The rumbling from within it made Sloot very thankful for the old stone table in the front courtyard. It would serve as a desk where he could interview the long line of applicants who must have been eager to work for a Hapsgalt, as it was well-known that no one in the family had ever laid off a servant. He hoped that someone with a broom and a penchant for danger applied soon.
Beyond Carpathia’s northern border was the land of Nordheim. The Vikings who lived there believed that the sound of thunder had something to do with tantrums thrown by their many gods.
“I read that in a book once,” said Myrtle, who had been first in the long line of applicants waiting to talk to Sloot at sunrise. For all of the apparent lack of efficiency in getting anything done at Central Bureaucracy, the results certainly proved that the machine was capable of functioning, once the gears could be bothered to turn.
“It’s goblins,” said Sloot, “not thunder. I’ve heard enough cackling to know that we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“More likely than gods throwing tantrums,” said Myrtle, “though a touch less romantic.”
“Aren’t you awfully young to be a ‘Myrtle’?” Sloot had only ever met old ladies named Myrtle, and never a Myrtle who made him feel the need to be substantially wittier than he was, to dress better, sit up straighter, and invest in some cologne.
“Oh, Mister Peril, I took you for far too sophisticated to make such an obvious joke.” Smirking, she batted her eyelashes in a way that made Sloot worry less about whether he’d just been insulted, and more about whether a good tailor could coax some pectoral muscles from his coat.
“Have you ever been a housemaid, Miss Pastry?”
“I haven’t,” she admitted. “But I’m a quick study.”
“Well, I’ve been asked to hire you as a favor to Mrs. Knife, so I suppose I’ll have to trust that you are.”
“Who’s Mrs. Knife?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“It would have been silly to ask if she knew her, wouldn’t it? Quiet, you!” Myrtle clamped a hand over her mouth.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry, Mister Peril,” she said, her cheeks turning pink as she desperately scanned the ground for something, probably anything that wasn’t Sloot’s perplexed and wounded expression.
Sloot was no stranger to beratement. Clever boys who choose mathematics over sports must abide a measure of buffoonery from other boys, he’d always said. Perhaps if he hadn’t, they’d have bullied him less severely. At any rate, the sting was especially sharp from someone asking for a favor. A very pretty someone, at that.
“Er,” said Sloot, “I’d like very much to stay in Mrs. Knife’s good graces, but―”
“I know,” she said, “I apologize. It … that wasn’t directed at you.”
Sloot wasn’t sure what facial expression could adequately convey the depth of confusion into which he’d just been plunged, so he didn’t perform one. He managed a slow blink, which seemed minimally appropriate.
“I suppose it will come out sooner or later.” Myrtle sighed. “Have you heard of possession, Mister Peril?”
“I’m an accountant,” Sloot answered. “I’m familiar with the concept of ownership.”
“I mean the possession of people. By the dead.”
“Oh, that! Yes. Well, in point of fact, no.”
“Well, it’s something I’m all too familiar with, and sometimes the offending dead are a bit, well, offensive.”
“I see,” said Sloot, whose suspicious expression indicated that he did not.
“That wasn’t offensive,” grumbled Myrtle, “your yelling was much worse.”
“I didn’t―”
“No,” said, Myrtle, “he’s talking about me.”
“He?”
“Arthur,” said Myrtle. “He’s a philosopher.”
“Ah.”
“Hence I’m able to draw obvious conclusions, like the one concerning whether she’d ask who Mrs. Knife was if she already knew!”
“She?”
“That’d be me,” said Myrtle.
“Right.” Sloot was torn between his desires to wrap his head around the rapidly unfolding concept of the possession of the living by the dead, appease Mrs. Knife, and watch Myrtle’s hair dance in the breeze across her bare shoulders, perhaps in a sunny meadow.
“I can manage housekeepery.” Myrtle leaned forward with her brow furrowed in sincerity. “Arthur tends to sulk whenever I’m working. It’s the only time I really get any peace.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“I don’t sulk,” said Myrtle. “I simply turn my thoughts toward more enlightened things than tidying up.” She rolled her eyes but said nothing.
It’s common knowledge that philosophers abhor the act of manual labor. The entire profession is predicated on the idea that doing things is trivial when compared with thinking about things; furthermore, thinking about thinking about things is the cornerstone of our ability to function as a society. It should be left to people in the trades to find a way to monetize the service that philosophers provide for the good of all people everywhere.
They’re certainly capable of monetizing their trade on their own, of course; but ask any one of them why they don’t, and they’ll answer with Ignatius the Mumbler’s one and only platitude: Why?
“Can you keep this Arthur business under control?”
“Absolutely, Mister Peril. Arthur will refrain from saying a peep while outside the servants’ quarters, won’t you, Arthur? I can’t imagine what I’d have to say to a pampered aristocrat. Arthur! Oh, fine, not a peep.”
“Good,” replied Sloot, who was less than convinced of her abilities as a housekeeper, but very keen to see her smile at him with that eyelashes maneuver again. There was also the matter of not vexing Mrs. Knife, though even that seemed rather less important. “We’ll get you started on tidying the house as soon as we get the goblins cleared out.”
