by Tim Stead
Serhan laughed. “You are not in awe of me, at least.”
“No, my lord. That is not part of my job.”
“You keep calling me ‘my lord’?”
“It comes with the job, my lord. Your job, that is. I get very little with mine.”
“But you do have a name?”
“Alder san Hanje Crane, my lord.”
“Please do not entitle me with every utterance. I begin to understand why Gerique finds it tiresome.”
“He does?”
“Enough! What were you before you were a chief servant, Alder?”
“A scholar, sir. A librarian.”
“Really? Is there a library here?”
“No sir, I made the whole thing up.”
“I appreciate your sense of humour, Alder, and your lack of humility, but you are going to have to start making allowances for me. I don’t have that much time for humour.”
“As you wish, sir. There is a library at White Rock. It is very small, but contains some interesting volumes.”
“In time I will ask you to show it to me, but for now I have a question; do you read and speak the old tongue?”
“I do, sir.”
“Very good. Can you teach me?”
Alder hesitated, biting off another ironic remark, no doubt. “I will do what I can, sir.”
“Then we will start tomorrow. Now, what needs to be done first?”
“I suggest that I show you your new quarters, sir, and introduce you to the other people on your staff.”
New quarters? His mind went immediately to his old room and what he had barely concealed there.
“You are not having my possessions moved, are you?”
“No sir. One thing we learn very quickly is not to do what we are not told to do.”
“Good. I will move them myself. So what do these quarters look like?”
“If you will follow me?”
They went to a staircase that Serhan had never used before and up several flights of stairs until they reached the very top. Here there was a great door only a little less impressive than the one outside Gerique’s chambers. It was on a corridor with several other doors, but dominated the space. The others were clearly entrances to lesser apartments.
Alder unlocked the door with a key, which he then handed to Serhan. Beyond the door the Seneschal’s chambers were larger and more opulent than he had expected, beginning with a large hall, which housed what he could only think of as a banqueting table. It would easily accommodate twenty people. The bed chamber was twice the size he was used to, and the bed was decoratively carved, and very comfortable – he bounced on it a few times. There was another large room, laid out as a work place. It had shelves and a desk – all empty. It also had a grand view out to the west, and he guessed that the window was set only a little to one side of the main gate. He could see the main approaches to White Rock, and even the path that he himself had taken on his way here. The whole was furnished with colourful rugs and skilfully made tapestries.
“The rooms please you, my lord?”
“Indeed. They seem quite comfortable.”
“Then you will allow me to summon your staff?”
“How many?”
“I have kept it to a minimum, sir. Six. You are entitled to twenty.”
“What on earth would I do with six servants, let alone twenty?”
“Each has their function, sir.”
“All right, let’s see them.”
Alder went out of the door and called down the corridor. Within a couple of minutes his servants, all six of them, had assembled in the main hall of his new chambers. He looked at them carefully.
“If I may introduce them, my lord?”
“No. Let them introduce themselves.”
“As you wish.”
Serhan pointed to the man on the left. He was a stocky figure with bushy eyebrows and large hands.
“My lord I am your personal cook. Whatever you wish to eat, any time of day or night, I will prepare it for you.”
“And your name?”
The man reddened. “Bullen, my lord.”
He pointed to the next, a thinner and taller man with fair hair.
“I am Curtis, my lord. Your personal groom. I will look after your horses and ensure that they are in top condition and ready for you to use at any time.”
“I don’t think I own a horse, Curtis.”
Alder coughed. “In effect you own them all, my lord. The Faer Karan do not ride.”
“I see, so I get my pick?”
“Yes, sir.” Gerique had mentioned that the job had some benefits. All the horses? Did he control everything?
Next.
“I am Grayla, my lord. My duties are to clean your chambers and to make sure that your fires are lit and kept up while you are at White Rock, if they are needed. I am also responsible for clean linen.” She was fortyish and stout with a kind but simple face. His personal cleaner. What next?
Next was quite different. She was about his own age, a few inches shorter than him, and very slight. Her dark hair was cut short for a woman, and her features were small and delicate, apart from her mouth, which was quite generous. Pleasing to look at. She was dressed in the usual shapeless garment, but had tied it at the waist so that it emphasised her slender frame.
“I am Mai, my lord,” she said. Her voice was pleasant to hear as well, deeper and darker than he had expected, and she smiled at him in a manner that he would not have expected of a servant. “I am your secretary, and will assist you in any task that you undertake of a scholarly or domestic nature. If you wish it I will also arrange any audiences that you may grant to staff or visitors, and summon people that you wish to see.”
“Very Good,” he said.
The last man was, of all things, his personal tailor. Apparently his appetite for fine materials had been noticed. The man promised to create whatever he wanted in the way of jackets, coats, cloaks, trousers, and even boots. His name was Perwin.
“Thank-you,” he said when the man had finished. “Now I know you all, and will call on you as I need you or see fit. There are a couple of ground rules, though. This chamber here,” he pointed to the study,” is not to be entered by anyone, except on my explicit instructions, and even then only when I am present. Is that understood?”
