as her first impression suggested. She's curious about how Folly and Solange get along, and keen to size up Captain Ramala's "competition quotient."
Folly gets along quite well with Solange, perhaps surprisingly so given their very different personalities. Folly seems to view Solange with some combination of affection, amusement, and the sort of respect and awe that a skilled carpenter might have for a really good accountant.
I suspect Solange will provide a very informative tour of the city for Captain Ramala, with Paige and Folly jumping in every now and then to add color commentary. (Folly will try hard to refrain from too much off-color commentary; Robin may get the impression, though, that Folly thinks it's fun to make Solange turn pink with stifled laughter.)
[FWIW, this is not unlike my relationship with my best friend from college, who grew up to be a Human Resources Manager.]
[GMs]
Ramala's a Maggie Thatcher type more than a babe type. You get the feeling
that if she's inclined for male entertainment, she'd like a young boy-toy
more than a macho dude.
(Or did you have another sort of competition in mind? She's a normal, if you're thinking of sparring with her.)
[GMs]
Aunt Felicity is happy to do Distinguished Visitor entertaining duty, and
in fact is generally overjoyed to see Solange. (Vialle mentions that she's
been quite blue since Solange was declared missing).
Solange notices that Felicity's home seems a little more shabbily genteel than when last she saw it.
[Brita is in the wilds of jury duty.]
[Solange]
Poor Brita!
Also, please offer some feedback to Vere's request:
He will ask Ossian and Worth to handle his duties at the harbor, and will send requests to all of his Cousins and his Sister for their input. Lists of what we have in Amber that would be useful on this mission, what we want to come back, and what we can do to emphasize our position as the most desirable trading partner possible.
Ossian will take care of Vere's harbour duties together with Worth.
The first thing Folly thinks of is a few high-end instruments from Kermit's shop, if he's got extra stock on hand. They're as well-crafted as the things she could get in a much higher-tech Shadow, so she considers them luxury items. If they fall into the right hands, they could drum up considerable interest.
[Reid]
The consensus seems to be that Amber will not be able to produce enough
paper or ink for export. Which is a shame. However, if anything is of a
particularly high quality, there's nothing stopping an individual buying
as much stock as possible and reselling it. It just means the price will
be that much higher in the selling shadow.
Solange suggests that since we've got 50 ships worth of cargo, whatever the local, contracted economy can't absorb, we see what the stranded ambassadors think would sell well in their homelands, and try to get them home so we can sell the stuff at a profit. This will serve to put some money back in the Royal Treasury. And if their homelands have Stuff We Want, which they must or we wouldn't have had ambassadors from them in the first place, we pick up some of that for the return trip. Until Amber has more export capacity than it currently has, we've got to press our advantage as the facilitators of "international" (inter-Shadow) trade, even if our capacity for that has also contracted.
[GMs]
Gerard directs Jerod and Conner to look into the matter.
[Jerod]
Time for Jerod to catch up with Baron Kaliq once again...he talks to
Conner about arranging a meeting for the three of them so they can
work out a strategy for best being "facilitators"...:) (as opposed to the
evil word of middle-men or whole-salers)
[Solange]
Stuff We Want Back ought to include anything that can improve
our self-sufficiency and export capacity, as well as the luxuries like
coffee that we all so dearly want. If treadle sewing machines will
work here without breaking, we ought to get some of those, and
improve our ability to produce clothing. If we're doing well at paper
production but don't have enough for export, what would help?
Better wire screens than we can make here? Solange is sure that
given these guidelines, others can come up with specific examples.
[GMs]
Solange is not aware of any large-scale production concerns that might
produce export goods that have been able to make a go of it in Amber.
[Solange]
Given that we have a lot of animal bone from all the unfortunate
sheep culling, how's the porcelain industry here? Can we do
anything with that? Since the other major ingredient is clay,
otherwise known as DIRT, which is notoriously cheap and plentiful,
there ought to be something possible along those lines.
[GMs]
Nobody has messed with the porcelain industry at all. Gerard asks Ossian
and Reid to look into the matter for him.
Reid thinks Ossian may have a better handle on such. Pottery was never Reid's specialty.
Well, Ossian have messed with the porcelain industry in Shadow (when importing luxury items), so, I guess it would not take that much time for him to get a grip on what's possible and availible in Amber.
Is there a porcelain industry in Amber? In that case Ossian talks to the owners, and suggest they expand their business swiftly. He will also give some design suggestions (naturally)
[GMs]
There has not been a substantial porcelain industry in Amber. (Say it with
me now) there are no known large-scale industries in Amber. There are craft
shops that produce pottery, but only one shop that Ossian knows that
produces porcelain, and it's a guild-type mystery.
[Ossian]
Very well. What is the capacity of the pottery shops, and the quality
of their works?
If there is no porcelain industry in Amber, Ossian will look into the possibility of starting one up. The major concern is the clay. You cannot use just any dirt; you need the right sort of clay (for example kaolin). Good craftsmen can always be imported, if he needs to Ossian will go looking for good craftsmen in Shadow to teach the Amber dwellers hom to make porcelain.
[GMs]
It will not be possible to get all that going inside of the time you need
to turn a cargo around in Amber, of course, even if you can get the
porcelain-makers to agree to the plan.
[Ossian]
That's for certain. But I thought the general plan was to keep the
contact with the Land of Peace.
Ossian reports that there is no chance of getting any big amounts of porcelain out of Amber this time, but that he could try to make it a larger industry given some time.
There is still the luxury goods Ossian brought from his trips, though. (Whatever is in Amber right now.)
[Ossian]
OOC: And I've learned from my shadow twin... a very fast google search
teaches us something about different sorts of porcelain:
http://www.artistictile.net/pages/Info/Info_Porcelain.html
[GMs]
[Oddly enough, Janet Gleeson, who wrote the book on John Law I recommended
to Rikibeth, also wrote _The Arcanum_, which is about porcelain-making in
Europe. I gave it to my mother, so I haven't read it yet.]
That's all Solange's player can think of for now, since her head is still in a universe at the far OTHER end of the tech spectrum. Color-shifting winged power armor just isn't going to work in Amber, more's the pity.
Paige will also spend some time dealing with Chi-Lin. He'll be found an apartment within the Castle in what we have left of the guest wing, if possible, with no guard placed on the door. [She doubts he'll try to make it out of the castle unseen, especially with the regular guards on post.] She'll offer to show him the city and when not concerned by matters of Court or trade, she'll be happy to look in on him, and will invite him join herself and Worth for dinner one evening.
Is there anyone in particular that he's interested in meeting? Anything that he needs? Paige will reassure him that her father's death was greatly overstated. She herself saved him from the fall from Kolvir's steps.
[Solange]
Has Paige checked with Worth about this invitation? Considering
that Worth lost a son in the battle of Garnath, and as an indirect
result lost his wife as well, he may NOT be overly thrilled about
socializing with the man who provided the ships that brought the
attackers.
Last modified: 18 Mar 2002