Janosch A. Prufrock (page 3)
The fire fox Huohu curled his tail protectively around Wilhelmina Wang’s throat like a shawl. She petted him with one hand, and raised her other inquiringly toward the high molded ceiling.
“Is the room on the top floor with the canted bay window looking out onto the sea-bridge available?”
Emil Hering nodded, “Yes, it has a view over the whole kurpark. It can be let at twenty Talers a week.”
The girl took off a small rucksack and got out her money.
Emil first saw the beautiful embroidery on the rucksack. It was of a riotously blooming flower he could not recognize. Like a fully open rose, but fantastical petals multitudinous like a chrysanthemum. Then he saw the Startalers, those gold heavy pieces of trans-imperial coinage, good from the Yapon Sea to the desert places, wherever gold and goods traded, wherever adventurers landed.
“The empire of Tang is so wide,” came the voice of a slightly bald man who had suddenly come in from the breakfast room, “not only up and down, but side to side. I couldn’t cross it if I tried,” he finished, and bowed his head toward Wilhelmina in a gallant flourish.
He had a bald spot in the middle of his hair, and wore a morning coat, his collar mounting firmly to the chin. His necktie was rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin. He wore white flannel trousers with the bottoms rolled, and sand trickled out of them as he walked toward her, artifacts from his walks upon the beach.
“My name is Janosch A. Prufrock,” said this man, whose arms, legs, and hair were all thin.