Mr. Parnorsham is one of those characters who is around a lot in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He is proprietor of the pfennig store and as such can play an important role in the town and in the story– providing information to the characters and the reader, and his store is a great spot for different characters to meet and interact.

I based Mr. Parnorsham’s name on Mr. Haversham of Little Lord Fauntleroy.  Although the two characters have little in common, I liked the sounds and wanted that British feel.  Here Mr. Parnorsham shows off his pistol to Yuah and Terrence– a pistol that he gets to use in book 3, The Drache Girl.

They stood quietly while Mr. Parnorsham finished trading with all the lizzies in the store, though just as he returned to them, the bell above the door rang and another group entered.

“So what may I do you for today, lady and gentleman?”

“I would like two number four needles and a one spool of thread each of azure, beryl, cerulean, cobalt, and ultramarine.”

Mr. Parnorsham pulled a small envelope from below the counter.

“The needles come three to a package now, but it’s the same price that we used to charge for two.”  He walked to the notions counter and returned a moment later, setting the thread next to the package of needles.  “Here you go—five spools of blue thread.”

Yuah squinted her eyes and examined the thread, sure that Mr. Parnorsham was either trying to cheat her or make fun of her, but the thread was all of the correct shades.

“Anything else?”

“Not for me, but I’m sure that Mr. Dechantagne is in need of a few things.”

“Captain?”

“I need a tin of shaving powder, whatever kind you think best, and a bottle of Brill-Hair.”

“Very good, sir.”  Mr. Parnorsham returned with the items.  “Anything else?”

“I also want two jars of Major Frisbie’s green tomato chutney.”

Mr. Parnorsham paused.  “Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, it’s just that your sister doesn’t purchase it.  I understand that Mrs. Colbshallow is the official condimentarian, if you will.”

“My sister isn’t here to purchase it.  I am.”

“Of course, sir.  No disrespect implied.”  Mr. Parnorsham retrieved two jars of the chutney from a small stack just inside his large front windowpane.  “That will be twenty five p for the lady and let’s see… two marks seventy.”

“That’s roadside robbery,” said Terrence, sounding disgusted.

“Now that hurts, Captain.”  And Yuah noted that Mr. Parnorsham did indeed look as though his feelings were hurt.  “You know the cost of shipping products all the way from Brechalon.  If anyone knows, you should.”

“Yes, he knows,” said Yuah.  “Don’t mind him.  He’s just in a mood because of all the lizzies here and at his home.”

“Mmm.  Oh!”  Recognition suddenly rolled across the shopkeeper’s face.  “Well, yes I see… of course.  You know, I could do without their scaly faces myself.  I keep thinking they’re going to open up those great mouths and bite me, like Mrs. Gompers.”

“I have just the thing for you,” said Yuah, and reaching into Terrence’s pocket, she pulled out the large nickel-plated revolver and made as if to hand it to Mr. Parnorsham.

“Hey,” said Terrence.  “That’s a family heirloom.”

“Oh, pish posh.  You bought that in Brech before we set sail on the Minotaur.  And you’ve got at least two more just like it.”

“Oh, that’s a fine weapon,” said Mr. Parnorsham, making no move to take it.  “Too much gun for me though.”

He reached under the counter and pulled out a small black pistol.  He pressed a button on the side and a clip full of bullets dropped from the handle.  After pulling back the action to empty the chamber, he held out the weapon for Terrence.

“What do you think of that, Captain?”

Terrence held out his hand and the shopkeeper placed the pistol in it.  He ran his fingers over the smooth lines and sharp edges of the black steel.

“Automatic?  Never cared for them myself.  What is it—a Tycho Mather C-21?”

“Mather 17,” said Mr. Parnorsham proudly.  “Freedonian naval officer’s sidearm.”

“7.65 millimeter?”

“That’s right.”

“How do you get ammunition for it?”

“I have two boxes.  More than enough for me.  I shot off six rounds to try it out and a dozen more when the lizzies attacked.  The rest I’m saving for robbers.”

Terrence handed back the pistol, and then reached out to find his own still in Yuah’s hand.  He took it and put it back into the pocket of his greatcoat.  He took Yuah’s arm and gently pulled in the direction of the front door.  She quickly grabbed their packages from the counter.

Mrs. Colbshallow (Saba’s Mother) is present in all the Senta and the Steel Dragon books.  She adds a lot of flavor to the stories.  I had written The Voyage of the Minotaur, in which she appears quite a bit and had never given her a name.  In the first draft, she was just referred to as “cook”.  I made her Saba’s mother.  He appeared throughout the book, but wasn’t too important– at least in that draft.  I was several chapters into The Drache Girl before I gave her a first name, and that only for a gag about the name of Eamon’s upcoming child.  It was revealed that both Eamon’s wife Dot and Saba had mothers who first names were Yadira.

