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jeriendhalThe next bit will have some more action, I promise.
The next week passed by with agonizing slowness. A warehouse in their district burned down to the ground, the internal fire extinguisher mysteriously offline. Six respectable businesses closed in the shopping district, as their House’s finances became strained and they could not bear the brunt of shielding all of their commoners from the rising rent prices.
“That’s it then,” his mother said dejectedly, when the news of the latest closing reached them. “Once we start losing the businesses, our rent revenues are going to drop through the floor. We may have to sell the manor, or some parcels of our farm land.”
“It’s got to stop soon,” Salli said. “The countess gains her revenue from the rents as well. Add in the losses from her ships being attacked and soon she’ll be chopping off her own tail.” That had been one of the brighter notes in this whole affair, at least from their family’s perspective. Two more ships belonging to House Highglider had been destroyed in the past week, in a similar fashion as before, in an unprecedented series of attacks against a single shipping company.
“Yes, but she’s got a deeper purse than we do. She can afford to keep this up a lot longer than we can,” Rolas pointed out.
“What frightens me is what her endgame might be,” their mother said. “What will be enough for her, when will she finally stop?”
“When we’re dead, or when we’re gone,” Rolas answered gloomily. And she’s not going to let us go, he thought to himself, recalling that last conversation he’d had with her.
* * *
A few days later, Rolas was summoned to his mother’s study, to find a nervous looking male in his sixties standing before her desk. The fellow held a tweed cap in his hand, twisting it back forth and when he glanced at Rolas it was with a guilty start.
“Rolas, I do believe you remember Lord Highglider’s old manservant,” his mother said by way of introduction.
“Oh, yes. I haven’t seen you since his trial. How have you been?” Rolas said.
“Well enough, sah. My niece took me in after the countess removed me from my position and canceled my pension. She lives a couple of districts over.” Which would have been in another countess’ territory entirely. Probably the best for the poor fellow, given Countess Highglider’s vindictive streak, especially after he testified against his former lord, detailing what he had seen being done to poor Salli in painful, horrid detail.
“What bring you here today?” Rolas hoped it wasn’t for a handout. While he was glad that the old manservant had testified against his lord, not an easy thing to do for anyone, he rather wished the old fellow had been willing to do it at least two years earlier, instead of keeping his mouth shut while his sister suffered. Given that, he found his capacity for sympathy rather limited.
“Please tell Lord Rolas what you told us,” his mother prompted.
“Oh, yes milady. Well milord, I was just telling your lady mother that I was speakin’ to some of my old mates that still serve the Countess. From what they were saying, I think you’d all best watch yourselves from now on.”
Really, the male had an absolute gift for providing too little information, too late. “We’ve been aware of Countess Highglider’s distaste for our House for some time,” Rolas replied blandly.
“Well, that’s hard to miss, milord, if you don’t mind me sayin’. But this whole business the past few weeks, with her transport company losing so many ships to pirates. Well, these are just hearsay rumors I’m getting you understand, but it seems like she’s gone a bit, er, off.”
“Care to expand upon that?”
The old servant shrugged uncomfortably. “It seems like she’s got it in her head that your House is responsible for the attacks, like you’ve got your own privateer in your pockets. Can’t see how that makes any sense, given how you all were hit as well a few months back.”
Rolas bit down on his tongue, images of the ever outrageously clad Red Vixen dancing through his mind. They didn’t have any real evidence she was alive after all, much less attacking Countess Highglider’s ships out of twisted respect for the troubles that had been inflicted on Rolas’ family. “She has a remarkable capacity for self-delusion then. I thank you for telling us this, but it’s hardly worth panicking about.”
“It’s not just that, milord, she’s been doing other things as well. Just a couple of days ago she let half of the House’s staff go for being disloyal, including a couple of families that had served the Highgliders through the Subjugation. They say she’s having all the data cables pulled out from the walls of the manor and replaced, because she thinks there’s a tap on her data and that’s how the pirates are finding her ships.”
“I see,” Rolas said, feeling the ruff on the back of his neck rise up in as he listened to the disgraced servant’s tale.
