Nobody said anything for a long few minutes, and Rose retrieved hand towels from the bathroom for Kordas to dry off.
“We need a signal for when it’s safe and not safe,” Beltran hesitantly offered, to break the tension. “To—to be—expressive.”
“Hah!” Kordas replied, immediately. “Diplomacy at its finest, right there, Beltran. The Duke of Valdemar, cursing and raging, and you call it being expressive.”
“I’m trying, my Lord. I’ve never seen you like this,” Beltran replied, rubbing his own face in sympathy.
Kordas exhaled strongly and admitted, “He’s right, though. We all need to know when it’s safe to . . . be expressive, without . . . waking the beast.”
“We three are honored that you would place us in a position of privilege, Lord, by counting us in your number. What sort of signal would you prefer, my Lord?” Star asked.
“Something nonverbal. Something subtle.” He thought about it for a moment. “Have you any good ideas?”
“I know,” Beltran spoke up. “Star, are you permitted to wear anything a human tells you to wear?”
Star nodded.
“All right, then. Wait one moment and I’ll be back.” Beltran went into his room and came back a moment later. In his hand was a small enameled pin of the crest of Valdemar. “You’re—cloth,” he said, awkwardly. “Can I pin this on you? And not hurt you?”
“Yes, Herald Beltran,” Star told him.
“All right. I’m going to pin it on the back of your right hand. When it’s safe to speak—when we’re in private, that is—leave it uncovered by your left. When it’s not, cover it up.”
“But what if this one needs both hands for a task?” Star asked logically.
“When you’re doing a task we’ll just assume it’s not safe,” Beltran replied, and looked to Kordas for confirmation.
“Sound plan to me,” said Kordas, and Star held out its right hand for Beltran to pin the crest on. Rose and Clover followed suit, and immediately displayed the badges.
“You have many questions, my Lord,” said Star.
Kordas sat on one of the uncomfortable copper chairs, cooling down. “How long have the hostages been wearing those robes instead of the old uniforms?”
“Five years, my Lord. The parents objected to the uniforms, as it ‘made them all equal, and they could not tell who was superior to whom.’ That was when the change was made.” Star paused. “The Emperor was angered at first by the objection, then suddenly became pleased. We do not know why.”
I can guess.
“Are the oldest hostages only schooled in the Three Games?” he asked next.
“Yes, my Lord. It is thought by that time this is all they need learn.”
“Are the Dolls permitted to protect hostages from other hostages?” That had been what had saved him—Hakkon’s presence. Not even a Prince wanted to chance the ire of someone who looked like Hakkon.
He was expecting a negative. But the answer surprised him. “Yes, in a sense, my Lord,” Star said. “If the aggression is merely verbal, we may do nothing. But if the aggression becomes physical, we are ordered to restrain both parties until a human teacher may be summoned. The human teacher determines the suitable punishment and administers it.”
For a moment he was absolutely astonished that such a reasonable thing was possible. But then he got suspicious.
“How often does a teacher judge in favor of a younger or lower-ranked hostage?” he asked.
“Not often,” Star admitted. “But the punishment is generally to be confined to one’s room, sometimes without a meal, and no hostage can enter another hostage’s room once the door is closed. But . . . there is still abuse. Perhaps not as much as before, but it still occurs, and if it occurs out of the presence of the hostage’s Doll, there is nothing the Dolls can do about it. There is no means of reporting abuse.”
“I suppose a lot of hostages run to their rooms and lock themselves in when they are not in lessons or at meals,” Beltran said, sounding shaken.
“Yes,” Star said simply.
Well, now came a very big question. One he was not sure he was going to get any kind of an answer to, but it had to be asked, now that he knew about the conditions the hostages were under. “If I can find a way to help you escape with us, can you Dolls bring the hostages with you?” he asked. Good, bad, or indifferent, he was not going to leave fifty children here, imprisoned, indoctrinated, and helpless.
