1 Soul Bound
1.3 Making a Splash
1.3.2 An Allotropic Realignment
1.3.2.13 Aldine
Kafana could tell their destination (on the northern edge of the Tickton parish) was getting closer, even without the aid of the shared map, because of the firms she saw in the yards.
Fabriano Papers, offering imports from Accettura (a timber town upriver from Torello). Giolito of Taglia, a flamboyant press offering romance and adventure novels printed upon on cheap paper for silver ducato. Jean of Picard, a Burgundish bookbinder stationed directly opposite Giolito, was offering beautiful gilded creations upon precisely cut marbled pages, for bibliophiles with golden Florins to spare.
She was tempted to browse at Sessa and Sons, who advertised themselves as “Planar Cartographers”, and did spend at least a minute (with Bulgaria impatiently tapping his toes), gazing at the books on display at Benedetto Illuminations. He practically dragged her past Raimondi & Romano, “woodcut illustrations - no scale too large, no scale too small”, and nearly body-checked the punch cutter from Griffo Tools and Supplies who tried to sell him a set of his new italic font letters.
Finally she drew a line. She’d spotted a fellow linguist. She couldn’t argue it was important to their leveling up, like crafting or politics, but it was her topic to be a geek about. Everybody deserved something they could enthuse about the details of, without others shaming them over it. After all, if you didn’t give care and hugs to your own inner child and past self, who else would?
Kafana: “Bulgaria, enough! I do want to see the future, but I also want to enjoy the journey. Bungo, will anything terrible happen if I go talk with Master Giunti over there for five minutes?”
A small bald-headed scribe was sitting at a table outside the Do Mori tavern, his felt cap dwarfed by a very large glass tankard of pale Teutonian beer, which was propping up a tall sign. Kafana deduced that the sign contained a single phrase, translated into 13 different languages, though thanks to her player’s user interface, what she actually saw were 7 lines that all said "all tongues translated", mixed in with 6 she couldn’t read. Yet.
Bungo: “Go ahead. I recognise this place - it was the last tavern on the pub crawl. Should be safe enough, if you don’t drink the wine.”
Bulgaria looked resigned, and went with Wellington to talk with a pale-skinned adventurer standing outside Rustichello of Tucano (“Torello’s Hottest Press & Proud Publishers of The Gazzetta”), with a pamphlet in her hand and a determined expression on her face. Bungo joined a ring of apprentices flicking a beer-soaked rag at each other, who offered to teach him “The Noble and Inebrial Art of Flonking”. Tomsk, however, was a safe and silent presence next to her as she took a seat, causing the scribe to pause his quill and look up at her.
Giunti: “Master Translator Giunti at your service, Madame. How may I help you?”
Kafana: “If you have a few minutes to spare, I’d love to learn more about what you do. I can’t read these ones” she indicated the 6 “Which languages are they?”
Giunti: “Do you” “Really” “Understand” “All of those?” “Where are” “Thou” “From,” “{traveller-of-the-roads}?”
He was using different languages every few words? She grinned.
Kafana: {Sys, can I manually set which language my words are translated into? I’d like to reply in kind.}
System: [Obfuscation mode created. When engaged, your tongue preference will be set, if possible, to a mix of languages shared by yourself and a target, but unlikely to be shared by other known listeners. Do you wish me to use my judgment on when to enable and disable it, based upon readable mental state and intentions?]
Kafana: {Thanks Sys! And yes please. Let’s show Master Giunti that two can play at that game.}
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Kafana: “This humble one” “has received the blessing of the road” “far traveled beyond Covob am I” “and used to listening with” “the ear of a musician” “to the inner harmony of” “intentions expressed sonically”
*ding* [Your reputation with Translators has increased by 50.]
He looked totally chagrined, nearly dropping his quill into his tankard, and she felt a little ashamed of pulling the prank.
Kafana: “Sorry, I couldn’t resist, I apologise. I’m Suor Kafana and I’m an adventurer - so my knowledge of most of those languages came as a gift of the deities, not from my own hard work.”
