They got settled in well past midnight. Dinner in the room he shared with Valentia was lukewarm soup with chunks of what Drake prayed were chicken in it, and bread. The meat was soft, if not spicy, but he still felt a bit nauseated by meat. That wasn’t an encouraging sign.
He loved meat. Meat was the best. If the fact that he’d eaten human meat was going to put him off meat forever, that was just one more reason being a wererat sucked.
Valentia had gotten them an adjoining room with Jeremy and Anna, but she’d also rented the two most expensive rooms in the inn. Those were the only ones not occupied tonight. Unfortunately, there was only one bed, but she assured him she’d sleep in a chair. As non-gentlemanly as it might be to relegate her to a chair, Drake was going to hold her to that.
Fortunately, these lordly rooms afforded them all a lot more privacy that the cheaper rooms, which, judging from the bunked beds, looked to sleep multiple people. The cheap rooms made this place feel more like a hostel than an inn, but maybe that was a local thing.
Valentia seemed to have no problem tossing her coin around—or perhaps the coin she and Sachi had looted from her captors—and while Drake offered to pay with his ill-gotten loot, she politely declined. That resulted in a sizable room with a sizeable bed for him (not Valentia), the same type of room for Jeremy and Anna, and a private washroom between the two rooms.
The rooms were joined by doors on each side. There wasn’t a shower in the washroom—maybe second-floor showers weren’t as easy to set up here as back in his world?—but there was a big cast iron tub. There were also several young boys whose only job at the moment seemed to be to ferry pails of water up and down the stairs. As Drake watched them steadily fill the tub, he assumed they got a lot of exercise.
Valentia insisted on taking a bath once he finished his dinner and the doors were locked, which seemed to run counter to her “You will not sleep unless I can keep my eyes on you” speech. Drake settled on the big fluffy bed and sat with his club facing the door. He was already getting sleepy, so he opened the coded letter and looked it over.
Trying to decipher the odd code didn’t help. Focusing on the puzzle only made him more sleepy. The inn was too quiet, as was the town outside, and it was so cold in here. They obviously didn’t have insulation in this world, and the urge to crawl beneath the fluffy covers was strong. He always slept better in cold, so long as he was warm.
Worse, the only light he had was a single enclosed glass lamp with a gently flickering flame. Dimly flickering light plus quiet plus cold plus fluffy warm bed was the perfect recipe to ruin him. He even nodded off, once, and decided to pace. He rubbed his hands together.
He was still pacing the room, resisting the call of fluffy sheets, when the sliding door to the washroom slid open. Valentia walked out wearing a fuzzy tunic and slacks whose warming properties immediately made him jealous, then glanced at him as if in surprise.
“You’re awake,” she informed him... and she didn’t sound pleased.
Drake frowned. “Is there something wrong?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she walked to the single chair at a small writing desk, flipped it around to face him, reclined in it, and crossed one leg over the other. Every motion was precise, and it all gave him the impression she intended to discuss something.
“We will need to leave the inn early tomorrow to avoid paying for another night. You will not have the luxury to sleep in tomorrow.”
“I get that, but you were in the bath. I had to keep watch, and I need to free you before we set off tomorrow. I don’t do slavery.”
“There was no need for you to keep watch. In that tub, I have enough water to cut a regiment of enemy soldiers into bits or form a ladder down for our escape. Or did you assume I requested those servants ferry so much water up here simply so I could exfoliate my skin?”
Oh, shit. That did make a lot of sense. While Valentia could conjure ice from the moisture in the air, it must be easier for her to create it with actual water around. She now had all the ammunition she needed to hold off a commando squad.
“Mea culpa,” he agreed.
She watched him cautiously. “What does that mean?”
“I concede the point. I made an assumption about you, and I won’t do that again.”
Her face slipped back into ice sculpture mode as she observed him in silence. He held her gaze, deciding it would be a mistake to look away. She seemed to be testing him.
Finally, she spoke. “Since we are speaking about assumptions, I will ask you a question instead of making one myself. Are you comfortable with criticism?”
“Does that mean you’re going to critique me, Val?”
“If you can listen without throwing a fit or threatening to murder me.”
Drake chuckled. “Sure. But first—”
“Hold off on your decree,” Valentia interrupted.
Drake frowned. “Why?”
“I wish you to have no doubt as to the veracity of my words.”
