Lords 1.06
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] "There is already someone else I have in mind."
"Is that so?" your mother replies icily. "An unwise match, no doubt, not worthy of your station."
"She is Lady Katarina d'al Cazarosta, Mother," you reply.
Your brother and sister stare at you, wide-eyed in shock. Your mother's expression flashes through emotions in rapid sequence: surprise first, then fear, then anger, before it finally settles into derision.
"I am not in the mood for your foolish little jokes, boy," she finally replies, her voice colder than ever. "This is a matter of great import to the future of this house, not a setting for your absurd jests. Strike a match with one of the wealthiest houses in the Unified Kingdom? You? Ridiculous."
So that's how it is to be, though you suppose you ought to have expected it. Your mother never had great faith in your abilities. Why should she start now? No, easier to dismiss the whole affair as a bad joke than to admit it's possible that her son might be able to pursue—successfully pursue, even—a match with one of the greatest heiresses in the realm.
"I am being serious, Mother," you insist. "It is a prospect I mean to pursue in deadly earnest."
But she isn't listening. "If you cannot speak gravely about such matters, then I see there's no point in discussing it with you further," she sniffs. "I shall simply resign myself to the fact that it will be Karl who will carry on the line and that you will die as stupid and alone as you are now."
With that, she turns away, a look of disdain on her face. She does not speak to you again that night.
The next few days pass in a flurry of activity as you grow accustomed to your new position and circumstances.
When you were in Antar, the process of settling into your new billet only took a few hours. Your batman would follow you to your new lodgings with your baggage and unpack everything per your well-accustomed directions. You would immediately commandeer a desk for your administrative work. After that, it was only a matter of clearing away the papers left by the desk's previous owner, introducing yourself at the local officers' club, and making sure the rest of your command was similarly settled in.
You took that for granted, then.
Now, newly returned to your childhood home, you find yourself surrounded by half a dozen servants who remember your name and face but know nothing of your personal habits. Your baggage—the sparse kit of a soldier ready to depart at a moment's notice—possesses little of the necessities you suddenly find yourself in need of as a country gentleman. Worst of all, instead of having the luxury of discarding your father's confidential papers—the ones which even Saundersley is not privy to—you must read through them, one by one, at the desk which used to be his, so that you may learn of your father's affairs and the decisions he made in the government of the barony which is now yours.
It is not an easy process. Your father didn't show you much care in person, but his private journals show that he possessed perhaps more affection for you than he ever really showed. It is a harsh blow to learn of such a thing only long after his death. In the end, you set those volumes aside to be read some other time.
Your brother proves a great help, having run much of the estate after your father's death. Working side by side, you're able to reorganise your father's desk to your liking and grasp the workings of your new fiefdom faster than you could have possibly hoped.
It is only after three days of near-constant work that you finally emerge from your father's study. Your head still filled with lists of tenants, maps of grazing fields, and the texts of legal contracts, you commit yourself to a good, long night's sleep. You are not entirely versed in your estate's workings, but you at least now know enough to be confident moving forward. You've taken the first step to becoming Baron Reddingfield in truth as well as in name.
On the morning of the fourth day, you bathe and dress in your best coat. You order the carriage hitched and readied; and head for Baron Torrenburg's estate. Courtesy requires you to introduce yourself to your nearest neighbour as the new baron, even though he may have no reason to remember you fondly after your father's failed attempt to arrange a marital alliance. You can only hope that the past has not prejudiced him too greatly against your house and pray that the conversation does not become too awkward.
Torrenburg House is not so different from your own residence. The drive is perhaps less holed, the walls in less disrepair, the outbuildings in better condition, but as a whole, it is of the same model as your house and the perhaps one hundred other country houses which dot the Wulframite hinterlands: too worn and too cramped to be the stately hall of a great lord, far too grand and ancient to be the home of a mere farmer or tradesman.
Lord Torrenburg is a solidly built man, his grey hair tied back and curled, as had been the fashion among the country nobility when your father was young. You think he would have made a good Dragoon officer, were he twenty years younger. Over cups of coffee and plates of biscuits, the two of you make inconsequential conversation in his parlour for the next hour. You take care to avoid any serious conversation and to steer clear of any topic which might cause offence or unpleasantness. Instead, you chat about the weather, the ongoing harvest, and the local news. You lament the poor state of your roads and he not-quite boasts about his effort to restore his village's shrine.
