Page 50 of Beyond

“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 to 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.

Also, clearly someone who didn’t have a resource you could readily plunder. Because you would still need his personal expertise. And you wouldn’t have that if you stripped his lands bare.

The result was … interesting. People actually began to relax around him. They didn’t fear him. They didn’t suspect him of double dealing. They didn’t suspect him of scheming to get what they had.

Because clearly, if he was the sort of man who was grateful to have a manor riddled with vermin, if he was the sort of man who put up with smoky chimneys and smelly privies, and did so with a self-deprecating charm, then he was absolutely no threat to anyone else’s ambitions.

So when the Court was dismissed for everyone to go back to their chambers to bathe and change for dinner, he felt a little—a very, very little—less tension.

For now.

Because this was the Court of the Emperor, and the situation could turn in an instant.

o …if it’s half past breakfast here, it will be luncheon there?” Delia asked. It didn’t make any sense. Wasn’t it always the same time everywhere? “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Jonaton sighed, and picked up an apple from the breakfast table, and placed it in front of her. “The world is shaped like—well, a ball, not an apple, but this will do. The sun goes around it like this.” He picked up another apple and moved it around the apple in front of her in a circle. Then he picked up a knife—