Star froze for a very long time, then finally answered.
“The wisest of us say it depends upon how our directives can be circumvented by how we carry out orders from our superiors. We operate in fear for our lives, and obey, but we can sometimes—interpret how to accomplish tasks. If the interpretations result in a coincidentally convenient gathering, for example, we can try,” it said.
* * *
—
It seemed a very long time before the mage-lights changed color, signaling that luncheon was available in the Grand Dining Hall. Kordas had spent most of it looking out of his window and noting that, yes, all of the “people” he saw down in the gardens and stables were Dolls. He wondered how his horses were taking to being handled by them. Maybe there was some sort of soothing spell on the stables, to keep them from being alarmed until they got used to being handled by such strange creatures.
But that interlude gave him a chance to think, and decide exactly what he was going to say to Merrin, and how. This might actually be moderately amusing. It was certainly going to give people a lot to talk about.
“Do I need to change?” he asked Star anxiously.
“No, my Lord,” she said. “Your garments are adequate for the part you are playing.”
Interesting way to phrase it. I think Star is beginning to get the idea.
Kordas resolutely straightened his baldric, patted the Crest of Valdemar, and set his composure. Storms were brewing inside him, but his “war face” was one of bright-eyed neutrality.
“On to the Game of our lives, then.”
* * *
—
Once in the Grand Dining Hall, Star led him past several tables until she brought him to one that was mostly filled with Merrin and his entourage. “Merrin!” he cried, causing the man to visibly jump, and everyone else in the immediate vicinity to stare at him. “Good to see a familiar face!”
“Of course, my Lord Duke,” Merrin said, recovering, as Kordas took the empty seat beside the Emperor’s spy. “How have you fared here at Court?”
“Well, it’s nothing like when I was a foster, I can tell you that!” he replied. “You never were a foster here, were you, Merrin?”
The man colored a little at this reminder that his family was not considered important enough for him to be sent as a hostage. “No, my Lord, though I would have considered it an honor.”
“You wouldn’t have if you’d seen the dormitories, or the uniforms,” Kordas chuckled, and nodded to indicate he accepted the dish being offered to him of fresh greens. As usual, this was going to be a meal of several courses, each one having at least three dishes. At least it would probably consist of only three or four courses at most. He wondered if all of this was meant as a test of restraint, or a reminder of the Emperor’s bounty.
Probably both.
“Dormitories? Uniforms?” Merrin actually had a brief look of horror on his face.
“Oh yes, in my time we all wore uniforms, and we lived in rooms about the size of a wardrobe, just big enough for yourself and your body-servant.” He ate the greens, which seemed curiously tasteless. Did that have something to do with the ever-present perfumes dulling his sense of smell, or did the greens grown in the kitchen garden lack enough good soil and sunshine?
“Your—body-servant?” Incredulity mixed with the horror on Merrin’s face. “You shared quarters with your body-servant?”
�
��Oh, quite, quite, Merrin,” said a fellow dressed with about as much flair as that old Duke last night. He looked to be a little older than Kordas, and was soft, but not flabby. He seemed to relish the chance to rub it in that Merrin had not been of high enough rank to be a hostage. “Yes, indeed, you and your man, crammed in together on exactly the same, identical, narrow little cots. And all of us in the same uniforms, with the Emperor’s tabard, not a particle of difference among us. Quite the bonding experience, eh, Kordas?”
Aha. Now Kordas recognized him, by a little quirk of raising his eyebrow and his pinky finger at the same time.
“Absolutely, Baron Pierson,” he said, with false geniality. “Baron Pierson, may I introduce you to one of my Counts? This is Count Lord Merrin.”
“Charmed, charmed,” Pierson replied absently. “Oh! Don’t you remember little Macalay? How he’d get up a full candlemark before anyone else and scuttle into the bathing chamber to do his business before anyone could get in there and see him naked?”
