Meldwin

Meldwin is one of the senior handlers of Swallows and Ravens employed by the Zephyr Battalion, overseeing a web of informants, social operatives and quiet observers whose reports eventually find their way across his desk. He is an unlikely figure to wield such influence: painfully thin, physically weak and possessed of an awkward manner that can make even ordinary conversation feel faintly uncomfortable.

He was abandoned shortly after birth and discovered close to death by a travelling cleric, who carried him back to Aranthaes and placed him in the care of the Mother’s Children. Meldwin therefore grew up within the Church itself, surrounded by people who fed him, educated him and attempted, with varying degrees of success, to draw the strange and solitary boy into the community around him.

Something about him always unsettled people.

Meldwin had few friends as a child. He struggled with the ordinary rhythms of companionship and often seemed to watch conversations rather than participate in them. Yet he remembered everything. A careless remark made weeks earlier, an inconsistency in a story, the name somebody avoided mentioning — details other children forgot almost immediately remained with him.

His tutors quickly discovered that behind the awkwardness lay an exceptional intelligence. Meldwin learned rapidly, read voraciously and possessed an uncanny talent for understanding why people behaved as they did. More troublingly, he became extraordinarily good at discovering which words would persuade them to behave differently.

The Swallows and Ravens offered him something ordinary social life never had: rules.

Conversation could be studied. Trust could be cultivated. Silence could have purpose. Every pause, expression and misplaced confidence could be observed, remembered and understood. Meldwin gravitated naturally towards the Raven tradition, preferring quiet rooms and unguarded moments to the warmth and visibility favoured by Swallows.

He proved exceptionally talented. Meldwin speaks eight languages fluently and has an exceptional ear for dialect, accent and unusual phrasing. He often understands conversations whose speakers believe they are private.

Eventually his abilities attracted the attention of the Zephyr Battalion. Today Meldwin manages a network of Swallows, Ravens and lesser informants on its behalf, directing people into merchant houses, taverns, guild meetings, private gatherings and anywhere else useful information might surface. He rarely conducts the most dangerous work personally anymore. Other people listen for him.

Meldwin treats secrets almost as living things. He catalogues where they came from, who else might know them, whom they could hurt and when they might become valuable. He is perfectly capable of sitting on information for years rather than wasting it for immediate advantage. There are people in Aranthaes whose lives could be changed by a sentence from Meldwin — some of whom have no idea he even knows their names.

His relationship with the faith that raised him is complicated. Meldwin retains many of its habits, language and rituals and can move comfortably through religious surroundings that outsiders might find intimidating. Whether this represents genuine devotion, nostalgia, or simply another environment whose rules he understands is difficult to determine.

Physically, he is almost absurdly unimpressive. Meldwin possesses little strength and avoids any situation in which violence might become unavoidable. He does not pretend otherwise. Bravery, martial prowess and physical dominance are currencies in which he has never been able to trade.

Information, however, is another matter.

Those meeting Meldwin for the first time may find him strange, unpleasant or simply easy to dismiss.

That is often the last advantage they ever have over him. By the time most people realise how dangerous he is, Meldwin has usually already discovered what they want, what they fear — and what they desperately hope nobody else will ever learn.