When I went back to write The Dark and Forbidding Land between those two books, Yadira Colbshallow got a much meatier part than she had previously enjoyed in the series. It was a lot of fun rounding out her personality.  Here she is, hiring lizzies to be Dechantagne servants.

Now another softskin was talking to the one that Tisson had pointed out as Clark.  Both were looking in the direction of Cissy and the others.

“What is it?” asked Cissy.

“She is a female,” said Tisson, standing up.  “The females have very wide bottoms.  And you can see she is older because the tuft of hair on her head is grey.”

“You know much, old one,” said Sirrek, sounding impressed.

“I have come to the human village many times over the last two years, to trade and to work.  In Tserich they will no longer let me hunt, because I am getting too old, but the humans will let me work and earn many copper bits.”

The older human female approached the group.  She was tiny even next to Cissy who was the smallest of the four, but she walked right up to them without fear.  Sirrek and Kheesie stood.  The human woman took each of the four by the shoulder and turned them around to look at their skin, their tails, and their feet.  She reached up and examined Tisson’s dewlap.

“I do believe Sergeant Clark is correct,” she said.  “You are a promising looking lot.  What are your names?”

Tisson put his hand, palm out over his dewlap.

“I Tisson,” he said, then pointed to each of the others in turn.  “This Sirrek, Kheesie, Cissy.”

“Wonderful!” shouted the human, clapping her hands together.  “My yes, you are a fine fellow.  Excellent.  You will all come along with me.”  She waved for them to follow and then started across the base towards the great wall.  “My name is Mrs. Colbshallow, though I don’t imagine you’ll be able to pronounce it.  You can say ‘Lady’, yes?”

“Lady.”  Each of the four lizzies tried out the word.

They reached the edge of the base when they were suddenly waylaid by a soldier with one of the big weapons slung over his shoulder.  The four lizzies instinctively shrunk back and tried to look small.

“Did you get a good selection, Mother?” the soldier asked Mrs. Colbshallow.

“Yes, yes.  No need to worry about that.  I’ve been hiring servants for nearly forty years now.  I know how to spot a good one, be he man or beast.”  She turned to the four lizardmen.  “This is my son, Saba.”

Senta’s best friend Hero Hertling is always a fun character to work with.  She is in many ways the opposite of Senta and so it is fun to play them off against each other.  Hero is shy and quiet, kind and empathetic.  She doesn’t play a monumental role in the plot of this book, but we spend enough time to get to know her.

At that moment one of the two doors in the back of the room opened and Hero stepped out.  Seeing Senta, she squealed and bounced happily into her arms.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Hertzal brought me for tea.”

“Thank goodness.  I wanted to go to your house and visit, but Honor wouldn’t let me out.”

“She has the sniffles and she thinks nothing of spreading the germs around to everyone else in the town,” said her sister.

“Come sit down with me,” said Hero.  “I want to show you my new book.”

“Oh, great—a book,” said Senta facetiously as her friend produced a small volume with a brown leather cover.

“Don’t be like that.  It’s Colonel Mormont’s journal.”

“Who is Colonel Mormont?” asked Senta.

“He explored all across Mallon more than ten years ago.  He wrote all about velociraptors and iguanodons and loads of other animals.  He wrote about the lizzies too.”

“The only soldier I care about is Major Frisbee,” said Senta.  “He makes damn fine chutney.”

“We don’t use that word in this house,” said Honor.

“Chutney?”

“The d-word.”

“Oh.  Sorry.”

“You care about Saba Colbshallow, don’t you?” asked Hero slyly.

“Saba is very nice,” said Senta, “but you know my heart belongs to only one boy.”

“Anyway,” continued Hero.  “Colonel Mormont has a lot to say about the tyrannosauruses.  When he encountered them, they hunted in packs, running around and gobbling up everything in their paths.  They sound truly horrifying.”

“The one that we have is scary enough,” said Honor.

“Down on the plains by Sussthek, I saw a pack of them,” said Senta.  “They were following a herd of these really great long-necked dinosaurs.  They hardly even noticed us.”

“That sounds just like what the Colonel was talking about.  Listen to this… ‘the tyrannosaurus is the larger and more frightening relative of the coastal gorgosaurus of western Mallon.  Notable for its hideously red face atop a black body, the creature hunts in packs that scour the land…” 

Hero kept reading on, but Senta’s mind had wandered back to her encounter with Streck.  She didn’t know why it should bother her that he didn’t believe she could do magic, but it did.  He was just so smug—so Freedonian.  She began to think about how much fun it would be to annoy him, and as Hero continued reading, she decided that the rest of her winter might not be so boring if she made it her hobby to do so.

“Tea is ready,” said Honor, calling everyone to the table.

