Hi, everybody!
I've been hard at work on the first few chapters of the newest Natalie Bryce saga, including one very steamy scene (wink). That will roll out onto my Patreon soon. On the meanwhile, I'm still developing OQV and Sisters & Brothers (which will roll out onto ScribHub soon).
All my best,
Ovid
51. Lady of the Manor
The barony of Leistundvar Valley encompassed the Liestch Hills to the east, the eastward ridge of the Vlaidosk Mountains to the west, and a great big valley in between - some five hundred twenty square miles of terrain. It wasn't the largest barony in Aurilicht, but it was still larger than some small countries over on Genosha (which, to be fair, had far too many countries - around a hundred of them!). The notion of administering such a territory, let alone an entire duchy, let alone an entire subcontinent as Val's forebear Queen Friyja had once done? It beggared belief.
As the newly-appointed administrators of the barony, first-time nobles Ginn and Ette Vinzenno had an enormous task ahead of them - fixing the decades of mismanagement that Earl Gunthald and his ilk had placed upon the region and ensuring that their fighting force was loyal and ready to serve Duchess Aleida in the war. And it was up to Lady Valkyrie Valicent-Vinzenno to help them succeed, even if she adamantly refused to admit that she was now a duchy-recognized Lady by way of adoption. At least she wouldn't be inheriting the place if the unthinkable happened - that honor befell to her adopted brother. Still, if Val might find herself a queen one day, she figured it would behoove her to know a bit about the management of a region… and, as Ginn and Ette's assistant in all things, she was going to get roped into barony management whether she wanted to or not.
"How does this help us learn about the barony?" Izzy asked.
Val sighed - Izzy had insisted on accompanying her and Niko for their ride around the manor, turning what Val had hoped to be a romantic autumn ride into what she'd told Ginn she was actually doing - cataloging the state of the manor and its outlying areas.
The ancestral home of the von Liestch family was the manor at Darkvale House, a thousand acres of garden and scenic countryside situated in the Liestch Hills and overlooking the town of Fork Grove. The town itself was a ten minute ride away, visible from the manor and built around the small river that wended its way through the hills. The six thousand residents of the town thought themselves very urbane, even though the whole of downtown Fork Grove would fit inside the Port Bazaar or the Green Procession.
Val whispered to Tulip to continue around the side of the storage shed, scribbling notes into her little book as she did so. "We need to note the state of everything and fix whatever's in danger of falling into disrepair," she said. "You can tell that roof over there's got warping, which means it's probably leaky and will start to sag if we don't re-shingle it and replace the waterlogged beam."
"Why can't somebody else do it?"
"Somebody else should to it, but they didn't. We can do it, so we will. Are you suddenly above a leisurely ride through the countryside around the manor house that we former orphans, amazingly, get to live in?"
"No, obviously," Izzy said. "Plus I'm still an orphan. You aren't."
"Uncle Ette and Auntie Ginn will be very disappointed to hear that," Niko said.
Ginn and Ette had been Niko's aunt and uncle for a while by way of Sabine, who had sacrificed herself to save Val. But at some point, Izzy had started referring to them as auntie and uncle, too, and they'd endorsed her official papers. That made them legally responsible for her, even if the legal responsibility of folks who marked other as their relationship to the undersigned was minimal. Ette took it seriously whenever somebody called him uncle, and so Izzy would never sleep rough as long as Uncle Ette had a huge manor house to call home… and she would never want for big, bosomy hugs for as long as Auntie Ginn was in charge of the household.
"You're a forphan, not an orphan," Val stated. "You've got an auntie and uncle and cousin. You've got blood sisters. And we've got Mr. Oliengrave looking for your little brother…"
"I can't believe he took my whole talent," Izzy said. "Plus half of your two." But Ette had vouched for the man's credentials and informed them that two golden talents was not an unreasonable fee for five weeks' work plus expenses for a freelance bondsman. Ette had volunteered to help cover the cost, but Izzy had insisted that it was her family business and that she would pay her own way - a classic forphan sentiment if ever there was one.
"You should have got Uncle Ette to help," Niko stated.
"Yeah. But now maybe he'll be more inclined to help Estan when we find him."
"You know my dad's too soft for his own good," Val said. "He'd offer to help Estan whether or not you paid for your own bondsman. But if you feel more comfortable asking for help after paying your own way for the bondsmen, then it's the right thing to do."
Izzy nodded, deep in thought. "Hey… are those boards supposed to be bent?"
Val inspected the base of the storage shed and noted it in her little book. "They aren't. That's water damage… honestly, we should probably just replace the whole shed. I don't know about you, but I'm famished… what do you say we have a country lunch?"