It is an amiable exchange if almost entirely without substance, the chatter of two country gentlemen discussing matters which would be utterly irrelevant to anyone who lived a day's ride away.
Part of you cannot help but enjoy the process of conversation without consequence after twelve years of almost nothing but the earnest discussion of war and statecraft.
Part of you is slowly going mad.
Thus it is both a sadness and a relief when, after your third cup of coffee, Lord Torrenburg brings a third figure into the room, a slight, snub-nosed young woman with long, mousey brown hair and a pair of darting hazel eyes.
"My Lord Reddingfield," he says as the girl steps forward to join you, "it has been some time, but I am sure you remember my daughter?"
You remember Lady Amalia d'al Torrenburg only faintly, and judging by how she moves around you, there's little doubt that she doesn't remember much of you either. The two of you exchange maybe half a dozen words altogether before she withdraws to the other side of the parlour, taking a seat next to her father.
Baron Torrenburg continues your conversation from before. At times, he defers to his daughter, though only long enough to allow a few words, delivered with a quiet, almost meek reserve. You suppose that's only natural. Women of your class are not exactly encouraged to speak their minds when in the company of men, be they husband or father. You wonder if she would behave the same way outside the shadow of her father's influence. But you cannot know that unless you were able to speak with her in a more intimate setting, and that could not possibly occur unless you were to try to court her.
Then again, perhaps…
No, now is not the time for such thoughts. The coffee pot is empty, and the biscuits are gone. Your visit, for all intents and purposes, is at an end. Lady Amalia escorts you to the door. Her father thanks you for a pleasant morning's conversation and sends you on your way. You spend the trip back to your estate thinking about what could have been.
And perhaps, what might be.
A pleasant surprise awaits you upon your return to the estate: a battered old horse van, direct from Tannersburg and aboard, a familiar face, or rather perhaps, a familiar form.
Faith was your personal mount in Antar, and now, by a slow, circuitous route, your old battle companion has returned to your side.
Your horse is no longer young or particularly spry, but Faith is still a warhorse trained, and you have little doubt that you will pose an imposing figure atop the saddle to the eyes of your tenants and neighbours.
Alas, you have only enough time to arrange the transfer of beast, tack, and saddle to a new place in your dilapidated stables before you must cut your reunion short. Your desk awaits, and there is still no small amount of work to be done.
For the next few weeks, as the last of the harvest is brought in and the last of the leaves fall from the trees, your time is occupied by three matters, each of no small importance.
The first is perhaps the one that consumes the most of your effort: the touring of your estates. Every day, you spend the early morning riding through the pitted and muddy streets of Reddingfield village wrapped up in a heavy overcoat to ward off the chill, greeting your tenants as they go out to their day's labours.
At a glance, you have no doubt that the whole practise seems rather frivolous, to spend hours riding about, doing nothing but saying "Good morning!" and "Saints go with you!" to men and women who only know you by name. Yet it is the very fact that they do not know you by appearance which prompts you to such activity. You are, after all, their new lord, the man to whom their rents and obedience are now owed. War has taught you well enough that an officer who cannot have his voice or face recognised by his men cannot command at all. You doubt it is very much different with the administration of an estate.
So, every morning, you continue to ride out, even as the mornings grow colder and wetter and the roads start to degenerate into a morass of mud. You continue until every one of your tenants is able to distinguish you by sight and know almost by instinct that it is you, and no other, who serves as lord and master.
Your second duty is a rather warmer one, if somewhat more tedious; for when you return from your morning ride, you have only time enough to eat a light lunch before turning to your office to put the administrative affairs of your estate in order.
True, you have sworn your oath before the King and made yourself known to your tenants and neighbours, but that does not mean there are not other matters related to your assumption of the title which demand somewhat timely action. First, there are the letters to Grenadier Square and the Duke of Cunaris in Fernandescourt, informing them of your new address so that your half-pay might be routed properly. Then, there are inquiries to the Intendancy regarding matters of law. You must look over your father's subscriptions to the city broadsheets, so you may continue the ones you favour and cancel the ones you mislike.
