Just after sunrise the next morning, Valentia led Drake to a sitting room and settled in for a long day. Olivia joined them as well, which left Nicole on guard duty until Lydia and Emily were up and about. He’d given his order regarding the burnish potion to Raylan first thing this morning as well, so Raylan was currently helping Lydia and Emily regenerate.
Samuel, it seemed, still needed to regenerate on his own. Fortunately, the dude even had skin now, and no visible wounds. Chances were good he would wake up in another few days. Drake still hadn’t visited his spy room, but he’d do that with Nicole after his interviews.
As the first blood thrall he was to interview meekly stepped into the sitting room, Drake looked the man over. His name was Shepherd Alby, and he was one of Drake’s “older” employees at 35. Drake had quickly learned that people didn’t live as long in this world as in his world, mainly due to less advanced medicine, natural diseases, and getting murdered.
Shepherd was a tall, thin man with short salt-and-pepper hair who reminded Drake of what a dentist would look like if he quit dentistry to go live in a cabin in the woods for two years. Did the man ever shave? He certainly didn’t cut his hair. Yet his thick spectacles and dour expression still made him seem intelligent, which was a good trick.
“Your name is Shepherd Alby?” Drake had decided to begin by confirming who all his people were, just in case one had been replaced with a doppelganger or other such nonsense.
The man nodded. “Yes, lord.” He sounded and looked tired. Perhaps old Shepherd wasn’t a morning person. Drake could relate.
“And you are one of my groundskeepers. You tend the hedges.”
“Yes, lord.”
“Now, Shepherd, are you currently compelled by an obedience fetish?
“No, lord. However, there is another matter I wanted to ask about. An old order.”
So Drake had hit pay dirt on his first thrall? This was either lucky or horrifying. Lucky if his choice to go alphabetical had paid off and averted a calamity, and horrifying if every person had secret standing orders to destroy his manor.
“What order is this?” he asked calmly.
“I know you don’t compel us anymore, lord. But back when you could, the old Lord Gloomwood gave me an order to tell him if I saw any fellow groundskeepers drinking spirits on the job.” Shepherd paused. “Would it be okay if we drink again?”
Drake waited a beat. “You want my permission to get sloshed while you’re working?”
“Yes, lord. The old lord didn’t like it when we did that, but it keeps us warm out there.”
This hidden order sounded positively mundane in comparison to Zuri’s problems and Arno’s betrayal. Did Gloomwood Manor have a history of intoxicated groundskeepers? Maybe years back, one groundskeeper had gone on a drunken bender and clipped a giant dick into the hedgerows, and then the current Lord of Gloomwood had vowed “Never again!”
Still, Drake imagined trimming the hedges all day got boring. And it was cold out there. Why not let his groundskeepers get a little sauced to keep their spirits up? It would certainly win him points with everyone in his manor.
“Sure, Shepherd. You folks can day drink, but don’t pass out in my hedges.”
The man’s expression brightened at once. “Thank you, lord!”
“Now, you should return to your duties.”
Shepherd nodded—the man remembered not to bow, which won him points in Drake’s mind—and then shuffled out. As Drake scanned the roster in Zuri’s open tome, he sighed.
Before this morning he’d cleared his battle maids, Zuri, Raylan, Anna, Jeremy, and poor mortified Kyra. When he added Shepherd to that count, that left thirty-five more humans to interview before he could move onto his twenty-four remaining zarovians.
He would have needed to interview forty-one humans and twenty-five zarovians yesterday, but he’d lost six people in the assassin attack: four loyal human employees, one fetish-compelled human employee, and one zarovian patroller. He’d start arranging the memorial this evening. He would do all he could to make them more than numbers.
One after the other, his human employees entered, and one after the other, he ensured they wore no obedience fetishes. He also got lots of questions about clarifying weird orders the other lords had left behind, but nothing else remotely sexual. He hoped poor Kyra would recover someday. Possibly in a few years with a good therapist.
He was ten thralls away from finishing when scullery maid Celia Thornton, a short twenty-two-year-old brunette with a button nose, dropped the first real bombshell regarding an old order she’d been compelled to follow and now had questions about.
