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.