Perhaps most importantly of all, you send letters to the banking houses which hold your family's debt, settling the outstanding interest they are owed with a combination of the assets your father left behind and a portion of your own wealth.
The third matter is the one that is perhaps most vital to the proper administration of your fief: the twice-annual collection of rents, timed with the first planting season and the last harvest. Under normal circumstances, the rents would have been your only source of reliable income, and although your half-pay and royal annuity go some way to covering your expenses, only the rents levied upon your tenants can bring in enough money to keep your finances stable.
Thankfully, this is a task in which you do not need to be personally involved. Instead, it is Saundersley who goes out every morning, armed with a copy of your ledgers, to visit the plots and cottages your tenants have rented from you and exact the coin they owe you for the privilege. Every evening, he returns with the collected rents, bound for your strongbox, and a stack of receipts bound for your records.
It is a task that Saundersley performs with his customary stolidness, a matter which gives you little trouble until the very last day when your solicitor hurries into your study with a stack of folders under his arm and a worried expression on his face.
"My lord, I think we may have something of a problem," he reports as he places a thick sheaf of papers on your desk. "I was presented with this not an hour ago."
You look down to see a long list of names, almost all of them recognisable: they are the names of your tenants printed in a rough, unrefined hand. A handful of names are accompanied by signatures. Most carry only an illiterate's mark next to them. The list goes on for page after page until it seems every tenant in your fief has put ink to it.
"What is it?" you ask.
"A petition," Saundersley replies. "It demands that the rents be lowered for next spring and kept at that rate thereafter. Given the current hardships which they must endure, it may not be an unfair imposition."
Your eyes narrow. Your tenants have every right to petition you, but your rents are your livelihood. It is not a matter on which you may concede ground easily. "How much?" you ask.
Saundersley swallows hard. "By a quarter, my lord."
"Saints above! That is no small amount!"
"No, my lord, it is not," Saundersley concedes, "but given the circumstances, I have no doubt your tenants consider such a drastic reduction more than reasonable."
"Cutting rents by a tenth, perhaps," you muse, "or even an eighth, but this?" You shake your head in disbelief. "Surely this year's harvest could not have been that bad?"
Saundersley grimaces. "It is not a poor harvest which is the issue, my lord. It is the fact that nobody can afford to buy what is harvested. The towns have been just as badly pressed by the King's taxes as we have, and they do not have the coin to buy all the produce they once did. I think the return of all the men who went to Antar may have made things even worse."
You nod pensively. As much as you might hate to admit it, Saundersley is likely right. With the tens of thousands of men who once made up the King's Army in Antar returning home at the end of the war, there must be a surfeit of healthy men competing for what jobs exist in the towns and cities, a situation sure to drive wages down. It is a wretched thought that your fellow soldiers are only making the situation worse, but that doesn't mean that it might not very well be true.
Your solicitor clears his throat quietly. "Now then, about this petition…".
"Your thoughts, Saundersley?"
"You are still new to your seat, lord," Saundersley ponders, "and your tenants still do not know what quite to make of you. Acquiescing to their requests may ease their anxieties."
"It may also ruin me," you point out. "This fief's revenues are not much greater than its expenses. If those revenues were to drop so precipitously…".
Your solicitor nods. "That is true, but here you have a chance to make an early impression on your tenants," he notes. "Remember that they are not Antari serfs. If they are displeased, they may well leave. If they are happy, they will stay, and their high opinion of you may even attract others. Their goodwill may prove to be a more valuable resource than coin. This is an opportunity to win a great deal of it."
And how long will that goodwill last when you are forced to make economies to keep yourself afloat? When the tenants realise that lower rents mean no more money to repair the roads or fix the cottages? Will you still have their goodwill then? Or will they simply think you are a fool?
Saundersley looks down at the petition, then gives you a grim little smile. "I think I have made my thoughts on the matter clear. Do you have a decision, my lord?"
[ ] [RENT] "It is not an unreasonable request, given the circumstances. I'll grant it."
[ ] [RENT] "Times are hard for all; I cannot afford to lower rents anytime soon."
[ ] [RENT] "Lower the rents? No, I think I'll raise them instead."
