Singer From the Sea

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “I’ve never done any such thing,” she cried to Della. “At home, Father never entertained! Oh, a few old friends, but that was different. I’ve learned how at school, I’m quite competent to handle it, given time and a certain local knowledge he has given me no time to learn! Where does one hire temporary help? This house, Della. It’s filthy! Some of the draperies are in rags!”

  Della stood with her hands on her hips and her lower lip thrust out, as she did when in deep thought. “There’s nothing for it, my lady, but do it somehow. Have you friends here from among the ladies you knew at school? Any at all?”

  There probably were acquaintances in Havenor, though she did not know for sure. At the moment Genevieve could think of only one person she knew to be in the town and was inclined to trust, though she hesitated to call him her friend. “I have met Father’s equerry, Colonel Aufors Leys. He struck me as the kind of person who would do everything he could to be helpful. Though he is expected to move into this house at some point, he is now in rooms at an inn, though I’ve no idea … No, wait. I saw Father writing it down.”

  “Write the Colonel a note,” Della suggested. “I’ll get John to take it, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  Aufors came at once, let himself in by the side entrance, as requested, and in the small dining room he, Della, and Genevieve held a council of war.

  “I am so thankful you have come, Colonel.”

  She looked so uncomfortable that he decided at once on a soothing informality. “If we are to work together, my Lady Marchioness, you may call me Aufors. I grant you it’s an odd name, but I came by it legitimately, through a rogue of a great grandfather.” He turned a radiant smile on her that blocked her throat as though she had been eating feathers.

  “Well, Colonel,” said Della, with an assessing glance at Genevieve that told her the girl was for the moment speechless. “The Lady Marchioness finds the place to be dirty, and a bit shabby to boot. The carpets are worn, more than even I’d allow. The furniture needs cleaning of a kind no new household can manage. Professionals, I’d say.”

  “Footmen,” murmured Genevieve. “If we’re to entertain, we’ll need footmen, and I have no idea where to get temporary help, or even to get the flowers we’ll need. And Father has recently hired the cook, I don’t know her at all well, but I have heard she’s dissatisfied with the kitchen. I have this terrible image in my mind of burned roasts and fallen cakes. I know the butler, Halpern, no better than the cook and the other locally hired staff, though it is my understanding Halpern came with the house. If Father had given me a little time, I daresay I could have managed nicely, but all this being dropped out of the sky on my head just baffles me.”

  Aufors noted it all down. He went to meet with Halpern and the cook, sent a few written inquiries to friends via several hastily obtained messengers, and went over the house before returning to Genevieve. “Here is the name of a man who does professional cleaning and has enough help to do it quickly, and here the name of a decorator who also works quickly and without chatter. Halpern, the butler, approves both choices but thinks they may respond more quickly for you than they would for him, as the Baron who inherited this house has allowed the place to fall into disrepute both as to its maintenance and as to its prompt payment of accounts.

  “The flowers will have to come from the greenhouses at court. It would normally take several weeks to get an allocation, but they have a plethora, and I have a friend who’s made a friend of the gardeners.

  “Your cook does not like the kitchen—and one can quite see why—but minor changes will do for now and she will rise to the challenge. I told her she is probably the only one in the city who could do so under such circumstances. I’ve explained to Halpern what’s toward, and he’s so grateful someone is doing something about the house—I gave you all the credit for that, Genevieve—that he’ll turn cartwheels if you suggest it. It would be appropriate for you to give him carte blanche in hiring whatever additional help he needs for this first dinner, starting with two or three men to clean up the gardens. I’ve talked with the man who used to be head gardener here—he’s taken a position at a large establishment nearby. He says it’s too late in the season to do anything at all decorative, but he suggests trimming the topiary, raking out the paths and the flower beds and mulching them evenly so they’re less an eye-sore. He’s committed to his current employer, but for a small commission he’ll find a trustworthy crew to take care of this immediate matter for us. Meantime, call on me for any needs whatsoever, such as escorting you this morning to these various tradesmen.”

  “They should come to her,” sniffed Della.

  “No, Della, Aufors is quite right,” she replied. “My going to them will give them dignity and increase their desire to be helpful.”

  Della went along with them, for propriety’s sake, and the three of them spent the morning going here and there, before returning to the house to await return visitations from those whose help they had just solicited. By evening, all was developing nicely: contract workers would arrive on the morrow, the cook was making shopping lists, and the butler was doing a hasty inventory of the cellars and the plate.

  Aufors departed toward evening, after looking over the Marshal’s invitation list and shaking his head.

  “My Lady, …”

  “If I am to call you Aufors, you must call me Genevieve.”

  “Genevieve, I respect your father deeply for he is a great soldier. He has, however, no idea what is involved in keeping an establishment or even what is involved in keeping him comfortable in the field. When he is not immediately engaged with a problem, he seems to go inside his head somewhere, thinking of … oh, old battles, perhaps. He simply doesn’t notice what’s going on! I think he assumes it happens spontaneously: food on his table, water in his basin, clean clothing for him to put on. At Langmarsh he has people who have cared for him since he was a boy, but I doubt he has any idea of what they do.