“I’m going to free you from the blood pact. That’s not negotiable.”
“If you insist, I will not oppose you. But I wish to speak to you under compulsion first.”
Drake considered. This seemed important to her. “All right. Let’s talk.”
“Do you truly believe you are strong enough to lead Gloomwood Manor?”
That wasn’t the question Drake had been expecting. It was, however, a fair question. Valentia didn’t know him, and she obviously didn’t respect anyone weaker than she was. She could also kill him with a snap of her fingers if not for the blood pact.
He considered her question carefully before he answered. She didn’t seem to mind. Finally, he spoke. “Compared to you, I might not be that strong.”
“Then why accept the title?”
“Because in my opinion, being a manor lord isn’t just about raw strength. I have plenty of strong people working for me, but so far, no one has stepped up to lead. What I have, other than the ability to shapeshift and wreck people, is a talent for leadership and negotiation.”
“And you consider yourself capable in these respects?”
“More than capable,” Drake agreed. “Sachi must have told you how I handled Westin.”
“You released a valuable hostage while asking nothing in return,” Valentia said coolly. “You surrendered a priceless magical artifact that we may never retrieve. And all she said of your final meeting with Westin is that you eased his passage from our woods.”
“In return for ensuring he wouldn’t cause harm to Gloomwood Manor.”
“And what harm could he inflict upon us?”
Drake grimaced as he considered her inability to lie. “I can’t tell you that. All I can tell you is that Gloomwood Manor wouldn’t be around now if I hadn’t negotiated with Westin.”
“That is an exceedingly bold claim,” Valentia said. “Yet if your skills in negotiation and leadership are so strong, how do you explain your actions yesterday night?”
Drake wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “In regards to what?”
“While I applaud how you dealt with your Redbow captors, you accepted significant risk to aid Anna and her father. Had you simply slipped from the Redbow camp without attempting to free Anna, they might never have pursued you.”
“I wasn’t going to leave a little girl in a cage, Val.”
“Hence my concern. In addition, when we attacked you on the plains, you allowed those peasants to act as an anchor upon you. Had we been enemies, you would have died.”
“So you’re saying I should have left them to die?”
“I would not have killed them. I do not kill those who do not threaten me.”
He didn’t fail to note she said I, not we. Sachi had attacked him with her. He suspected Sachi would kill just about anyone who looked crosswise at her.
“So the fact that I’m willing to stick up for the little guys is good, right?”
“Only if you were a blood thrall. You are Lord Gloomwood, the beating heart of our manor. There is no reason for you to risk yourself on scouting missions. There is certainly no reason for you to place the lives of a single peasant girl and her father above your own.”
The idea that she would have just left Anna to suffer in that cage stuck in his craw. “Well, you know what? Maybe there should be. Maybe if your manor lords weren’t such dicks all the time, your world wouldn’t be such a shitty place to live.”
“I am not suggesting there is no need for heroism, simply that you are not the person who should provide it. I and your other battle maids are your eyes, ears, and hands. If you intend to come to the aid of random peasants, you should send us in your stead.”
“So to be clear, since we’re on the subject, I didn’t have you.”
“A valid point.” She wasn’t letting up. “You were on your own, which is all the more reason you should have abandoned Anna and her father and quickly made your way to a safe location. Once you were out of the path of danger, you should have contacted us.”
“So you think I should have just left Anna back there to die? Or be tossed back into slavery? Forced to kidnap people so they wouldn’t feed her father to the dogs?”
“None of that was your concern,” Valentia said patiently. “You did not inflict that fate upon her, and it was not your responsibility to save her from it. Our land is harsh. People suffer worse fates every day. To believe you can save them from their circumstances is unrealistic at best, and your naïve desire to save random peasants endangers our entire manor.”
Drake wasn’t at all ready to concede this argument. “Don’t forget Anna’s rarity. She can teleport people. She teleported me five days across the world. She’s powerful.”
“Which is why I do not entirely discount your choice to protect her. If I believed your only reason for dragging her and her father along during your escape was because you believed her rarity could be of use to Gloomwood Manor, I would be slightly more comfortable with your decision. However, it is clear you risked yourself out of benevolence.”
She really was ruthless. “And even if I did, what’s wrong with that?”