“Once every moon ring, I am to travel to Shadowfort under cover of darkness and deliver a sealed letter from Lord Gloomwood to a woman at the Hearth’s Shadow.”
Drake had no idea what a moon ring was, and he wasn’t about to ask in front of his blood thrall, but this sounded like some real cloak-and-dagger shenanigans. “Is that a tavern?”
“Yes, lord.” Celia nodded vigorously, looking as frightened as he’d expect her to look as she admitted she’d been doing this without his knowledge. “I do not know the contents of the letters. I am not allowed to read the letters. The woman who receives the letter is always different, but always greets me by saying ‘These moons will turn to ash one day’.”
That was some doomsday cult shit. “So how many letters have you delivered for Lord Gloomwood?”
“I... I don’t exactly know, lord.” She was now visibly panicking. “Many. At least forty, no! Perhaps fifty? How many moons have passed since I started here? Sorry! I shouldn’t be asking yo—”
“It’s fine!” Drake reminded her. “You told me this of your own free will, and I appreciate that as well as your choice to stay here and serve me. I’m never going to punish you for something an old lord did, and it was brave of you to bring it up. I’m very pleased.”
That all seemed to calm her down. Once he had Celia no longer hyperventilating, she could finally move on with her confession/explanation.
“Lord Dickcheese would never deliver the letters to me directly,” Celia continued. “Instead, I was instructed to search in a small pouch behind the laundry hamper in the second cellar the day before the moon ring. There was not always a letter, but when there was one, I then delivered it to the Hearth’s Shadow the next night to whoever said the passphrase.”
This sounded like something the CIA would have pulled back in his world. Dead drops, clueless couriers, secret passwords, the works. Drake was curious to find out what was going on, but this also didn’t seem like an immediate threat to his manor. It could wait.
“Okay, Celia. I have a new order, if you’ll agree to it.”
“Of course, lord!” She nodded vigorously. “However I can help.”
“Continue doing as you have been doing, and tell no one else what you’ve told me. The next time you find a letter, you are to bring it directly to me before doing anything else. Do not tell anyone you have the letter, other than my battle maids, and do not deliver it to Shadowfort unless I then order you to do so.”
“I will, lord!”
She couldn’t lie. He believed her. Her very real loyalty was a welcome boon.
Drake dismissed Celia and continued about his work. Finally, by midmorning, it was done. As the last human left the sitting room to return to their duties, free of obedience fetishes and secret orders, Drake sat back and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well done, lord,” Olivia said quietly.
He smiled at her. “Thanks.”
He would have assumed sarcasm from Nicole and some veiled probing from Valentia, but Olivia was so sincere it made his teeth hurt. Her support was genuine. He’d simply accept she was impressed with his ability to speak words and move on with his day.
He glanced at Valentia. “You sure we can’t have the zarovians come meet me here?”
“I would not recommend it,” Valentia said calmly. “It is a long walk for them, and they are often lethargic if interrupted during slumber. You could be waiting a long time between interviews. Also, the cold slows and hinders their speech. Speaking to them in their own barracks in heated comfort would be the most efficient way to clear them.”
“Fair enough.” Drake rose. “I suppose we should clear the halls and—”
The click of the door to the sitting room opening snapped his gaze to it in alarm, as did Valentia’s. Olivia gasped and pressed her lips together, hands raised as if ready to toss a fireball at the first sign of murder. No one else was supposed to come in here without his permission.
With an ominous creak, the door eased open of its own accord. No one held the handle on either side. No one stood in view outside. A low voice joined them in the room.
“OoOOooh!” The voice undulated up and down as the door wiggled back and forth. “Am I an evil door? Fear me, Lord Gloomwood! I could be your undoing!”
Drake frowned and rubbed his temples. “Goddammit, Nicole.”
She did not appear so much as melt into view as she stepped into the room, dressed in her full maid outfit. As she shut the door behind her, her grin was infuriating.
“So what did we learn today?” Nicole asked. “Who else enjoys having their toes sucked?”
Olivia’s jaw dropped. “What?”
