Professor Merced Calliere is an important supporting character in the first half of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He appears more in book 1 and 3, but has smaller parts in books 0 and 2.  Here is the professor withe the rest of the family at breakfast in The Drache Girl.  I named him Merced after the river and so decided that his nickname would be Mercy.  Calliere is a made up name too.

Yuah thought she had made it up early this morning, but everyone was already seated at the long dining table.  Professor Merced Calliere, dressed in a white summer suit that his wife had no doubt purchased for him, sat at the head of the table and was already scooping forkfuls of eggs and sausages to his mouth.  At the opposite end of the table, his wife, the royal governor, sipped her morning tea.  The bright red dress she wore was clean in style and far simpler in cut than Yuah’s teal dress.  It featured no lace or brocade or beading what-so-ever, but the material which covered Iolanthe from the top of the neck to the wrists and down to the floor was so smooth, and so fine, that Yuah would have bet it cost a fortune, and was probably imported all the way from Forlond. 

Each side of the table had four place settings, though for breakfast, not all of them were filled.  Yuah took her place to Iolanthe’s right.  The two seats to her right were empty.  At the far end, next to her father, and perched on a stack of books in her chair was little Iolana.  The pretty little girl, dressed in bright pink, had her blond hair carefully curled into dozens of tiny ringlets, which framed her aquamarine eyes, tiny freckled nose, and bow-shaped mouth.  Directly across from Yuah sat Mrs. Colbshallow.  A handsome, though rather worn woman in her late forties, Mrs. Colbshallow had been the family cook for the Dechantagne household.  Having journeyed to the new world, she found herself in the rather queer position of being a human servant in a land where servants were lizardmen.  Since she clearly was above the level of the lizzies, she had sort of automatically assumed the place of family member.  While she was still in charge of all the meals, she only engaged in the actual work of the kitchen when it suited her.  Next to her was her son Saba, in a neatly pressed blue police uniform, with large brass buttons.  The lanky boy who had been a step-n-fetchit for the Dechantagne home had grown to a handsome six foot three nineteen year old.  His thick blond hair and flashing moss green eyes were a welcome sight for most girls in Port Dechantagne.  Though he lived in a small house down the road, he often took meals with his mother.  Next to him was another empty seat, and then next to that, to the professor’s right was seated Macy Godwin.  Another staff member elevated to family, Mrs. Godwin had served as a governess and head maid at the Dechantagne family home in Shopton.  Now nearing sixty, Mrs. Godwin had settled in to serve as the grizzled aunt neither the Dechantagne nor the Calliere family had.

One of the lizardman waiters placed a plate of eggs, sausages, black pudding, baked beans, sliced tomatoes, and toast in front of Yuah.  Balancing Augie in the crook of her left arm, she picked up her fork and used the side of it to cut the eggs into bite sized pieces.  The local lack of chickens did nothing to lessen the humans’ appetite for eggs and the local countryside obliged.  There were many birds in Birmisia, as well as dinosaurs, and quite a few animals that seemed to fall somewhere in between the two groups.  Wild eggs had proven to be the most abundant food source offered by the new land.  Early on, the colonists had scavenged them for themselves, but this had given way to trading with the local lizardman tribes for them.  Now, with the exception of manual labor, eggs were the largest source of wealth for the reptilians.

“I believe there is something wrong with your dress, dear,” said Mrs. Godwin.

“Oh?” said Yuah.

“Yes, it’s missing the back.”

“Perhaps you have it on backwards,” offered Mrs. Colbshallow.

“I happen to know that both of you saw this dress at Mrs. Bratihn’s,” said Yuah.  “You’ve just been waiting until I wore it so you could play at being blinkered old ladies.”

“It does show rather a lot of skin, for a day dress,” said Iolanthe.

“Backs are all in, in Brech,” said Yuah.

“I think it looks very nice,” said the professor.

“Oh shut up,” snapped Iolanthe.

Hey, finally a character I haven’t already written about.  Amadea Jindra is one of two women that Radley Staff becomes involved with (in the looser sense of that word) while on the ship to Birmisia.  Other than book 0, in which she makes a very brief appearance, Miss  Jindra appears only in this book of the series so far.  Amadea’s first name I made up as a female version of Amadeus– as in Mozart.  I don’t know if it actually is a name or not.  Here she arrives in Birmisia to be met (sort of) by Zurfina.

Stepping out of the S.S. Arrow’s mid-deck hatch and onto the gangplank, Radley Staff looked around at the peninsula on which Port Dechantagne was built.  He was amazed at the growth of the little colony.  When he had left, a little more than three years ago, it was nothing but a few barracks buildings in a clearing in the woods.  Now it was a real town.  From where he stood, he could see hundreds of buildings, warehouses, apartment blocks, businesses, and the rooftops of more building off between the redwoods.  A large, dark cloud hung amid the white clouds, formed by hundreds of fireplaces and stoves.  The smell of wood smoke overcame the smell of the seashore.  He stopped for a moment and enjoyed the scene.  Someone behind him cleared her throat.  He turned around to find Miss Jindra, in a shimmering white and teal day dress with waves of white ruffles down the front.  She wore a matching teal hat with a lace veil and carried a parasol, though she seemed unlikely to need one.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Staff.  I’m surprised you haven’t debarked yet.”