“Oh, thank you, Mister Peril! Er, if I wouldn’t be in the way, would it be all right if I sat on the little bench over there for a while? Arthur says he needs a ponderance.”
“Er, fine,” said Sloot. Myrtle stood and curtsied, then went and sat on the little stone bench and stared into the birdbath next to it. It was a mournful sort of stare. It had existentialism written all over it.
Better her than me, thought Sloot, who was doing his best to avoid existential thought at the moment. That would certainly have led him to consider his quandary between the life he’d led thus far as a loyalist in the Old Country and his newfound traitorism as a Carpathian spy. Could one man serve two flags?
He shook his head. Leave the ponderances to Arthur, there was real work to be done.
“Hello, Mister Peril!” Roman practically shouted. He leaned on the stone table in a way that screamed “casual” with utter disregard for subtlety. “My name is Roman, and I have never met you before! Would it be quite all right if I were the younger Lord Hapsgalt’s valet, then?”
“Er, right,” said Sloot, his eyes squaring in alarm at Roman’s forceful winking, which seemed hell-bent on going the long way around brazenness to sneak up on subtlety when it was least expected. “Do you have any references, Roman?”
“Certainly!” Roman’s trembling hand jutted forth, sending a conspicuously large stack of papers careening into Sloot’s chest and scattering about the lawn. “All in order, none of them dead by my hand!”
“That’s uh, good to know.” Sloot couldn’t imagine Roman as a spy, much less a spymaster. Was this all an elaborate ruse of his mother’s, to get a friend a job?
That was a comforting thought. Perhaps he wasn’t a Carpathian spy now after all! Existential crisis averted! Sloot started picking up the papers.
“Thank you, Roman, this all appears to be in order. Well, out of order, but once we’ve pick
ed them up, I’m sure. I’ll introduce you to Lord Hapsgalt as soon as the house is habitable.”
“Is that strictly necessary?”
“What, meeting Lord Hapsgalt?”
“Yes, that.”
“It’ll be hard for you to valet for him otherwise.”
“Yes! Right, I suppose it would be.” Roman wiped a profuse accumulation of sweat from his brow, which was unusual in the chilly morning air.
“Er, that’ll be all, Roman. Perhaps you’d like to go have a brandy and lie down?”
“Careful with that tongue, Peril,” Roman had leaned in to whisper. “Don’t forget which of us is in charge here!”
“Wouldn’t that be me?” Sloot asked, in a very sincere way. He had never been in charge of anything before, and in truth, he wasn’t entirely sure.
Roman paused. Realization dawned on him with such fervor that it came with its own chirping birds.
“Thank you, Mr. Peril!” said Roman as he hurried through the gate and into the street.
Most of the interviews that followed went a lot more smoothly, the way Sloot thought they should. People presented references, negotiated salaries, that sort of thing. None of them caused him any consternation until the applicant for groundskeeper, a mister Django Dirtsmith.
“Hello, Mr. Dirtsmith. And for what position are you applying?”
Mr. Dirtsmith made no attempt to conceal his shock at the question. On the contrary, he projected a wounded gasp as though the people in the cheap seats were shouting for him to speak up.
“You’ve never heard of me?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Sloot. “Should I have?”
“I am Django Dirtsmith! The foremost gardener in the city! I’m famous for my lawns. Aristocrats the world over salivate over my floral arrangements. And by the looks of this place, you’re in desperate need of my services!”
“The lawns do need some work,” Sloot conceded. “Do you have any references?”
“Have you ever worked with your hands, Mr. Peril?”
“Daily,” said Sloot, who pointed with his right hand to the quill in his left.
“Your hands are soft,” Django sneered. “Have they ever had dirt on them?”
“Not recently,” said Sloot. “I work indoors most of the time, but there are too many goblins in there at the moment.”
“That’s not real work. What I do, that’s work. How dare you ask me for references, you―”
“That’ll be quite enough out of you!”
“What?” squawked Django, with more of the same practiced offense. “Who is this girl who dares to challenge Django?”
Myrtle stormed right up to Django, nearly standing on his feet to waggle a stern finger in his face, which was almost two heads above her own.
“Mr. Peril is cutting you a lot of slack right now,” said Myrtle from between her clenched teeth. “I’d hold my tongue if I were you!”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve to talk―”
“Not another word! Not one!”
There exists a certain forcefulness of tone exclusively reserved for use by mothers in need of scolding naughty children. It comes from a very primal school of magic, for which there is no formal school at all. It’s as old as time itself and far more expansive. Mathematicians are loathe to try and quantify it for fear that they’ll be sent to bed without supper if they succeed. Mathematicians love supper.
Django said nothing. Although Myrtle couldn’t possibly have known his middle name, her tone made it clear that she could still find a way to use it against him.
“You’re familiar with the rose trellises on Gildedhearth’s southern lawns, are you not?”
“Of course,” said Django, “I planted them myself!”
“And do you know why you should thank Mr. Peril for that?”
“I should what?”
“Thank him! Before he came to Whitewood, Mr. Peril was the estate accountant for the elder Lord Hapsgalt. He was responsible not only for funding those trellises but for deciding which gardener to hire to raise them.”
