Beauty and the Werewolf fhk-6

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” she replied, feeling a little more mollified. “I don’t know… I think, besides my family, I am going to miss music a lot. I don’t have the usual sort of education — I can’t play or sing worth listening to, but I love listening to it. My stepsisters sing very well, and I go to as many musical gatherings as I can. And there are street musicians, very good ones…I miss that already.”

  “Oh. I was going to point out that we have a music room, but I suppose…” He looked thoughtful. “I don’t see any reason why the servants couldn’t play for you.”

  She blinked. “They can play?”

  “I can arrange it so they can. Or rather, I can summon ones that are musicians if the ones I have can’t. That’s how it works, you see, I summon servants with the skills I need.” He brightened up considerably. “How many do you need? One? Three? A dozen?” A dozen musicians, all at her beck and call? She felt suddenly dazzled by the mere thought. Only the King had that many musicians in his regular retinue. “It’s not easy,” he continued, “but as you pointed out, I really owe it to you. I’ll do what I need to do in order to make you a little happier here.”

  “First find out if any of the ones you have are musicians,” she told him, hastily. “Then we’ll see.”

  “But I — ” He paused. “Well, I could assemble them in the music room and tell them all that if any of them can play, they should go to an instrument and do so. I’m not sure how else I could tell. It might just be simpler to summon some, don’t you think?”

  Oh, bother. Not telling him I can communicate with them, not telling him that they are intelligent, makes no sense at all. “They can write, you know,” she told him. “At least two of them can.”

  “They can what?” he demanded, looking at her as if she had grown a second head.

  “They can write. You know, you just aren’t asking the right questions when it comes to your servants. Not all of them are stupid, and not all of them just obey blindly.” She shook her finger at him. “And here you are supposed to be the all-powerful wizard and you don’t even know that about your own creatures!”

  She almost asked him if he had ever considered actually trying to talk to these servants of his, but the answer was obvious; he hadn’t.

  “They aren’t supposed to be intelligent,” he was saying, looking bewildered. “The books all say so. Every single one of the books says that they are completely stupid and that without exact orders they just stand there until you tell them exactly what to do.”

  She had to laugh at that, and did. “Well, I suppose that this comes under that heading of ‘out of the mouths of fools and babes’ — I didn’t know, so I didn’t assume anything. I was talking to them, and two of them found a way to talk back to me.”

  He laughed with her, though it sounded rueful. “I hate to ask you this, but — would you find out what they can do? Obviously they aren’t as simple as I thought they were.”

  “Of course, what else have I to do?” she replied. “How many are there?”

  “Only about a hundred and twenty,” he said.

  “A — hundred and twenty?” That was — that was a truly insane number. Why would he need so many? She could only gape at him.

  “More or less. I’m not exactly sure, really. You see, when things needed doing and weren’t getting done, I just rested up for a few days and summoned some more.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, then pushed his glasses back up again with one finger. “It wasn’t all at once. I started doing it just after my father died because the servants kept leaving. Didn’t like Eric being in charge, you see.”

  Oh, hold back my surprise. That was uncharitable, and she knew it, but she couldn’t help it.

  He shrugged, clearly unable to understand why he had been deserted. And there was some hurt there; she got the feeling he felt betrayed. “I suppose all they knew was that he had been a servant, and now he’d got above himself. They couldn’t imagine why a fellow servant suddenly got put in charge of everything.”

  I rather doubt that. You can’t hide anything from the servants. Even if no one outside the Manor knew he was your kin, it was certainly old news to them. Still, what he said could have some truth to it. It was entirely possible that the rest of the servants had resented Eric all along. Elevating him to Steward in fact if not in name could have just brought all that to a head.

  Unexpectedly, she found herself pitying the man. No wonder he had an attitude…if he’d been hidden by the Old Duke rather than acknowledged, and was snubbed by those who thought he was only a servant, but resented by those who were below him, well…

  I can’t say my temper would be sweet.

  “Anyway, I’d learned and mastered the spell to summon these creatures. The Godmother approved of my doing so, and supervised me the first six months, so I just started replacing the servants who left. Then the servants that remained got unsettled by the invisible ones, and started leaving, too.” He looked as if his head was paining him, and she could certainly sympathize there. “I can’t really blame them for being unsettled, but I would have thought they would at least give it a trial. It’s not that hard to get used to them, and they can’t hurt you. Well, look at you! You’ve not gotten all upset about being around them! Not even two days here, and you’re already talking with them!”

  She choked down what she was thinking — that he had to be particularly dense when it came to human nature to think that she was going to have a typical reaction to being surrounded by floating objects borne by things unseen. If such a thing had happened in her household, the servants would have left without collecting their possessions. And they were loyal to her!