  “If he is to succeed here in Havenor, he must be brought out of himself and made aware. We do not know how long he is to be here, at court, or what his role will be. However long, whatever role, the rules must be observed. I’ve learned only a few of them. One of them is that enemies are not invited to the same affairs, and your father has already done this.” He pointed out the offending entries on the invitation list.

  “I know some of the rules are silly, and I know they have to be learned the hard way, for people do not spontaneously tell you what they are. You must find someone to guide you rightly, and you’ll need the Marshal’s help, or, failing that, his forbearance. Plead with him to be a little less hasty!”

  Though she doubted pleading with her father would do any good whatsoever, she nodded her thanks, too full of them to put in words. When the Marshal arrived, late in the evening, after a day of meetings and irritations, he found the place still buzzing like a disturbed hive.

  “What’s all this?”

  “You have invited thirty people to dinner eight days from now,” Genevieve answered in the calm voice she had been practicing for the past hour. “We are preparing for that event, and for whatever other events will follow.”

  “You don’t need all this fuss, surely. I thought Colonel Leys might help you with introductions and so forth, the day of the first dinner.”

  She forced herself to smile rather than snap at him, which to her own surprise, she very much wanted to do. “If we had waited until the day, Father, you would have had nothing to feed your guests. The house would have been dirty and unwelcoming. Nothing could have been well done. Some of the things the cook needs will take seven or eight days to obtain, and certainly we could not clean the house in less than that.”

  “Really?” he appeared astonished. “It seems clean enough.”

  “To one accustomed to camping in the open, it may well do. The dirt and wear and cobwebs are glaringly obvious in a good light, however, and when one has guests, one lights up the house. This is a rule in Havenor, one of many, I am told
. If we do not yet know the rules in Havenor, then we must find them out in advance of your issuing future invitations. I fear we have already made several faux pas.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Father, if you were a junior officer, would you invite to your table two superior officers who were sworn enemies?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, here in Havenor we are very much junior residents, yet we have invited two noble ladies who are sworn enemies. If that were not enough, we have invited two other persons who are opposing litigants before the Tribunal. We want everything to do you credit, but we can’t manage it if we are not well prepared, so please, Father, allow us a little time to learn the way.”

  He turned slightly red. “I had guests at Langmarsh House with no more notice than a word to the butler in the morning! In the field, I have had my fellow officers join me for meals on no notice at all!”

  Her face grew hot. Without stopping to think she said, “In Langmarsh you had old servants who knew the place intimately, and you entertained old friends, who would take Langmarsh as it was with no more light than a few candles and the fire. In the field, soldiers are accustomed to soldier’s fare. This dinner you plan, however, is for people who will arrive with their ears pricked, their eyes sharpened, and their noses twitching to judge us by everything they hear and see and smell. They will rate the service, the food, the look of the place, and our manners, yours and mine. None of the guests know us well, some may be maliciously inclined to dislike us, and none of the guests, I’ll wager, have ever been on a field of battle, nor would they like the setting, the food, or the manners they would find there.”

  She had been carried away, had heard herself “spouting” and stopped, too late, for she looked up to find his eyes fixed on her, really looking at her, with an expression that she could not read. It was not angry, but neither was it appreciative. Weighing, perhaps. Deciding.

  “Where have you picked up all this?” he growled.

  She faltered. If he was offended, she couldn’t blame Aufors, and apology would only convince him he was right to be annoyed. Well, now was the time to press a momentary advantage.

  “As your hostess, I am responsible for the success or failure of social events, Father, and I have been asking questions, as I was taught to do. You sent me to school to learn how to do this! I was a dedicated, faithful student and I have learned. Now you really must let me do it. The house will be in a frenzy over the next several days. I need to be here. If you will make the courtesy calls by yourself, it would help enormously.”

  He grunted at her, still with a very equivocal expression, and went to his rooms, demanding Terson, his servant, to bring something light by way of supper. Genevieve breathed deeply.

  “Good for you, my lady,” whispered Della from behind a portiere.

  “Good for Aufors,” breathed Genevieve. “Now if I can only hang on and Father will just … settle down.”

  The days that followed were too full of work for any enjoyment. The Marshal made his calls alone. Workmen came in and workmen went out. Carpets were taken up (leaving great continents of dust on the floor) to be cleaned and turned; furniture was sent to be repaired; draperies were removed, shaken free of several years’ worth of detritus, brushed carefully to reveal unexpected colors and patterns, and those that were whole were rehung while worn ones were shifted about to hide the wear, there being no time to have new ones made.

  Foodstuffs were delivered and preparations begun. Wines were fetched from the cellars—thankfully, rather good ones—and set ready in the cooling room. Plate was polished. The dining room was given a complete going over, walls and ceiling as well as floors, evicting generations of spiders from behind the cornices while the huge table was brought to a silken polish by two newly hired young footmen who flung themselves back and forth along it on lambskins, much to the amusement of the equally new housemaids.

