[Open] Keeping a store afloat

[Orianna Aubellard]

Aubellard Apothecary and Surgery, The Painted Ladies

Afternoon, 29 Roalis 2720

"You need to be careful when adding the feverfew extract to this mixture, Lisette," the apothecary said to her apprentice as she showed the fellow galdor how to create a mixture intended to help migraines. "An extra drop or two isn't going to ruin this mixture, but if you get in the habit of being sloppy, you could ruin other mixtures."

"It's also important to note that when you're working with addictive extracts, it is absolutely imperative to be accurate. We do not want to create addicts," Anna said, looking up for a moment to glance at her apprentice, who was taking frantic notes. "You won't be working with those mixtures for a bit yet, but it's best to get in the habit of being as precise as possible all the time, even if there's wiggle room in the formula."

The room the two worked in was well-lit, the walls absolutely covered in shelves full of vials of tinctures and extracts and bags of dried herbs. There was a small sink in the corner, but there are shelves even above the sink. A large book, looking to be at least 500 pages, sits on a work table in the middle room. There's just enough space for the two women to stand comfortably as the older galdor tucks a loose cinnamon-colored curl behind her ear and demonstrates how to add the extract.

"Please grab a label and write out the directions for this," Anna said as she straightened up, sealed the vial, and shook it. She stretched, her back cracking audibly. "Then I want you to do 4 vials of the same mixture. We're also low on that arthritis balm the women on Mulberry street like, so you should probably make a batch of that for backstock. When you're done, come down and we'll review how to use Quantitative Conversation to check your mixtures."

Anna washed her hands thoroughly, then watched her apprentice as she starts to replicate the recipe that Anna just showed her. Lisette was just out of school, eager to help people and willing to study as much as needed so she could be a good apothecary. But she was a bit too eager and starting to be a bit sloppy, so Anna hoped she could learn focus and accuracy.

The galdor stepped out of the room, undoing her ponytail just to redo it so she could capture the stray curls that had slipped out. "Any customers?" she called as she went down the stairs. She knew the answer. Fran, her human helper, would have called up if a customer was there. But that didn't mean that she didn't hope that Fran had forgotten to call up.

It had been almost a year since the Vienda store had opened and business was steady, if not as robust as it had been in Brunnhold. Customers came in spurts, usually around the time the shifts at the factories changed. Galdori rarely stopped in, preferring the apothecaries and doctors in the wealthier parts of Vienda, which had cut into Anna's profits. The store wasn't in any danger of closing, but Anna definitely felt the pinch. If not for her brother's discounts on herbs, things would be dire.

"Has anyone even looked in?" Anna sighed as she saw Fran sitting on one of the chairs, sipping coffee. Unlike other store owners, Anna didn't chastise her help for resting if there wasn't anything to do.

"I saw a couple people, but…" Fran trailed off. "Shift change should be soon."

"True. We'll see how things go," Anna said, smiling. "I take it you finished the inventory of the west wall?"

"Yup," Fran said cheerfully. "The list of what we need is on the counter."

"Excellent. Thank you," Anna said as she made her way behind the counter and started figuring out what she needed to restock. She focused on the paperwork, trying to ignore her anxiety over when she would hear the door open.

[Bailey Sneed]

Vienda - Aubellard Apothecary and Surgery, The Painted Ladies
The Twenty-Ninth of Roalis, Afternoon

E

ven in the Ladies, Mr Shrike has his reach. Somehow he collects the messages at the coffee house on Hazlar Street and at the scrying offices on Quillbrook Street. He’s never seen Mr Shrike in the Ladies, save for the times he comes openly to meet, to talk, and to speculate. Mr Shrike appears only when he means to appear. Never at any other time. The sneaky bastard. He himself, he’s almost proud of it. Almost proud he’s taught his legalistic patron how not to be seen. When had he done that? The instance does not come to mind.

Thea, his second least irritating sister, has never seen him at the scrying office. Thea has a good eye, even if she’s mostly working in the back, transcribing letters for kovs too lazy to do their own encoding. Never seen the man, so she says. He believes her. Thea’s not prone to falsity. Mr Shike’s distinctive enough, one you get used to seeing him at all. If she’d seen him she would have known.