“I waited to avoid the rush.”

“I’m afraid I was expecting more,” she said, looking with a raised brow at the nearby buildings.

He followed her gaze.

“Really?  I was thinking just the opposite.”

He turned back around to face her and started.  Miss Jindra was just where she had been, but a second woman stood directly behind her—a woman who hadn’t been there only a second before.  Though her hairstyle was different, Staff remembered the charcoal circled grey eyes and the wry smile.  He had thought he remembered her scandalous dress too, but what she had on now went beyond the bounds of decency.  Black leather covered only the lower half of her breasts, leaving her two star tattoos clearly visible.  The dress reached down only to the top of her thighs.  Two thick straps attached to a tight leather collar, which seemed to be holding the whole thing up.  Forget fitting a corset beneath this ensemble.  One would have been hard pressed to fit a piece of lace in there.

“Well, Lieutenant Staff, I do declare,” said Zurfina in her unforgettable sultry voice.

“That’s Mr. Staff,” he corrected.

Miss Jindra spun around, getting a piece of her voluminous dress caught on a spur of the railing.  There was a loud ripping sound as a four-inch tear was opened in the beautiful teal cloth.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Zurfina, placing a hand on each of Miss Jindra’s shoulders.  Looking around the olive-skinned woman’s head, she said in a loud whisper.  “Too long a dress.  Bound to happen sooner or later.”

“What exactly do you want, Zurfina?” asked Staff.  “I’m flattered, but surprised that you came to meet me.”

“Oh you are a pretty boy, but it’s your friend I’m here for.”

“Miss Jindra?”

Miss Jindra started to speak.  “I don’t…”

“Don’t spoil the moment,” said Zurfina, placing a finger on the woman’s mouth.

“Perhaps I could bring her around to your home later,” said Staff.

Zurfina flashed him a smile that was only slightly more than a smirk.  Then suddenly she was gone.  Miss Jindra, her voluminous white and teal dress with matching teal hat and her parasol, were gone too.  There was nothing to indicate that anyone had ever stood on the gangplank behind him, except for a single teal colored thread, clinging to a spur in the railing.

For a moment, Staff thought about finding Miss Jindra and rescuing her.  On the other hand, she had never expressed a need or a desire for his protection.  He didn’t really know her all that well.  She was only a dinner companion, assigned by the ship’s purser at that.  And it was not as if he had any knowledge of how to deal with a sorceress or knew Zurfina’s address.  So he shrugged and continued down the gangplank, across the dock, and into the street beyond.

Smedley Bassington is a character that developed as I was writing Senta and the Steel Dragon.  I had a place for a wizard in book 3, and so he filled that spot.  I liked him when I wrote it and so I expanded his role in book 5 and expanded his back story which I added to book 0.  He is still definitely among the ranks of the minor characters in the series, but a particularly important one.  I already posted part of Senta’s duel with Bassington on my post about Bessemer.  Here is his arrival in Birmisia, as witnessed by Saba Colbshallow.

Saba strolled back across Bainbridge Clark Street, just in time to see the professor walking back to his vehicle from the ship’s loading area, along with a stranger.  The man was tall with a dark complexion.  His slightly graying hair was cut fairly short and parted in the middle, while his squinty eyes peered out from behind horn-rimmed spectacles.  His nose was turned up just enough that one could look directly into his nostrils.  His wide thin-lipped mouth and a heavy lantern jaw made him seem toad-like.  About five foot ten, he wore a black pinstriped suit and over it, a long black rifle frock coat that reached to his knees.

Saba could feel the stranger’s eyes upon him for just a moment, as the man evaluated him.  Then the stranger seemed to freeze in place.  His head turned quickly to the right, and Saba looked to his left to follow the man’s gaze.  They made three points of a triangle—Saba, the man in black, and the twelve-year-old sorceress’s apprentice.  Senta and the stranger stared at each other for at least ten seconds, though to Saba, it seemed like much longer.  Then the girl got up from her crate and skipped south.  She turned to look back twice, as if she was worried about being followed.

The man in black watched her, giving no more notice to Saba or anyone else in the street, and then he climbed into the passenger seat of the steam carriage.  Professor Calliere hopped into the driver’s seat and was soon off, honking to warn dockworkers both human and reptilian to get out of his way, driving north in the direction of his workshop.