"A country lunch sounds good," Izzy agreed.
Darkvale House had a staff of twenty-four, excluding Dr. Stromm, the physician who lived in the guest house and who may or may not have been living there without permission from the old baron. Ginn and Ette were a bit uncomfortable with having servants on their payroll, let alone twenty-four of them, but they were alto reticent to sack anybody without first having better employment lined up for them. And a manor as large as Darkvale House required at bare minimum a dozen people to see to its upkeep… and even with all twenty-four, there were areas of disrepair to see to.
Mrs. Glovinni, the chef, was a cheerful woman who'd clearly sampled a few too many of her own wares. She weighed about what Ginn and Val would weigh combined despite being one inch taller than Val's five-foot-four. She liked to make country breakfast, country lunch, and country dinner - which, as far as Val could tell, were regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner with about two extra courses and lots and lots of butter. Oh, the butter that Mrs. Glovinni employed to put the country into her food! But it was delicious food, and after a busy morning of not canoodling while logging structural damage and other areas of neglect, Val was looking forward to the chef's flaky butter-rolls with thin-sliced butter-ham.
They rode their horses back to the manor stables and returned them to the care of Ms. Lyvanna, the stablemaster. The stables had space for thirty-two horses, of which twenty-three were currently occupied. When they'd first arrived at Darkvale House and Val asked who owned the sixteen horses then stabled at the manor, Ms. Lyvanna had given her an odd look and replied:
"Yours, miss. Yours and your family's, of course. All except for stall twelve, which belongs to Mr. Engelfund."
Mr. Engelfund, of course, was the estate steward. A man of some importance in his own right, to hear Mrs. Glovinni tell it. He walked with a limp because he'd lost a foot in the great war. He and Ette had exchanged war stories one evening over drinks at the manor hearth, but Engelfund spoke in such a dreadful deadpan monotone that he managed to make stabbing Genoshen soldiers through the eye sound boring and Val had fallen asleep half-way through and awoken at dawn in her big room in her big four-poster bed.
Presently, they dismounted and handed their horses to Ms. Lyvanna's care. The stablemaster checked Val's horse, tutting over the burrs that had somehow found their way onto her otherwise-sleek coat.
"Honestly, Lady Val, I’m not sure why you don't ride a more stately horse. We've got five or six mounts here more suited for a lady of the manor," Ms. Lyvanna said. "Shall I arrange a showing for you to see your options?"
"Just Val or Miss Val, please, Ms. Lyvanna," Val said. She didn't like being called Lady Val, even if propriety technically required it. "And Tulip is my friend. I'm not riding another horse."
The stablemaster quickly averted her eyes from Val's general direction. "Of course, miss. I didn't mean to offend… I'm very sorry…"
Val shot her friends a quizzical look before turning back to Lyvanna. "It's fine. Just… look, never mind. I like to ride Tulip, but I appreciate your input."
"Yes, miss…" Lyvanna still wouldn't meet Val's eyes. What had she done to terrify the woman?
+++++
Back inside the manor, Val and Niko retired to Val's chamber to finally get some privacy - and, Val imagined, if she ever rose higher than the little miss of a country estate, her windows of privacy would be few and far between. Poor Alvaela - did she ever get time alone with a pretty girl? Or boy? Val wasn't sure which the duchess preferred and had gotten mixed signals in the past, so perhaps it was neither or both.
Val's chamber was a bit threadbare since Earl Gunthald hadn't had any daughters to furnish the place. The last occupant had been his aunt, who'd been dead for five years. On top of that, Terrian managed to make off with a good chunk of the estate's valuables when he left - he'd rolled right in with four big carriages, loaded them full of the family's valuables, and headed off for parts unknown. It annoyed Val a bit that she didn't even have a mirror - she'd had to make a day trip to the Fork Grove silverer's shop to purchase one. The slightly-hazy, simple-framed mirror looked utterly out or place in the fine appointment of her room. But it worked well enough as a mirror. She undid the braids from her hair and shook it out into its natural unruly waves. Her hair was getting long and she had every mind to trim it, but Niko insisted that she liked it long, and Val liked Niko's hair long, so the hair stayed by reciprocal decree.
"Have you tried out your new bath?" Niko asked. Without waiting for a response, she turned the heating kettle on and started pumping. You didn't have to pump all of your bathwater, but it took a little work to get the flow started, at which point you could let the water do its work.
"I have," Val said. "It's big."
"Big enough for two?"