I remember him scuttling in there because in his first week he’d been held under the water in the tub and nearly drowned, Kordas thought, as he pretended to laugh.
“You shared bathing chambers?” Merrin gasped.
That only increased Pierson’s mirth.
Kordas traded “school memories” with Pierson until someone on Pierson’s other side got his attention, and involved him in a debate on some woman’s charms. Merrin still seemed to be in a state of shock, but shook himself out of it when Kordas finished his course of beefsteak and got his attention again.
“So, as I was saying, Merrin, so far, I have to say everything here at Court is a delight. These Dolls! What servants they make! Silent, and you know they aren’t going to gossip about you belowstairs. And my apartment—well, it’s a sharp step up from the manor at Valdemar, I can tell you that!” Now . . . let’s see what you make of that.
“Your manor—what do you mean?” Merrin asked, taken aback.
“Well, you know, it was built a long time ago, and a lot of it’s empty, so . . . well, over the decades things have—happened.” He shrugged.
“What kind of things?” Merrin asked.
He lowered his voice. “Well, between just the two of us . . . I think the mages that built it might have been, you know—” He mimed drinking. “I mean, we both know Valdemar is a backwater, and the Emperor isn’t exactly going to send his best. The gods know he’s got far more important things to do than mess about making sure this or that manor is up to snuff.” He took a long swig of wine. “I mean, according to my grandfather, we were completely honored and gobsmacked that he had thought to build us a manor at all!”
He ate a few more bites to prolong the tension.
“And?” prompted Merrin.
“Well . . . we don’t know how they got in, but a couple of the towers are full of bats. Full of them! They come out in clouds every night! And after a while, you just accept the smell of their abundant droppings. Not,” he added, “that I’m complaining, mind you, because they are brilliant at eating up the bugs.”
“Bugs?” Merrin asked, a little faintly.
He nodded. “The bugs came in with the pigeons that took over what we call the Rose Tower, because you can see the rose garden so well from there. Or you could, if you didn’t have to kick through pigeon shit a foot deep on the floor of the top story.”
Now he had the attention of the entire table, and a couple of people on either side, and was really beginning to enjoy himself.
“Pigeons . . .” said Merrin.
“But that isn’t so bad, you know, nor are the bats. Empty towers, we don’t use ’em, and if we ever fancy pigeon pie or pigeon eggs, I just have to send a lad up there to knock a few on the head or gather the eggs, and there’s supper!” Those who could hear him were listening with rapt attention. “Hakkon, my Seneschal—you remember Hakkon? He got brave and went up there with a scarf wrapped about his face to investigate, and it’s his conviction that the towers were never built right in the first place. Howling great gap between the roof and the wall. Impossible to fix, of course, without one of the Emperor’s builder-mages, and maybe not even then. So we just let the bats and the pigeons have things. No harm to us, after all. And convenient for pigeon and squab and eggs.”
“Gap,” said Merrin.
“Bloody great one. Have you even been listening, Merrin?” Now people even further away had quieted their conversations, and he was really getting into the spirit of things. Trying to tell the “tale” the way he thought Squire Lesley would. “But that’s not really an issue, we’re really rattling around in that barn of a place. Built for four times the number we’ve got living there. No, it’s the other things that are a bit of a nuisance. Like the badgers in the cellars.”
“Badgers. In the cellars.”
Kordas knew damned well that no self-respecting badger would ever put his sett inside a human cellar.
He also knew damned well that there was not a single person in this entire Palace who would know that.
“Well, you can’t blame the Emperor’s mages for that too much. They built on the old manor, you know, and the cellars were already there, and—well—” He mimed drinking again. “I expect they thought they could skip a step. So the badgers moved into the cellars in my father’s time, and now every time we send a lad down for wine we have to send one of the huntsmen with a pair of hounds down with him. You know. To protect him. Tetchy things, badgers. Vicious, even. Take your arm off. But on the bright side, it means none of the servants are taking clandestine nips of the wine. And the badgers keep down the rabbits that moved in too.”