  “Anyway, I just kept summoning until there seemed to be enough of them to get everything done. So will you talk to them for me?” he repeated, looking at her with big, pleading eyes over the rim of his spectacles. “Please?”

  She sighed. How could she possibly say no?

  Besides, what else have I to do?

  “All right,” she agreed.

  Within an hour, she realized that she had taken on something far more time-consuming than she had thought, as she settled down with Verte and Sapphire to figure out what, exactly, she could do.

  This is going to be a great deal more complicated than I thought possible. In fact…I am beginning to wish Eric was right.

  Just to begin with, Sebastian had underestimated the number of creatures he had summoned.

  Either that, or they are breeding. Or bringing friends and relations.

  There were well over two hundred just associated with the house and grounds. She was ready to pull out every hair on her head in frustration. “How many, exactly?” she asked Verte, aghast.

  “216” came the prompt reply. A headache immediately started just behind her eyes. How would she ever come up with names for all of them? Not to mention organizing —

  But no — she was making work for herself that she didn’t need to.

  Wait, they are already organized. Sebastian said he just conjured up one when things needed doing. And since the household is running smoothly with minor problems like making too much food, then they must have organized themselves.

  That meant that there might only be a fraction that were more than Sebastian thought them to be. “How many of them are as clever as you and Sapphire and Thyme, Verte?” she asked.

  “43. Most very stupid.”

  The headache started to fade, as she heard that number. That was more manageable. “So, most of you are just what Sebastian thought — very simple creatures that just do a single job. Like, oh, the animated broom in the tale of ‘The Sorcerer’s Lazy Apprentice.’”

  Verte was smart enough to realize that was a question framed as a statement. “Yes.” Or rather “Y,” for Verte had also mastered abbreviations. Their own communication was getting easier with every passing hour.

  “So the smart ones supervise the stupid ones?” she asked. That made sense; presumably they cou
ld see each other, and communicate, too.

  “Yes.”

  The headache faded to almost nothing. This was looking more promising. “I would imagine that all of the kitchen staff are smart ones,” she said, thinking out loud, but was pleased with Verte’s confirmation of that. “And most of the household staff. All of Sebastian’s, of course. What about Eric’s staff?”

  “All stupid but one. Smart one hides.”

  Aha. “You mean, ‘hides,’ as in keeps Eric from knowing it is smart?” she asked, thinking that if she were a smart invisible, that was what she would do. If he knew that they were intelligent, he’d begin ordering them to do a lot more.

  “Yes.”

  “So you need one smart one to keep Eric from interfering or complaining to Sebastian.” She nodded. “How many of you can write?”

  “Five. Sapphire, Thyme, Verte, two more.”

  Probably just as well. That was already a higher rate of literacy than among the Beauchampses’ household, of whom only Housekeeper and Cook were able to read and write with any fluency. Another reason why Mathew wasn’t going to become Butler anytime soon.

  “Which one of you is the Steward?” she asked, which was the next logical question. In a household the size of her own, generally the Housekeeper was in charge, unless there was a Butler. But in the enormous households of the nobility it was a loftier fellow, the Steward.

  “?”

  “Who is in charge of all of you?” she said, rephrasing her question.

  “Eric.”

  “And in charge of taking money and bringing things back?”

  “Eric.”

  And Eric was the only physical contact between Sebastian and the outside world. And now she began to think through the question she had raised with herself this morning: Who is managing all of this? There had to be someone who was making sure the estate was properly cared for — and at need the King’s own Chancellor of the Exchequer would see to it, if for no other reason than to make sure the Kingdom got the taxes. You didn’t get taxes out of a poorly managed estate.

  Under normal cases, where there had been a Steward, the Steward would have dealt with the mines and the income from them, unless there was a separate factotum in the city that handled the commerce and merely kept the Ducal coffers filled, small as they were.

  But Eric did not strike her as having that sort of education nor temperament.

  So it made sense that there was someone, perhaps appointed by the King, that was in charge of those portions of the Ducal estate. That would be logical, actually, since income from the mines would be subject to a tax, and this way the King could be sure he got all of it. The only thing that the Steward would need to tend to, then, would be the household and the Home Farm. So Eric was functionally the Steward — which, after all, had more or less been what he was ever since the Old Duke died. She sucked on her lower lip for a bit. No real point in changing that. He couldn’t hurt these invisible creatures. The stupid ones wouldn’t respond to bullying, and the smart ones knew to avoid him.

  “Is there a Home Farm?” she asked, realizing she had not asked that before.

  “Yes.”

