Warrick

Located in Richmond named and overseen by the baron of the same name.<ref>“Anyone near Richmond?” I asked.  “Warrick?”

“What the fuck are you doing around there, Sy?  There are more monsters than humans in that neck of the woods.” - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.2</ref> It shares its name with another territory that the Baron overseas.<ref>“A quaint town where the people are scared to death,” I said.  “And where you feel the need to have weapons stowed throughout the house.” - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.8</ref>

Roughly a days travel away from Radham by train.<ref>Warrick hadn’t been close to Radham, a full night of travel away - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.20</ref>

Georgraphy

The architecture in Warrick is eerie; quaint, but too homogeneous, a soulless mockery of a village.<ref name=10.7e1> The Baron Richmond had retired to Warrick after the fighting in Lugh.  Named after his family’s territory overseas, the city was small, contained, and existed at his behest.  It was a place I’d never been, and I’d never known anyone from the city.  I’d heard rumors, however.  Richmond House was on the outskirts of the town, and with that one detail, it was easy to give the rumors some merit.  Monsters lived here, of the type that resembled humans and of the type that didn’t.

The houses and buildings were new, but the style was old.  The houses were riddled with details, with highlights of quality, pleasant touches and signs that people had attempted to make themselves at home here, but in other ways, I felt as though it was too restrained, too ‘safe’.  There was a lack of authenticity that pervaded everything.  It was early in the morning, and there were far too few people around – a twentieth of what I’d seen in Radham, the morning I’d left to visit Craig.  It was considerably earlier, true, but even with that in mind, a mere twentieth?

The houses, now that I paid closer attention, were individually different, but it was a posed sort of difference, as if a singular designer had decided that this house needed a porch, and that house needed a fancy chimney, and the next house couldn’t have either because it would be too similar…  Yet there was a signal that something was wrong or odd in how that similarity had been avoided, the angles the houses had been placed at, and the palette chosen.

I thought of it as a singular designer because the palette and the suite of options seemed so lacking in imagination or breadth.  Either the designer had been working with a very limited set of options, or their sense for design was a limited one.  Alone, given one house or three houses, it would have made for beautiful work.  Held to the sword and told to set the standard for a city?  It made for a city without enough soul to go around.  Every construction a variation on the same theme, layered with snow. - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.7</ref><ref>This was a stitched city.  The aesthetics of the individual pieces were of an older sort, the formation of it all relatively new.  It was dead and lifeless, still, the overall system worked, but it was forced, motivated by something I didn’t yet understand.  There was no will here, either.  The Crown had this place fully in its grip. - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.8</ref><ref>We entered the city center as a quintet: two Lambs, two aristocrats, and a man turned monster.  The layout of the town made this the space where festivals would be held, if Warrick was the sort of place to hold festivals.  If Warrick had farmer’s markets, where everyone gathered to sell produce and trade goods from the professional to the homespun, then this was where the people would set up their stalls.  It would be where friendships were made and rekindled, where gossip was exchanged and conversations were had.  But Warrick wasn’t that sort of city.

No, the heart of this city didn’t beat.  It, like the Baron Richmond’s church, was symbolic, and it was a symbol designed to be false and discouraging. - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.13</ref><ref>There were so many people, and it was getting increasingly clear that this wasn’t a good battlefield, be it for the overt attack or the subtle one.  The street was level, all stone and the stone-gripping wood, with mortar where the fast-growing wood hadn’t extended far enough.  A town hall, a smaller church, and several large houses blocked in the area, which formed something of a plaza, capable of holding perhaps a thousand people, if I had to guess.  If and when the population here exceeded capacity, the guards that stood between the buildings at the plaza’s edge could move further down the streets, increasing the number by two hundred or five hundred people.  Anything more than that, and I suspected that holes would appear in security, with too many access points to cover.

A third of the way down the plaza, pale stone had been laid out in some shallow, long steps, leading up to a raised section.  Two-thirds of the way down, the steps and raised portion reoccurred, with a stage overlooking the entire affair, and a fountain behind that stage, the statues added a kind of presence to it and framed it.  A soldier, a doctor, and what I assumed to be an aristocrat, all in modern Crown style.

By no accident, I was guessing, the construction of the stage had passing resemblance to a hangman’s gallows.  It was fancier, with more trim and style to it and carvings etched into the wood, but the breadth of it and the overall dimensions were evocative. - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.13</ref>

It's church is a trap, an abattoir and a farce. All showing the Baron's power and madness.

Populace

The people were beaten down from living there.<ref>The locals were a stark contrast to the upper crust types.  Their heads were bent slightly, their eyes averted from making any lingering contact with anyone around them, and they were dressed in dark, drab clothing.  The clothes were nice, really, without any loose threads or worn patches, but they still weren’t the sort of thing that was meant to draw attention to the wearer. - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.12</ref> Having to give up their children to be made into monsters called the firstborn. A contingent of soldiers is stationed in Warrick, and their captain retained his position despite disgracing himself in Lugh.<ref>There’s a man wearing two swords at his belt, a decorated military type, with hair in bad need of a trim.”
[...]
“There’s a contingent of soldiers stationed in Warrick,” Simon murmured, speaking without moving his misshapen lips.  “He leads them, and he led them in Lugh.  He didn’t do well there, and he came back at the same time as the Baron.”

“In disgrace?” I asked.  I got a slight nod. - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.13</ref>

A Miss Ruth Bloxham did not live in Warrick but attended the Baron's wedding there.<ref>“Over there.  A woman in a silver-blue dress and the white-fur jacket, with a flowery blue decoration in her hair.  She’s not very old, but women twice her age are paying her special attention,
[...]
“That’s Ruth Bloxham,” Lainie said, standing on her toes to see.  “There are people in the aristocracy that really want to get an in with the nobility, even marry into the lower ranks.  She’s one of them.”
[...]
“There are families that have been working for generations to curry the favor and prestige that would get them an in with the Crown.  Then there’s Ruth.  She’s done it singlehandedly.  Since she was sixteen, she’s been connecting with the right people, earning and using favors to meet even more powerful people she can earn favors from… there’s at least one minor fashion trend and two musicians who owe their success to Ruth.”

“She wants to talk to Candida very badly.  I’m just not sure if she wants to because she’s a fantastically good actress who can hide her ill-intent from me, and plans to sabotage Candida, or if it’s for genuine reasons.  Maybe she sees Candida as someone who can be a peer and a real friend.  A genuine non-threat, in a way, compared to people like Lainie’s cousins, who want to tear her down, and others, who are only stepping stones to better things?”

“When you started theorizing, the first place my mind went was if she pursued the Baron, once, and learned how dangerous he was,” Mary said.

“And her primary interest is to warn the fiancee?  That’s a dangerous game to be playing,” I said. - Excerpt from In Sheep’s Clothing 10.13</ref>

References

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