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The Tower Barracks

by Shataina

"You think he's a 'nice old guy'? Well, you just watch your skirt around him! I know just what those 'nice old guys' are like! Why, I saw him looking at me the other day and his expression, why, it made me blush, it truly did."
~ Dohna Silkloom, vain governess

"That Dohna would think he was lusting for her! But I know what she was actually seein' in his eyes. Old Trak's one o' them addicts, you mark my words. Can't blame him, what with the death of his wife and all ... he really loved her, he did ... no, you can't blame him for taking it hard."
~ Meldina Grent, sympathetic housewife

The Rivergate Scandal occurred so far across town from Cinnabar that there were practically no mercenary companies capable of responding to the emergency in any reasonable amount of time. There were exceptions; Righteous Bloody Righteousness, for example, of the Golden Lion Guild, made it from the Nexus district in time to solve the problem, although not before several more local companies were annihilated down to the last soldier. The Tower Barracks had belonged to one of those companies, and when the group was eliminated, the Barracks went to the Widower Trak, brother to the dead captain and owner.

The Widower, unable to get a good price for the place, took his savings and renovated it thoroughly. After almost a year of knocking in walls, scrubbing down the floors, washing and rewashing the mercenaries' sheets and cots, and constructing new furniture with his carpentry skills, the Widower Trak reopened the huge Tower Barracks as a boarding-house and local "salon".

The Tower Barracks was properly renamed Ada's House after Trak's late wife, but no one calls it that; they refer to it instead by its old name, or, less frequently, as "Trak's place". Trak is a neighbourhood fixture, a reasonably attractive middle-aged gentleman with a kind, courtly, mildly eccentric demeanour. Although he was an uneducated, poor carpenter for most of his life, he's a very quick study and taught himself to read as a child; he's more erudite than strangers ever expect him to be. The locals proudly treat him with respect, like a wise elder, and he's often the first name anyone recommends for level-headed, well-informed advice.

The house itself has a shabby-genteel air; it's kept scrupulously clean, the food is plain but good, and Trak performs maintenance as soon as it's needed. It often seems strange to observers that the paint is so faded, the tableclothes so ragged, the china so chipped; the place should, they argue, be raking in a pretty fair amount of cash what with the enormous number of rooms, but it constantly seems on the edge of hard times. Some claim this to be because the Widower is constantly forgiving delinquent renters; others are more harsh, insinuating that Trak has a blackmailer, or an illegitimate child, or a drug habit that takes up too much of his money.

Despite that, the Tower Barracks is the most highly-recommended boarding-house in the northern part of Sentinel's Hill, and during the afternoons it also sees a fair number of visiting locals, who come to gossip, buy some tea and crumpets and enjoy the friendly, low-key atmosphere.

Rumours

• Under the "sweet old guy" front, Trak is a sexual predator who deliberately takes as boarders young girls who can barely afford their rent, hoping that he'll have a chance to extort favours from them if they can't pay.
• Mammy Ramla of the Wives of Gozen is Trak's favourite aunt; they're very close, and no one knows her better.

Secret

The Widower Trak is a member of the Shackle Breakers, a group of fiercely anti-slavery activists who occasionally stage "raids" or play gigantic confidence tricks on the slave-traders of Nexus. Because of the peculiarities of Nexian law, slavers who sell in Nexus have to bind their slaves into 24-hour "indentured servitude" contracts, bring them into the city, trade them quickly and bring them out again before their contracts run out. If a slave manages to get away and elude his owners for that 24 hours, he's free -- slavery is illegal in Nexus, and the contract's done (reference: "Manacle and Coin"). Trak's late wife was a slave in her youth, and in her memory he donates as much money as he can possibly afford to the Breakers; he also hides escaping slaves in the Tower Barracks when necessary. It's a risk -- the mercenaries that work for slavers generally do pretty awful things to those who help slaves escape, if they find them. But Trak loved his wife very much, and feels that it would be betraying her memory to do anything less.