Val's eyebrows went up. Under Niko's unbuckled doublet, her tank top clung to her body with a little strip of firm, pink belly between that and her taut breeches. Val felt Things. "Yes, I think so," she said. She unbuckled her own doublet - the girls riding around the manor and into town in their hardened leather jackets and riding breeches had just about scandalized the servantry - ladies of the estate did not dress like mercenary buckaroos.
"You think so?" Niko's eyebrows arched upward. "Don't you want to know for sure?" She slipped her thumbs under the hem of her breeches and lowered them bit by bit.
"Um," Val said. Suddenly, words were hard. The room was far warmer than it had been just a moment ago. And Niko… oh, Niko… Val bit her lip. "Yeah," she said. "I do."
The water was hot but not painfully so, and Val wasn't sure whether she was blushing or just flush from the heat. She and Niko sat on opposite sides, Niko's head and the tops of her shoulders breaking the steaming surface of the water. Val's heart was like a spooked horse galloping in her chest ba-thump-ba-thump-ba-thump-ba-thump-ba-thump, and her breaths came out hot and fast. Niko grabbed the bath sponge. She scooted toward Val.
The chamber door opened and Ginn stormed in.
"Mom!" Val yelped. She covered up the important bits, even though you probably couldn't see much below the water.
Ginn gave each of the girls a stern look and then turned away just enough for propriety. "What do you think you're doing, young lady?"
"Um… a bath?" Val managed.
"A bath?" Ginn repeated. "Naked? With your girlfriend?"
"Just a bath," Niko said. She waved the sponge for Ginn to see, as if that proved anything.
"No," Ginn stated. "I realize you two have… feelings. But you're simply too young for this sort of thing, and I won't have it in my home, whether it's a row house or a country manor."
Val's embarrassment quickly turned to snitty anger - too young? She was thirteen! Plenty of kids… young adults… got up to plenty at age thirteen! And Val could already predict Ginn's response: Just because plenty of kids get up to unwise behavior doesn't mean you should, too! But what was so bad about her and Niko having fun with one another?
"A little exploration is natural and fine," Ginn said. "But, however mature you think you are, you aren't emotionally mature and you aren't ready for that kind of relationship. No baths together… and the bedroom door still stays open whenever there's somebody else in here. Now get out of the water, one at a time. I'll turn my back…"
"We're still dirty…" Niko said lamely.
"We'll put our swimming garb on," Val said. "And keep the door a bit open."
Ginn huffed. "I've made my decision…"
"Please," Val said. "I thought you said responsibility was about negotiating boundaries…"
Ginn glanced back over her shoulder. "And I'm having a servant peek in on you every few minutes… and I'm having the bath taken out of your chamber if she sees anything untoward in here. Deal?"
"Deal!" Val and Niko said.
"Good." Ginn remained standing there, albeit with her back turned, while Val and Niko took turns emerging from the steaming water to change into their swimming garb - the little tight tanktop, the shorts, and the front skirt that didn't actually do anything. When the girls returned to the tub, she turned back to face them. "I won't ask why Niko's swimming garb was already in here. But I will say this - we're the heads of this house now and we've got to set an example. We aren't a family of security professionals working in obscurity - people will look to us, and they'll judge us for good or for ill. So keep that in mind… and, Val? Please let the servants call you Lady Val…"
"I hate Lady Val," Val grumbled.
"I know, and I’m not so hot on Baroness Ginn, but that's what it is. The poor stablemaster came to me practically in tears, convinced she'd done something wrong and pleading for her job. She thought you were going to have me sack her…"
"I… what?" Val said. She shared a look with Niko. "Why would I do that?"
"You wouldn't… but Lord Terrian might have, and that's all these people know now. If we want to convince them we're decent and honorable people, that they can speak their minds around us and act with freedom, there can be no question. Do you girls understand?"
"Yes, mom," Val said.
"Niko?"
"Yes, Auntie Ginn."
Ginn nodded. "Good. Now enjoy your bath… but don't enjoy it too much. And please apologize to the stablemaster, even if you don't think there's anything to apologize over."
With that, she left Val's chamber, leaving the door open just wide enough for somebody to stick their head through to take a peek. Oh well - Val scooted over to Niko, handing her the sponge and nuzzling into her wet blonde hair. There was plenty they could get up to with their bathing garb on.
