In one sense it was technology that allowed him to return to his life. The Tinkerer had outfitted his material body with the necessary equipment to cope with the day to day troubles of living with only one arm. The man was a genius of minute innovation. He'd created for Peter a system, or a system of systems, by which every task could be reordered for the use of only a single arm—with of course the addition of the tool that stood in as his other arm without being it. In fact, the system was such that Peter could himself build upon it when encountering new tasks. His pack was full of modular elements networked together and ready to accept new inputs in terms of whatever new material he'd need to carry. The "arm" as well. It's apparently solid wooden surface gave way to various protrusions lying just beneath. A veritable swiss army knife, it was full of numerous clamps and vices, magnetized and corked, all intended to replicate the action of attachment or gripping. Of course the grotesque complex of the device couldn't render entirely the same effect of the elegant complexity of the human hand, but its multiform design provided a chaotic and near infinite potential for recombination and creative reuse.
And as such, Peter could do most anything. He became quite skilled indeed operating himself along with the gadget. And never being an idle hand, Peter hopped to work for the circus, or whatever it was he had become a part of. He'd met the chaplain, or recorder, or whatever he was—Walter Map. Man had a face of an overstuffed and bilious fig. He'd struck Peter as a kind enough man, but like a medieval friar, one couldn't help imagine him shrouded in fat, course brown robes stuffing his face with dripping sausages and other pulverized meats. Kindly tho amidst the grotesque. Map'd told him they were headed West toward the coast after they first went East toward the coast. Something about market towns or the first haul of Spring produce.
They were a veritable parade of oft-kilter transportation, slowly tippling their way through the forests and hillsides. He tromped with his pack beside the girl and her mother on their little mule drawn cart. He'd taken to helping them hitch it in the mornings before heading out. Formerly it had been an onerous chore to draw down the cart handles and had left them at the mercy of whatever laggard was left to help them. Peter'd rigged up a system in which the mule get a loose hitch under a rope and pulley array that would level the cart first off. After which the ladies would sit and Peter would properly hitch the now excited to be on its way mule. He was trying to set up a rig by which the mule's own pull would tighten the hitch itself by degrees. But as yet the result had only toppled the contents of cart in a may-lay of wayward and loose hitched donkey.