"Is that so?" your mother replies icily. "An unwise match, no doubt, not worthy of your station."
"She is Lady Katarina d'al Cazarosta, Mother," you reply.
Your brother and sister stare at you, wide-eyed in shock. Your mother's expression flashes through emotions in rapid sequence: surprise first, then fear, then anger, before it finally settles into derision.
"I am not in the mood for your foolish little jokes, boy," she finally replies, her voice colder than ever. "This is a matter of great import to the future of this house, not a setting for your absurd jests. Strike a match with one of the wealthiest houses in the Unified Kingdom? You? Ridiculous."
So that's how it is to be, though you suppose you ought to have expected it. Your mother never had great faith in your abilities. Why should she start now? No, easier to dismiss the whole affair as a bad joke than to admit it's possible that her son might be able to pursue—successfully pursue, even—a match with one of the greatest heiresses in the realm.
"I am being serious, Mother," you insist. "It is a prospect I mean to pursue in deadly earnest."
But she isn't listening. "If you cannot speak gravely about such matters, then I see there's no point in discussing it with you further," she sniffs. "I shall simply resign myself to the fact that it will be Karl who will carry on the line and that you will die as stupid and alone as you are now."
With that, she turns away, a look of disdain on her face. She does not speak to you again that night.
-
The next few days pass in a flurry of activity as you grow accustomed to your new position and circumstances.
When you were in Antar, the process of settling into your new billet only took a few hours. Your batman would follow you to your new lodgings with your baggage and unpack everything per your well-accustomed directions. You would immediately commandeer a desk for your administrative work. After that, it was only a matter of clearing away the papers left by the desk's previous owner, introducing yourself at the local officers' club, and making sure the rest of your command was similarly settled in.
You took that for granted, then.
Now, newly returned to your childhood home, you find yourself surrounded by half a dozen servants who remember your name and face but know nothing of your personal habits. Your baggage—the sparse kit of a soldier ready to depart at a moment's notice—possesses little of the necessities you suddenly find yourself in need of as a country gentleman. Worst of all, instead of having the luxury of discarding your father's confidential papers—the ones which even Saundersley is not privy to—you must read through them, one by one, at the desk which used to be his, so that you may learn of your father's affairs and the decisions he made in the government of the barony which is now yours.
It is not an easy process. Your father didn't show you much care in person, but his private journals show that he possessed perhaps more affection for you than he ever really showed. It is a harsh blow to learn of such a thing only long after his death. In the end, you set those volumes aside to be read some other time.
Your brother proves a great help, having run much of the estate after your father's death. Working side by side, you're able to reorganise your father's desk to your liking and grasp the workings of your new fiefdom faster than you could have possibly hoped.
It is only after three days of near-constant work that you finally emerge from your father's study. Your head still filled with lists of tenants, maps of grazing fields, and the texts of legal contracts, you commit yourself to a good, long night's sleep. You are not entirely versed in your estate's workings, but you at least now know enough to be confident moving forward. You've taken the first step to becoming Baron Reddingfield in truth as well as in name.
On the morning of the fourth day, you bathe and dress in your best coat. You order the carriage hitched and readied; and head for Baron Torrenburg's estate. Courtesy requires you to introduce yourself to your nearest neighbour as the new baron, even though he may have no reason to remember you fondly after your father's failed attempt to arrange a marital alliance. You can only hope that the past has not prejudiced him too greatly against your house and pray that the conversation does not become too awkward.
Torrenburg House is not so different from your own residence. The drive is perhaps less holed, the walls in less disrepair, the outbuildings in better condition, but as a whole, it is of the same model as your house and the perhaps one hundred other country houses which dot the Wulframite hinterlands: too worn and too cramped to be the stately hall of a great lord, far too grand and ancient to be the home of a mere farmer or tradesman.
Lord Torrenburg is a solidly built man, his grey hair tied back and curled, as had been the fashion among the country nobility when your father was young. You think he would have made a good Dragoon officer, were he twenty years younger. Over cups of coffee and plates of biscuits, the two of you make inconsequential conversation in his parlour for the next hour. You take care to avoid any serious conversation and to steer clear of any topic which might cause offence or unpleasantness. Instead, you chat about the weather, the ongoing harvest, and the local news. You lament the poor state of your roads and he not-quite boasts about his effort to restore his village's shrine.