“Because you are no longer simply responsible for yourself. From what little Sachi has told me, Lydia is strongly in favor of you continuing as our lord. While I do not yet understand why she would endorse you, I trust her judgment... and every time you risk yourself for those who have nothing to do with us, you spit in the face of Lydia’s trust in you.”
Drake was now more confused than anything. “The hell are you talking about?”
“Your charge is to protect us, our manor, and our interests... not risk your life for those who have nothing to do with us. Your desire to risk yourself and our manor for those who have no loyalty to us worries me. It suggests Lydia is mistaken about you.”
Drake ruefully shook his head. “You really believe this?”
“It truly concerns me that you do not. If you believe the risks you took in saving Anna and her father were heroic, it suggests you do not understand your role as our leader or the burden that role places upon you. You are not a hero. You are our manor lord.”
He couldn’t just blindly argue with her about this. He needed to understand why she felt this way. “So how are those two different in your eyes?”
“A hero dies for their beliefs. They can easily be replaced. A lord looks at what must be done to protect everyone and sends others to accomplish necessary tasks, even if they know those they send may die. Their role is to lead, not to fight, and never to risk themselves.”
Drake considered Valentia’s words in silence. They were harsh, no doubt about it. Yet while he disagreed with some of what she’d said, he couldn’t say she was entirely wrong.
As much as some stories reveled in the heroism of commanders who led from the front, those commanders often died bloody. Without their leadership, their armies fell. The most successful leaders in history did not have the luxury to be heroic. They left that to others.
The burden of leaders was often sending brave people off to die to protect everyone else and to live with those decisions. They had to focus on the big picture that kept everyone they led safe. They had to sacrifice others.
“That is why I am offering this critique,” Valentia continued. “If you truly intend to lead us, then I would ask that you remember your responsibility is first to preserve your own life and then the lives of your blood thralls. The welfare of peasants who do not even live inside your territory should be a tertiary concern at best.”
At least he understood her reservations. “I understand why you might think that.”
“Thank you.” She looked away and picked a narrow book up off the desk. As she flipped it open to read, Drake spoke again.
“However, I stand behind all of my decisions.”
Valentia placed her book back on the table. She stood up just enough to turn her chair toward him and sat down again, crossing one leg over the other.
“If you wish to explain your reasoning, I will listen.”
They got settled in well past midnight. Dinner in the room he shared with Valentia was lukewarm soup with chunks of what Drake prayed were chicken in it, and bread. The meat was soft, if not spicy, but he still felt a bit nauseated by meat. That wasn’t an encouraging sign.
He loved meat. Meat was the best. If the fact that he’d eaten human meat was going to put him off meat forever, that was just one more reason being a wererat sucked.
Valentia had gotten them an adjoining room with Jeremy and Anna, but she’d also rented the two most expensive rooms in the inn. Those were the only ones not occupied tonight. Unfortunately, there was only one bed, but she assured him she’d sleep in a chair. As non-gentlemanly as it might be to relegate her to a chair, Drake was going to hold her to that.
Fortunately, these lordly rooms afforded them all a lot more privacy that the cheaper rooms, which, judging from the bunked beds, looked to sleep multiple people. The cheap rooms made this place feel more like a hostel than an inn, but maybe that was a local thing.
Valentia seemed to have no problem tossing her coin around—or perhaps the coin she and Sachi had looted from her captors—and while Drake offered to pay with his ill-gotten loot, she politely declined. That resulted in a sizable room with a sizeable bed for him (not Valentia), the same type of room for Jeremy and Anna, and a private washroom between the two rooms.
The rooms were joined by doors on each side. There wasn’t a shower in the washroom—maybe second-floor showers weren’t as easy to set up here as back in his world?—but there was a big cast iron tub. There were also several young boys whose only job at the moment seemed to be to ferry pails of water up and down the stairs. As Drake watched them steadily fill the tub, he assumed they got a lot of exercise.
Valentia insisted on taking a bath once he finished his dinner and the doors were locked, which seemed to run counter to her “You will not sleep unless I can keep my eyes on you” speech. Drake settled on the big fluffy bed and sat with his club facing the door. He was already getting sleepy, so he opened the coded letter and looked it over.
Trying to decipher the odd code didn’t help. Focusing on the puzzle only made him more sleepy. The inn was too quiet, as was the town outside, and it was so cold in here. They obviously didn’t have insulation in this world, and the urge to crawl beneath the fluffy covers was strong. He always slept better in cold, so long as he was warm.