+++++
Terrian had made off with quite a few of the estate's transportable valuables but, fortunately, that was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the barony's finances. He'd tried to withdraw his family's entire account from a bank in Port Rumm, but it was so much money that the bank didn't have it on hand and needed a day to get the funds together and draw up the paperwork. By the time they had, the earl's order had come down commanding them to instead transfer the money to the barony rather than the von Liestch family - it was taxpayer money that the family had illegally appropriated in their name… which was probably why Leistundvar Valley was in such a sad state of affairs - poor roads, few public programs, and a military with second-rate equipment. Ever since the transfer of funds, the foundries and smithies of the barony had been going nonstop to churn out new weapons, and they were buying cartloads of leather for fresh chem-hardened armor.
Only about a quarter of the money went toward shoring up the barony's forces, though - Ginn and Mr. Engelfund were hard at work going over the books and seeing where funds could be allocated for everything from road and bridge maintenance to tax relief to (at Val's suggestion) a fund for public performances and trade bazaars.
Beyond helping Ginn with the books, Val still kept up the rest of her practice - she had to because Niko and Izzy weren't stopping, and Val would not be the least competent of the trio. No, she wanted to be the best, though she was fine with sharing the title, or even with being beaten, as long as she wasn't beaten by her own laziness. That meant two hours of fighting practice with Ette and the baron's guard, though she didn't have time to join with his community defense on most days, because that was magic practice and study with Niko. Izzy usually joined them, though she couldn't do any magic and was still working her way through a mastery of Old Sudren - even if she never got Gifted, she could at least share the inside language jokes that only a fluent Old Sudren speaker would pick up on, like how the phrase for beautiful weather, attraktwotir, meant beautiful in the sense of physically attractive and not simply pleasant.
On any given day, Val spent about eight hours at practice or study and another few hours helping Ginn and Ette around the manor, which didn't leave much time for other pursuits. Still, it kept her busy and she appreciated the position she was in - learning valuable skills while living and luxury rather than toiling at odd jobs for a hot meal and a night on a rag-stuffed mattress in a bunkhouse.
That's how she'd lived as an orphan, and that's how many of the itinerant farmhands and sharecroppers still lived. Some of them even had families. Val seethed at the thought of it and wanted to do something now, but Ginn agreed with Mr. Engelfund - they needed a good plan and couldn't go off half-cocked. For the time being, they would pay the sharecroppers market price for the ten percent owed to the baron (the estate owned the land) rather than simply taking it and would offer rent relief for their spots in the bunkhouse. But Val wasn’t satisfied with that - she'd peeked into the bunkhouses during her inspection of the property and they weren't suitable places for long-term housing. Especially not with winter just a few months away.
"We shouldn't have sharecroppers in any case," Val stated. "We should either have hired hands for our own farms or just sell the land so the farmers can own it."
Mr. Engelfund cleared his throat. He was tall, gaunt, and bald and looked a bit like a skeleton who'd been in too much of a hurry putting his skin on in the morning. "Lady Val, a considerable amount of Darkvale House's income comes from the lease of land. Paying fair market value for your ten percent of the crops, plus the twenty-five percent reduction in rent cuts that income by nearly a third… there's simply no money to maintain the estate with further cuts."
"Then we'll find a way to make more money," Val said. "Galvan could make fancy leather jackets and I could harden them… I bet we can make good money that way. How much would we need to make?"
Mr. Engelfund added his columns. "Twenty-five talents a month."
Val spat out her tea - no wonder the von Liestches had been skimming tax money for years - even without ostentatious excess, Darkvale House was an expensive place to run. Ginn blotted the spray of tea from her ledger with a cloth and shot Val a frown.
"This is our only copy," she said. She re-traced the several entries that had smeared. "We'll have to start making duplicates. And you, Val, can start thinking about how we can bring in the extra income. As soon as we've got a plan, we can sell the land to the sharecroppers and have them pay in installments. That way, we'll keep making income while our other irons are in the fire… and I'm signing a decree that all sharecroppers can build whatever housing and other buildings they like on the land and authorize the felling of one tree per head and as much loose stone from the estate hills as they like."
"Shall I draw up a document for the baron's signature?" the steward said.
Val was afraid that Ginn was going to smack the man, but she kept her cool, her solid fist flexing and unflexing a few times before shooting the Mr. Engelfund a steely look. "No, I'll sign it. This manor and this barony aren't run by Baron Ettebono & Wife. The duchess appointed us to this land… both of us, not him and then me. If I sometimes confer with my husband, it's because I want his opinion and not because I require his permission. Are we clear, Mr. Engelfund?"
The steward tilted his head in what more closely resembled a bow than a nod. When he spoke, it was in the same emotionless monotone he always spoke in. "Yes, my lady. Thank you for clearing my misapprehension. I'll draw up a document for your signature, then?"
"When you've got time," Ginn said. "We're all busy people, aren't we?"
