Andrew Hartley - Act of Will

So, whether we did or not, he intended to.

“The butler has left food and drink in the sitting room for you. I will have hot water for bathing sent along presently. Will you eat first?”

Mithos said we would, which was fortunate, because I could have eaten the inhabitants of a good-sized stable. The chancellor made a bow small enough to be a nod and glided off down the corridor like a ghost looking for somewhere to haunt. One glance at this dour old ruin said he’d already found it.

The guest rooms were diplomatically identical: clean, private, and basic. They looked out of the rear wall of the building to the scraggy hills of northern Shale.

The bar was as functional as the bedrooms. There were various old and cracked leather armchairs and some tables, scratched and discolored with age. A few sorry embroideries hung on the exposed stone of the walls, and the paint was peeling as if the ceiling had some rampant skin complaint.

“The whole place is like this,” said Garnet to no one in particular. “Old money now gone. I mean, it must have cost a fortune to build, but nothing has been replaced for years.”

“Cheese and ham,” I announced through a mouthful of sandwich. “Not bad, but not great. Could use some pickle.”

Garnet’s green eyes rested on mine and narrowed. I gave him a friendly smile and went on chewing. Orgos opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind.

“Why is Mithos the leader now?” I asked as soon as I had swallowed.

Renthrette looked over her shoulder hastily as if to ensure that no one had heard my indiscretion. I laughed, and she stared at me, but Lisha spoke in her placid, even tone. “We are unsure of the social climate here. A man tends to buy more respect. That’s all.”

I had intended to get some satirical mileage out of this, but her frankness disarmed, as usual, and I said nothing.

Ten minutes later I was in a hot tin bath shaped like an overgrown coal scuttle, its water foaming with carbolic soap. So, here I was: a specialist, brought in at considerable expense (I hoped) to save the nation or county or whatever the hell it was. I grinned to myself and wondered whether I could get free beer at the bar. Maybe if I was really good, they’d give me a magic sword.

I dozed for a couple of hours and then ate lunch with the rest of the party: cold pork salad and two slabs of brown, grainy bread. You could tell it was cheap stuff because it had that powdery taste that you get when the flour has been cut with ground chalk as a baker friend had once explained, the sacks weigh in heavier and you get a better price for inferior goods. It was pretty shoddy stuff. There didn’t seem much point in being a count if you couldn’t get decent bread. On top of that, dessert was a wizened apple and my first gulp of the ale told me it had been significantly watered down. I was beginning to get a sinking feeling about this place.

Then came a tour of the castle, the near-mute Chancellor Dathel steering us round the ground floor’s central block of guards and infantry quarters, then into the western and eastern wings, which housed the cavalry. In each of these large white-plastered rooms of bedsteads with regulation blankets and footlockers, the reclining soldiers thundered to their feet and stood erect and silent.

One time, just to break the monotony, I started to wander around the soldiers, looking over their armor as if I was inspecting them. I picked up a burnished helmet, plumed with black horsehair, from on top of a footlocker and rapped on it with my knuckles as the soldiers stood rigid around me, eyes fixed on nothing.

“What’s this made of, soldier?” I demanded of one of them.

“Iron plates riveted to leather, sir!” barked the soldier after a second’s hesitation.

“And what would be harder than that?” I asked.

“Sir?” stammered the soldier.

“What’s tougher than iron and leather?”

“Steel, sir.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“What are you made of, Private?”

There was a flicker of confusion in the soldier’s face, and after a painful pause he said, in the same military shout, “I don’t think I understand the question, sir.”

“Are not the muscles and bones of a Shale trooper harder than steel, soldier?” I asked with patient dignity.

“No, sir,” said the soldier.

“Oh. I mean, isn’t your heart hardened with courage?”

“Er, well, sir-”

“Figuratively,” I added hastily, “Private, figuratively. It’s kind of a trope, a sort of poetic allusion, you see. ”

“Yes, sir. I see, sir.”

The chancellor coughed politely, like a small beetle anxious not to offend but with the unmistakable hint that we didn’t have time for this. I gave one last penetrating gaze to the assembled troops and said “At ease” to the nearest officer.

As they relaxed with a shifting of feet and a sudden rush of mutterings, Dathel caught my eye and held it. I turned to leave with as much dignity as I could salvage, but found myself face-to-face with an amused and bewildered Orgos, who pulled a what-the-hell-was-that-supposed-to-be? look, while Garnet scowled.

I really didn’t care to see the bloody kitchens and meeting hall, but we marched through them all the same. Garnet and Renthrette exchanged significant looks and made penciled notes on little squares of parchment. After a while I caught Garnet’s arm and asked him what the story was.

“You’d know if you’d shut your mouth and open your eyes once in a while,” he muttered. “What were you doing back there?”

“Being an adventurer,” I said. “I thought it was obvious. Admittedly I haven’t quite got the part down yet. ”

“The part?”

“Yes,” I explained, “you know, the adventurer role. The language, the mannerisms, and all that. But I’m working on it.”

“It’s not a role,” Garnet gasped, offended. “It’s a way of life!”

“Well, yes, kind of. But it’s still a performance, you know? And you can help me flesh out the role by telling me what you keep writing down. ”

“You have no idea, have you?” he said, still aghast. “You will always just be the same lying, deceitful-”

“Oh, thanks. Keep your precious observations to yourself then.”

He grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me back against the wall, his favorite way of getting my attention, and snarled, “Just stay out of my way and don’t soil our profession with your playacting.”

“I’m only trying to get the adventuring, you know, the life, right.”

“Well, start taking notice of things for yourself,” he spat contemptuously. “We have just seen the living quarters of eleven hundred men,” he added. “That’s two hundred cavalry and seven hundred infantry for deployment in times of open conflict, without touching the two-hundred-strong guard force that holds the castle itself.” He gave me an excited look, apparently forgetting his irritation.

“So?” I said.

“That’s a lot of soldiers.”

“Yes,” I agreed, giving him the bewildered look he had given me, “it is.”

Just to score a private point I sidled over to Renthrette as we ascended the stairs to the second floor behind the silent chancellor and said, “Did you happen to figure out how many servants there are here?”

“Upstairs?” she said, consulting her notes. “Twenty-three.”

“Thank you.” I smiled simply. It was as I had suspected; they were both as mad as each other.

“Not at all, Will.” She half smiled, dubious but apparently pleased that I was showing interest. “Chancellor,” she said, raising her voice slightly, “what is the male-to-female ratio amongst the kitchen and cleaning staff?”