Giunti: “They may not have been here long, but I’ve already met several adventurers. You, I think, are different. You said ‘most of’ - which implies there is at least one language you learned by yourself, in less than a month. That would be Lovariszo, I’m guessing?”
She nodded.
Kafana: “It was fun, though I’m not sure I’d term it a full language, rather than a cryptolect based upon an Etruscan-Transylvanian creole.”
After that they got on like a house on fire. Giunti told her which languages were rooted in ancient Hellenic, and discussed linguistic shifts in the Droadan tongue which dated back to the first empire. She asked him about book imports, and he complained about Burgundish priestly censorship and Torello’s slack enforcement of monopolies, leading to any successful book being quickly reprinted by other presses who didn’t pass on profits to authors or translators.
He was just in the middle of showing her the interlinear glosses he was adding to a proof copy of a monograph by Grandmaster Johannes, producing a Teutonic version by inserting a word-for-word translation into the narrow gaps between the lines, when Bungo came over.
Bungo: “Sorry Kafana, time’s up. Bulgaria’s found the person he was looking for, and I think he’ll explode if we delay any longer.”
They collected the others and found Bulgaria in an adjoining courtyard, talking to an elderly woman in somber clothes, her hair covered.
Bulgaria: “Suor Kafana, may I introduce to you the widow Manutius, proprietor of the Aldine Press and founder of the Torresani imprint, under which the best half of all poetry is published?”
Bulgaria completed the introductions with great formality, much to the widow’s amusement.
Manutius: “He is a charmer, yes? Which is to say that he is a playwright with a play unpublished and, like all such, he seeks to persuade me with words not numbers.”
Bulgaria: “Discerning dame, does a good builder choose to build with flawed bricks they think will crumble like sand? Does a good smith start forging a sword with impure metal they know will shatter at the very first blow? If I had no confidence in my words, nor in the power of words to sway, what manner of playwright would I be?”
Manutius: “Six editions only will I print this year. For every page must type be quoined upon the chase, checked and squeezed in amorous snug, that forme and platen between them birth ten hundred siblings, cord severed with sting of life’s first breath by blade as sharp as any shepherd’s shears.”
Wellington: “Eight weeks per edition. So for a book with 320 pages, working five days a week and two watches a day, you’d need to manage one page every two bells?”
Manutius nodded, and seemed to switch mode.
Manutius: “There are many presses in Torello. Guilds have them, as do the council and the university. They worry not about making profit, and neither do the vanities, who’ll publish any bumptious babbling if the author be well-heeled. But the Aldine is independent, and ever shall be. Two books I print this year are second editions, their sales already spoken for. One is a new volume by a known author with loyal followers, who’ll pay gold for a slim volume if it be richly illustrated, because her venal verses hide as much as the illustrations graphically reveal. One is a great gamble, backed by Master Cardano who runs the printing side of things for me, but which he now tells me shall be twice the length of any other book yet printed.”
Wellington: “And that leaves you just one slot free. You can afford no more gambles. You need evidence that Bulgaria’s play, Love Redeems All, will sell enough copies to put food upon your table, and maintain the reputation of your imprint?”
A metaphorical light bulb appeared above Kafana’s head.
Reputation. It wasn’t just something players gained with NPCs and factions. It was something real in this world, something NPCs and NPC run businesses gained with each other. The whole Tickton way of doing business, with acquaintance and building friendship before achieving alliance, was built upon the mechanic. Bulgaria didn’t want them here because this was interesting, or for moral support. He didn’t need them to provide a monetary guarantee either, else he could have just gone to the Orphic Press they’d seen in the Arsenal.
He wanted, no, he needed their help in gaining reputation with this woman. His words were failing him and, hmm, was he embarrassed to admit it? Clearly the widow Manutius was proud of the Aldine Press’s reputation, and wanted it to mean something to a potential buyer that it was the Aldine who’d chosen to back a particular book. She was a poet, but also a business woman, and seemed to be more impressed by Wellington’s ability with numbers than Bulgaria’s facility with words. Too much exposure to poets. Was that a formal damage immunity you could gain in this game?