  Responses to the invitations arrived, virtually all of them acceptances. Those who refused were replaced by others nominated by Aufors. “These people I’m suggesting are not important,” he said, “but they are amusing. Just as every dinner needs a little spice, every dinner party needs a few people to be diplomatic and pleasant, to keep things moving.”

  On the day of the dinner, Della insisted that Genevieve do nothing but lie about.

  “Is everything done, Della?”

  Della put out her lower lip, hands on her hips, and nodded firmly. “Everything is as close to done as it’s going to get, Jenny. Everything’s delivered, put up, put down, plucked, stuffed, cooled, warmed, hung or unhung, as may be. Everything that’ll take a polish has been polished at least twice and what won’t polish has been hidden behind something that will. The cook’s in a temper, which Halpern tells me is a good thing. Her dinners are always delicious, he says, when she’s in a temper. The table looks lovely. The flowers just came, sneaked in the back way by somebody who knows or works for the Duchess Bellser-Bar, so he told us. She’s a friend of the Colonel, it seems. I think it’ll all go fine.”

  Aufors thought so, too. He swept a bow, saying with a smile, “You’ve done well, my Lady Marchioness.”

  “Please don’t call me Lady Marchioness. I hate it.”

  “Well, Genevieve, I must, you know. On formal occasions.”

  “Well then, when we are alone, could you call me Jenny?”

  “Very well.” He smiled. “When we are alone.”

  “Who’s the Duchess Bellser-Bar?” she asked in a worried tone, picturing a large and overbearing dowager whom she would at once owe numerous favors.

  “Someone I did a very small favor for, once, and she’s repaid me by getting your flowers for you. It’s no problem, Genevieve, really. Please, erase that frightened look from your face. It’s all going to go well!”

  “Aren’t you ever frightened of anything?” she demanded, very slightly angry.

  He considered the question seriously. “The usual things,” he confessed. “Death, wounds …”

  “No, no, I mean just … things.”

  “I am quite frightened of water-babies,” he said, the words popping out without any thought at all.

  “Water-babies?” She frowned, suspecting he was teasing her. “I’ve heard of them, but …”

  “It was nothing, really. When my mother died, she left me a small legacy. Even though my older brother knew he would inherit the farm, he resented the fact she’d left the legacy to me. In his view, eldest took all, regardless. He got even by telling me horrific tales about how my mother had gone to pick cress for salad and had been abducted by water-babies, and because I was her favorite, they would come for me next. He was constantly knocking me down, sitting on me, then peering at my fingers and toes, claiming he saw webs growing between them. He even locked me in the well house once, where it was damp and cold and dark, and hung about outside making frog noises. I was frightened for days afterward.”

  Actually, Aufors still had occasional night terrors in which he dreamed himself turning into something green, clammy, and cold, but he was not tempted to confess this frailty to Genevieve.

  “That’s dreadful,” she said, indignant on his behalf.

  “It seemed so at the time, and I have never been really friendly with my brother since.” Which, he thought, was a charitable way of putting it. “Now, let’s go down this list of people, and then we’ll look at your seating diagram.”

  They drilled on the names while Aufors changed the seating diagram about, saying, “Lady Alicia, Duchess Bellser-Bar of Merdune, the donor of your flowers, is cousin to Inelda, Countess Farmoor of Dania, who has not spoken to the Lady Alicia since a falling out over a matter of inheritance. The grandmother of both ladies favored the Duchess as more true to the family lineage, and Inelda has never forgiven her. Put them at opposite ends of the table. As a matter of fact, put the Duchess to your left, across from Prince Thumsort. She’s done you a favor already, she’s an interesting woman and her rank allows you to favor her, though Inel
da will dislike you for it. And remember that the Invigilator of the Covenants, chief of all scrutators and a high-ranking member of the Tribunal, is at odds with Count Farmoor over a question of interpretation.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea. Nobles do not explain covenant matters to commoners. Tribunal matters are sacred and secret. Commoners are not even allowed to go near the Tribunal Building, for any reason. Nonetheless, I feel sure, seating them together would not be a good idea.”

  “I’ll never learn the names of all the nobles!”

  “Not if you had to learn them all, but you don’t. Only the other six provincial Dukes and Duchesses are regularly here in court, together with a handful of the lesser nobility. Your father’s military role has kept him free of attendance until now, and if a battle broke out anywhere, he’d probably be excused again. Just remember each Province’s Duke is known by the name of the Province, as for example: Duke of Sealand or Duke of Merdune. Each county has an Earl or sometimes a Count, depending upon the original title, who is known by the name of the county, and within counties large estates are held by barons or viscounts. If you forget, flutter your eyelashes and smile.”

  He started to leave, then turned back. “Oh, I forgot to mention. Since the Prince is coming, there will be at least a couple of Aresian guards with him. The proper protocol is to take no notice of them, not even if they search behind curtains for weapons or run their detecting devices over your body.”