“She also claims the Red Vixen was a Varn in disguise, and that your family are really Dominion sympathizers getting ready to release a new round of the Bloody Plagues, but I only heard that one from a single fellow.” The male gave his cap another twist. “That’s all that’s come to my ears so far.”
“Why tell us this? What profit is in it for you?”
The fellow ducked his head down. “What happened to Lady Salli I’m right sorry about, Lord Rolas. It wasn’t right, and if the Holy Den Mother had given me more of a backbone I would have said something to someone a lot earlier. But I didn’t, and now she’s… the way she is. Lord Kev’s mean streak didn’t happen all on its own, y’know. He came by it natural. If he could do that to her, it stands to reason his mum might do something as bad, or worse.”
“So I’ve come to realize. Thank you for coming to us with this.”
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Your welcome, milord. Anyway, that’s all I heard.”
“As my son said, thank you. You may go,” his mother said. The old servant bowed and made his way out. When the door shut behind him, Rolas blew out his breath.
“Things are not well at Highglider Manor, it appears,” he said.
“To put it mildly. I don’t particularly care for what happens to the countess, but that’s a bloody shabby way to treat one’s servitors.”
“I’m a bit worried about that last bit he mentioned, Mother. She sounds none too stable.”
“Yes, well there’s little enough we can do about it.”
Rolas tapped his footpad on the wooden floor, claws clicking. “What if she really is as crazy as her son? Not just driven by a desire for vengeance against our family, but genuinely crazy? Is there any precedent for stripping a sitting countess of her title, if they are good physical but poor mental health?”
“None at all, that I’m aware of,” his mother said grimly. She frowned. “Rolas, from now on you and Salli are not to leave the house without an armed escort. This situation is becoming… fraught with possibilities, I’d say.”
“But what are we to do, Mother? How can we stop her?”
“We can’t,” she said. “We can only prepare.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know yet. I can only pray that we don’t find out.”
The next week passed by with agonizing slowness. A warehouse in their district burned down to the ground, the internal fire extinguisher mysteriously offline. Six respectable businesses closed in the shopping district, as their House’s finances became strained and they could not bear the brunt of shielding all of their commoners from the rising rent prices.
“That’s it then,” his mother said dejectedly, when the news of the latest closing reached them. “Once we start losing the businesses, our rent revenues are going to drop through the floor. We may have to sell the manor, or some parcels of our farm land.”
“It’s got to stop soon,” Salli said. “The countess gains her revenue from the rents as well. Add in the losses from her ships being attacked and soon she’ll be chopping off her own tail.” That had been one of the brighter notes in this whole affair, at least from their family’s perspective. Two more ships belonging to House Highglider had been destroyed in the past week, in a similar fashion as before, in an unprecedented series of attacks against a single shipping company.
“Yes, but she’s got a deeper purse than we do. She can afford to keep this up a lot longer than we can,” Rolas pointed out.
“What frightens me is what her endgame might be,” their mother said. “What will be enough for her, when will she finally stop?”
“When we’re dead, or when we’re gone,” Rolas answered gloomily. And she’s not going to let us go, he thought to himself, recalling that last conversation he’d had with her.
* * *
A few days later, Rolas was summoned to his mother’s study, to find a nervous looking male in his sixties standing before her desk. The fellow held a tweed cap in his hand, twisting it back forth and when he glanced at Rolas it was with a guilty start.
“Rolas, I do believe you remember Lord Highglider’s old manservant,” his mother said by way of introduction.
“Oh, yes. I haven’t seen you since his trial. How have you been?” Rolas said.
“Well enough, sah. My niece took me in after the countess removed me from my position and canceled my pension. She lives a couple of districts over.” Which would have been in another countess’ territory entirely. Probably the best for the poor fellow, given Countess Highglider’s vindictive streak, especially after he testified against his former lord, detailing what he had seen being done to poor Salli in painful, horrid detail.