OvidLemma
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-Ovid
Hi, everybody!
I've been hard at work on the first few chapters of the newest Natalie Bryce saga, including one very steamy scene (wink). That will roll out onto my Patreon soon. On the meanwhile, I'm still developing OQV and Sisters & Brothers (which will roll out onto ScribHub soon).
All my best,
Ovid
51. Lady of the Manor
The barony of Leistundvar Valley encompassed the Liestch Hills to the east, the eastward ridge of the Vlaidosk Mountains to the west, and a great big valley in between - some five hundred twenty square miles of terrain. It wasn't the largest barony in Aurilicht, but it was still larger than some small countries over on Genosha (which, to be fair, had far too many countries - around a hundred of them!). The notion of administering such a territory, let alone an entire duchy, let alone an entire subcontinent as Val's forebear Queen Friyja had once done? It beggared belief.
As the newly-appointed administrators of the barony, first-time nobles Ginn and Ette Vinzenno had an enormous task ahead of them - fixing the decades of mismanagement that Earl Gunthald and his ilk had placed upon the region and ensuring that their fighting force was loyal and ready to serve Duchess Aleida in the war. And it was up to Lady Valkyrie Valicent-Vinzenno to help them succeed, even if she adamantly refused to admit that she was now a duchy-recognized Lady by way of adoption. At least she wouldn't be inheriting the place if the unthinkable happened - that honor befell to her adopted brother. Still, if Val might find herself a queen one day, she figured it would behoove her to know a bit about the management of a region… and, as Ginn and Ette's assistant in all things, she was going to get roped into barony management whether she wanted to or not.
"How does this help us learn about the barony?" Izzy asked.
Val sighed - Izzy had insisted on accompanying her and Niko for their ride around the manor, turning what Val had hoped to be a romantic autumn ride into what she'd told Ginn she was actually doing - cataloging the state of the manor and its outlying areas.
The ancestral home of the von Liestch family was the manor at Darkvale House, a thousand acres of garden and scenic countryside situated in the Liestch Hills and overlooking the town of Fork Grove. The town itself was a ten minute ride away, visible from the manor and built around the small river that wended its way through the hills. The six thousand residents of the town thought themselves very urbane, even though the whole of downtown Fork Grove would fit inside the Port Bazaar or the Green Procession.
Val whispered to Tulip to continue around the side of the storage shed, scribbling notes into her little book as she did so. "We need to note the state of everything and fix whatever's in danger of falling into disrepair," she said. "You can tell that roof over there's got warping, which means it's probably leaky and will start to sag if we don't re-shingle it and replace the waterlogged beam."
"Why can't somebody else do it?"
"Somebody else should to it, but they didn't. We can do it, so we will. Are you suddenly above a leisurely ride through the countryside around the manor house that we former orphans, amazingly, get to live in?"
"No, obviously," Izzy said. "Plus I'm still an orphan. You aren't."
"Uncle Ette and Auntie Ginn will be very disappointed to hear that," Niko said.
Ginn and Ette had been Niko's aunt and uncle for a while by way of Sabine, who had sacrificed herself to save Val. But at some point, Izzy had started referring to them as auntie and uncle, too, and they'd endorsed her official papers. That made them legally responsible for her, even if the legal responsibility of folks who marked other as their relationship to the undersigned was minimal. Ette took it seriously whenever somebody called him uncle, and so Izzy would never sleep rough as long as Uncle Ette had a huge manor house to call home… and she would never want for big, bosomy hugs for as long as Auntie Ginn was in charge of the household.
"You're a forphan, not an orphan," Val stated. "You've got an auntie and uncle and cousin. You've got blood sisters. And we've got Mr. Oliengrave looking for your little brother…"
"I can't believe he took my whole talent," Izzy said. "Plus half of your two." But Ette had vouched for the man's credentials and informed them that two golden talents was not an unreasonable fee for five weeks' work plus expenses for a freelance bondsman. Ette had volunteered to help cover the cost, but Izzy had insisted that it was her family business and that she would pay her own way - a classic forphan sentiment if ever there was one.
"You should have got Uncle Ette to help," Niko stated.
"Yeah. But now maybe he'll be more inclined to help Estan when we find him."
"You know my dad's too soft for his own good," Val said. "He'd offer to help Estan whether or not you paid for your own bondsman. But if you feel more comfortable asking for help after paying your own way for the bondsmen, then it's the right thing to do."
Izzy nodded, deep in thought. "Hey… are those boards supposed to be bent?"
Val inspected the base of the storage shed and noted it in her little book. "They aren't. That's water damage… honestly, we should probably just replace the whole shed. I don't know about you, but I'm famished… what do you say we have a country lunch?"
