Dot is one of my favorite accomplishments.  The character wasn’t in my original outline for Senta and the Steel Dragon.  She was created on the fly because Eamon Shrubb needed a wife.  Even so, I managed to come up with what I think a memorable character.  I think she is based a little bit on a woman I met twice many years ago, the wife of a coworker, who, like Dot, was a redhead and was deaf.

He arrived back at the police station office to find Dot Shrubb in a pretty pink dress that highlighted her copper-colored hair.  She was a thin, but pretty girl, of seventeen who had arrived in Port Dechantagne a year ago, without any family, and had stolen the heart of Eamon Shrubb the first time he laid eyes upon her.

“Saba,” she said, in the nasal voice of someone who has been deaf all their life.

“Looking for Eamon?” he asked, keeping his face toward her, so that she could read his lips.

She nodded.

“You two were fighting again.”

She punched the palm of her left hand with her right fist.

“What about?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then made a rocking baby motion with her arms folded.

“You’re expecting?”

“Huh?”

“Baby.  You’re going to have a baby?”

She nodded, smiling.

“Then why were you fighting?  Doesn’t he want a baby?”

“Name,” she said.

“Kafira,” Saba muttered.

At that moment, Eamon opened the office door.  He paused about halfway inside, looking at his wife the way a munitions expert looks at a bomb that didn’t go off as intended.  She looked at the floor.  After a moment, the constable stepped inside.

“You nesh berk,” said Saba.  Eamon looked at him in surprise.  “You take your wife home and see to her.  I may not have two and a half months experience being married, but even I know you don’t fight with a woman who’s expecting.”

“She wanted to name the baby Yadira.”

“What’s wrong with that?” demanded Saba.

“Come on!  That’s the worst name in the world.”

“My mother’s name,” said Dot.

“That happens to be my mother’s name, too,” said Saba.

“Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that,” said Eamon.

“It’s not like Eamon’s a brilliant name.”

“I don’t want to name it Eamon either.  If it’s a boy I want to name it Darsham, and if it’s a girl I want to name it Daria.”

“Darsham Shrubb?  Why don’t you just name it ‘kick my ass on the way to school’ and have done with it.”

Eamon ballooned his cheeks out and rolled his eyes back to think for a moment.  “It doesn’t sound that good when you put it all together, does it?”

“Here’s my advice, Mr. I’ve-been-married-two-and-a-half-months.  Take the rest of the day off and take your wife home.  Make her a cup of tea and rub her feet.  Then let her decide what to name the baby.  You can go get a kitten from Mrs. Gyffington, and name it Darsham, or Daria, or whatever the bloody hell you want to name it.”

“That’s right,” said Dot, taking Eamon by the arm.  Then she said, “Rub my feet,” leading Saba to believe that she had missed most of what he had said.

“You don’t mind if I take the afternoon?” asked Eamon.  He turned his head slightly, so that his lips were not visible to his wife.  “If I rub her feet, she’ll be all rumpy-pumpy.”

“Go!”

The two left the office, arm in arm.  As soon as they were gone, Saba stepped back through the supply room and into cell number one.  Setting his helmet beside the cot, he lay down and took a nap.

The introduction of the character Franka Rocanna in The Drache Girl is really set up for what happens to the character in The Two Dragons.  I have liked the name Franka since seeing Run Lola Run starring Franka Potenta (who also starred in The Bourne Identity and whom they killed off completely ruining the rest of the series for me).  I think someday I’ll give the name to another character.

The cuckoo clock on the office wall at M&S Coal had never struck Radley Staff as looking particularly professional.  Mrs. Fandice had purchased it when funds for an office clock had been appropriated, and as no one else seemed to mind it, Staff had said nothing.  It was so ornate that it took him a moment to read the hands.  It was six forty five.  He had just come down to the office from the apartments above and had not expected to find anyone at work yet.  But Mr. Buttermore, Mrs. Fandice, and Miss Vanita were already at their desks.  Miss Rocanna was putting her wrap back on.

“Going out, Miss Rocanna?” he asked.

“I thought I would go around the corner and bring back muffins for the office.”

“What a splendid idea,” said Buttermore.

“Hold a moment, I’ll go with you,” said Staff.

He took his coat from the peg and threw it on and then opened the door for Miss Rocanna.  She nodded and stepped through the portal and Staff followed her.  It was still cool and fog hung in patches throughout the town.  The Pfennig store and Mrs. Bratihn’s dress shop were easy enough to see, but the houses in the other direction were just large shapes in the mist.

