“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.