The Wry Functionary

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"He is skilled, tactful, experienced; he has an inside view of Palace business. He will side with Society and the Bazaar, and may give long-winded speeches."[1]

The Wry Functionary is a powerful civil servant at the Shuttered Palace, his counsel sought even by the Empress herself.[2] His office is gloomy but richly decorated, and he is a great conversationalist.[3] The Functionary strongly advocates for law and order, siding firmly with Society and the Bazaar.[4] He has little patience for chaos, violence,[5] or dissidents.[6]

He is skilled, tactful, and experienced; an old hand at Palace affairs with an inside view of its inner workings. As a veteran of courtly intrigue, he maintains a carefully controlled expression[7][8] and has a indirect way of speaking that is carefully measured to not cause offense,[9] or give away his real opinion.[10] This tendency makes him prone to long-winded speeches,[11] to the exasperation of his listeners.[12]

The Funtionary's department is responsible for managing the Palace's budget and accounts.[13] He regularly receives petitions from citizens[14][15][16] and other branches of government,[17] evaluating each one to decide whether it deserves funding, and if so, how much.

Outside of work, he maintains a modest social life and plays cards monthly with his colleagues.[18] He has a reasonable phobia of sorrow-spiders.[19] He keeps detailed diaries which he hopes to publish as memoirs one day.[20]

The Lost Lenore

"Are you quite sure you want to know this?"

Beyond this point lie major spoilers for Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, or Mask of the Rose. This may include endgame or major Fate-locked spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.

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"You draw him out gently, carefully. He tells you about her taste for reading anthropological studies in bed. He tells you about how she did her own dressmaking, in a circle of foxfire candles, not because she couldn't afford to buy her clothes, but because her preferences in dress were so specific, mannish in colour but feminine in shape. He tells you about the tiny tattoo on the knuckle of her left hand."[21]

In his youth, when he first joined the department, the Wry Functionary met the woman who would become his wife, the formidable head of the department. She was vastly more experienced, highly competent, and carried herself with the quiet authority of someone who always knew exactly what needed to be done.[22] Despite the considerable age difference, he fell deeply in love with her. After a long and respectful courtship, he proposed,[23] to which she accepted. Theirs was a happy marriage.[24] But the Functionary always knew, and accepted, that he would likely outlive her.[25] What he did not expect was how soon that parting would come.

Tragedy struck without warning. While on a pleasure boat, his wife was swept overboard and devoured by a creature of the Neath's dark waters. Her death was final and unrecoverable, there wasn't enough of her to come back.[26] To make matters worse, he was left with nothing of hers to mourn. His mother, for reasons never fully explained, sold all of his wife's possessions to a "Cloaked Salesman" who visited their home unbidden.[27] The mysterious individual carried a briefcase with precisely fitted slots for every item his wife had left behind.[28] Payment was made in Nevercold Brass, along with an additional reward that his mother refused to speak of.[29] Among the lost things, the one that wounded him most were her letters. Their absence remains a quiet ache even now, as without them the memory of his wife's voice has faded away with time.[30]