Honor, with Hertzal quietly helping her, had laid out a very nice tea.  A plate of sliced, smoked sausages sat next to a matching plate filled with boiled potatoes.  A small bowl of mustard sat across from a mismatched bowl of chutney—home made, not Major Frisbee’s.  And each of the four diners had a plate with two small grilled cheese and apple sandwiches and a bowl of winter squash soup.

“This is really ace,” said Senta, tucking in to her soup.  “Is this Freedonian food?”

“Well, we are from Freedonia,” said Honor, “so I guess this would qualify as Freedonian food.”

“Maybe that Streck knows what he’s talking about… at least as far as food is concerned.”

“Who’s Streck?” asked Hero.

“Is that Professor Calliere’s Freedonian solicitor?” asked Honor.

“I guess so,” said Senta.  “He’s a wanker.”

Hertzal made an up and down motion with his hand and Honor reached over and slapped him on the wrist.  “We don’t say that word either.”

“Sorry.  I should have said ‘tosser’.”

“Or that word!  Meine Güte, that entire topic is verboten am tisch.”

“Sorry.  What does ‘am tisch’ mean?”

“At the table,” said Hero.

“Oh.”  Senta took a bite of her sandwich.

 “I can see how you might not like Mr. Streck,” said Honor carefully after composing herself.  “He’s one of those Nationalistische Demokraten.  They are the ones who blame the Zaeri for everything they think is wrong with Freedonia.”

“Yeah, he thinks he’s a wizard too,” said Senta.

“He’s a wizard?”

“He thinks he is.”

“That is troubling,” said Honor.  “The Freedonian wizards, the ones that belong to the Reine Zauberei, they are the worst.  If he is really one of them, and he is here in Birmisia, then that is bad.  I hope someone is keeping an eye on him.”

“I’m sure that somebody will,” said Senta.  She was thinking of herself, but as she would find out later, she wasn’t the only one planning to keep tabs on Mr. Streck.

“I wonder what the new Mrs. Dechantagne thinks of him,” said Hero.

“That’s right,” replied Senta.  “She’s a Zaeri, isn’t she?”

Honor made a noncommittal noise.

After tea, Senta made her goodbyes to the Hertling family.  Honor wanted her to stay until she could get one or more of the neighborhood men to walk her home, but Senta wouldn’t hear of it.  Hertzal made signs indicating that he would walk her home himself, but she waved him off as well.

“Don’t worry about me.  I can take care of myself.  And no offense, but if anything comes along that I can’t handle, I doubt that any of your neighbors could.”

“You’re probably right,” said Honor, sounding unconvinced.  “But do be careful.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow and see you, Hero,” said Senta, donning her snowshoes.  “You can read me more about Colonel Marmalade.”

“Colonel Mormont,” corrected Hero.

I thought it was a stroke of genius when I created the Hertling twins, but I guess it was necessity.  When you have a story about twelve-year-olds, you can’t just have two.  You need a third so that you have a triangle.  I simply made the third child a pair of twins.

I introduced the twins in book 1, and they become major parts of the story in book 3, running around Port Dechantagne with Senta and Graham.  In book 2, I got to preview that a bit and I found myself with a chance to play with Hertzal a bit.

Usually when characters interact with the twins, they are interacting with Hero, Hertzal’s sister, because Hertzal doesn’t talk.  He hasn’t talked since witnessing his parents’ murders.  Here is Hertzal in a rare scene without his sister.

When the sandwiches had been completed, Senta delivered Zurfina’s to the appropriate location.  Then she put away the ingredients by hand and sat down at the table to enjoy hers.  She was only on her second bite when there was a knock at the door.    As she opened it, the cold air from outside blew across her bare shins and feet.  It had stopped snowing a couple of days before, but it was still cold out and the world was still covered with a thick blanket of white.  Standing outside and shivering was Hertzal Hertling.

“Hertzal!” squealed Senta, giving him a great hug.  “Where is your sister?  Didn’t she come with you?”

Hertzal remained as quiet as he always did, but shook his head.  Two years before, when he and his two sisters had escaped their former homeland of Freedonia, their parents had both been killed by soldiers.  Hertzal, who up until that time has seemed a perfectly normal boy, had lost his voice.  And there seemed to be no reason to expect its return any time soon.

“Come in and get warm.”  Senta pulled the boy into the house and closed the door after him.  “Are you hungry?”

Hertzal shrugged.

Taking this as an affirmative, Senta cut her sandwich in half and gave him the portion with no bite taken out of it.

“I’ll put on some tea.”

Hertzal took a bite of the sandwich and smiled with his blue lips closed.

Senta put the pot on the cast iron stove.

“Nothing’s wrong, is it?” she asked.

Hertzal shook his head.

“It’s only that I don’t see you very often by yourself.”