Staff offered his elbow and Miss Rocanna took it.  Together they walked around the corner and into the square.  It was early, but activity associated with business had already begun for the day.  Mrs. Bratihn walked across the square from the south toward her dress shop.  Mr. Parnorsham was already inside the Pfennig Store, at that moment cleaning the inside of the shop window.  Aalwijn Finkler stepped out the door of the bakery to shake out a rug.

There was a steam carriage parked at the edge of the square, just next to the gate in the emergency wall.  A woman in a bright blue dress with a large flower-covered hat sat at the steering wheel.  From his angle, Staff couldn’t tell if it was Iolanthe or Yuah.  Mother Linton stood at the side of the vehicle and carried on a conversation with the woman—whoever it was.  Staff watched carefully, and though he couldn’t discern the identity of the driver, it became obvious that the discussion between her and the priest was becoming heated.  He felt a jerk on his arm as Miss Rocanna stopped.

“I don’t care to be ignored.”

“Sorry.  I was just trying to see if that was the Governor.”

“It is.”

“How can you tell?  It could be Mrs. Dechantagne.”

“No.  It’s the Governor.  You can tell by her posture.”

“Pop pop pop,” rang out to the east.

“Those are gunshots,” said Staff, looking off in that direction.

A group of twenty two minor characters arrive with Radley Staff and Terrence Dechantagne from Birmisia in The Drache Girl.  Of those, undboubtedly the most important to the rest of the series is Loana Hewison.  I always found it funny that as I was working on the book, my wife always disliked Loana.  I’ll admit I wouldn’t want to be married to her, but she does fill her role in the story.

Mrs. Fandice pulled Staff away from the Rutans to introduce him to her niece.  Loana Hewison looked so completely unlike Mrs. Fandice that anyone would have questioned whether they were related and sure enough, it seemed that their connection was only through marriage. 

“Aunt Rosalyn is my mother’s sister-in-law, that is to say her brother’s wife,” said Miss Hewison, who was without a doubt the most beautiful woman in the room.  Statuesque and striking, she wore a brilliant peach colored dinner gown.  Her long hair was arranged in a very complex style, with each strand seemingly a different shade from very light blond to coppery red.  As Staff spoke to her, he realized that not only was her hair multihued, but so were her eyes.  One eye was deep brown and the other eye was hazel.

“When my Uncle Henri passed on, my parents sent me to live with Aunt Rosalyn,” the young woman continued.  “And when she had the chance to go to Birmisia, well, I just had to join her.  It’s so exciting.  Imagine—a whole new world.”

“I hope you like it as much when we get there,” said Staff.  “You will easily be one of the most beautiful women on the continent.”  At which point, Mrs. Fandice steered her niece away to another part of the room.

Oops!  For some reason only the end of the post for the 8th appeared the day before yesterday.  Here is the whole thing as intended.

Edin Buttermore is a minor character that pops up from time to time to play a role in the story of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  His wife and son show up sometimes as well.  I liked the name Buttermore and just went with it.

Mrs. Melody Lanier was Mrs. Harper’s daughter and looked just as she must have looked in her younger days, with dark hair and a voluptuous figure that would turn any man’s head.  Likewise, her teen-aged daughter Wenda was a young, thin, and happy version of her, before adulthood had put the lines around her eyes or had put the grey in her mother’s hair.  Mrs. Lanier had lost her husband and Miss Lanier her father, when he was killed in a boiler explosion, while working on the Greater Brechalon and Northern Railroad.  Mrs. Harper had encouraged her daughter to come along with her and try to start a new life in Birmisia.

“You’ve heard me speak of them, and here they are,” said Buttermore.

Mrs. Julietta Buttermore was a very pretty, if frail looking woman at least ten years younger than her husband.  She had very fine honey blond hair and clean, sharp features, but dark circles under her large, amber eyes.  On her hip, she carried a chubby toddler, whose thick shock of golden hair perfectly matched his father’s.

Everyone loves to hate Mother Linton.  I don’t find her evil.  She just has a different set of objectives than our heroes.

All four men stood up as the severe looking woman approached in a black dress.  Her graying hair was pulled tightly back into a long pony tail and her lips were so thin, it seemed as though the pony tail was pulling most of the skin of her face with it.  Her black dress was not a robe, not quite, and as was almost all feminine attire, it was endowed with a prominent bustle, but had no brocade or lace, just a priestly collar at her neck, and a thin strip of white running from each shoulder to the floor.  She had a large and ornate golden cross on a chain around her neck.

“Mother Linton,” said Dechantagne.  “May I introduce Misters Staff, Merchant, and Shannon.”

