The Infinite Sea

2 - Mercer et Moreau

A few days later, as Lefevre and his daughter waved goodbye, Jonas boarded a mail cart for Calais. The journey took a few hours but Jonas enjoyed it, bobbing up and down on the back on the cart, watching the scenery trundle by. It was a magnificent day - the sky was a vivid blue and almost cloudless. He was off on a new adventure; another distraction from the things that had passed before.

Calais, when he eventually arrived, was very different from what he had imagined. He had just been expecting the picturesque Amblessant but on a slightly larger scale but Calais was a different beast, more like London. The buildings were all towering and elaborately engraved. The streets were almost overflowing with merchants and sailors moving between ships and conducting their business.

Using the brief instructions he'd been given, Jonas navigated his way through the winding, shrinking streets to the offices of "Mercer et Moreau — Ingenieurs". He knocked on the front-door and awaited a response. After several minutes, the door opened a fraction. A dark suited man with a wide, pointed moustache, like two, black rapiers, acknowledged Jonas coldly. Jonas offered his letter of introduction and asked for Lefevre's friend Mercer.

The lanky, miserable-faced man grunted and, in English, almost ordered Jonas to come inside. He led Jonas to a small office where the man hunched down behind a desk and, with great concentration, scanned the letter over and over. As Jonas waited, he wondered if this was Monsieur Mercer and hoped that is wasn't. He turned out to be correct about this — this was Pierre Moreau the other partner in the company, or rather the only. Mercer had departed some months ago to start a new business with his son in the south of France and so now remained only in name. But Moreau explained that he would honour the name of his ex-partner and offer Jonas a position, although making it uncomfortably clear that under any other circumstances Jonas would have been cast back out onto the street and should therefore be deeply grateful.

Jonas was appointed alongisde four other "assistants" that worked for Moreau, drawing and editing technical plans or crafting small, bespoke pieces. The offices where they worked were situated just below street level on a busy thoroughfare so were gloomy and stank of manure and blocked drains. The other employees just kept to themselves, only communicating with Jonas, in broken English, when absolutely necessary. Elsewhere in the city, Moreau owned a large forge where bulkier items were crafted. The main source of Mercer et Moreau's business seemed to be the completing orders for the smaller components of larger projects being carried out elsewhere — at one stage Jonas was even tasked with making a run of two thousand nails by hand.

The days were long and dull. When Moreau was there he would pace up and down behind the assistants, snapping that they were lazy and useless, that they deserved to go and lie in some sty with pigs because that's what they all were — lazy pigs. Moreau being a giving man, threw out these insults in both French and English so that Jonas was not to miss out. He would then disappear for several hours, visiting clients or taking well deserved long lunches. No matter how long he was gone for though, on his return he would know exactly how much work should have been achieved, so slacking or even taking a short break was impossible.

Jonas found it deeply unpleasant working for Moreau — he felt lonelier than ever. True, he was doing something close to mechanica once more but at such a rotten price. He doubted dear old Lefevre had intended this fate for him. Jonas considered trying to make his way back to Amblessant but didn't want to disappoint Monsieur Lefevre that his kindness has turned sour.

Well into the evening, when the assistants were finally allowed to leave, Jonas would make his way through the murky lanes and alleys to the room that Monsieur Moreau had grudgingly rented for him in the absence of anything cheaper, situated above a noisy tavern called the Sirene Sales. In the little hours of the night, once the din had died down from below and even though he was wrought with exhaustion, Jonas could not sleep. Or rather he could but found that his dreams were worse than his waking hours. He would find himself alone in the lounge of the Queen Eliza, returned to her former grandeur, and Mackenzie would be there. Jonas wanted to embrace him, to tell his master how much me missed him but the look on the man's face was one of disgust.