ordas’s bed was comfortable, which was not a given, seeing as it was the Capital. He awoke at his usual hour—which, he suspected, was much earlier than most people living here could tolerate. He was going to leap up out of bed, get dressed, and then—

But then he remembered his new wardrobe and how impossible it was going to be to get into it unaided. With a sigh, he got out of bed and pulled the copper chain beside it.

Star entered the room immediately. “How may this one aid you, my Lord?” it asked.

“A bath and breakfast,” he said. “Or maybe the reverse order?”

“This one will serve breakfast in bed, as all the Great Ones take it,” Star said, and he thought that he registered a hint of reproach in its voice, as if he had offended it merely by suggesting that he take his meal any other way.

He sighed and got back into bed. Eating in bed had never appealed to him. Too much chance of crumbs or a spill that would require that the servants take the bedclothes apart and clean them ahead of the weekly schedule. But …people in the Capital didn’t have human servants anymore, now did they? And no one cared if the Dolls were inconvenienced. “What sort of breakfast is there?” he asked.

“Whatever my Lord wishes,” Star replied. “The kitchens will make it.”

“Bread, fruit, butter. Are there egg pies? A small one of those if there are. If there aren’t, just cooked eggs, three of them. Ham, cheese, and a bit of white or black sausage if you have it. Beans. Tea, I don’t care what kind.”

Star froze again for just a moment. He was beginning to realize this meant he had said something it didn’t expect, or perhaps it was speaking to other Dolls. Maybe the ones in the kitchen? It came to life again. “That is not the usual amount of food, my Lord,” it said carefully.

“I’m apparently awake much earlier than anyone else,” he pointed out. “If I just nibble a pastry and drink a glass of wine I’ll be faint by lunchtime. Is anyone going to want me this morning? What about this afternoon?”

“No one presents themselves in public before luncheon,” Star told him. “This afternoon you will be expected to appear in the Great Hall with the rest of the Court, whether or not you are called upon.”

Because of course I will. The Emperor needs to remind us daily that we serve him, not the other way around.

“Your breakfast has arrived, my Lord,” Star said, interrupting his thoughts. “As has Beltran’s.” It left the room and returned with a heavily laden tray.

If he had not been so hungry—and why that would be he had no idea after that huge dinner, but maybe all the headwork he was doing to maneuver around in the intricate Court dance had used up all the energy from dinner—he would never have considered eating that much food. When the Doll put the copper (of course) tray down across his legs, it was so laden that if it had not had its own set of supports, it would have been uncomfortable. There was an entire pot of tea, a delicate cup to drink it out of, a tart-sized egg pie and three boiled eggs, a slice of ham, a chunk of yellow cheese, slices of black and white pudding, a dish of white beans with butter atop them, a hand-sized loaf of bread, a dish of butter, and a sliced apple. He took his time eating, pondering what he should do with the day. And then it occurred to him; if there were no more human servants, what had become of the child-hostages?

“Can I see where the hostages are now?” he asked Star, who simply waited for his next order, standing beside the bed. He supposed that if he had asked the Doll to cut up his food for him and feed him, it would have done so.

It went still, then replied, “There seems to be no reason why my Lord cannot.”

“Then after my bath and I get dressed, I’d like to,” he declared, and for the benefit of whoever might be scrying him, added, “I had good memories of that time and the kindness of the Emperor.”

The Doll winced, just a little, probably at the blatant lie. But it did not call him out, and he was certain it did not report the lie to whatever it was reporting to. “Then this will be so,” it said. “Will Beltran be coming?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” he said. “Now, what about luncheon? Does the Court eat together?”

“Yes and no,” Star told him. “There is the option to be served in the Grand Dining Hall, but no one takes it amiss if one desires to eat in the privacy of one’s apartments.”

What in the seven hells do these people do with their lives? he wondered. Then something occurred to him. “What does Merrin do?”

“He generally is served in the Grand Dining Hall,” said the Doll.

“Can I ask to be seated with him?”

“One can ask to be seated with anyone else at luncheon,” Star said. “But seats are assigned at dinner.”

“Then get me seated with him, and make sure I’m there in time for us to meet.” He had decided that it might be useful to prop up the “country bumpkin” image with Merrin, who would, of course, know what life looked like at the Valdemar manor … or so he thought. Plant some ideas, plant some deceptions. Give him the impression that he’s still spying on me for the Emperor. Give him some more useful stories. Useful to me, anyway.

He heard soft sounds suggestive of a bath in the room between his and Beltran’s, and figured that his Herald had given his Doll fewer breakfast options, and so had finished earlier than he had. When the sounds ceased, he asked Star to take the tray away. “I’ll have that bath now,” he said.

The third Doll, Clover, was already drawing the bath when he made his way to the room. So what one knows, all of them really do know. Kordas brought the Ducal Crest in with him; no better time to “recharge” the thought-masking device than when relaxing in a hot bath. He traced his left thumb in circles around it. “Clover,” he said, “I’d like to have something made for me, if you don’t mind.”