Yuah and Honor are just so perfect together, it’s only natural that they become friends.  I had originally planned to write them getting to know each other in The Voyage of the Minotaur, but I didn’t get it worked into the story, so I did it in The Drache Girl.  Of course later, I wished I hadn’t because I could have worked it into The Dark and Forbidding Land. In any case, they do become friends.  Here is the beginning of that relationship.

“Mrs. Dechantagne, how lovely to see you.”

Honor Hertling was dressed in the same sturdy brown and white clothing as her neighbors.  Her sleeves and the front of her dress were stained with dirt, and she wore a beat up pair of men’s work gloves.  Twenty years old, with large, sad eyes, a small nose, and raven hair, she was not classically beautiful, and not just because of the ugly scar that ran across her left cheek to her chin.  She was cute though, in an indefinable way.  Yuah reached out to take her gloved hand.

“Oh, sorry,” said Miss Hertling.  She pulled her hand away and removed the glove, then grasped Yuah’s hand firmly.  “What a lovely dress.”

“You like it?  A little bird told me that you might not approve.”  Yuah was suddenly aware that she was using one of Iolanthe’s expressions.

“Mein sister and her friend.”  Miss Hertling’s accent suddenly became thicker.  “I am thinking that the Drache girl likes to stir up trouble.  Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“Thank you.”

Tossing her gloves onto a potting bench near the garden, the young woman opened the door.  Yuah parked the blue baby carriage in the yard and lifting little Augie out, followed into the house.  The structure was very small and consisted of three rooms.  The front room, only about eight by twelve feet, served as parlor, dining room, and kitchen, as well as any number of other functions for which the Dechantagne household would have had individual rooms.  From the cast iron stove at one end of the room to the shelf filled with canned goods at the other, the room was impeccably clean.  A single bookcase contained a dozen volumes and was home to two small porcelain vases holding cut flowers.  Bright light shown in through the lace curtained windows.  Augie began to fuss as Yuah stepped inside.

“He’s probably hungry again,” she said.

“If you would like to nurse him now, you may sit in the rocking chair, while I make our tea.”

Yuah set the swaddled baby on the chair as she went about the fairly arduous task of freeing her breasts from the many layers of her clothing.   Though two of her three undergarments had been fashioned with breast-feeding in mind, the gorgeous teal dress had not.  By the time Augie was able to begin suckling, he was red-faced from crying and his mother was nearing exhaustion.  Yuah pulled the suddenly quiet baby close to her body, now bare from the waist up, and reached with a free hand to accept the cup of steaming tea.  Miss Hertling turned the lock on the door, which consisted of a small piece of wood with a single nail holding it to the doorjamb. 

“I wouldn’t want Hertzal walking in on you,” she explained.  “I think he might faint.”

“Isn’t he working at the dock?”

“Yes, but sometimes he comes home for lunch.”

“Thank you again for your hospitality.  I suppose I would have had to walk all the way back home, or find a spot beside a tree.”

“That probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.  I’ve seen velociraptors eating out of people’s garbage twice this week.  I doubt that one or two would chase down a full-grown person, but they always seem to multiply.  I hate to think of one of them getting after a baby.”

Yuah pulled Augie even closer.  “I hope you have notified the police.”

“I have.  The militia too.  They keep chasing the beasts off and they keep coming back.”

Yuah turned Augie around to give him the other breast.  He cried for just a moment as she shifted his position, and then happily went back to feeding.  She brushed his thin brown hair back away from his face. 

“I don’t want you to think that I disapprove of you or your clothes,” said Miss Hertling, pulling one of the dining chairs forward to face the rocking chair, and sitting down in it.  “I just think that it is very important to preserve our traditions.”

“There is nothing in the scripture or the Magnificent Law that prohibits the wearing of colorful clothing.”

“Yes, I know.  But my sister and I come from Freedonia.  You must understand that in Freedonia, the Zaeri face extinction.”

“You don’t really mean that do you?  Extinction, as in death?”

“Murder is being committed and sometimes it’s sanctioned by the government.  Those Zaeri who stay are being discriminated against and forced to move to specially designated areas.  Laws are being passed that limit Zaeri rights and create special Zaeri taxes.  Those Zaeri who do leave, find themselves unable to return.  Things are only going to get worse, too.  King Klaus II has publicly called the Zaeri an unclean race.”

“That’s abhorrent.”

“Yes, but that’s the way it is.  My parents were killed and my brother, sister, and I were chased out of our home.  But they couldn’t destroy what we are.  We are still Zaeri and we are still alive.  I think it’s important that we remember who we are.  We should maintain our traditions.”

“I suppose I can understand your feelings about it,” said Yuah.

“Things must be strange for you though,” mused Miss Hertling.  “I hadn’t really thought of it before.  You are one of only a handful of Zaeri from Greater Brechalon.  You must feel as different from us, from the Freedonians, as you do from the Kafirite Brechs.”