Machinist of Mana

I had once posited that my mother hated 'The Season' and now I knew that that was not only true, but that I fervently agreed. Everyone had been in an absolute state for the past week, things being packed, things being left, what went where, when, and how. She as the woman of the house was bearing the brunt of it, and was clearly straining under the pressure.

From conversations I got a light layout of the itinerary. We'd be taking carriages to the local train station, from whence we'd be on a train for a day-and-a-half. The train would take us to a port, where we would then be passing by boat to the island where the local duke resided. This was the gathering point for our part of the country's nobles. The whole thing would take nearly three days, and that was if everything went perfectly.

Things didn't stop, even on the evening before, something which kept me from getting to sleep easily. People were running round the house well after dark, gathering up all the cases, stacking them, labeling them, everything. Even if I had the mind of an adult, my body was still that of a child, and staying up that late wasn't normal at all.

Which didn't improve the next morning, when before dawn even arrived I was scooped out of my bed by Mrs. Lutte.

“Owah!” I shouted as I found myself going from sleep to being hoisted into the air.

“Sorry m'lord, but you have to get up,” she told me in a low voice. “We're leaving soon, need to hurry.”

It took me a few seconds to get my bearing, as I looked too and fro with bleary eyes. “Where are we going?”

“To get a bath.” She seemed to hesitate. “I know you like to run, but please, today we don't have the time, and your mother is very, very busy. If you behave I've arranged for a little surprise for you.” It was clear she was desperate that I behave.

“Okay,” I agreed. I didn't really want to do much more than sleep right now, so I could easily behave.

“Good, let's go, not a moment to waste.”

Honestly the next hour or so was a blur. I was washed, given a quick breakfast, and carried out to the carriage, where I got to sit dozing as boxes were piled aboard. It was a bit chilly, but someone, ostensibly Mrs. Lutte, had put a blanket around me to keep me warm. She was in and out constantly, checking on things.

“Alright, we need to go, anything else can be sent later,” mother loudly proclaimed as she hurried down the front steps. “If we don't get going we'll be late, and the train won't wait.”

“Right behind you love,” father said as he turned to give some final instructions to the under-butler who was to be in charge of the estate while we were gone. The head butler was of course joining us.

“Percival? Where is Percival?” mother asked as she looked about outside.

“In the carriage my lady, sleeping,” Mrs. Lutte said as she quickly appeared. I was just awake enough to give my mother a small wave out the little window. “All his things are packed as well, just finished checking the last of it.”

“Oh you're a wonder. Didn't give you any trouble did he?” she asked.

“Not a bit ma'am, not a bit.”

There were many, many disadvantages to being as young as I was, but there were also upsides. One of these was that if you were sleepy, nobody cared if you just slept, and they'd oftentimes try to let you continue doing just that. For this reason I napped the whole way to the train station on my mother's lap, hardly even registering what was going on. It wasn't until some hours later on the train that I finally properly woke up.

“Good morning, sleep well?” mother asked as she petted my head, looking down at me.

“Mmm, yes,” I told her as I rubbed my eyes.

“Well I'm told you were a little angel this morning. Your grandfather made you something for today, a present if you were good.” That comment got me fully awake, blinking and looking at her. “Oh I thought you might like that.”

She pulled out a little toy train engine. The design was much like those from my old world, though some of the aesthetics were a little more refined, the metal more decorated than most locomotives had been. It had doors and open windows the opened and closed with a bit of effort, and the wheels moved, taking the small bars the connected them with them. It was a very impressive toy, particularly for something handmade.

I was struck, the amount of effort he must have put into this, the amount of time. I wasn't even sure how he'd done some of the pieces with his equipment. It didn't seem like a huge thing, but to know he'd gone through all that trouble for a gift was truly touching. I'd have to find the right place for it.

“Where's father?” I asked after thoroughly examining my new possession.

“He went to one of the lounges to smoke,” mother said with a crinkled nose. She didn't smoke, and he didn't around her. As a point of fact father never smoked around any women so far as I knew. He had a separate room for it that I'd never been in, where he and his friends sometimes retired after their visits.

For a bit I wondered if that was some sort of social rule that I'd never realized. That wouldn't be too odd, as back on Earth it had been the same for a time. Some of the social conventions had strictly separated men and women during leisure time. As a child I was still too young to get pulled into almost any of that, or much social interaction with adults at all, other than the servants.

After a time I turned to mother and began asking questions. I asked about the train, and where we were, and why we were going so far. I knew the answers to most of these already, but wanted to see if I got any new information. For a long time I didn't, then I asked the right question.

“What's the duke's island like?” I asked.

“Oh it's big, very, very big. If you got in a carriage, it would take you two days to go from the top to bottom, and half a day from one side to the other,” mother told me.

“Wow,” I said, that was really quite the sizable island.

“Yes, and there's a huge city on the south of it. You see a long time ago some nobles were very, very bad. They did things they weren't supposed to, not at all, and so the king and the Orders got together and banished them. Their children were all taken away for what they did, and they weren't allowed any more.”

That was a huge surprise. I knew a bit about the Orders, the moralistic groups that all the priests belonged to. They didn't do much from what I'd heard, but were the masters of healing magic. To hear that they'd taken such action was very out of character from what I'd heard.

“What did they do?” I asked.

“They stole a bunch of children,” she told me. “And hurt some of them. When people learned they were furious, so they were banished. Even then though they had some family who wanted to help them a bit, and one or two friends, so they didn't suffer as much as they should have.” She sighed. “In time they began to build new homes, and a small city to live out their days in. One by one they got old and when all of them were gone, well, the city was mostly empty except for the priests that had kept them in their place. So it was given to a duke to own, and to grow.”

“The priests stayed?” I asked.

“They'd made homes too Percival, and had families. Over time they and the duke grew the city, with it being passed down through the duke's line as each father left it to his son. Now it's huge and full of people. It's not as big as the capital in Lithere, but it's pretty big.”

“Lithere?” I asked.

“Where the king lives. Now, I'm a bit hungry, how about we go to the dining car and see if we can get a bit to eat?” I didn't miss how she'd changed the subject, maybe it bothered her for some reason.