“They can write. You know, you just aren’t asking the right questions when it comes to your servants. Not all of them are stupid, and not all of them just obey blindly.” She shook her finger at him. “And here you are supposed to be the all-powerful wizard and you don’t even know that about your own creatures!”
She almost asked him if he had ever considered actually trying to talk to these servants of his, but the answer was obvious; he hadn’t.
“They aren’t supposed to be intelligent,” he was saying, looking bewildered. “The books all say so. Every single one of the books says that they are completely stupid and that without exact orders they just stand there until you tell them exactly what to do.”
She had to laugh at that, and did. “Well, I suppose that this comes under that heading of ‘out of the mouths of fools and babes’ — I didn’t know, so I didn’t assume anything. I was talking to them, and two of them found a way to talk back to me.”
He laughed with her, though it sounded rueful. “I hate to ask you this, but — would you find out what they can do? Obviously they aren’t as simple as I thought they were.”
“Of course, what else have I to do?” she replied. “How many are there?”
“Only about a hundred and twenty,” he said.
“A — hundred and twenty?” That was — that was a truly insane number. Why would he need so many? She could only gape at him.
“More or less. I’m not exactly sure, really. You see, when things needed doing and weren’t getting done, I just rested up for a few days and summoned some more.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, then pushed his glasses back up again with one finger. “It wasn’t all at once. I started doing it just after my father died because the servants kept leaving. Didn’t like Eric being in charge, you see.”
Oh, hold back my surprise. That was uncharitable, and she knew it, but she couldn’t help it.
He shrugged, clearly unable to understand why he had been deserted. And there was some hurt there; she got the feeling he felt betrayed. “I suppose all they knew was that he had been a servant, and now he’d got above himself. They couldn’t imagine why a fellow servant suddenly got put in charge of everything.”
I rather doubt that. You can’t hide anything from the servants. Even if no one outside the Manor knew he was your kin, it was certainly old news to them. Still, what he said could have some truth to it. It was entirely possible that the rest of the servants had resented Eric all along. Elevating him to Steward in fact if not in name could have just brought all that to a head.
Unexpectedly, she found herself pitying the man. No wonder he had an attitude…if he’d been hidden by the Old Duke rather than acknowledged, and was snubbed by those who thought he was only a servant, but resented by those who were below him, well…
I can’t say my temper would be sweet.
“Anyway, I’d learned and mastered the spell to summon these creatures. The Godmother approved of my doing so, and supervised me the first six months, so I just started replacing the servants who left. Then the servants that remained got unsettled by the invisible ones, and started leaving, too.” He looked as if his head was paining him, and she could certainly sympathize there. “I can’t really blame them for being unsettled, but I would have thought they would at least give it a trial. It’s not that hard to get used to them, and they can’t hurt you. Well, look at you! You’ve not gotten all upset about being around them! Not even two days here, and you’re already talking with them!”
She choked down what she was thinking — that he had to be particularly dense when it came to human nature to think that she was going to have a typical reaction to being surrounded by floating objects borne by things unseen. If such a thing had happened in her household, the servants would have left without collecting their possessions. And they were loyal to her!
“Anyway, I just kept summoning until there seemed to be enough of them to get everything done. So will you talk to them for me?” he repeated, looking at her with big, pleading eyes over the rim of his spectacles. “Please?”
She sighed. How could she possibly say no?
Besides, what else have I to do?
“All right,” she agreed.
Within an hour, she realized that she had taken on something far more time-consuming than she had thought, as she settled down with Verte and Sapphire to figure out what, exactly, she could do.
This is going to be a great deal more complicated than I thought possible. In fact…I am beginning to wish Eric was right.
Just to begin with, Sebastian had underestimated the number of creatures he had summoned.
Either that, or they are breeding. Or bringing friends and relations.