"A country lunch sounds good," Izzy agreed.
Darkvale House had a staff of twenty-four, excluding Dr. Stromm, the physician who lived in the guest house and who may or may not have been living there without permission from the old baron. Ginn and Ette were a bit uncomfortable with having servants on their payroll, let alone twenty-four of them, but they were alto reticent to sack anybody without first having better employment lined up for them. And a manor as large as Darkvale House required at bare minimum a dozen people to see to its upkeep… and even with all twenty-four, there were areas of disrepair to see to.
Mrs. Glovinni, the chef, was a cheerful woman who'd clearly sampled a few too many of her own wares. She weighed about what Ginn and Val would weigh combined despite being one inch taller than Val's five-foot-four. She liked to make country breakfast, country lunch, and country dinner - which, as far as Val could tell, were regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner with about two extra courses and lots and lots of butter. Oh, the butter that Mrs. Glovinni employed to put the country into her food! But it was delicious food, and after a busy morning of not canoodling while logging structural damage and other areas of neglect, Val was looking forward to the chef's flaky butter-rolls with thin-sliced butter-ham.
They rode their horses back to the manor stables and returned them to the care of Ms. Lyvanna, the stablemaster. The stables had space for thirty-two horses, of which twenty-three were currently occupied. When they'd first arrived at Darkvale House and Val asked who owned the sixteen horses then stabled at the manor, Ms. Lyvanna had given her an odd look and replied:
"Yours, miss. Yours and your family's, of course. All except for stall twelve, which belongs to Mr. Engelfund."
Mr. Engelfund, of course, was the estate steward. A man of some importance in his own right, to hear Mrs. Glovinni tell it. He walked with a limp because he'd lost a foot in the great war. He and Ette had exchanged war stories one evening over drinks at the manor hearth, but Engelfund spoke in such a dreadful deadpan monotone that he managed to make stabbing Genoshen soldiers through the eye sound boring and Val had fallen asleep half-way through and awoken at dawn in her big room in her big four-poster bed.
Presently, they dismounted and handed their horses to Ms. Lyvanna's care. The stablemaster checked Val's horse, tutting over the burrs that had somehow found their way onto her otherwise-sleek coat.
"Honestly, Lady Val, I’m not sure why you don't ride a more stately horse. We've got five or six mounts here more suited for a lady of the manor," Ms. Lyvanna said. "Shall I arrange a showing for you to see your options?"
"Just Val or Miss Val, please, Ms. Lyvanna," Val said. She didn't like being called Lady Val, even if propriety technically required it. "And Tulip is my friend. I'm not riding another horse."
The stablemaster quickly averted her eyes from Val's general direction. "Of course, miss. I didn't mean to offend… I'm very sorry…"
Val shot her friends a quizzical look before turning back to Lyvanna. "It's fine. Just… look, never mind. I like to ride Tulip, but I appreciate your input."
"Yes, miss…" Lyvanna still wouldn't meet Val's eyes. What had she done to terrify the woman?
+++++
Back inside the manor, Val and Niko retired to Val's chamber to finally get some privacy - and, Val imagined, if she ever rose higher than the little miss of a country estate, her windows of privacy would be few and far between. Poor Alvaela - did she ever get time alone with a pretty girl? Or boy? Val wasn't sure which the duchess preferred and had gotten mixed signals in the past, so perhaps it was neither or both.
Val's chamber was a bit threadbare since Earl Gunthald hadn't had any daughters to furnish the place. The last occupant had been his aunt, who'd been dead for five years. On top of that, Terrian managed to make off with a good chunk of the estate's valuables when he left - he'd rolled right in with four big carriages, loaded them full of the family's valuables, and headed off for parts unknown. It annoyed Val a bit that she didn't even have a mirror - she'd had to make a day trip to the Fork Grove silverer's shop to purchase one. The slightly-hazy, simple-framed mirror looked utterly out or place in the fine appointment of her room. But it worked well enough as a mirror. She undid the braids from her hair and shook it out into its natural unruly waves. Her hair was getting long and she had every mind to trim it, but Niko insisted that she liked it long, and Val liked Niko's hair long, so the hair stayed by reciprocal decree.
"Have you tried out your new bath?" Niko asked. Without waiting for a response, she turned the heating kettle on and started pumping. You didn't have to pump all of your bathwater, but it took a little work to get the flow started, at which point you could let the water do its work.
"I have," Val said. "It's big."
"Big enough for two?"
