A fat guardsman with a rather impressive helmet is slouching against a display case, playing with the expensive large-eyed sorceress girl figurines found therein. They were owned of course by the Lord Mayor--his cousin.
"Ahem!" Said the Lord Mayor from the place he had been standing and watching for the last half-minute.
"Oh, Ioseph! I mean Lord Mayor!" The guardsman, Colnier Sellenius, put one of the figures back on shelf upside down in the wrong place after nearly dropping it while attempting to salute. Realizing that he still had the other figure but no way to smoothly transition it to the case, he held it to his back with his non-saluting hand. "You summoned me, m'lord?"
"Yes, I know, hard to believe isn't it?"
"Yes. We haven't gotten together since last Stardust at uncle's place. Remember we were talking about the lists and about all that coin you lost against that little Del'annerie waif, and I said that she was quiet nice to look at and you said--"
"Shut up, Colnier."
"Um, yes. That was it, pretty much verbatim... -Uh, m'lord!" The sergeant breathed out. Sweat was forming under his helmet. He put his other hand behind his back and nervously turned the figurine over in his hands.
"I have a mission for you Colnier." Said the Mayor after a long pause.
"For me m'lord." Colnier said hopefully. "I thought you might be mad with what happened yesterday."
"Colnier." His cousin the Lord Mayor said, with a tone of warning that Colnier knew well.
"Yes, sir." Coliner said making a gesture as if he was using an imaginary key to lock his mouth with and then casually tossing it over his shoulder where it would be lost forever amid all the other imaginary keys.
The Lord Mayor told him what he want done.
The sergeant looked shocked.
Colnier took the orders for what they were--orders from a superior. He snapped to a rough approximation of attention and brought his figurine-laden hand up in a smart figurine-crunching salute to the edge of his impressive helm.
"Uh. Sorry m'lord."
******
He wasn't exactly sure why he had to leave Restov. Also he wasn't quite sure what his cousin meant by 'sailor suit' but it had been a long rant and things had probably gotten confused.
He was very nearly the only honest person in the city guard after all. There weren't any others. It was 'very nearly' because he knew somewhere deep down (and given the Sergeant's girth that could be pretty deep) that he really wasn't making much a of a difference to the people of the city. He wasn't pulling his fair share for Abadar. Sure the entire rest of the unit were barely better than professional thugs (most of them moonlit on the side when they didn't make enough shaking folks down during the day) but still with all the sword schools and noble house militias about there didn't seem to be much need for a town guard and so he had spent most of his time policing his fellow officers.
Maybe this is what he needed a clean slate, a fresh start, a place to begin again. There would be good and proper bandits to stomp after all. And stakeouts and real community policing. He could walk about and folks would tip their hats and offer him free food. I wonder how the fellas at Oleg's take their coffee?
Colnier smiled.
He collected his things from the barracks and said goodbye to his mates and made his way to the town gate. No one in the barracks looked up from their card games or Sunday stupors to see him leave, but very nearly half waved a hand or muttered something unintelligible at his back.