Night before last, Thea had come by with the communique. Short, terse, and unmistakably Mr Shrike’s.

Aubellard Apothecary (PL). Inquire within on opium. High quality, high potency. Pure. Use whatever ploy you deem necessary. Find me a source. Funds to follow.

Carry on.

-S


Funds to follow’ is as good as cash in hand. Mr Shrike never comes up in arrears. No chance of ‘peaching him on debt. ‘Funds to follow’ always means money in the account at Quillbrook Street. Thea vouches for that. He has no call to doubt his sister. No call to doubt Mr Shrike.

Aubellard Apothecary then, and a bright afternoon with the heat already rising. Too hot for his tastes, and too bright. A decent enough looking place: clean, well maintained, professional. Aubellard, so the chant has it, is a Mugrobi golly. Fancy enough to know her business, not so fancy as to have her shop up in Kingsway or on Trevelyan Square. Ma vouches for Aubellard’s headache powders. As good a recommendation as any. Any apothecary worth the name will stock laudanum. Any apothecary worth their mortar and pestle will know just who is selling the stronger stuff.

News and rumors are all he requires. Better than swag are rumors. Rumors can be traded any number of times and the value hardly drops. A few bottles of strong laudanum, and maybe tincture of hygeth will be his bona fides. No apothecary he’s ever known turns down a proper sale. Besides, Mr Shrike can use both. The former to dull his pain from all that damn boxing, the later to keep his mind going and keep him from sleep.

Sleep. Perhaps sleep might do Mr Shrike some good. Sleeping draughts as well then. A fine list. Just the sort of thing a somewhat louche golly might require. Mr Shrike is nothing like louche. Still, no harm in keeping that quiet.

The shop bell rings at his entry. The place smells bitter-sweet and half-cloying. Just so. It is the correct aroma. Underneath that, the scent of solvents and alcohol. Disinfectants. Well, Aubellard’s a sawbones as well. Handy that.

At the counter, lady: darkish skin, curling hair, oddly pale eyes. Not the no-color of Mr Shrikes, but more Anaxi than expected. He’s never known Mugrobi to go native about the eyes. Even Sebele of the Elephant has eyes the color of the sky at midnight. Darker even than his own. She’s Rookery born and bred, and with the accent to prove it, though she speaks Mug with the best of them. A decent lady is Sebele. Perhaps the Aubellard is cut from the same cloth. He can only hope so.

“Afternoon, madame.” Madame? It seems the wrong word, too informal, too quotidian. “That is, I mean good afternoon doctor.” He gives a civil nod of the head. “I was led to understand that you might be able to assist me, and by me, I mean my master.” Master. He supposes it is technically the right word, and the word that will do, but it fails to capture the proper nuance. This is neither the time nor the place of such nuance. “I am very much afraid that, owing to an extensive array of injuries, that he is in significant and ongoing pain. As your name was recommended to me, I was hoping I might acquire some prepoent opium, or at least unusually strong laudanum. My master is most insistent upon that point.”

[Orianna Aubellard]

Aubellard Apothecary

Afternoon, 29 Roalis 2720

Anna looked up as a customer entered. "Afternoon," she said cheerily as Fran popped up from her chair and started tidying the store.

The Mugrobi surgeon quickly gave the man a once-over as she listened to his spiel. A wick, by the sense of his glamour, but her opinions of wicks had softened slightly over her tenure in Vienda. As much as her father's death still hurt her, she couldn't say that the entire wick race was trouble. It just wasn't logical to assume that all wicks are criminals, just like it wasn't logical to assume that all passives were dangerous.

But this one… There was a shiftiness about him that made her suspicious. The Seventen may not be in the business of cracking down on addicts, but they did close down businesses that were known easy sources of addictive substances. But she didn't make a habit of immediately refusing service to customers, even if they were giving her what could be an entirely fictitious story to get access to their drug of choice.

"I don't give out opium to anyone but the patient themselves. I feel it's best that I do an examination to ensure the patient is getting a proper dose," Anna said firmly. "I'm in the business of saving lives, not destroying them. Laudanum, on the other hand…" the galdor eyed the wick up. "Stay here," she said before turning and heading to the storage room.