Val's eyebrows went up. Under Niko's unbuckled doublet, her tank top clung to her body with a little strip of firm, pink belly between that and her taut breeches. Val felt Things. "Yes, I think so," she said. She unbuckled her own doublet - the girls riding around the manor and into town in their hardened leather jackets and riding breeches had just about scandalized the servantry - ladies of the estate did not dress like mercenary buckaroos.
"You think so?" Niko's eyebrows arched upward. "Don't you want to know for sure?" She slipped her thumbs under the hem of her breeches and lowered them bit by bit.
"Um," Val said. Suddenly, words were hard. The room was far warmer than it had been just a moment ago. And Niko… oh, Niko… Val bit her lip. "Yeah," she said. "I do."
The water was hot but not painfully so, and Val wasn't sure whether she was blushing or just flush from the heat. She and Niko sat on opposite sides, Niko's head and the tops of her shoulders breaking the steaming surface of the water. Val's heart was like a spooked horse galloping in her chest ba-thump-ba-thump-ba-thump-ba-thump-ba-thump, and her breaths came out hot and fast. Niko grabbed the bath sponge. She scooted toward Val.
The chamber door opened and Ginn stormed in.
"Mom!" Val yelped. She covered up the important bits, even though you probably couldn't see much below the water.
Ginn gave each of the girls a stern look and then turned away just enough for propriety. "What do you think you're doing, young lady?"
"Um… a bath?" Val managed.
"A bath?" Ginn repeated. "Naked? With your girlfriend?"
"Just a bath," Niko said. She waved the sponge for Ginn to see, as if that proved anything.
"No," Ginn stated. "I realize you two have… feelings. But you're simply too young for this sort of thing, and I won't have it in my home, whether it's a row house or a country manor."
Val's embarrassment quickly turned to snitty anger - too young? She was thirteen! Plenty of kids… young adults… got up to plenty at age thirteen! And Val could already predict Ginn's response: Just because plenty of kids get up to unwise behavior doesn't mean you should, too! But what was so bad about her and Niko having fun with one another?
"A little exploration is natural and fine," Ginn said. "But, however mature you think you are, you aren't emotionally mature and you aren't ready for that kind of relationship. No baths together… and the bedroom door still stays open whenever there's somebody else in here. Now get out of the water, one at a time. I'll turn my back…"
"We're still dirty…" Niko said lamely.
"We'll put our swimming garb on," Val said. "And keep the door a bit open."
Ginn huffed. "I've made my decision…"
"Please," Val said. "I thought you said responsibility was about negotiating boundaries…"
Ginn glanced back over her shoulder. "And I'm having a servant peek in on you every few minutes… and I'm having the bath taken out of your chamber if she sees anything untoward in here. Deal?"
"Deal!" Val and Niko said.
"Good." Ginn remained standing there, albeit with her back turned, while Val and Niko took turns emerging from the steaming water to change into their swimming garb - the little tight tanktop, the shorts, and the front skirt that didn't actually do anything. When the girls returned to the tub, she turned back to face them. "I won't ask why Niko's swimming garb was already in here. But I will say this - we're the heads of this house now and we've got to set an example. We aren't a family of security professionals working in obscurity - people will look to us, and they'll judge us for good or for ill. So keep that in mind… and, Val? Please let the servants call you Lady Val…"
"I hate Lady Val," Val grumbled.
"I know, and I’m not so hot on Baroness Ginn, but that's what it is. The poor stablemaster came to me practically in tears, convinced she'd done something wrong and pleading for her job. She thought you were going to have me sack her…"
"I… what?" Val said. She shared a look with Niko. "Why would I do that?"
"You wouldn't… but Lord Terrian might have, and that's all these people know now. If we want to convince them we're decent and honorable people, that they can speak their minds around us and act with freedom, there can be no question. Do you girls understand?"
"Yes, mom," Val said.
"Niko?"
"Yes, Auntie Ginn."
Ginn nodded. "Good. Now enjoy your bath… but don't enjoy it too much. And please apologize to the stablemaster, even if you don't think there's anything to apologize over."
With that, she left Val's chamber, leaving the door open just wide enough for somebody to stick their head through to take a peek. Oh well - Val scooted over to Niko, handing her the sponge and nuzzling into her wet blonde hair. There was plenty they could get up to with their bathing garb on.