For once, Valentia’s icy dagger stare was not directed at Drake, and he enjoyed seeing her skewer someone else for a change. “Who is watching the entry?”
“I left the zarovians in charge of that. Had a letter to deliver.” Nicole reached to her apron and whipped out a sealed letter so fast Drake would swear it was a magic trick. “Silky envelope, gummy wax seal, delivered by a temperamental feral that looked like he had a stick up his butt. Ten to one it’s from the noble court, and it’s addressed to you, Lord Gloomwood.”
Drake glanced at Valentia. “Do I normally get letters from the noble court?”
Features hard, she shook her head.
Drake looked at Nicole. “And you’re certain that feral wasn’t an enemy assassin who just delivered a bomb in the form of a letter in hopes you would deliver it to me?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Nicole said. “But wow, would I be surprised.”
“I will open it,” Valentia said. “With your permission, Lord Gloomwood.”
“Sure.” He really needed his own letter opener, didn’t he?
Nicole sauntered over and handed the letter to Valentia, then yelped and jumped in place. Nothing had touched her. She glared at Valentia. “What was that for?”
“You cannot play such childish pranks in our lord’s presence. We face a real threat.”
“I was just teasing him!” Nicole’s angry stare turned into a curious smirk. “And hey, can you use that icy pinch trick on anything?”
“I will go guard the door, lord!” Olivia said frantically. She all but bolted from the room.
Nicole cackled as Olivia fled. “We need to get that girl a bed warmer.”
Drake looked at the space Olivia had left, at Valentia’s noticeable blush, at Nicole’s satisfied smirk, and then at his own feet, which hadn’t flutterstepped. Then he looked up.
“Can you read my letter, please?”
Valentia cleared her throat and composed herself. Then, with viciousness, she slit the seal with a swipe of a single sharpened fingernail. She pulled out and unfolded a one-page letter with precisely the precision and poise he had come to expect.
Valentia skimmed it briefly, then read aloud. “Lord Gloomwood, you are hereby given notice to appear at a cabal.”
Drake snorted. Of course they have those here.
Just after sunrise the next morning, Valentia led Drake to a sitting room and settled in for a long day. Olivia joined them as well, which left Nicole on guard duty until Lydia and Emily were up and about. He’d given his order regarding the burnish potion to Raylan first thing this morning as well, so Raylan was currently helping Lydia and Emily regenerate.
Samuel, it seemed, still needed to regenerate on his own. Fortunately, the dude even had skin now, and no visible wounds. Chances were good he would wake up in another few days. Drake still hadn’t visited his spy room, but he’d do that with Nicole after his interviews.
As the first blood thrall he was to interview meekly stepped into the sitting room, Drake looked the man over. His name was Shepherd Alby, and he was one of Drake’s “older” employees at 35. Drake had quickly learned that people didn’t live as long in this world as in his world, mainly due to less advanced medicine, natural diseases, and getting murdered.
Shepherd was a tall, thin man with short salt-and-pepper hair who reminded Drake of what a dentist would look like if he quit dentistry to go live in a cabin in the woods for two years. Did the man ever shave? He certainly didn’t cut his hair. Yet his thick spectacles and dour expression still made him seem intelligent, which was a good trick.
“Your name is Shepherd Alby?” Drake had decided to begin by confirming who all his people were, just in case one had been replaced with a doppelganger or other such nonsense.
The man nodded. “Yes, lord.” He sounded and looked tired. Perhaps old Shepherd wasn’t a morning person. Drake could relate.
“And you are one of my groundskeepers. You tend the hedges.”
“Yes, lord.”
“Now, Shepherd, are you currently compelled by an obedience fetish?
“No, lord. However, there is another matter I wanted to ask about. An old order.”
So Drake had hit pay dirt on his first thrall? This was either lucky or horrifying. Lucky if his choice to go alphabetical had paid off and averted a calamity, and horrifying if every person had secret standing orders to destroy his manor.
“What order is this?” he asked calmly.
“I know you don’t compel us anymore, lord. But back when you could, the old Lord Gloomwood gave me an order to tell him if I saw any fellow groundskeepers drinking spirits on the job.” Shepherd paused. “Would it be okay if we drink again?”