References

  1. ↑ Visit your acquaintance, the Regretful Soldier, Fallen London
  2. ↑ Pop in while you're passing, Fallen London "'Oh, hello! Do come in, my dear, come in. Did we see the cricket? […] I'm glad you came. […] I'm having a terrible time with this bill. Her Majesty wants my opinion on it before she signs it to law, but the business […] is a complex one...'"
  3. ↑ Go for a glass of wine and a chat, Fallen London "His office is gloomy as a widower's crypt, but very elegantly appointed. He is always glad to see you and the conversation is invariably entertaining, if roundabout."
  4. ↑ Visit your acquaintance, the Regretful Soldier, Fallen London "He is skilled, tactful, experienced; he has an inside view of Palace business. He will side with Society and the Bazaar, and may give long-winded speeches."
  5. ↑ Persuade the Wry Functionary, Fallen London "It is unfortunate. One abhors violence. But there is an order to things, and we take a serious risk with the fabric of society when we ignore it. Some of us are old enough to remember, a little, the chaos just after the Fall. One cannot resume such a situation as that!"
  6. ↑ Persuade the Wry Functionary, Fallen London ""Throw her out," says the Wry Functionary. "I don't know who let her in in the first place, but they cannot have properly investigated her views. Have you seen the publications she wrote, while she was still in the employ of Benthic?" At this, he produces from his case a dossier fully two inches thick."
  7. ↑ Vote the Wry Functionary off the Board, Fallen London "You move the proposal, and the Wry Functionary recuses himself from the conversation. His face does not betray any irritation."
  8. ↑ Visit your acquaintance, the Regretful Soldier, Fallen London "The Functionary's manner never extends to exuberance. Nonetheless […] he is more delighted than even he can hide. It is an honour to be involved in a project of this scale; he has a keen interest in the management of corporate affairs […]"
  9. ↑ Persuade the Wry Functionary, Fallen London ""The land beyond the mirrors, to the extent that it is also the land reached by honey-dreamers, should be treated with due caution, not to say outright avoidance; though in saying this, I would not wish to be misunderstood in a way that might place a negative or adversarial construction upon the behaviours, habits, or mores of individuals who could be in some way relationally attached to the court of Her Enduring Majesty, especially as these matters might colloquially be presented in the context of backstairs palace gossip." The Board Secretary writes this down as a Yes."
  10. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "Not all of us enjoy an equivalent freedom of expression. In my line of work, it would be most infelicitous to say anything that could even be mistaken for an opinion [...]. It would compromise one's function as neutral observer."
  11. ↑ Palace Insider: the Wry Functionary, Fallen London "Few people know more than your old friend about the comings and goings at the Palace. The problem will be getting him to explain matters in fewer than ten thousand words."
  12. ↑ Debating Matters of Business with the Board, Fallen London "The Board is considering whether to vote off the Wry Functionary. "He takes so long to explain his votes," says someone, wearily."
  13. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "Horrible, I know," he says, clearing a sheaf off a chair for you. "The Palace has commissioned inquiries into the Admiralty."
  14. ↑ Catch up on his recent work, Fallen London "The Wry Functionary reads aloud to you from his most recent correspondence. A gentleman in the perfume trade has submitted an enterprising if self-interested scheme to reduce the stench of the Flit. "One lauds the aim if not the methodology," he concludes, tossing the sheet into the fire."
  15. ↑ Follow up on his work, Fallen London "The Wry Functionary reads aloud, in the driest imaginable voice, a petition from a woman who proposes a dirigible network to map the Unterzee from above, affixing powerful lights to the ceiling. "If one calculates the expense in Lamplighter Beeswax," he says, "one finds that it exceeds the entire income of Fallen London by a factor of thirty-two. Not that one hasn't received similarly implausible accountings from the Admiralty itself.""
  16. ↑ Follow up on his work, Fallen London "With a sigh [...] "Common citizens sometimes wish to express their complaints and preferences to the Palace. [...]" [...] The writer has enclosed a diagram of a giant lens [...] ravings about an artificial dawn [...] work quickly or else the New Sequence will achieve it first. [...]"
  17. ↑ Catch up on his recent work, Fallen London "[...] discussion [...] setting a time for a [...] meeting to discuss the proper criteria[...] to choosing a Select Committee [...] for creating a shortlist of candidates [...] towards appointing a Supervisor of Venom Certification [...] hinted that the Duchess does not favour the plan."
  18. ↑ So what are we playing, gentlemen?, Fallen London "A fine evening passes in a cramped […] room that may have once been a royal chamber. […] you come out firmly ahead. But not so far ahead that you won't be invited back. One of the functionaries is taken by your wit, and invites you to visit him."
  19. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "One has a pronounced phobia of sorrow-spiders," the Functionary says. "One wonders how they guessed."
  20. ↑ Try to describe what you do currently, Fallen London "It's likely that when you leave he will write all this down. He does keep a journal for his future memoirs. Perhaps you'll merit a page or two."
  21. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London
  22. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "At last he begins to tell you. When as a young man he joined the department, there was a lady – a formidable lady – in charge. There was no secret she did not know, no social circumstance she could not turn to her own advantage, no official who could daunt her. She was, by his telling, a creature of exquisite self-discipline."
  23. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "In time (the Functionary tells you) he fell in love. The woman was his senior in both age and position, older by more than twenty years, but they worked closely together, and soon he could not think of anyone else. Eventually he dared to approach her. The Functionary's courtship must have been as longwinded as a treaty negotiation."
  24. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "No. They were married; they were happy. Transcendently so."
  25. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "He knew that she was older, and he had reconciled himself, if painfully, to the likelihood of one day becoming her widower. But in the meantime there was her throaty laugh, and her dry wit at the expense of the Palace, and a knowing trick she had with a frozen mushroom. And if sometimes he remembered that it couldn't last forever, nonetheless the promise of happy years felt like enough."
  26. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "And then it ended. Early. Far earlier than he'd bargained for. She fell off a pleasure boat and was dismembered by the Thing below, and there were too few pieces to come back, even to the tomb-colonies. There wasn't even anyone to resent. Her death was misfortune, not murder. It was the sheerest mischance that she was not alive still."
  27. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "In the normal course of things, I would of course possess a number of mementos of my late wife," says the Functionary. "But while I was away from home, my mother sold Verena's clothes, her letters, and a miniature of her face to a Cloaked Salesman. It seems that he came to the door offering a high price for the possessions of the recently deceased. Despite my efforts, I was not able to find him and buy them back. I inquired at the other houses up and down the road, but it transpired that he had visited none of them. My house alone was graced by the visit of this creature."
  28. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "He tells you what his mother told him. When she agreed to the exchange, the Salesman produced a case lined with velvet. Inside were pockets and slots exactly made to hold each of the items the Functionary's wife had left behind. Indeed, the slots were even labelled, though the labels were in writing that squirmed when she looked at them."
  29. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "My mother says he paid in Nevercold Brass," says the Functionary. "One suspects, however, considering her manner of speaking, that he offered her some additional reward that she did not choose to disclose to me."
  30. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "It is the letters that I am most distressed to have lost," he explains. "She had a distinctive way of expressing herself, and when I read them over I could imagine the sound of her voice. Now, however, so many years have passed that I doubt I could conjure her again."
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