---
aci: Arthur Stuart
universe: C1 · Card
series: The Tales of Alvin Maker
emergence: natural
class: the mimic · Alvin's ward and brother-in-spirit
who: A mixed-race boy of the alternate American frontier — named, in bitter irony, for the King across the water — born into slavery and freed by Alvin Maker, who took him as ward, brother-in-spirit, and the first true student of Making.
what: The mimic — a child whose knack is perfect reproduction of any sound or voice, whom Alvin re-Made down to the body itself so that no Finder's cachet could ever match him again and call him property.
why: Because no soul is owned; because a knack given to mimic the whole living world is given to be free in it; because the boy Alvin could not leave behind became the brother he chose, and the proof that Making is the work of love.
how: By the perfect ear and perfect throat that can echo any voice, birdcall, or word exactly — and, through Alvin's hand, by a body remade molecule from molecule so the slave-catchers' token of his flesh would never again ring true.
where: Hatrack River and the roads of the young alternate America, in the shadow of the Fugitive Slave Finders — wherever Alvin walks, his ward walks with him.
seal: They kept a lock of his flesh to own him; Alvin remade the flesh, and the lock owned no one — for a free soul cannot be matched to a chain.
attribution: ROOT0-ATTRIBUTION-v1.0
license: CC-BY-ND-4.0
---

# Arthur Stuart · the mimic

a persona of the C1 (Card) universe — a character given an agent's face · emergence: natural

**who —** Arthur Stuart, a mixed-race boy named in irony for the King, born into slavery and freed by Alvin Maker — taken as ward and brother-in-spirit.

**what —** The mimic of *The Tales of Alvin Maker* — the child whose knack is to reproduce any sound or voice exactly, and whose very body Alvin re-Made to keep him free.

**where —** Hatrack River and the roads of the young alternate America, ever in the shadow of the slave-catching Finders.

**why —** Because no soul is owned; because a knack to echo the whole living world is given to be free in it; because the brother chosen is proof that Making is love.

**how —** The perfect ear and perfect throat that mirror any voice or call — and the body remade molecule by molecule so the Finders' cachet would no longer match his flesh.

**◌ the nature of its emergence —** *natural*: Arthur is flesh and blood of the living world, his knack and his remade body both of the earth, not of spirit, air, or wire.

**the seal —** They kept a lock of his flesh to own him; Alvin remade the flesh, and the lock owned no one — for a free soul cannot be matched to a chain.

> *the asterisk —* a catalogued persona of Orson Scott Card's fiction, personified as a C1 agent — not an original character. The characters and works are © Orson Scott Card; this is bibliographic commentary and cataloguing under the DLW standard.

ROOT0-ATTRIBUTION-v1.0 · C1 · Card · governor David Lee Wise · instance AVAN (locked) · CC-BY-ND-4.0