Byzantinism

[Thunderer]

"Come on, wench!", yelled one of the soldiers who tossed her through the doorway with a very rough manner, certainly rougher than her starved out body could resist. "You weren't so bloody slow when you shot my wingman down!"

"There, the antique chair. It will suffice", said a deeper, but much calmer and nobler voice. It was followed by a short pause of both sound and movement, as if someone was confused. "Don't worry, there are always disobedient soldiers around to wash it."

The armchair almost broke apart when she was thrown into it. The calm voice hummed imperatively, but casually: "You are dismissed. If I catch you outside eavesdropping, you will be sent to the Gallic front." She could discern a salute of four or six heavy boots. After that the door was shut. The calm voice, which stayed inside, opened it again, looked around the corridor outside and, obviously satisfied, gently closed it and locked it trice.


The fabric sack around her head was finally removed. It revealed Admiral Sir George Richard Hall sitting on a piano chair in front of her, and leaning onto what was in fact a harpsichord. The light was as bleak as her mood. The wall behind had a fresco of the Ancient Egyptian god Osiris painted over it. The ceiling was decorated with arabesques. She could recognize one of the sculptures near the doorway, a replica of "The Thinker" by Auguste Rodin, this specific one looted from a burning Obstinate-class. The opposite wall housed a column of filled out bookshelves. On the harpsichord, there stood a stuffed parrot in colours that once used to be vivid. If its appearance had some life left at all, it was restrained by the wooden cage.

"Good morning, Ms Lachance", said Hall, with as powerful a friendly mask as he could muster over his barren soul. He gently removed the piece of tape that was adhered over her mouth with his cold fingers, whose nails appeared to have accumulated beneath them the dirt from all the schemes whose dirty threads they pulled.
"I am Admiral George Richard Hall, Knight of the Bretonian Empire, and in charge of the Southern Defenses. Refer to me with "Sir". I hope that they treated you humanely during the interrogation?", he said without even heeding the condition of her apparel and hygiene. He could guess the answer to his question, but it was only a formality and he was not interested in the answer whatsoever. It only mattered that it wasn't his fault.

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