As soon as Anna was out of the room, Fran moved over to whisper to Bailey. "Dr. Aubellard's goods are safe, but you’ll find it hard to get poppy from her. She’s one of those people who worries about addicts too much, ye ken?" the human said, rolling her eyes. "If your master really needs opium, try Rolandus Pendleworth over on Foreman's Way. He has a small 'surgery' there."

[Bailey Sneed]

Vienda - Aubellard Apothecary and Surgery, The Painted Ladies
The Twenty-Ninth of Roalis, Afternoon

T

he Doc’s a contentious sort. Knows her stock has its recreational patients, turns her nose up at them too. Well, fair enough. Opium eaters are not the most reliable of clients. Lucrative of course, but not what you might consider a sound investment. Not on the retail scale at any rate. There are fortunes to be had in the poppies, but such operations take scale. The Doc does not seem to have that kind of reach. Just one Mug doctor with a small shop and a decent reputation. Either that or cagey. It makes no matter, not yet. There will be time to peg her yet.

“Fair enough, Dr. Fair enough. No sense in compromising your ethics and all that.” He says it blithely enough, but it’s no insult, no jab. A canny operator always has their limits. Everyone has their price, to be sure, but the savvy make sure to let everyone know they’ll throw you out on your ear if you get even half way there. Today is a clean ear day to be sure. “Medicine’s all I’m after. The laudanum’ll be fine. If something stronger’s required, I’ll drag him in here, moaning and carrying on. Mayhaps you can sort him out at last.” Unlikely. The Doc may have skills of all kinds, but sorting Mr Shrike not just a matter of surgeon’s knives and colored powders. Anger and dread don’t have proper cures. “Oh,” he says, as the Doc bustles off, “and if you got anything you’d recommend to treat the griping of the guts, I’d be obliged.”

For now his insides are working well enough. That is likely to change. Great Auntie Ethel has promised him a slice of the local gossip. Always check with the old ladies for the true chant. They’ll know. Even if you have to choke down at least two bowls of the godsawful cabbage soup. No, awful is not quite the word. Mediocre might be nearer the mark. Astonishingly, impressively, mediocre. Sulfurous gloom in a bowl, followed by gaseous night. Such a treat.

Doc’s slipped off to her back room. Best to keep an eye on how long that takes, count the sounds of her foot falls, listen for any creaky floor boards. A wise thief never passes up an opportunity to case the joint. Even if you never plan on taking a thing. Practice is never wasted, and after his failure at the scholar’s house, he can use all the practice he can get.

A wise information trader never passes up a chance at cultivating a contract. Another useful precept, and so when the shop nattle leans in with a conspiratorial whisper, he’s all ears. The Doc’s price may be high, but the shop attendant seems content with no price at all. Dangerous that. Free information always has its cost. “Obliged for the nod onto Pendleworth. My principal, well, he ain’t no addict but he has his aches and pains.” Broken ribs, contusions, occasional concussions, all from the boxing ring. At first it struck him as strange, a papery kov like Mr Shrike going in for boxing. He had shrugged it off as a genteel sort of sporting. The noble art of fisticuffs, or whathaveyou. That has been a mistake. Seeing the place in Canby Lane where Mr Shrike took his blows, now that had been another shock. No genteel gollie club with big padded gloves and bright lights. A dim, sand-floored place, a place where the fighters wore only leathern straps around their knuckles. A place for a proper bout, not a sporting few fits taps. It had been strange, once. Now the bruises, the contusions, and the cracked bones are natural as the rain. “This Pendleworth, his bouquet any good? And what’s the catch?” He cocks a sly smile. “Oh there’s always a catch, and don’t go telling me there ain’t. I weren’t born yesterday.”

[Orianna Aubellard]

Aubellard Apothecary and Surgery

Afternoon, 29 Roalis 2720

Anna called back as she headed down the hall. “Fran knows where the gastrointestinal medications are.”

Anna slipped into the stock room, taking out the key she kept on her keychain and unlocking her safe for money and addictive medication. She kept the key on her at all times, just to be safe. She understood the need to have an escape on an intellectual level, but she knew too many people were too weak to the temptation of addiction. Anna wanted to help the addicts, but she figured that the best way to help an addict was to cut them off. Perhaps providing them with safe drugs would make her more money, but Anna was never into medicine to make money. Once she had a small vial of laudanum, she closed the safe and popped into the lab to talk to her apprentice for a minute.