Drake waited a beat. “You want my permission to get sloshed while you’re working?”
“Yes, lord. The old lord didn’t like it when we did that, but it keeps us warm out there.”
This hidden order sounded positively mundane in comparison to Zuri’s problems and Arno’s betrayal. Did Gloomwood Manor have a history of intoxicated groundskeepers? Maybe years back, one groundskeeper had gone on a drunken bender and clipped a giant dick into the hedgerows, and then the current Lord of Gloomwood had vowed “Never again!”
Still, Drake imagined trimming the hedges all day got boring. And it was cold out there. Why not let his groundskeepers get a little sauced to keep their spirits up? It would certainly win him points with everyone in his manor.
“Sure, Shepherd. You folks can day drink, but don’t pass out in my hedges.”
The man’s expression brightened at once. “Thank you, lord!”
“Now, you should return to your duties.”
Shepherd nodded—the man remembered not to bow, which won him points in Drake’s mind—and then shuffled out. As Drake scanned the roster in Zuri’s open tome, he sighed.
Before this morning he’d cleared his battle maids, Zuri, Raylan, Anna, Jeremy, and poor mortified Kyra. When he added Shepherd to that count, that left thirty-five more humans to interview before he could move onto his twenty-four remaining zarovians.
He would have needed to interview forty-one humans and twenty-five zarovians yesterday, but he’d lost six people in the assassin attack: four loyal human employees, one fetish-compelled human employee, and one zarovian patroller. He’d start arranging the memorial this evening. He would do all he could to make them more than numbers.
One after the other, his human employees entered, and one after the other, he ensured they wore no obedience fetishes. He also got lots of questions about clarifying weird orders the other lords had left behind, but nothing else remotely sexual. He hoped poor Kyra would recover someday. Possibly in a few years with a good therapist.
He was ten thralls away from finishing when scullery maid Celia Thornton, a short twenty-two-year-old brunette with a button nose, dropped the first real bombshell regarding an old order she’d been compelled to follow and now had questions about.
“Once every moon ring, I am to travel to Shadowfort under cover of darkness and deliver a sealed letter from Lord Gloomwood to a woman at the Hearth’s Shadow.”
Drake had no idea what a moon ring was, and he wasn’t about to ask in front of his blood thrall, but this sounded like some real cloak-and-dagger shenanigans. “Is that a tavern?”
“Yes, lord.” Celia nodded vigorously, looking as frightened as he’d expect her to look as she admitted she’d been doing this without his knowledge. “I do not know the contents of the letters. I am not allowed to read the letters. The woman who receives the letter is always different, but always greets me by saying ‘These moons will turn to ash one day’.”
That was some doomsday cult shit. “So how many letters have you delivered for Lord Gloomwood?”
“I... I don’t exactly know, lord.” She was now visibly panicking. “Many. At least forty, no! Perhaps fifty? How many moons have passed since I started here? Sorry! I shouldn’t be asking yo—”
“It’s fine!” Drake reminded her. “You told me this of your own free will, and I appreciate that as well as your choice to stay here and serve me. I’m never going to punish you for something an old lord did, and it was brave of you to bring it up. I’m very pleased.”
That all seemed to calm her down. Once he had Celia no longer hyperventilating, she could finally move on with her confession/explanation.
“Lord Dickcheese would never deliver the letters to me directly,” Celia continued. “Instead, I was instructed to search in a small pouch behind the laundry hamper in the second cellar the day before the moon ring. There was not always a letter, but when there was one, I then delivered it to the Hearth’s Shadow the next night to whoever said the passphrase.”
This sounded like something the CIA would have pulled back in his world. Dead drops, clueless couriers, secret passwords, the works. Drake was curious to find out what was going on, but this also didn’t seem like an immediate threat to his manor. It could wait.
“Okay, Celia. I have a new order, if you’ll agree to it.”
“Of course, lord!” She nodded vigorously. “However I can help.”