Worse, the only light he had was a single enclosed glass lamp with a gently flickering flame. Dimly flickering light plus quiet plus cold plus fluffy warm bed was the perfect recipe to ruin him. He even nodded off, once, and decided to pace. He rubbed his hands together.
He was still pacing the room, resisting the call of fluffy sheets, when the sliding door to the washroom slid open. Valentia walked out wearing a fuzzy tunic and slacks whose warming properties immediately made him jealous, then glanced at him as if in surprise.
“You’re awake,” she informed him... and she didn’t sound pleased.
Drake frowned. “Is there something wrong?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she walked to the single chair at a small writing desk, flipped it around to face him, reclined in it, and crossed one leg over the other. Every motion was precise, and it all gave him the impression she intended to discuss something.
“We will need to leave the inn early tomorrow to avoid paying for another night. You will not have the luxury to sleep in tomorrow.”
“I get that, but you were in the bath. I had to keep watch, and I need to free you before we set off tomorrow. I don’t do slavery.”
“There was no need for you to keep watch. In that tub, I have enough water to cut a regiment of enemy soldiers into bits or form a ladder down for our escape. Or did you assume I requested those servants ferry so much water up here simply so I could exfoliate my skin?”
Oh, shit. That did make a lot of sense. While Valentia could conjure ice from the moisture in the air, it must be easier for her to create it with actual water around. She now had all the ammunition she needed to hold off a commando squad.
“Mea culpa,” he agreed.
She watched him cautiously. “What does that mean?”
“I concede the point. I made an assumption about you, and I won’t do that again.”
Her face slipped back into ice sculpture mode as she observed him in silence. He held her gaze, deciding it would be a mistake to look away. She seemed to be testing him.
Finally, she spoke. “Since we are speaking about assumptions, I will ask you a question instead of making one myself. Are you comfortable with criticism?”
“Does that mean you’re going to critique me, Val?”
“If you can listen without throwing a fit or threatening to murder me.”
Drake chuckled. “Sure. But first—”
“Hold off on your decree,” Valentia interrupted.
Drake frowned. “Why?”
“I wish you to have no doubt as to the veracity of my words.”
“I’m going to free you from the blood pact. That’s not negotiable.”
“If you insist, I will not oppose you. But I wish to speak to you under compulsion first.”
Drake considered. This seemed important to her. “All right. Let’s talk.”
“Do you truly believe you are strong enough to lead Gloomwood Manor?”
That wasn’t the question Drake had been expecting. It was, however, a fair question. Valentia didn’t know him, and she obviously didn’t respect anyone weaker than she was. She could also kill him with a snap of her fingers if not for the blood pact.
He considered her question carefully before he answered. She didn’t seem to mind. Finally, he spoke. “Compared to you, I might not be that strong.”
“Then why accept the title?”
“Because in my opinion, being a manor lord isn’t just about raw strength. I have plenty of strong people working for me, but so far, no one has stepped up to lead. What I have, other than the ability to shapeshift and wreck people, is a talent for leadership and negotiation.”
“And you consider yourself capable in these respects?”
“More than capable,” Drake agreed. “Sachi must have told you how I handled Westin.”
“You released a valuable hostage while asking nothing in return,” Valentia said coolly. “You surrendered a priceless magical artifact that we may never retrieve. And all she said of your final meeting with Westin is that you eased his passage from our woods.”
“In return for ensuring he wouldn’t cause harm to Gloomwood Manor.”
“And what harm could he inflict upon us?”
Drake grimaced as he considered her inability to lie. “I can’t tell you that. All I can tell you is that Gloomwood Manor wouldn’t be around now if I hadn’t negotiated with Westin.”
“That is an exceedingly bold claim,” Valentia said. “Yet if your skills in negotiation and leadership are so strong, how do you explain your actions yesterday night?”
Drake wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “In regards to what?”
“While I applaud how you dealt with your Redbow captors, you accepted significant risk to aid Anna and her father. Had you simply slipped from the Redbow camp without attempting to free Anna, they might never have pursued you.”
“I wasn’t going to leave a little girl in a cage, Val.”
“Hence my concern. In addition, when we attacked you on the plains, you allowed those peasants to act as an anchor upon you. Had we been enemies, you would have died.”
“So you’re saying I should have left them to die?”
“I would not have killed them. I do not kill those who do not threaten me.”
