Page 27 of Valdemar

Kordas’s first day as King began with a mystery.

Sai, who never paid any attention to anyone else’s privacy unless it suited him, just barged into Kordas’s suite while Kordas was still getting dressed. Without Stevin this time—Stevin had more important things to do this morning, such as gather up all the household finery that had been used yesterday, make sure it was in good order and clean, and put it back into storage in the hertasi tunnels where it would be safe from moths, vermin, and temperature changes. It would be a very, very long time until the King of Valdemar’s Kingdom could produce those embroidered tabards, silks, and brocades, and for the foreseeable future any ornamentation on new garments was going to be stuff that had been cut off garments too worn or ruined to wear, or had been created and added by the wearer. The only gold was in the form of coinage, and no one here had the skill to make gold thread. He could count on the fingers of two hands the number of people who could embroider to Imperial Court standards, and they were all busy doing work that was more needed and less time-consuming. Even the highborn ladies were sewing and mending common garments for their families, because their maidservants were probably helping with the building, decorating, or furnishing of their new manors. So . . . best take great care with the beautiful things they had already.

Under most circumstances, this job would have been handled by the housekeeper, not Stevin, but the housekeeper was tied up making sure all the common linens had been gathered up and sent to the laundry, and that nothing had “walked off” during the celebration. So Stevin had volunteered, much to her gratitude.

And this was just for the relatively small household that Kordas had—the highborn who lived here were expected to tend to their own household goods themselves.

In fact, it would be a very long time before most people had the kind of household they had enjoyed in the Duchy. For one thing, many servants had peaceably defected to start their own farms, which would not have been possible for them in the Duchy. What land was for sale in the Duchy was at a price a servant could not afford—as opposed to being free for the labor of turning it into a farm. So a good many of his highborn had come to the shocking conclusion a year or so into their escape that they were going to have to do many things that a servant had once done for them. Few of his highborn had been as “hands on” with the work of their estate as he was.

First there had been anger, and the demand that he “do something” about it. Then had come attempts to bribe the servants back—some of which had worked, since household servants trained in household tasks were somewhat ill equipped to farm. Finally had come resignation—and calluses and sore feet and the ongoing lament of “If only we had hertasi!”

Indeed. If only!

He considered it a good lesson for them; it made them understand just what effort their servants made—and it wasn’t as if they didn’t still have quite a few hands left to serve, and far more leisure time than any of those servants got.

As for his own household, well, back in the Empire his personal household had been . . . adequate to his needs, but far smaller than most of his rank. For a household the size of a “real” King within the Empire—or the Emperor himself? The number of servants would be staggering. There were fifty servants now tending to Kordas and his family and the Palace, and that included vegetable and herb gardeners, the stablehands and livestock tenders, and the kitchen staff who served everyone living in the Palace. It was the same number he’d had as a Duke, and he probably should be employing more, but the simple fact was that there were not enough people willing to be servants now, and he was counting on the personal servants of the highborn living here to take up the slack by doing everything that was needed to keep their quarters in good condition, as well as tending to the needs of their masters. I certainly hope that as they move out into their own manors, we won’t end up shorthanded.

It would be a very, very long time before he could boast a household the size of even an Imperial Prince, much less a King. There was no way there would be that many people willing to be servants in his lifetime. Maybe Restil’s. Not before.

Nominally the household was Isla’s purview, but . . . well, he did worry about everything. And the fact that Sai had just barged in on him while he was dressing triggered his easily triggered alarm.

“So what went wrong?” he demanded. “Something must have gone wrong. Are half the mages down from overwork? Did someone among the religious Foresee a disaster? Did all the leftovers spoil?”

Sai rolled his eyes. “Nothing went wrong,” he said, with a touch of exasperation. “You could look at this as something going very, very right. But—well, last night, the illuminations? The dancing silver horses? And the red thing? None of us did that.”

For a moment Kordas was sure he had entirely misheard the Old Man, because he had certainly seen those silver horses, and so had everyone else, because the buzz of conversation had been full of them. “What do you mean—” he began.

“Exactly what I said! None of us did that. Not us, not the Hawkbrothers, not the priests and what-all. Not even Father Jorj, who in any event hasn’t got a magical bone in his body, but he swears he did nothing to evoke his goddess. None of us.” Sai waited expectantly for Kordas to put two and two together.

“So . . . either it was some mage or mages down in Haven that we don’t know about—” he began.

Sai snorted. “Unlikely.”

“Or it was a mage or mages outside of Valdemar—” he continued.

“Equally unlikely, or so say the Hawkbrothers.”

“Or . . . the hand of the divine, on its own, without evocation.” Goosebumps prickled his arms, and a chill ran up his spine.

“So say the Tayledras,” Sai nodded, his white braid bobbing. “If not, well, we need to go hunting for someone with mage Gifts who’s been hiding among us.”

“It’s probably Epona,” Kordas replied after a few moments. “Not that She has shown her hand at all that I know of for generations, but it seems the most likely.”

“It does seem like the sort of thing She would do, except that the Tayledras think it’s Kal’enel. The Star-Eyed. They think She is probably showing Her approval of you taking over the old Vale, what you’ve done with it so far, and what you plan to do. The rest of us—” He shrugged eloquently. “We don’t have any opinions. Only questions. Which, to be honest, would mostly be answered with, ‘Well, gods can do what they like.’”

“Well, at least Epona isn’t going to smite us. We’re a long way from her home. That could have seriously annoyed her, I suppose.” Granted, Epona wasn’t known for her temper or impatience, but gods could do, or be, what they liked.

“Something to be said for that,” Sai agreed. “And the red thing? We think it was meant to show that the Kingdom is defended, but who did it is a mystery, too. Now, we’ve all had a bit of a palaver, and Silvermoon just came out and said to say that if anyone asks, he did it. We don’t think anyone will, but that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”

Kordas could certainly see the logic there. Yes, the Hawkbrothers were allies, and yes, they were almost universally considered to be benefactors, but there were always dissenters, and there was no point in giving them more to work with. “Silvermoon did fantastic work with those sky horses, especially considering the Hawkbrothers had never seen a horse until we arrived,” he deadpanned.

“Yes,” Sai agreed. “Yes, he did. Well, put your boots on and get going. Just because you were crowned yesterday, that doesn’t give you leave to have a holiday! Isla’s been up since long before breakfast!”

“Isla can do everything I can, backwards and in skirts,” he reminded Sai. “You should have made her Queen alone, and retired me to a pasture.”

“That can still be arranged,” Sai retorted, with a deliberately sinister laugh, and left.

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