Ellis brightened. “Thank you, sir!”
“But this…complaint is not going to help your chances. It’s ridiculous, but it’s there. And among the seven applicants for the position, you are now the only one with a formal complaint among their files.” He shook his head. “It’s not good.”
“But surely they’ll see that it’s sabotage. Tubber is going for the job, too.”
“The complaint is anonymous, I fear,” Bracegirdle shook his head.
“The snake!”
“Quite.”
Ellis felt like Tubber had just punched him in the breadbasket. His ire rose, then collapsed in a pile of ashen defeat. “I didn’t have a chance anyway.”
“You can get more for your eggs than you’re asking, Sunderland.” Bracegirdle leaned back in his chair, making it squeak in protest. “The postmaster’s committee will be making its decision soon, so if you want to counteract this…sabotage is a good word…naff naff naff…” He seemed to be going through his pockets. He pulled out a scrap of parchment. “Here. I wrote you a letter of recommendation. The clean copy is in your file.” He threw the scrap on his desk.
Ellis snatched at it and his eyes went wide as he read. “That’s…it’s very kind of you, sir.”
“It won’t be enough,” Bracegirdle confessed. “So I’m going to give you an assignment.”
“Assignment, sir?” Ellis was not bad at his letters or maths, but he hated book reports.
“It’s a prestigious assignment, so when you complete it, that too will be reflected in your file.” He winked. “That may be enough.”
“What sort of assignment, sir?” Ellis was truly curious now.
“Just came over the blips-and-squawks.” The old haffolk shuffled through several sheets of parchment, trying to find the right one.
“Blips-and-squawks” was a code invented more than a thousand years previously by a dwarf named Hroffgar. It translated runes or letters into a series of shorter and longer beeps or clacks. The advantage of the code was that it could be transmitted great distances, even through space. It couldn’t reach the next galaxy…but then they knew of no one who lived in the next galaxy. Within their own star system, however, and the next, and the one beyond that, it worked just fine.
He apparently found the right paper and adjusted his spectacles. He squinted, then his eyebrows rose higher than Ellis thought possible.
“Well, poke me with a witch’s femur,” Bracegirdle said. “I misspoke. Sorry, my boy. This didn’t come via blips-and-squawks, this came via seerstone.” He shook his head. “I didn’t notice that before. I’m getting too old for this…” he trailed off.
If a message came via a seerstone, it meant one thing: summoners were somehow involved. Or perhaps there was a need for secrecy. Each of those prospects seemed exciting. Ellis had never met a summoner—at least not to his knowledge. Everdale was a moon of Hearth, so he had met humans aplenty. And of course, dwarfs were a ubiquitous and indispensable presence—nothing got done without dwarfish craft and expertise, unless it be on elf worlds.
Haffolk only existed because men and dwarfs in close proximity inevitably resulted in unexpected unions and unwanted offspring. The Everdale Haffolk Reservation was a beautiful place to live, and Ellis loved it, but no one was under any illusions about what it was—a place to hide the shameful, infertile children of human and dwarfish parents. So men and dwarfs were common visitors to the Dale, but summoners… Ellis’ mind reeled with sudden fantasies.
“I’m going to give you this job,” Bracegirdle waved the service order parchment at him, “even though Catspittle will moan about it like a goat in labor.”
Ellis grinned. Everyone called Felix Axtiller “Catspittle” behind his back. It delighted Ellis that Bracegirdle did, too. Axtiller was the most senior of the couriers, and the most important jobs should, by rights, be his.
“What are you going to tell him?” Ellis asked.
“You leave that to me,” Bracegirdle narrowed one eye.
Ellis liked the feeling of being a co-conspirator with his boss. He didn’t even think the old haffolk liked him. “I’m your haffolk, sir.”
“Good to hear it, Sunderland.” Bracegirdle turned and fished out a file. Ellis squirmed internally, as it seemed to take the old haffolk an eternity to do anything. Finally, Bracegirdle selected a blank transport requisition parchment and, dipping his goose quill in ink, began to fill it out. “I’m sending you with some dispatch to Yngremark.”
Ellis’ eyebrows rose and he felt his innards twist. “Um…off-world, sir? I don’t know about going off-world.” Ellis felt suddenly faint. He’d been to every corner of the Dale, and he knew Rhory well enough. Ellis had never been off-world before, not even to Hearth, the home world of humans, the planet that Everdale circled as its satellite and celestial companion. His pulse quickened and he found himself unable to sit still.
“You have to go to the job, Sunderland. The job is not going to go to you.”
“Yes, but…Yngremark…” he breathed. Yngremark was one of the two planets considered home to dwarfs. Of course, dwarfs could be found on most planets, but the dwarfish culture and architecture of their home worlds were famous. Yngremark had been the first dwarfish colony once they had become spacefaring, but now it rivaled the birth planet of the dwarfs, Ältremark, in its glory.
Bracegirdle sighed. “Look, Sunderland, I don’t blame you. No haffolk wants to leave hearth and home and family and naps and second breakfasts—”
“No…” Ellis agreed.
“But you have an opportunity to shine, here, to pull out ahead of the pack, to advance your case…” he lowered his voice, “for postmaster, I mean.”
Ellis gulped. He suddenly felt very small indeed. He gripped the wooden armrests of the chair he was in and steeled himself for what he was about to say. “Um…all right…when do we leave?”
Bracegirdle’s grumpiness seemed to return. “We?”
“I…uh…” Ellis felt momentarily lost. “Kit usually goes with me—”
“Oh yes, the Cornfeather girl,” Bracegirdle shook his head. “Someday she must contribute to society.”
“Kit contributes a lot.”
Bracegirdle’s eyebrows rose, and gave Ellis a look that he took to mean, “Don’t push your luck.” The old haffolk removed his spectacles and rubbed at his eyes. “How does that girl earn her keep, anyway?”
“I split my pay with her,” Ellis said.
“My dear boy, you make a pittance. This is all right with your family, is it?”
Haffolk “families” were not united by blood, but by chance. As soon as a haffolk child was born, it was whisked away to Everdale before it brought shame to any human or dwarfish clans and placed with a haffolk family by lot. For all their artificial origins, haffolk families bonded quickly and well. They were large, usually, often containing twelve or more ’folk of varying ages. Ellis’ own family had seven people in it, at present, but they were past due for a new baby.
“Ever since Kit began to accompany me, I…well, sir, I don’t get beaten up any more.”