“Badgers and rabbits?” Merrin bleated.
“Well, the badgers and the rabbits were there before we were,” he pointed out. “It’s reasonable to think they’d try to move back.”
Merrin had been rendered speechless.
“But like I said, aside from having to send dogs and a huntsman down there when we want wine, it’s not an issue. And the mice are not that bad, not since we let cats have the run of the place. I think we have—forty? Fifty? At least that many cats. A little bit of a nuisance, since, you know, cats—they will get up on shelves and knock everything to the floor, and when they’re mousing at night sometimes they’ll chase their prey right over you just when you’re sleeping deepest. Small price to pay for not having mice nibbling the books and ruining everything in the pantry. No, the real issue is with the—you know—the facilities. The close stools. The privies. You know. They just weren’t built right. There’s always this . . . stink . . . in the room. Gets into the bedroom, sometimes. It’s worse when it’s winter and the wind’s in the east. Have to sleep somewhere else sometimes.” He nodded sagely. “Boot some servants out of their rooms for the night.”
Merrin’s mouth worked silently.
“The other thing is the chimneys. Those weren’t built right either. That’s why I think the mages were getting into the bottle, or maybe the blood-mushrooms, who knows. Most of the time, it’s fine. But when there’s a storm—which, I mean, really, a man wants to have a nice fire going and be warm in his own manor—the wind sends the smoke right down ’em into the room and not a thing, not a damned thing you can do about it. You go about the next day with your eyes as red as if you’d been weeping, and the smoke’s in your hair and your clothing and . . . it’s just damned unpleasant, that’s what it is. Unpleasant. You’ve never been to the manor during a winter storm, have you, Merrin?”
Silently, the Count shook his head.
“Well, there you are. If you had been, you’d know. And the badgers and cats are good against the mice, but there are always the snakes, just the same, and especially in winter. They just ball right up in the cabinets.” He nodded sagely, and then indicated that he’d like both the fruit and the cheese for dessert. “Not that I’m complaining! It’s a beautiful manor! Beautiful! And I’m proud t
o have it!”
“I’m sure you are,” Merrin choked.
“So,” he said, taking a bite of fruit and looking around at the rapt faces. “You can see why I’m enjoying my visit here! I’m in the Emperor’s debt for the invitation, I really am!”
* * *
—
The afternoon was further filled with attending the Emperor at Court. Which meant that Kordas milled about at the back of the Great Audience Chamber while the Emperor attended to various petitions and presided over disputes. He also received a couple of ambassadors that afternoon, and heard a legal case which had been appealed to him, involving two of his Dukes who presided over Duchies so large they made Valdemar look like Squire Lesley’s little holding. This was apparently a very serious matter, although Kordas couldn’t make head or tail of the arguments, and it might have come to a duel if either of the Dukes had been under forty.
He caught a lot of glances from other courtiers, and caught people whispering to each other out of the corner of his eye, and felt a high level of satisfaction at the impression his “discussion” with Merrin at luncheon had caused.
Now, this would have been purest disaster, if he’d seriously been looking to increase his influence at Court, because by dinner this absolutely would have gotten to the Emperor.
But, since the opposite was his intention, well, he could only be pleased that his plan had worked.
Once again—bumpkin achieved. The bumpkin who only occupied a quarter of his manor because he didn’t have that many servants or people in his own court. The bumpkin who tolerated bats in his towers and badgers in his cellars. And cats chasing mice over him in the middle of the night.
So, on the one hand—valuable because he clearly knew what he was doing when it came to horses. Clearly produced the best horses of all sorts in the entire Empire, if he had Princes asking to reserve the entire year’s worth of Charger foals.
But also, clearly someone you didn’t need to worry about when it came to social climbing, because he had one thing on his mind, and that was pedigrees.
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