  That explained where most of the food was from. Eric would oversee that, too, of course. “And are there more of you there?”

  “No.”

  Aha, so probably no one on the Home Farm knows or cares that the Duke is a werewolf. Probably just as well. “Does Eric spend much time there?”

  “No.”

  If farming wasn’t Eric’s expertise — and from everything she knew about him, she was pretty sure that she knew more about farming than he did — then the job was probably in the hands of the farmer who lived there.

  Hmm. Eric spends a great deal of time in the city. At least in the evenings…

  “Does Eric spend his nights away from here?” she asked.

  “Often.”

  Well, she couldn’t blame him. Being out here, so isolated, would be very difficult on someone who wasn’t as introspective as Sebastian. The city was so close that he could ride out and back again in the morning with no harm done. Except on the nights of the full moon, he wasn’t needed here. It wasn’t as if Sebastian needed a minder.

  The more she thought about it, the more she began to feel some sympathy for Eric. It was bad enough to be a noble bastard; the most you could hope for was the sort of “Gamekeeper” position that he’d gotten. Well, unless you were in the household of someone who had his own private army or the like, then you could manage to become something like a Seneschal or Warlord.

  I suspect Warlord would have suited Eric a great deal better.

  But then to have ended up with what was essentially the job of legal Guardian and Steward without actually having the title and full authority?

  It would grate on me. I don’t know about Eric, but it would have turned me sour. Probably the one thing that had kept Eric relatively civil was that Sebastian was so — likable.

  Not that she was going to approve of how Eric had been bullying people, and trying to take advantage of any girl that looked vulnerable. But he had probably been brought up by some pretty rough people here — maybe the Duke’s Huntsmen, or his Head Groom, or a Bodyguard if he’d had one. Men like that were not generally known for their manners.

  A child learns what he lives with.

  She resolved to try to be a little nicer to the man, and see what happened. I can certainly use an ally with access to the city.

  About then, her supper arrived in the invisible hands of Sapphire. She looked at the ribbon when the tray was set down. “I’d like you to hunt through the nursery and schoolroom and find some more slates and chalk,” she said. “I’d like the five of you who can write to each have your own.”

  Since Sapphire didn’t have the slate at the moment, the ribbon merely bobbed in place before heading out the door.

  “All right, then,” she said, thinking aloud as she took her first bite. “I don’t actually need to change anything in the way you are organized, obviously.”

  “Good” came the unprompted answer, which made her smile. So, Verte had some spirit and a mind of his — her — its own!

  “I really don’t need to know anything about any of you except for the intelligent ones.” She took another bite, and tried not to be distracted. Really, Thyme could do simply amazing things with food! “So, aside from the kitchen staff, you and Sapphire, and the one in charge of Eric’s quarters, what do the rest of the smart ones do?”

  “Stable: 7. Chickens, rabbits, pigeons: 2. Gardens: 10. Sebastian: 5.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Fix things.”

  Aha. That made sense. They wouldn’t be doing the same job all the time; things that needed mending could be anything from roof slates to a pipe.

  “What Sebastian asked me to find out was whether any of you can play musical instruments,” she told Verte, finally. “But when you told me how many of you there were, I got rather distracted. So let me try the direct approach. How many of you are musicians?”

  She really expected an answer like Sapphire’s frequent “Dont no,” but to her delight, she got an answer.

  “Nine. Seven good. Three very good.”

  Well, that was more than enough! And with that slight problem solved, she could tackle the larger one.

  “When can I talk to the rest of you?” There was a fundamental problem here. Why was Sebastian even a werewolf in the first place? She didn’t want to approach Eric about this, so that left only one other source of information. Sebastian’s servants.

  One way or another she was going to get some answers.

  7

  SEBASTIAN HOWLED ALL NIGHT.

  The moment that the moon came up, she knew that it was above the horizon even though she couldn’t see it, for the first howl echoed through the halls.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound, and it woke a deep and primitive fear in her. It was all she could do not to run to the door and not only make sure it was l
ocked, but to pile furniture in front of it. She shook so with fear that her teeth rattled, and it was nearly an hour before she could calm herself down.

  And it kept going on and on — not like the previous night, where he had only howled once or twice. Was this how he usually was?

  Now she knew why Eric preferred the gatehouse.

  It was horrible, actually, not because he sounded as if he was ravening to get at her, but because once she calmed down a little, he sounded as if his heart was breaking. If a wolf could be said to have such a thing as a broken heart. It was so mournful that she found herself sinking into despair again; Sapphire’s assertions to the contrary, she couldn’t think how the invisible servant could possibly be so sure that she wasn’t going to be changed and join Sebastian in this prison forever.