It is an amiable exchange if almost entirely without substance, the chatter of two country gentlemen discussing matters which would be utterly irrelevant to anyone who lived a day's ride away.
Part of you cannot help but enjoy the process of conversation without consequence after twelve years of almost nothing but the earnest discussion of war and statecraft.
Part of you is slowly going mad.
Thus it is both a sadness and a relief when, after your third cup of coffee, Lord Torrenburg brings a third figure into the room, a slight, snub-nosed young woman with long, mousey brown hair and a pair of darting hazel eyes.
"My Lord Reddingfield," he says as the girl steps forward to join you, "it has been some time, but I am sure you remember my daughter?"
You remember Lady Amalia d'al Torrenburg only faintly, and judging by how she moves around you, there's little doubt that she doesn't remember much of you either. The two of you exchange maybe half a dozen words altogether before she withdraws to the other side of the parlour, taking a seat next to her father.
Baron Torrenburg continues your conversation from before. At times, he defers to his daughter, though only long enough to allow a few words, delivered with a quiet, almost meek reserve. You suppose that's only natural. Women of your class are not exactly encouraged to speak their minds when in the company of men, be they husband or father. You wonder if she would behave the same way outside the shadow of her father's influence. But you cannot know that unless you were able to speak with her in a more intimate setting, and that could not possibly occur unless you were to try to court her.
Then again, perhaps…
No, now is not the time for such thoughts. The coffee pot is empty, and the biscuits are gone. Your visit, for all intents and purposes, is at an end. Lady Amalia escorts you to the door. Her father thanks you for a pleasant morning's conversation and sends you on your way. You spend the trip back to your estate thinking about what could have been.
And perhaps, what might be.
-
A pleasant surprise awaits you upon your return to the estate: a battered old horse van, direct from Tannersburg and aboard, a familiar face, or rather perhaps, a familiar form.
Faith was your personal mount in Antar, and now, by a slow, circuitous route, your old battle companion has returned to your side.
Your horse is no longer young or particularly spry, but Faith is still a warhorse trained, and you have little doubt that you will pose an imposing figure atop the saddle to the eyes of your tenants and neighbours.
Alas, you have only enough time to arrange the transfer of beast, tack, and saddle to a new place in your dilapidated stables before you must cut your reunion short. Your desk awaits, and there is still no small amount of work to be done.
-
For the next few weeks, as the last of the harvest is brought in and the last of the leaves fall from the trees, your time is occupied by three matters, each of no small importance.
The first is perhaps the one that consumes the most of your effort: the touring of your estates. Every day, you spend the early morning riding through the pitted and muddy streets of Reddingfield village wrapped up in a heavy overcoat to ward off the chill, greeting your tenants as they go out to their day's labours.
At a glance, you have no doubt that the whole practise seems rather frivolous, to spend hours riding about, doing nothing but saying "Good morning!" and "Saints go with you!" to men and women who only know you by name. Yet it is the very fact that they do not know you by appearance which prompts you to such activity. You are, after all, their new lord, the man to whom their rents and obedience are now owed. War has taught you well enough that an officer who cannot have his voice or face recognised by his men cannot command at all. You doubt it is very much different with the administration of an estate.
So, every morning, you continue to ride out, even as the mornings grow colder and wetter and the roads start to degenerate into a morass of mud. You continue until every one of your tenants is able to distinguish you by sight and know almost by instinct that it is you, and no other, who serves as lord and master.
Your second duty is a rather warmer one, if somewhat more tedious; for when you return from your morning ride, you have only time enough to eat a light lunch before turning to your office to put the administrative affairs of your estate in order.
True, you have sworn your oath before the King and made yourself known to your tenants and neighbours, but that does not mean there are not other matters related to your assumption of the title which demand somewhat timely action. First, there are the letters to Grenadier Square and the Duke of Cunaris in Fernandescourt, informing them of your new address so that your half-pay might be routed properly. Then, there are inquiries to the Intendancy regarding matters of law. You must look over your father's subscriptions to the city broadsheets, so you may continue the ones you favour and cancel the ones you mislike.