They all affirmed that it was.
“You may all go. Bullen, do you do wine as well as food?”
“No, my lord. Alder has the key to the wine cellar.”
“You may go then.” He turned to Alder. “We have a wine cellar?”
“You do, my lord,” he replied. “The Faer Karan do not drink.”
“Does anyone else have access to this wine cellar?”
“No, my lord.”
“Not even the officers?”
“Not even the officers.”
“And what is in this wine cellar?”
“Wine, sir.”
“Alder?” He put a warning note in his voice.
“About ten thousand bottles, sir. All of it was excellent in its day, but a lot of it will have gone off by now. There are probably a thousand in good condition.”
“Then bring me a bottle, Alder,” he held up a hand to stop the inevitable question. “Surprise me – demonstrate your good taste.”
Alder smiled, for the first time. “I think you’re getting the hang of it, sir.”
The man left and Serhan sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. How was he ever going to stand the man? Would talking to him do any good? Somehow he didn’t think it would. He could dismiss him and get somebody else to take the role. After all, he didn’t think that he needed any servants, never mind a chief one.
He walked down to his old quarters and picked up his pack, along with the sword and book that he’d found in the basement of the abandoned tower. He took them back to his new chambers and put the important items in his study, the others in the bed chamber.
While he was doing this he heard noises outside, and
went back to his great hall to find Alder pouring a glass of wine. He had never seen a glass before. He picked it up and looked at it. The thing was cut with amazing patterns that caught the light and scattered it through the wine.
“Quite beautiful,” he said.
“Yes, sir. It is over four hundred years old.”
Serhan put the glass down carefully. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable drinking out of it, Alder. What if it breaks?”
“There is nobody else to use it, sir. The Faer Karan…”
“Do not drink. Yes, I understand. But if I break it?”
“We have ninety-six more in storage. They have been there a very long time, sir. They were made to be used.”
He had a point. Serhan tasted the wine and found it smooth and full bodied. It delighted his palate.
“Tell me something, Alder. How did the people that you paraded in front of me just now get picked for the job?”
“They are the most able at their particular skills, sir.”
“So Bullen is the best cook in White Rock?”
“Exactly, sir.”
“And you are the best chief servant?”
“I am the only one, sir.”
“And that makes you believe that you are indispensable?”
Alder paused for a moment. Serhan could almost see him tasting the wording of the question.
“I take your point, sir.”
Serhan sipped his wine and wondered if he had.
“Now, I hate to dine alone, Alder, so would you please ask Bullen to prepare a meal that will demonstrate his skills without testing mine, and send a message to Captains Grand and Bantassin that I would very much appreciate their company tonight in about two hours? We’ll need another two bottles of wine, I think.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Alder turned and left. Serhan relaxed into his chair and sipped the wine again. It was probably the best he’d ever tasted. He was beginning to expect that the food would be of a similar standard, and the crockery, and the bed. Life was starting to look very comfortable, and he was not altogether sure that this was a good thing, but he was determined to enjoy it, at least for a while.
He called for more oil lamps, and when they came he took them into the study, closed the door carefully and opened Corderan’s book. He studied it for over an hour, but was only able to glean the smallest hints of what it contained. After that noises alerted him to the fact that the table was being prepared, and a short while later Darius and Cora arrived.
The meal was as good as he had hoped. The wine was excellent. His efforts to treat his friends as just friends were probably mostly successful.
After they left he spent two hours drawing up what he wanted from Delf, then finally he went to bed.
The bed was as good as he’d expected. He slept deeply and woke up thinking about Mai.
18 The Key
Delf was gone to Sorocaba, and there were no reports of bandits anywhere in the domains of White Rock. For the first time in nearly a quarter of a year Serhan had time to do as he pleased.
He had quickly grown used to the presence of the servants, and they obeyed him without question, so he was able to preserve his privacy. His lessons with Alder were progressing quickly, and his knowledge of the old language was developing far more rapidly than his makeshift tutor had expected. His memory freed him from the effort of learning vocabulary, and the rest came quite easily.
Bullen had lived up to his promise as a superb cook, and Serhan was sure that he had gained a few pounds. He alternated his evenings between the messes and his own rooms, inviting a selection of officers to dine with him, but always Darius and Cora. All seemed to enjoy it, with the exception of Colonel Stil, who he had invited a few times against his own inclination. The colonel had not been talkative.
He felt that he was developing a real rapport with his secretary, Mai. He enjoyed her company, and found her intelligent and quick to understand what he required of her. He found her very attractive but did not feel that it was an issue that he had to deal with. She seemed to feel the same way about him, and that mutuality manifested itself as a private manner that existed between them, no more than that.