“Continue doing as you have been doing, and tell no one else what you’ve told me. The next time you find a letter, you are to bring it directly to me before doing anything else. Do not tell anyone you have the letter, other than my battle maids, and do not deliver it to Shadowfort unless I then order you to do so.”
“I will, lord!”
She couldn’t lie. He believed her. Her very real loyalty was a welcome boon.
Drake dismissed Celia and continued about his work. Finally, by midmorning, it was done. As the last human left the sitting room to return to their duties, free of obedience fetishes and secret orders, Drake sat back and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well done, lord,” Olivia said quietly.
He smiled at her. “Thanks.”
He would have assumed sarcasm from Nicole and some veiled probing from Valentia, but Olivia was so sincere it made his teeth hurt. Her support was genuine. He’d simply accept she was impressed with his ability to speak words and move on with his day.
He glanced at Valentia. “You sure we can’t have the zarovians come meet me here?”
“I would not recommend it,” Valentia said calmly. “It is a long walk for them, and they are often lethargic if interrupted during slumber. You could be waiting a long time between interviews. Also, the cold slows and hinders their speech. Speaking to them in their own barracks in heated comfort would be the most efficient way to clear them.”
“Fair enough.” Drake rose. “I suppose we should clear the halls and—”
The click of the door to the sitting room opening snapped his gaze to it in alarm, as did Valentia’s. Olivia gasped and pressed her lips together, hands raised as if ready to toss a fireball at the first sign of murder. No one else was supposed to come in here without his permission.
With an ominous creak, the door eased open of its own accord. No one held the handle on either side. No one stood in view outside. A low voice joined them in the room.
“OoOOooh!” The voice undulated up and down as the door wiggled back and forth. “Am I an evil door? Fear me, Lord Gloomwood! I could be your undoing!”
Drake frowned and rubbed his temples. “Goddammit, Nicole.”
She did not appear so much as melt into view as she stepped into the room, dressed in her full maid outfit. As she shut the door behind her, her grin was infuriating.
“So what did we learn today?” Nicole asked. “Who else enjoys having their toes sucked?”
Olivia’s jaw dropped. “What?”
For once, Valentia’s icy dagger stare was not directed at Drake, and he enjoyed seeing her skewer someone else for a change. “Who is watching the entry?”
“I left the zarovians in charge of that. Had a letter to deliver.” Nicole reached to her apron and whipped out a sealed letter so fast Drake would swear it was a magic trick. “Silky envelope, gummy wax seal, delivered by a temperamental feral that looked like he had a stick up his butt. Ten to one it’s from the noble court, and it’s addressed to you, Lord Gloomwood.”
Drake glanced at Valentia. “Do I normally get letters from the noble court?”
Features hard, she shook her head.
Drake looked at Nicole. “And you’re certain that feral wasn’t an enemy assassin who just delivered a bomb in the form of a letter in hopes you would deliver it to me?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Nicole said. “But wow, would I be surprised.”
“I will open it,” Valentia said. “With your permission, Lord Gloomwood.”
“Sure.” He really needed his own letter opener, didn’t he?
Nicole sauntered over and handed the letter to Valentia, then yelped and jumped in place. Nothing had touched her. She glared at Valentia. “What was that for?”
“You cannot play such childish pranks in our lord’s presence. We face a real threat.”
“I was just teasing him!” Nicole’s angry stare turned into a curious smirk. “And hey, can you use that icy pinch trick on anything?”
“I will go guard the door, lord!” Olivia said frantically. She all but bolted from the room.
Nicole cackled as Olivia fled. “We need to get that girl a bed warmer.”
Drake looked at the space Olivia had left, at Valentia’s noticeable blush, at Nicole’s satisfied smirk, and then at his own feet, which hadn’t flutterstepped. Then he looked up.
“Can you read my letter, please?”
Valentia cleared her throat and composed herself. Then, with viciousness, she slit the seal with a swipe of a single sharpened fingernail. She pulled out and unfolded a one-page letter with precisely the precision and poise he had come to expect.
Valentia skimmed it briefly, then read aloud. “Lord Gloomwood, you are hereby given notice to appear at a cabal.”
Drake snorted. Of course they have those here.