The Doll replied, “This one will attend,” and leaned in toward Kordas slightly, as if intent to hear.

“There is a shirt I wear. There,” Kordas went on, pointing at the stormcloud-dyed undershirt. “It has special significance to me, but it has not aged well. It’s a bit ratty, in fact. Could you make me more shirts like that, but new? I know that may seem weird.”

Clover rocked back a little, like someone might do if they were laughing hard. “It shall be done. And this one assures you that such a request is far from ‘weird’ compared to many of the uses Dolls are put to.”

Kordas set the Ducal Crest aside, sitting up in the tub. “I don’t think I can imagine.”

Clover replied, “This one opines that may be for the best. Dolls are versatile, and are sometimes modified for specific tastes.” The Doll laid the shirt out on a towel stand and examined it closely. “This one assumes the shirt is of sentimental value. It is threadbare, but appears …beloved.”

“Sometimes we humans need to remind ourselves who we are. Our minds are limited, compared to particular others. We mark ourselves, or wear things to help us focus when we might otherwise find our minds in panic. The storm shirt is like that for me.”

It reminds me that whatever I may appear to be on the outside, and even whatever I show my closest friends, what I am inside is a lethal thunderstorm, and if I don’t keep constant control, I destroy.

“I am seldom happy with who and what I am,” Kordas admitted in a subdued tone. “So, I occupy myself trying to make things better for others, in the hope that if I bring about enough that is good for others, I will, overall, have become a good person when all is weighed. I wear that shirt to remind myself that however—awful—I am inside, there is more to me than only that. I don’t want to stall out at what I was, but it’s foolish to deny it existed.”

Clover was silent for a long time. Motionless, in fact, for long enough that Kordas sighed, emerged from the tub, and dried himself off. It was only when Kordas wrapped a towel around himself that Clover finally replied, “Self-examination is not common for my kind. We mainly exist simply to be, and to avoid not-being. If this one were to sum up my kind—as Dolls—in your terms, this one would say that …we are very sad. In our efforts to avoid not-being, we have submerged our aspirations of what we could be.”

Kordas leaned against the wall, and exhaled a long, tense breath. “I understand. When anyone is preoccupied only with staying alive, it is damned near impossible to embrace the fact that a better future is even possible. That’s why poverty is a form of suppression—it keeps the people without power from thinking too big. And you—the Dolls—are the ultimate in poverty.” He didn’t say any more out loud, but it was pretty obvious, even to a vrondi, how angry that made him. And it apparently affected Clover strongly enough that the Doll didn’t move to open the door, but rather, followed Kordas into the bedroom—and held up the thunderstorm-dyed shirt as if presenting a sacred weapon.

Something just happened, Kordas thought. Something I said hit home. “Thank you, Clover. I appreciate it.”

Clover backed away while Kordas donned the time-worn shirt. “We will see to it that your wishes are met.”

But it was Star that helped him into the breeches, coat, and boots. So it looked as if Star had assigned itself to him, Rose to Beltran, and Clover did whatever the other two were too busy to do.

This is a very seductive lifestyle. Yet another way for the Emperor to get his hooks into your soul. It leaves the powerful with nothing else to do but maneuver and indulge. It disconnects them from even their own people—and damn the Emperor for it, it’s diabolically effective.

“All right,” he told Star, when the latter was finally satisfied with Kordas’s garments, hair, and accessories. Or, if not satisfied, the Doll had at least stopped tweaking at them. “Let’s get Beltran, and make that visit to the Fostering School.”

Beltran’s door opened almost as soon as he and Star had stepped into the antechamber. “Rose says that we are making a visit to where the hostages are kept?” Beltran asked.

“Fosters,” Kordas corrected him warningly. “Our Mighty Emperor does not keep hostages. His guests are here to get a proper Imperial education, in order to bring that education home and use it there with their subjects.”

“Oh yes, of course, my mistake,” Beltran said, going a little white.

“No harm done,” Star said. Which he took to mean that they were not being scryed at that moment.

“What’s the name of the Fostering School?” he asked Star, preparing to hold his bracelet up to the Gate before going through. “We had other names for it, of course, when we were there. I never learned the proper one.”

“The Hall of Education,” said Star. He repeated that, and stepped through.

They stepped out into the room he remembered with dread.

It was another “Great Hall”–sized room, but this one had low ceilings, had nothing on the walls but portraits of the Emperor, and was filled with row after row of long tables and benches. The children were organized from back to front by age, with the youngest in the rear and the eldest at the front. They were seated four to a table except at the front. Each table had a teacher. But now, there were two differences.

The first was that beside each child was a Doll. The Doll must be taking the place of the personal servant each had formerly been allowed to bring along.

The second was that his senses told him there were spells on these children. His mage-sight told him what the spells were. Silence, and Stillness. The children literally could not move or speak unless someone, presumably the teacher, spoke the words to counter it.

