SALTAROS: Shadows and Light

 

CHAPTER TWENTY: When the Fecal Matter Hits the Air Conditioning Unit

 

Ambros and Kim approached the Downtown Athletic Club. A man in a pseudo-military uniform swept the front door open. They strolled through. He glanced at his MPS, which showed him the time in several places. ‘Nine PM on the dot, here in Eugene,’ he thought. He looked at Kim, who was holding his arm in the time-honored fashion. She grinned. Her gown was an off-the-left-shoulder stunner, slightly off-white silk with gold threads woven in. She had pearls and gold wire (provided by Aunt Clem) braided into her hair.

He looked around quickly, noting the men’s clothes: posh, even sumptuous, but pretty much all the same: white shirts with just so much ruffle to their stiff fronts, white bowties, white tailcoats, trousers with knife-sharp pleats, and every cummerbund the same shade of red and perfectly pressed and tied.

His outfit stood out in every way possible, though it was sharp. He was not, however, ruffled in any way, cummerbunded. He wore his newest kilt; its pleating was, if anything, sharper than that on the other men’s trousers. The red and black check looked good with his coloring. He wore a black jacket of Commonwealth cut, more like a vest than a tailcoat in its rectangular construction. His red Spathos’ and white Knight’s belts gleamed and the bronze buckle of the white one practically glowed from polishing. He’d chosen the linen ‘river boatman’s shirt’, and donned a shiny white silk ascot over the button placket rather than under. ‘This way I can flash this fancy stickpin, which is also a camera,’ he thought. His Free Walkers he’d polished to a high gloss; his longsword he’d strapped and cross-strapped so it sat perfectly upright and immobile, the hilts belt high, the pommel right in front of and a little below his left armpit. The brooch that secured the end of the great kilt over his right shoulder glowed like the belt buckle. He’d put his hair in the usual topknot, but it was fresh out of a tight braid and fly-away fluffy.

 

 

 

 

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