The puzzle of the ring, the key to White Rock, was something that he had not had the time to pursue. What Rollo had told him still preyed on his mind; that it was sometimes called the soul of White Rock, and that the fortress was supposed to somehow be alive. He had been reading Corderan’s book with increasing ease, and some passages hinted at the possibility of taking a person’s awareness and transferring some portion of it into an inanimate object. He wondered if the sword Shadow Cutter was such a thing. He also wondered about the castle.
It was quite late one night that he decided to wear the ring for the first time since he had come back. He was seated in his study, and the castle was very quiet around him. He had been worried about trying it. There was always a chance that Gerique would sense that some power was being used, but he had enjoyed a good dinner, and a few glasses of wine, so his normal caution was a little blunted.
He slipped the ring on and sat with his eyes closed, trying to feel or hear something. There was nothing at all. He sat still for several minutes, and gradually he became aware of something at the very edge of hearing, or perhaps he wasn’t hearing it at all. It was as if the castle, the entire stone mass, was breathing. He opened his eyes and looked around, but nothing had changed. He stood and pressed his hands and face against the stone.
The wall opened in front of him.
He jumped back, and the opening was gone, as if it had never been there. He slowly pressed the hand that bore the ring against the stone and again the opening appeared. He looked at it carefully. It was comfortably big enough for a man, but no larger. It did not look as though it led anywhere.
So why was it there? Clearly there was some intent behind it. An alcove would not appear for no reason. A place to hide things? But he had chosen no special place to touch the wall.
He withdrew his hand and moved to the other side of the room, touched the wall again. Another identical alcove opened up. He tried it in a third place, and again the alcove appeared. So it worked anywhere.
On impulse he stepped into the alcove. It was the oddest sensation. Looking back into the room it was as if he was looking through a faint mist, and he felt sure that he was no longer visible from the room he had just left. He tried to move to the right and to the left, but was not able to. It must do more than this. Perhaps he was too tired to think clearly. It was very late.
He stepped out of the wall and sat down on his bed. Perhaps after a few hours sleep it would be clearer to him. He began to unbutton his shirt, and then stopped. He sat for a moment absolutely still. He had been sitting in his study, trying out the ring. Now he was in his bed chamber. Somehow he had walked through the wall.
He put the ring against the wall again and stepped into the alcove that appeared. The thought of his study, the desk, the chair, and there it was in front of him. He stepped out again.
Once more he stepped into the alcove and thought of the kitchens, many tens of yards away through the stone walls, several floors below and to the north. He was there instantly. One of the kitchen workers was cutting vegetables at a bench, facing him. The man didn’t register his presence at all, although he was only a few yards away.
On impulse he thought of Gerique’s chamber, and again he was shifted in the blink of an eye. He was looking out of the wall at the Faer Karani’s private chamber. Gerique was there. His huge black shape was curled around a book in a circle of oil lamps. Serhan stood in the wall and watched him. The pages of the book turned at regular intervals, but apart from that and the guttering of the oil lamps the room was silent.
Gerique slowly closed the book, but didn’t move. What now? The great head turned, the yellow eyes blazing like searchlights, until it was pointing directly at where Serhan was concealed.
“Corderan?”
Serhan forced the image of his study into h
is mind and stumbled out of the wall, pulling the ring from his finger. His hands were shaking and his heart beating so fast and hard that he put a hand to his chest. Gerique had sensed he was there, but not who he was. Serhan had felt the force of those yellow eyes, as though they could bore into the stone itself and rip him from it. But Gerique had sensed the master of White Rock. Serhan had never felt such fear in his life. Gerique had even known where he was. Was he safe, even now? His hope was that Gerique was unsure of what he had sensed. He imposed the control of his mind over his body, and as he calmed he recalled from the accounts that Rollo had read to him at Sorocaba that Gerique and Corderan had never been in White Rock at the same time. They had met outside the fortress, and the pursuit had been away to the south-east. It seemed likely that the ring had been sensed, remembered from centuries ago like the taste of a rare delicacy.
He could do nothing about it. The morning would bring what it would bring. He hid the ring in his desk and walked back to his bedchamber the normal, human way.
* * * *
The following day nothing seemed to have changed. No messages came down from the Faer Karan, and things went along pretty much as normal in White Rock. There was no guarantee that this was a good sign. The Faer Karan acted in ways that were unpredictable to men.
In spite of the threat of discovery Serhan was keen to try one more experiment. He had not slept well, but it had not been fear that kept his eyes open. Half the night had been spent considering what he could do with the new abilities that the ring gave him, and the other half what he would have done if it had be he who had built White Rock with this wonderful feature.
There had to be a room.
It made sense to him that if you could travel anywhere in White Rock just by thinking of the place, then there had to be a place that you could only get to by such means. There had to be a secret room. He would certainly have built one, and he couldn’t see how Corderan could have resisted it. It was the most obvious application.
Late in the afternoon he finished the few tasks that he had committed to for the day and retired to his chambers, pleading a headache. He told his servants that he was not to be disturbed, shut the doors and went into his study. Placing the ring on his finger he touched the wall and stepped into it.