The teachers ignored his presence, as did the Dolls, as he and Star moved along the wall and he took in the faces of the hostages. Though they could not speak, he saw expressions he recognized. On some, terror. On some, despair. On a very, very few, a look of absorption, as if they were genuinely enjoying what they were learning. And on a few, the same sort of smug self-satisfaction he saw so often on the face of Lord Merrin.

All of the children were boys. That had not been the case when he had been here—there had been a few girls that had been valuable enough to their families that they made good hostages. Not anymore. Just before Isla’s father had died, the Emperor had changed the law from “the eldest living child will inherit the estate and title” to “the eldest living male will inherit the estate and title.”

Girls were of no value to the Empire anymore.

It probably made things a lot easier in the Imperial “foster” dormitories now, though. Although, of course, that still did not preclude older or stronger hostages beating, raping, or abusing the younger … and would the Dolls even prevent that?

He’d have to ask Star that question. He really didn’t want to know the answer, but he really needed to know the answer, because that was going to impact his escape plans.

Yet again.

It appeared that this was all rote learning and memorization, drilling only what needed to be known to pass the Imperial tests into the heads of the students. He’d been very lucky; there had been a handful of genuinely passionate teachers when he had been here who had been willing to teach far more than that, to any hostages who were willing to learn. It was not uncommon for weaker children to overstudy, to escape the “free time” when predatory hostages could roam among the others looking for victims—and some, like him, because they were genuinely curious and had had a love for learning itself instilled into them at a young age.

These hostages would go home as proper little examples of the Empire; without compassion, without empathy, thinking of no one but themselves, willing to exploit anyone and anything. If their lands were lucky, and their parents had somehow escaped that conditioning, someone at home would bring them out of that mindset. Or, if their lands were lucky, they would do something that got them killed, and a younger, unindoctrinated sibling would rule in their stead.

But most would be what the Empire wanted.

What the Emperor wanted.

He drew on his time here to school his face into an absolute mask, showing no expression whatsoever.

There were about fifty or sixty students here. At the very front of the room, the oldest were divided up into pairs, each supervised by a human teacher, seated at small tables, and facing each other. On the table between each pair was one of the Three Games. It was clear that for the Emperor, mastery of the Games was the most important thing these hostages could learn.

It had been that way when he’d been here as well.

The teachers mostly watched in silence, but occasionally berated or mocked someone who was playing badly.

He remembered that all too well too.

There was another difference from when he’d been here. They’d all worn identical “uniforms” of Imperial red with the purple wolf-head on the left breast of the coat.

Now, though, they wore long, open robes of Imperial red with the wolf-head, but beneath the robes they wore their own clothing. And as he took in the degrees of splendor or lack of it in that clothing, he understood why this had changed. Being able to display the wealth of their families was one more way in which the hostages were divided against each other. If you were poor, the only way to escape abuse was to be big and strong, or to be quick and clever and know how to cheat. If you were rich, everyone around you would know it.

Most of the hostages did not look at him. Most of the few who did, did so with alarm, as if they suspected he was somehow heralding some new punishment. Only one or two, the youngest, would glance at him with pleading, as if begging him to take them away from this.

If only he could …

Not now. Not yet.

He’d finally had enough, and moved back to the Gate at the back of the room, with Star and Beltran in silent, faithful attendance. Not one teacher had asked why he was here. It took him a moment to figure out why.

They don’t know why I’ve come, and they don’t dare ask. They’re as ruled by fear as the hostages are. They’re afraid if they challenge me, I’ll bring about some sort of punishment for them.

He couldn’t take another moment. He held up his bracelet to the Gate and said, “The Copper Apartment.”

When they were back in the antechamber, he ground his teeth and carefully schooled his voice to sound neutral. “Well. A lot has certainly changed.”

Star froze a moment.

He waited.

Star unfroze. “It is safe to speak, my Lord,” the Doll said.

“I hate that place! I hate it. I absolutely despise it. It’s—it’s sabotaging their futures, all of them. I hate it,” Kordas raged. “Did you see it? The—they were making children into things. Into—into functions.”

Beltran backed away. He was pale, and he’d never seen Kordas like this before. “Maybe it isn’t—permanent,” he offered, but received only a glare from the Duke.

Kordas was stripping his jacket off, as if it was a fetter he was desperate to escape. “It has to stop,” the Duke panted. “It has to stop. It is wrong. It’s heartless. But the point of an Empire isn’t to be kind, is it? It’s to maintain itself. Did you see? By all gods great and small, the Empire is a living thing now. It’s turning everyone into its bones and belly. This is Hell. This is Hell.” He stood sweating, shaking, and then upturned a pitcher of water over his head, soaking his hair and the storm shirt, before shaking his head like a dog casting rain off. “It has to stop. It has to be stopped,” he trailed off, wiping his face and beard down with both hands.

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 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.