The Wry Functionary

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"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."[1]

The Wry Functionary is a powerful civil servant at the Shuttered Palace, whose counsel is even sought by the Empress herself.[2]

Just Business

"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."[3]

From his gloomy office,[4] the Functionary oversees the department responsible for managing the Palace's budget and accounts,[5] and evaluates petitions for funding from various parties[6][7][8] and other branches of London's government.[9]

The Functionary is a veteran of Palace affairs who acts as a representative of royal interests, high society,[10] and any force or faction promoting law and order.[11][12] He has the conversational skills to extract information from unsuspecting targets.[13] He maintains his composure at all times[14][15] and carefully measures his words to ensure he does not cause offense[16] or divulge his real opinion.[17] This last tendency makes him prone to long-winded speeches,[18] to the exasperation of his listeners.[19]

Outside of his employment, the Functionary maintains a modest social life and meets with his colleagues to play cards.[20] He keeps detailed diaries, which he hopes to publish as memoirs one day.[21]

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.

You can find out more about our spoiler policy here.


"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."[22]

The Wry Functionary met the woman who would become his wife when he was still early in his career. Verena was the head of his department: vastly more experienced and highly competent, with the quiet authority of someone who always knew exactly what needed to be done.[23] Despite their considerable age difference, the Functionary fell deeply in love with her,[24] and they were eventually married.[25] Their partnership was happy,[25] but the Functionary always knew, and accepted, that he would likely outlive Verena.[26]

He could not have known, however, how soon they would part. While on a pleasure boat, Verena was swept overboard and devoured by a zee-monster. Her death was permanent, as there simply was not enough of her left to return.[27] To make matters worse, the Functionary was left with no keepsakes of hers; his mother, for reasons unknown to her son, sold all of Verena's possessions to a "Cloaked Salesman."[28] The salesman carried a briefcase with precisely fitted and (apparently) Correspondence-labeled slots for every item the Functionary's wife left behind.[29] In return, he paid the Functionary’s mother in brass and gave her a locket that served as a receipt.[30] She told her son only about the brass. The locket, she kept to herself.[31] The most painful thing for the Functionary to lose was Verena's letters, as without them the memory of his wife's voice has faded away with time.[32]

In truth, the Functionary's mother knew something he did not; she had always disapproved of her son's marriage as a consequence, but had no desire to devastate him by telling him the truth.[33] Verena looked like she was as old as the Functionary's mother, but was actually well over a century old![34][35] Sometime in the late 1700s,[35] she made a bargain with the Masters[36] that allowed her to extend her life long enough to find love. The catch was that once she found the love she wished for, she would only be allowed to enjoy it for a few fleeting years.[37] The Cloaked Salesman was most likely Mr Pages, come to collect on the Masters' side of the deal.[38]

References

  1. ↑ Go for a glass of wine and a chat, 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. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant (Story), Fallen London
  4. ↑ 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."
  5. ↑ 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."
  6. ↑ 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."
  7. ↑ 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.""
  8. ↑ 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. [...]"
  9. ↑ 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."
  10. ↑ 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."
  11. ↑ 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!"
  12. ↑ 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."
  13. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "It's chess against a master. The Wry Functionary knows all the gambits: the long silence that pulls the speaker into saying more. The nod that implies the listener is already privy to the details and therefore there's no need for discretion. The slight, intentional misinterpretation that leads the speaker into one clarification more than he intended to make."
  14. ↑ 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."
  15. ↑ 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 […]"
  16. ↑ 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."
  17. ↑ 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."
  18. ↑ 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."
  19. ↑ 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."
  20. ↑ 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."
  21. ↑ 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."
  22. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London
  23. ↑ 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."
  24. ↑ 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."
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "No. They were married; they were happy. Transcendently so."
  26. ↑ 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 [...] if sometimes he remembered that it couldn't last forever, nonetheless the promise of happy years felt like enough."
  27. ↑ 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."
  28. ↑ 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."
  29. ↑ 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."
  30. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "She opens a locket around her neck. Inside is a black oval tile with two white squirming sigils painted on it. "He told me to wear it, and show the tile if more was asked of us." The sigils burn on their tile."
  31. ↑ 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."
  32. ↑ 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."
  33. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "The Functionary's mother is positively ancient. [...] "I knew that no good could come of that marriage," she says. "I asked him and asked him, do you want a woman who is nearly as old as I am? But he refused to listen. Though, ha! If he knew! But I never told him the worst of it, poor boy, he was always so sensitive.""
  34. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "She leans back in her chair and howls with laughter. This is a joke she has been waiting twenty years to tell to someone. "Oh, she wasn't as old as I am. Dear me, no! She was far older! Old enough to be his great-grandmama, at the very least!"
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "She did say at our wedding that she had waited a hundred years for someone worth marrying," he says. "One had imagined it was a turn of phrase. She was given to exaggeration. She asked if I minded that we wouldn't have as long together as most couples who marry young."
  36. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London ""From this house", "payment made in full". The handwriting... at a guess, Mr Pages? They'll have wanted the woman's letters most of all."
  37. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "The Functionary's Wife [...] had made some kind of bargain that allowed her to live long enough to meet the love of her life. This permitted her to survive for much longer than her proper lifespan, but did not give her many years to spend with the Functionary. To her, it was an exchange worth making."
  38. ↑ A Functionary's Confidant, Fallen London "I don't know how she managed to keep looking the age she did. If you ask me, she made a bargain with someone that you don't want to bargain with. And if I had to guess, I would say her dying like that, so strangely and suddenly, was the bargainer coming around to collect."
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