+++++
Terrian had made off with quite a few of the estate's transportable valuables but, fortunately, that was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the barony's finances. He'd tried to withdraw his family's entire account from a bank in Port Rumm, but it was so much money that the bank didn't have it on hand and needed a day to get the funds together and draw up the paperwork. By the time they had, the earl's order had come down commanding them to instead transfer the money to the barony rather than the von Liestch family - it was taxpayer money that the family had illegally appropriated in their name… which was probably why Leistundvar Valley was in such a sad state of affairs - poor roads, few public programs, and a military with second-rate equipment. Ever since the transfer of funds, the foundries and smithies of the barony had been going nonstop to churn out new weapons, and they were buying cartloads of leather for fresh chem-hardened armor.
Only about a quarter of the money went toward shoring up the barony's forces, though - Ginn and Mr. Engelfund were hard at work going over the books and seeing where funds could be allocated for everything from road and bridge maintenance to tax relief to (at Val's suggestion) a fund for public performances and trade bazaars.
Beyond helping Ginn with the books, Val still kept up the rest of her practice - she had to because Niko and Izzy weren't stopping, and Val would not be the least competent of the trio. No, she wanted to be the best, though she was fine with sharing the title, or even with being beaten, as long as she wasn't beaten by her own laziness. That meant two hours of fighting practice with Ette and the baron's guard, though she didn't have time to join with his community defense on most days, because that was magic practice and study with Niko. Izzy usually joined them, though she couldn't do any magic and was still working her way through a mastery of Old Sudren - even if she never got Gifted, she could at least share the inside language jokes that only a fluent Old Sudren speaker would pick up on, like how the phrase for beautiful weather, attraktwotir, meant beautiful in the sense of physically attractive and not simply pleasant.
On any given day, Val spent about eight hours at practice or study and another few hours helping Ginn and Ette around the manor, which didn't leave much time for other pursuits. Still, it kept her busy and she appreciated the position she was in - learning valuable skills while living and luxury rather than toiling at odd jobs for a hot meal and a night on a rag-stuffed mattress in a bunkhouse.
That's how she'd lived as an orphan, and that's how many of the itinerant farmhands and sharecroppers still lived. Some of them even had families. Val seethed at the thought of it and wanted to do something now, but Ginn agreed with Mr. Engelfund - they needed a good plan and couldn't go off half-cocked. For the time being, they would pay the sharecroppers market price for the ten percent owed to the baron (the estate owned the land) rather than simply taking it and would offer rent relief for their spots in the bunkhouse. But Val wasn’t satisfied with that - she'd peeked into the bunkhouses during her inspection of the property and they weren't suitable places for long-term housing. Especially not with winter just a few months away.
"We shouldn't have sharecroppers in any case," Val stated. "We should either have hired hands for our own farms or just sell the land so the farmers can own it."
Mr. Engelfund cleared his throat. He was tall, gaunt, and bald and looked a bit like a skeleton who'd been in too much of a hurry putting his skin on in the morning. "Lady Val, a considerable amount of Darkvale House's income comes from the lease of land. Paying fair market value for your ten percent of the crops, plus the twenty-five percent reduction in rent cuts that income by nearly a third… there's simply no money to maintain the estate with further cuts."
"Then we'll find a way to make more money," Val said. "Galvan could make fancy leather jackets and I could harden them… I bet we can make good money that way. How much would we need to make?"
Mr. Engelfund added his columns. "Twenty-five talents a month."
Val spat out her tea - no wonder the von Liestches had been skimming tax money for years - even without ostentatious excess, Darkvale House was an expensive place to run. Ginn blotted the spray of tea from her ledger with a cloth and shot Val a frown.
"This is our only copy," she said. She re-traced the several entries that had smeared. "We'll have to start making duplicates. And you, Val, can start thinking about how we can bring in the extra income. As soon as we've got a plan, we can sell the land to the sharecroppers and have them pay in installments. That way, we'll keep making income while our other irons are in the fire… and I'm signing a decree that all sharecroppers can build whatever housing and other buildings they like on the land and authorize the felling of one tree per head and as much loose stone from the estate hills as they like."
"Shall I draw up a document for the baron's signature?" the steward said.
Val was afraid that Ginn was going to smack the man, but she kept her cool, her solid fist flexing and unflexing a few times before shooting the Mr. Engelfund a steely look. "No, I'll sign it. This manor and this barony aren't run by Baron Ettebono & Wife. The duchess appointed us to this land… both of us, not him and then me. If I sometimes confer with my husband, it's because I want his opinion and not because I require his permission. Are we clear, Mr. Engelfund?"
The steward tilted his head in what more closely resembled a bow than a nod. When he spoke, it was in the same emotionless monotone he always spoke in. "Yes, my lady. Thank you for clearing my misapprehension. I'll draw up a document for your signature, then?"
"When you've got time," Ginn said. "We're all busy people, aren't we?"
OvidLemma
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