While Anna worried about drug addicts getting a hold of her drugs, Fran obviously had no issue with that. She gave Bailey a half-shrug and a gap-toothed grin. “Pendleworth’s good enough. Keeps his stuff pure, at least,” she replied, keeping her voice low in case the doctor came back.

She paused a moment before continuing. She could tell that Bailey wouldn’t take the advice without explanation as to why she was suggesting Pendleworth. “’e’s an distant uncle of mine. Third cousin, twice removed or somethin’. Gives my ma a discount on her coca for ‘eryone I send ‘is way. But, trust me, Some people hate their mas, but I wouldn’t let my ma get her drugs from ‘im if I didn’t know he had decent goods,” Fran explained, her face open and frank. “She got her moods, y’ken?”

Anna’s human assistant moved over to one of the shelves. She let her usual professionalism drop, knowing that someone looking for laudanum, they weren’t likely to want fancy medical speak. “We got stuff for the screamin’ meemies, piles, and being blocked up. If you’re pukin’, we got stuff for that too,” she said as she waved at the shelf that had the gastrointestinal drugs on it.

Anna reentered the store and smiled at Fran. “Oh, good. Thank you for helping our customer. If you need something for multiple symptoms, I can mix that up for you.”

[Bailey Sneed]

Vienda - Aubellard Apothecary and Surgery, The Painted Ladies
The Twenty-Ninth of Roalis, Afternoon

T

his Fran’s a chancer, and not overloyal. The likes of her are good sources, they are ill-favored friends. Whatever chant comes from her, he’ll take it, and take it with a grain of salt. Insubordination is one thing, practically required, disloyalty is another thing altogether. What the reason for such as this, he cannot yet tell. It is worth knowing. Is the Doc a hard mistress? Tetchy? It may be nothing at all. Reflexive disloyalty is natural enough, and more often than not deserved. Not all masters reward loyalty.
Voice low, the muted tone of conspiring servants the world over, he speaks though a smirk. “And there’s the catch. Family.” A murky business, family, and some are murkier than most. His own knows the murk of old, wears it about them like a favorite old coat. Everyone has their feelers out, their schemes and stratagems.

And Fran’s scheme? A cut of the profits to this Pendleworth? A chance to get into the good graces of an aged family member who might have more than a little money to his name? Do you want to light out on your own, Fran? The thought rang over and over in his head. The lead was something, but the getting of it was too easy, too easy by half. A follow-up is in order. General background. A chat with the old ladies. Well, Great Auntie Ethel was always good for that, even if her cooking bordered on the inedible. “If this Pendleworth’s salubrious enough for your Ma, well, who am I to look askance?” Bailey Sneed, suspicious bastard, that is who he is. Mistrust, but verify. More words to live by. “My thanks, Fran. Always good to have a proper lead.” He cracked a more genuine smile. “And moods? Oh my principal has all kinds, and most ain’t pretty. Not a bad gent, you understand, but not an easy man to work for.”

The Doc’s come back, vial in hand and that proprietary serenity that only medical-types ever master. The time for conspiracies is over. He taps his nose at Fran, a gesture of understanding, of silent conspiracy. “The griping of the guts.” He mimes a churning with his hands. “I’ve got to have dinner with an aged relation, and she’s fond of overcooked cabbage with too much pork fat and too little pepper. It might be nourishing, if my delicate and genteel constitution could handle it.”

To the Doc, he gives a deferential nod. No sense in making enemies with an apothecary. Well, not yet at any rate. “My gratitude for the laudanum, and no worries about the stronger stuff. I suppose,” he says, lowering his voice, “you’ve seen more than your share of opium eaters. They’re always about, drifting about and making the streets dangerous for traffic and pedestrians. Even so, it seems there are more of the fools about, and with more than the usual stupor. Even back in Uptown I see them stumbling to and fro. Is it getting worse, Doc, or am I just imagining it?”

A simple enough question; almost innocent. The watching of her expression, the measuring of the tone of her voice, the movement of her eyes, well, that will be anything but.