He didn’t fail to note she said I, not we. Sachi had attacked him with her. He suspected Sachi would kill just about anyone who looked crosswise at her.
“So the fact that I’m willing to stick up for the little guys is good, right?”
“Only if you were a blood thrall. You are Lord Gloomwood, the beating heart of our manor. There is no reason for you to risk yourself on scouting missions. There is certainly no reason for you to place the lives of a single peasant girl and her father above your own.”
The idea that she would have just left Anna to suffer in that cage stuck in his craw. “Well, you know what? Maybe there should be. Maybe if your manor lords weren’t such dicks all the time, your world wouldn’t be such a shitty place to live.”
“I am not suggesting there is no need for heroism, simply that you are not the person who should provide it. I and your other battle maids are your eyes, ears, and hands. If you intend to come to the aid of random peasants, you should send us in your stead.”
“So to be clear, since we’re on the subject, I didn’t have you.”
“A valid point.” She wasn’t letting up. “You were on your own, which is all the more reason you should have abandoned Anna and her father and quickly made your way to a safe location. Once you were out of the path of danger, you should have contacted us.”
“So you think I should have just left Anna back there to die? Or be tossed back into slavery? Forced to kidnap people so they wouldn’t feed her father to the dogs?”
“None of that was your concern,” Valentia said patiently. “You did not inflict that fate upon her, and it was not your responsibility to save her from it. Our land is harsh. People suffer worse fates every day. To believe you can save them from their circumstances is unrealistic at best, and your naïve desire to save random peasants endangers our entire manor.”
Drake wasn’t at all ready to concede this argument. “Don’t forget Anna’s rarity. She can teleport people. She teleported me five days across the world. She’s powerful.”
“Which is why I do not entirely discount your choice to protect her. If I believed your only reason for dragging her and her father along during your escape was because you believed her rarity could be of use to Gloomwood Manor, I would be slightly more comfortable with your decision. However, it is clear you risked yourself out of benevolence.”
She really was ruthless. “And even if I did, what’s wrong with that?”
“Because you are no longer simply responsible for yourself. From what little Sachi has told me, Lydia is strongly in favor of you continuing as our lord. While I do not yet understand why she would endorse you, I trust her judgment... and every time you risk yourself for those who have nothing to do with us, you spit in the face of Lydia’s trust in you.”
Drake was now more confused than anything. “The hell are you talking about?”
“Your charge is to protect us, our manor, and our interests... not risk your life for those who have nothing to do with us. Your desire to risk yourself and our manor for those who have no loyalty to us worries me. It suggests Lydia is mistaken about you.”
Drake ruefully shook his head. “You really believe this?”
“It truly concerns me that you do not. If you believe the risks you took in saving Anna and her father were heroic, it suggests you do not understand your role as our leader or the burden that role places upon you. You are not a hero. You are our manor lord.”
He couldn’t just blindly argue with her about this. He needed to understand why she felt this way. “So how are those two different in your eyes?”
“A hero dies for their beliefs. They can easily be replaced. A lord looks at what must be done to protect everyone and sends others to accomplish necessary tasks, even if they know those they send may die. Their role is to lead, not to fight, and never to risk themselves.”
Drake considered Valentia’s words in silence. They were harsh, no doubt about it. Yet while he disagreed with some of what she’d said, he couldn’t say she was entirely wrong.
As much as some stories reveled in the heroism of commanders who led from the front, those commanders often died bloody. Without their leadership, their armies fell. The most successful leaders in history did not have the luxury to be heroic. They left that to others.
The burden of leaders was often sending brave people off to die to protect everyone else and to live with those decisions. They had to focus on the big picture that kept everyone they led safe. They had to sacrifice others.
“That is why I am offering this critique,” Valentia continued. “If you truly intend to lead us, then I would ask that you remember your responsibility is first to preserve your own life and then the lives of your blood thralls. The welfare of peasants who do not even live inside your territory should be a tertiary concern at best.”
At least he understood her reservations. “I understand why you might think that.”
“Thank you.” She looked away and picked a narrow book up off the desk. As she flipped it open to read, Drake spoke again.
“However, I stand behind all of my decisions.”
Valentia placed her book back on the table. She stood up just enough to turn her chair toward him and sat down again, crossing one leg over the other.
“If you wish to explain your reasoning, I will listen.”