Perhaps most importantly of all, you send letters to the banking houses which hold your family's debt, settling the outstanding interest they are owed with a combination of the assets your father left behind and a portion of your own wealth.
The third matter is the one that is perhaps most vital to the proper administration of your fief: the twice-annual collection of rents, timed with the first planting season and the last harvest. Under normal circumstances, the rents would have been your only source of reliable income, and although your half-pay and royal annuity go some way to covering your expenses, only the rents levied upon your tenants can bring in enough money to keep your finances stable.
Thankfully, this is a task in which you do not need to be personally involved. Instead, it is Saundersley who goes out every morning, armed with a copy of your ledgers, to visit the plots and cottages your tenants have rented from you and exact the coin they owe you for the privilege. Every evening, he returns with the collected rents, bound for your strongbox, and a stack of receipts bound for your records.
It is a task that Saundersley performs with his customary stolidness, a matter which gives you little trouble until the very last day when your solicitor hurries into your study with a stack of folders under his arm and a worried expression on his face.
"My lord, I think we may have something of a problem," he reports as he places a thick sheaf of papers on your desk. "I was presented with this not an hour ago."
You look down to see a long list of names, almost all of them recognisable: they are the names of your tenants printed in a rough, unrefined hand. A handful of names are accompanied by signatures. Most carry only an illiterate's mark next to them. The list goes on for page after page until it seems every tenant in your fief has put ink to it.
"What is it?" you ask.
"A petition," Saundersley replies. "It demands that the rents be lowered for next spring and kept at that rate thereafter. Given the current hardships which they must endure, it may not be an unfair imposition."
Your eyes narrow. Your tenants have every right to petition you, but your rents are your livelihood. It is not a matter on which you may concede ground easily. "How much?" you ask.
Saundersley swallows hard. "By a quarter, my lord."
"Saints above! That is no small amount!"
"No, my lord, it is not," Saundersley concedes, "but given the circumstances, I have no doubt your tenants consider such a drastic reduction more than reasonable."
"Cutting rents by a tenth, perhaps," you muse, "or even an eighth, but this?" You shake your head in disbelief. "Surely this year's harvest could not have been that bad?"
Saundersley grimaces. "It is not a poor harvest which is the issue, my lord. It is the fact that nobody can afford to buy what is harvested. The towns have been just as badly pressed by the King's taxes as we have, and they do not have the coin to buy all the produce they once did. I think the return of all the men who went to Antar may have made things even worse."
You nod pensively. As much as you might hate to admit it, Saundersley is likely right. With the tens of thousands of men who once made up the King's Army in Antar returning home at the end of the war, there must be a surfeit of healthy men competing for what jobs exist in the towns and cities, a situation sure to drive wages down. It is a wretched thought that your fellow soldiers are only making the situation worse, but that doesn't mean that it might not very well be true.
Your solicitor clears his throat quietly. "Now then, about this petition…".
"Your thoughts, Saundersley?"
"You are still new to your seat, lord," Saundersley ponders, "and your tenants still do not know what quite to make of you. Acquiescing to their requests may ease their anxieties."
"It may also ruin me," you point out. "This fief's revenues are not much greater than its expenses. If those revenues were to drop so precipitously…".
Your solicitor nods. "That is true, but here you have a chance to make an early impression on your tenants," he notes. "Remember that they are not Antari serfs. If they are displeased, they may well leave. If they are happy, they will stay, and their high opinion of you may even attract others. Their goodwill may prove to be a more valuable resource than coin. This is an opportunity to win a great deal of it."
And how long will that goodwill last when you are forced to make economies to keep yourself afloat? When the tenants realise that lower rents mean no more money to repair the roads or fix the cottages? Will you still have their goodwill then? Or will they simply think you are a fool?
Saundersley looks down at the petition, then gives you a grim little smile. "I think I have made my thoughts on the matter clear. Do you have a decision, my lord?"
[ ] [RENT] "It is not an unreasonable request, given the circumstances. I'll grant it."
[ ] [RENT] "Times are hard for all; I cannot afford to lower rents anytime soon."
[ ] [RENT] "Lower the rents? No, I think I'll raise them instead."