She crossed back to the stove and sat down.

“What’s Hero doing?”

He shrugged.

“Do you know where Graham is?”

He shook his head.

“So… kind of hard to have a conversation with you.”

Hertzal looked down at the table, took a bite of his sandwich and nodded sadly.

“That’s okay.  Really.  I don’t mind.” 

The kettle on the stove started to whistle, and Senta went and got it.  She transferred the water to a teapot, put loose leaves of tea into an infuser and dropped the infuser into the teapot as well.  Then she brought the pot and two cups to the table.

“You know, I bet I can be as quiet as you.”

Hertzal shook his head.

“Let’s see.  Ready, set.”  She silently mouthed the word “go.”

They finished their sandwiches and tea, looking back and forth at one another.  Afterwards Hertzal helped Senta take the plates, cups, and teapot to the sink and wash them.  Then Senta took him by the hand and led him to the bookcase next to Bessemer’s corner and pulled a wooden box from the bottom shelf.  With a flourish, she pointed to the words burned into the top of the box that spelled out “checkers.”  Hertzal smiled and they sat down to set up the board and begin the first of several games.  By mid-afternoon Hertzal had won six while Senta had won four.  He looked at her and cocked his head to the side.

“I didn’t let you win!” She slapped both hands to her mouth.  “Kafira!  You tricked me.”

Hertzal shrugged.  

“Are you going to stay for tea?”

Hertzal looked at the ceiling.

“I don’t think Zurfina will be down again today.  When she goes up to her study, she usually stays a good long while.”

He looked left, right, and then down near his feet.

“No.  Bessemer is out hunting or flying or some such.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“No, I’m not worried.  Fina says that he’s old enough to stay out of trouble.”

He raised the other eyebrow.

“No, I don’t believe it either.”

Hertzal jerked his head in the direction of the door.

“I don’t think your sister would like it if I came to your house for tea.  Honor, I mean.  I don’t think she likes me.”

He nodded.

“Well, if you’re sure.”

Nodding again, the boy got up and began putting on his coat.  Senta searched around for her own outer clothing and boots, as well as the snowshoes that Graham had given her.  When they were both suitably bundled, they headed out the door into the snow.

“So when are your moving in to your new place?”

Hertzal stared at her.

“You’re already there?  When did you move in?”

He held up two fingers.

“The day before yesterday?  You should have called me.  I could have helped you.”

He shrugged.

“Yeah.  I guess you guys didn’t really have all that much stuff to move.  It’s like me when I got here.  I didn’t have anything but my doll and the clothes that Fina gave me.”

Hetzal nodded knowingly.

“You know, I guess it’s not so hard to hold a conversation with you after all.”

Graham Dokkins is a character who has a lot of influence in the story of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He is introduced in book 1, has a very large part in book 3, and small but important parts in books 2 and 4, and 5.  He is somebody whose presence is felt even when he’s not there, because the other characters talk about him.  One of my favorite parts in The Dark and Forbidding Land is the encounter between Graham and Senta with a couple of utahraptors.

Suddenly Graham stopped, putting his arm out to stop her as well.  Senta watched him as he slipped the strap of the rifle from his shoulder.  Only after he had pressed the butt of the stock to his shoulder did she look to see what had alarmed him.  Stalking slowly toward them, skirting the edge of the trees on the right hand side of the road were two monstrous feathered creatures.  They must have been the same two utahraptors that Aalwijn Finkler had seen.  They were magnificent creatures, cloaked in turquoise feathers that slowly turned to forest green at the end of their long tufted tails.  Those tails stuck straight out behind them, making their total length nearly twenty-five feet.  Their heads, eight feet above the ground, moved forward and back as they walked.  One of them would have been more than a match for a grown man.

Graham carefully aimed down the length of the barrel.  He squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened.  Lowering the weapon, he flipped the safety to the fire position, and then sighted again.  This time when he fired there was a satisfying crack.  The utahraptors stopped, startled for a moment, but seemed uninjured.  Graham worked the action and fired again.  This time Senta saw the bullet strike the trunk of a massive redwood about twenty feet above the ground and quite a bit behind the predators.

“It’s not sited in right,” muttered Graham, as he pulled back the bolt.

This time, as with the first shot, they were unable to determine where the missile hit.

“Um, aim at their feet and a bit to the right of them,” advised Senta.

This time the bullet hit a tree just to the right of the foremost creature.

“The next one is in your head!” called Graham as if he had intended the previous shots as warnings. 

The utahraptor did not look at all impressed.  He and his cohort were not much more than fifty feet away.  When they charged they could clear that distance in the blink of an eye.  For the moment though they were still being wary of the strange little creatures that made loud booming noises and refused to run.

“You better stand behind me,” said Graham bravely.