“What bring you here today?” Rolas hoped it wasn’t for a handout. While he was glad that the old manservant had testified against his lord, not an easy thing to do for anyone, he rather wished the old fellow had been willing to do it at least two years earlier, instead of keeping his mouth shut while his sister suffered. Given that, he found his capacity for sympathy rather limited.
“Please tell Lord Rolas what you told us,” his mother prompted.
“Oh, yes milady. Well milord, I was just telling your lady mother that I was speakin’ to some of my old mates that still serve the Countess. From what they were saying, I think you’d all best watch yourselves from now on.”
Really, the male had an absolute gift for providing too little information, too late. “We’ve been aware of Countess Highglider’s distaste for our House for some time,” Rolas replied blandly.
“Well, that’s hard to miss, milord, if you don’t mind me sayin’. But this whole business the past few weeks, with her transport company losing so many ships to pirates. Well, these are just hearsay rumors I’m getting you understand, but it seems like she’s gone a bit, er, off.”
“Care to expand upon that?”
The old servant shrugged uncomfortably. “It seems like she’s got it in her head that your House is responsible for the attacks, like you’ve got your own privateer in your pockets. Can’t see how that makes any sense, given how you all were hit as well a few months back.”
Rolas bit down on his tongue, images of the ever outrageously clad Red Vixen dancing through his mind. They didn’t have any real evidence she was alive after all, much less attacking Countess Highglider’s ships out of twisted respect for the troubles that had been inflicted on Rolas’ family. “She has a remarkable capacity for self-delusion then. I thank you for telling us this, but it’s hardly worth panicking about.”
“It’s not just that, milord, she’s been doing other things as well. Just a couple of days ago she let half of the House’s staff go for being disloyal, including a couple of families that had served the Highgliders through the Subjugation. They say she’s having all the data cables pulled out from the walls of the manor and replaced, because she thinks there’s a tap on her data and that’s how the pirates are finding her ships.”
“I see,” Rolas said, feeling the ruff on the back of his neck rise up in as he listened to the disgraced servant’s tale.
“She also claims the Red Vixen was a Varn in disguise, and that your family are really Dominion sympathizers getting ready to release a new round of the Bloody Plagues, but I only heard that one from a single fellow.” The male gave his cap another twist. “That’s all that’s come to my ears so far.”
“Why tell us this? What profit is in it for you?”
The fellow ducked his head down. “What happened to Lady Salli I’m right sorry about, Lord Rolas. It wasn’t right, and if the Holy Den Mother had given me more of a backbone I would have said something to someone a lot earlier. But I didn’t, and now she’s… the way she is. Lord Kev’s mean streak didn’t happen all on its own, y’know. He came by it natural. If he could do that to her, it stands to reason his mum might do something as bad, or worse.”
“So I’ve come to realize. Thank you for coming to us with this.”
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Your welcome, milord. Anyway, that’s all I heard.”
“As my son said, thank you. You may go,” his mother said. The old servant bowed and made his way out. When the door shut behind him, Rolas blew out his breath.
“Things are not well at Highglider Manor, it appears,” he said.
“To put it mildly. I don’t particularly care for what happens to the countess, but that’s a bloody shabby way to treat one’s servitors.”
“I’m a bit worried about that last bit he mentioned, Mother. She sounds none too stable.”
“Yes, well there’s little enough we can do about it.”
Rolas tapped his footpad on the wooden floor, claws clicking. “What if she really is as crazy as her son? Not just driven by a desire for vengeance against our family, but genuinely crazy? Is there any precedent for stripping a sitting countess of her title, if they are good physical but poor mental health?”
“None at all, that I’m aware of,” his mother said grimly. She frowned. “Rolas, from now on you and Salli are not to leave the house without an armed escort. This situation is becoming… fraught with possibilities, I’d say.”
“But what are we to do, Mother? How can we stop her?”
“We can’t,” she said. “We can only prepare.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know yet. I can only pray that we don’t find out.”
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Date: 2008-09-18 07:37 pm (UTC)I think it moves well...can't have action all the time..gotta give the readers time to calm down before WHAM you hit them with the next bit of tension!
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(And I agree with moonshadowed: excellent writing and it moves well...)
mjkj