“Then why did he ask for my references?”
“Most likely to see whether you’re the sort of man smart enough to understand his place in the grand scheme of things, or the ignorant sort of hayseed who thinks no further than the end of his trowel! Now, if you ever want to find respectable work in Salzstadt again, you’d do well to apologize to Mr. Peril. Unless, of course, being blackballed by the entire Hapsgalt family is the sort of inspiration you’ve been seeking to push you into a different career!”
Django made the sort of face that pairs well with panic. Sloot knew that one all too well and could have offered him some pointers.
“I’d change my name as well,” said Myrtle, “if I were you.”
“Sorry, Mr. Peril,” Django grumbled. “I can bring you my references tomorrow if you like.”
“Th-that won’t be n-necessary,” Sloot stammered. “Of course I know who you are, just testing the … the hayseed thing, like Myrtle said. Can you start tomorrow, Mr. Dirtsmith?”
“Tomorrow will be fine,” said Myrtle, glaring at Django.
“Tomorrow … yes, fine,” replied Django with a hangdog look. He slinked off without another word.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting to have a word with me in private then, Mr. Peril.” Myrtle was a lot louder than she needed to be for Sloot to hear her. She strode off in the direction of the bench where she’d indulged Arthur in his pondering. Sloot stood and followed her, unable to think of anything else to do under the circumstances.
“What just happened?” Sloot was unaccustomed to walking away from beratements unberated, and as such intended the question as a simple curiosity.
“You can’t let people talk to you like that,” said Myrtle, in a way that confused Sloot further still. Her words were stern, but she was staring at her feet and shrinking away from him. “Especially in front of the other applicants. They’ll think they can get away with the same.”
“They’ll all be afraid of me now. Wait, are you afraid of me, too?”
“Not at all,” said Myrtle. “But they’re all looking at us now, and it’ll be better if it seems like you’re angry with me for speaking out of turn.”
She was right. Everyone in the line was gawking at them, like zoo patrons at feeding time.
“Why are you doing this?”
“You mean helping you?”
Sloot nodded.
“Arthur has been teaching me about pragmatism. Better to get on your good side. He says I should apply some flattery as well, but I don’t think I have a talent for it.”
“Oh,” said Sloot, in a deflated sort of way. “I thought maybe, well, I don’t know …”
“What?”
“Er, nothing. Sorry. I just thought … you see, men and women … oh dear. That is to say―”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, he’s smitten with you!”
That was how Arthur brought the conversation to a crashing halt. Myrtle’s face went scarlet. Sloot was fairly certain that his had done the same, and feared his eyebrows might catch fire at any moment.
“That’s … interesting,” Myrtle managed to say before the silence fermented. Silence, like really expensive cheese, becomes nauseating if left to sit in the sun too long. Sloot thought there was a bit of a skip in her step as she walked away, and felt certain he’d spend the rest of the week wondering what “interesting” meant.
The rest of the applications went very smoothly, thanks in no small part to the telling off that the entire line seemed to remember Sloot doing.
Poets, most of whom live with their parents, like to think that mysterious people elude description, defying definition. They don’t. Poets are just lazy. “As silent as the grave, as dark as a shadow,” requires far less effort than actually describing a person. Poets cut c
orners so often it’s a wonder poetry isn’t written on round paper.
There are exactly three things that a person needs to do to qualify as mysterious, no more and no less. One must appear with one’s hood drawn up, choose a scene with dramatic lighting to do so, and initially decline to give one’s name. So it was that at sunset, Sloot’s mysterious last applicant of the day did just that.
“Hello,” said Sloot, relieved to see that the stranger was leaning on a broom. None of the other applicants had one. He’d asked. “And you are?”
“A friend,” said the mysterious stranger, which you should have seen coming.
“Er, okay,” said Sloot, who had no friends to speak of, and had never gotten the appeal of poetry.
“I was told that you needed a housekeeper.”
“Yes,” said Sloot. “Oh, right. No,” he continued, upon hearing a very pointed ahem from Myrtle and Arthur’s bench. “The housekeeper has been sorted out, but we still need someone to do the sweeping. That’s your own broom you’ve got there, I presume?”
“It is,” said the stranger, “but doesn’t your housekeeper have one?”
“Not as such.”
“How can you be a housekeeper without a broom? Got to have a broom to run a house. That’s a rule, everybody knows it!”
“Easy,” said Myrtle, who was suddenly looming. Sloot knew philosophers to be practiced at brooding, which involved many of the same muscle groups as looming. Arthur must have loaned his expertise to the undertaking.
“This can’t be her,” exclaimed the stranger. “She’s far too young!”
“Never you mind my age,” said Myrtle. “I’m the housekeeper, broom or no, and if you don’t like it you can find the gate on your own!”
“No, wait!” Sloot jumped to his feet. “We are in need of some sweeping, I’m sure we can find a position for you.”
“What about the nanny?” The stranger’s hood flew back to reveal a gnarled old woman with a very excited look, which was hardly in keeping with the whole mysterious stranger thing. No poet auditing the scene would have approved.
“We won’t be needing a nanny,” said Sloot.
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