Mother Linton nodded to each.  “May I speak to you, Mr. Dechantagne?”

He shrugged and stepped away with the priest.

“So what do you say about this weather, Staff?” marveled Shannon.  “Whenever I think of Mallon, I think of the jungle.  I never expected snow.”

“I suppose there is a great deal of Mallon that’s tropical,” replied Staff, “but Birmisia is cool, dry, lots of pine trees.  Even the summers are not too bad.  That’s good from a business perspective, too.  Nobody wants to muck around in swamps.  That’s probably why Enclep isn’t better developed.”

“Good man,” said Merchant.  “Always keeping business in mind.”

Dechantagne returned to the table and sat down.

“What was that all about?” asked Staff.

“It seems Mother Linton has been pegged by the Bishop of Brech as the High Priest of Birmisia.”

“And?”

“And priests are no different than anyone else.  They all want something.”  He waved to the waiter for another drink.

“And what does she want?”

“Oh, it’s all Mother Church this and Mother Church that.”  Dechantagne picked up the cigar that he had left smoldering in the ashtray when he had stepped outside with Mother Linton, and he stubbed it out.  Then he got up and walked out the door, intercepting the waiter for his drink along the way.

Mrs. Melody Lanier was Mrs. Harper’s daughter and looked just as she must have looked in her younger days, with dark hair and a voluptuous figure that would turn any man’s head.  Likewise, her teen-aged daughter Wenda was a young, thin, and happy version of her, before adulthood had put the lines around her eyes or had put the grey in her mother’s hair.  Mrs. Lanier had lost her husband and Miss Lanier her father, when he was killed in a boiler explosion, while working on the Greater Brechalon and Northern Railroad.  Mrs. Harper had encouraged her daughter to come along with her and try to start a new life in Birmisia.

“You’ve heard me speak of them, and here they are,” said Buttermore.

Cady Gertz is one of those characters who just show up in the background all the time.  In a way, those are my favorites, because I have their back stories that only I know completely.  If you read all the books though, you might find yourself starting to know them too.

The temporary City Hall was right next door, and with the exception of the lack of hen mesh over the windows, it looked exactly like the police station.  Saba stepped up two very short steps and into the front office, which was only half the size of his own.  Miss Cadence Gertz sat at the receptionist desk.  Her black hair was pulled back into a severe bun, she had on horn-rimmed glasses, and she wore a plain brown gingham dress.  Saba still thought she was very pretty.

“Good morning, Constable,” she said, smiling shyly.

“Good morning, Miss Gertz.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to see the mayor, if he’s not too busy.”

“Police business?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“I’ll see if he can see you now.”  She got up and walked to the door separating the twenty by twenty five foot reception office from the mayor’s office, knocked on the door, and then went in, leaving Saba for a moment, to stand and contemplate brown gingham in a way that he never had before.  She was gone no more than two minutes.  When she came back out again, she ushered him into the presence of the mayor, closing the door behind him.

“Good morning, Mr. Mayor.”

Zeah Korlann rolled his eyes, and then stood up to shake hands with the young constable.

“If I had known being the mayor meant I was doing essentially all of the Colonial Council’s work, I wouldn’t have accepted the position.”  He waved for Saba to take a chair.

“Somebody has to be the big man in charge,” said Saba, sitting down, crossing his legs, and setting his helmet on his knee.

“How is your mother?  I missed her yesterday, when I was visiting my grandson.”

“She’s fine.  And how is Miss Lusk?”

“The same.  I mean, fine.  Miss Gertz said that you were here on police business?”

“Yes, I need to requisition an item.”

“A revolver or a shotgun?”

“A typewriter.”

“Do you know how to type?”

“I’ll learn.”

“I’ll bet we could get Mr. Collit to find one for us.  Are there any funds in the police budget?”

“No.”

“Alright,” Mayor Korlann sighed.  “We’ll find the money somewhere.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Saba getting up.  “Would you happen to know if Miss Gertz has gone to lunch yet?”

Saba escorted Miss Gertz to lunch at Mrs. Finkler’s Bakery as he had done on six previous occasions.  But just like those other six times, this could not be considered a date, because Miss Gertz insisted upon paying for her own meal.  Mrs. Gertz was of the opinion that her daughter, at nineteen, was too young to be courted, and ought not to be receiving gentlemen who were Kafirites in any case.  Still, the two young people had a lovely lunch and did not mention Miss Gertz’s mother, or religion, or police work.  In fact, later, Saba could not remember what the topic of conversation had been at all.  All he could remember was thick barley soup with onions and large brown eyes.