068 – How Many Star Service?

A set of porters stepped out to take the animals as the three dismounted. The Caplan’s were about to unhook their weapons and bags from the saddles, when Caspian spoke, in the language they commonly spoke among themselves.

“Leave them. Everything will be taken to your rooms. Despite their racial arrogance, they still take inordinate pride in their treatment of guests.”

Caspian still had his staff, but made no move toward his other saddle born equipment. Instead he stood aside as his porter took in horse away. Rox looked critically at the elf that held her own horse as it led it and the attached mule away. Steven was more interested in appraising the architecture.

Once out of earshot Rox caught up to Caspian, who was walking to the center opening of the structure. “That elf did not look any older than I am, though a bit taller. How fast do these elves grow?”

Rox had finally asked a question that Caspian did not have a solid answer for.  “I’m not certain. If you can get a friendly one, you can ask them.”

The door was twice Steven’s height, and the pair formed a square, as two door-elves opened for the three to enter. Directly inside was the first real culture shock for the Caplan’s. The desk that lined the far side of the foyer sat at shoulder height to Roxanne. A male elf sat behind the desk looking like concierges the universe over, anxious to help as much as possible in their strictly defined impeccably polite parameters: money talks but only up to a point. Caspian again spoke elf introducing himself, his companions, and at whose request he was here by, and was quickly passed to a bellhop who led the three to their rooms.

Caspian was lodged in a small suite in one section of the structure. He went in and was out of sight for a moment as the bellhop whisked Roxanne and Steven to a larger suite.

The Caplan’s suite was a studio with a common room, to the left a wash room against the hallway and a bed chamber to the outside, all divisible by curtains, with a few free standing screens also arranged for privacy from section to section. The bed chamber and common room both had balcony exits with bi-folding doors. The balcony looked onto a courtyard in the middle of the hotel. Though they had not changed level, they were on the forth level up from the ground of the courtyard.

All the furniture was of a scale that dwarfed the Caplan’s. The bellhop had seen the size disparity, and blanched slightly, before leaving.

“It’s been years. Is this how big adult furniture is to Diana and Alex?” Steven asked as he pulled his vest off and set it on a chair.

Rox put her own stuff down on another chair. “No. This is how it was to them four years ago.”

They set about looking the room over, finding it larger than the suite Rox had in Veradale, and not just for scale. It was appointed nicer, in ‘impress the customer-sheik’ where as Veradale had been palace utilitarian.

Caspian knocked on their door a few moments later, and was less enthralled by the decor than he was the scale. He looked at the things draped over the furniture, and continued on. “Yeah, they will probably be along in a moment, to change out the furniture, now that they know your size.”

Rox put a hand to her hip and shifted her weight to one side. “Excuse me? What does our size have to do with anything?”

Caspian brushed it off, as he looked out. “You got a balcony. I’ve got total indoors. I expect the clan did not bother to inform the staff here that you were of human size, as opposed to elf. I expect it will be somewhat of an embarrassment to them that you are only as tall as you are. The settlements we went though where the half-elves were? I expect more of them were half than you realized. How tall the offspring gets is usually as much a crapshoot as any other genetics, at least in the first generation. I expect your progenitor had a bit of magic at hand to deal with that, but that is not worth speculating about right now. Nor is that why I am here.”

Steven’s sense of humor was at the fore as he continued poking about the room. “Ah, the second great question of life: why are you here? As opposed to the third great question of living: where shall we have lunch? I like that one first.”

Caspian had faced this sort of non sequitur humor from Steven for the last several months, and so was ready for it. “Lunch will be out in the market, as soon as we are dismissed to go by the Clan. I expect the staff here sent a runner once we were out of the foyer. I expect their messenger will be here shortly.”

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Rox opened it, and looked at the belly buttons of a bellhop’s vest. In the hall behind him was a work gang of others with an array of furniture in hand.

The first spoke. “The staff apologizes for the inconvenience of the furniture not being proper for your stay, and is here to remedy the situation, if you will give us leave.”

Rox was getting annoyed at being able to hear a language, but not able to speak it. Steven simply read the situation for what it was, despite not understanding a word that was said.

Caspian answered for them, visually gathering Steven up as he did. “Yes, we were just stepping out. If a messenger comes for these, please divert them to my rooms.”

Steven picked his and Rox’s things up as he left third.

Out in the hall, he caught up to Caspian and his wife. “You need to teach me that language.”

Caspian just shrugged. “In time.”

Lunch was the first fully relaxed meal in a while. No trail to hurry to get on to, no balancing their food on their laps, no cooking over a camp fire. They sat at a table and made a splendid spectacle of being the shortest people in the open air deli, unable to communicate by words, but having the money to communicate just the same.

As they sat, Steven’s continual observation of things military showed him that the deli they were sitting at was a battlement that looked over the district of the city below them. Complete with the stone mounts for catapults and possibly a trebuchet, artfully used by the deli for their own purposes. As he looked the city over further he was able to see that this city was as much the fortress as Veradale had the capacity to be.

Rox enjoyed the local food, finding it pleasing to her pallet. She had picked up the bread making from Steven as they were on the road, and had experimented as far as their limited supplies had allowed. The varieties of flat breads served with their lunch were delightful to sample. As well she was glad to be off the back of an animal and off her feet.

Caspian kept an eye out the whole time, waiting for some messenger to show up. But no one but the waiter interrupted the meal. Cyrril explored the area and then settled onto a sun lit plinth nearby. As Caspian was expecting to be interrupted, he was not as relaxed as the Caplan’s.

They walked back to their hotel and Caspian led them first to his room, so that the Caplan’s would know where he was staying if they needed to. They went back through the foyer as they returned to the suite the Caplan’s were assigned, when the expected messenger intercepted them.

A young female elf with a flat wooden box under her arm approached Caspian. She was little taller than Roxanne, wearing her sides in beads and dreadlocks. Her vest, blouse, and skirt did little to set her apart from the rest of the locals. She handed the box to Caspian, talked briefly with him, and left.

Steven had watched, curious. “What is that?”

Caspian looked at the box as if it was unclean. “They kept the formal robes they made for me the last time I was here. I left them behind as too bulky to carry. I personally think they look hideous. They ‘will see me tomorrow and thence I can inform you of when they will see and talk with Roxanne’. In the mean time, Roxanne can expect to spend time with a tailor. A messenger will be by shortly to pick her up.”

“And what about me,” Steven asked.

Caspian put the box under his arm. “I expect they don’t care what you do so long as you do not interfere. But I doubt they will be outfitting you yet, if at all. I had to pay for these. I guess that Rox will not.”

They found the furniture in the room was closer to their physical size when they got to the suite, such that it was actually sized to their use. Caspian set his box on the table and sat down to rest in an overstuffed chair that looked out across the balcony.

Steven and Rox found that their equipment had mostly arrived. The tents and cooking implements and food bags had not, nor had the animal’s harnesses or other tack. But their clothes, weapons, bedrolls, and other equipment were all in array. They set about sorting it and arranging it for washing. On questioning, Caspian replied that the hotel might probably wash all of it, but they would need to explicitly ask for this service. Or they could wash it in the over sized tub.

The expected messenger arrived shortly. The same elf that Caspian had met two previous times, and the Caplan’s once. He spoke the language of Veradale, and so Rox could actually communicate. She went with and was gone for several hours, as Steven tended to the gear.

Caspian dozed off in the chair.