part.”
He coughed, embarrassed all over again.
“It’s perfectly all right,” she hastened to add. “In a household the size of yours, you would put your trust primarily in your Steward or Seneschal. He would be the person in charge of everything. And then, beneath him, your trust would be in your Housekeeper, your Butler, your Land Steward for your farms, lands and mines, your Factor for business matters, your Secretary for correspondence and, I suppose, your Coachman and Head Gardener for anything that had to do with the grounds and stables and so forth. Your partnership would be with them, and they would in turn have that partnership with the rest of the servants that were responsible to them. It is really a contract of trust. Everyone knows his job, knows he will be supported and helped if he is asked to do things outside of his job, and knows he will be cared for if things go wrong for him. And your job is to provide the means for all this to happen.” She smiled. “In a way, you are the one working for them.”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose, his forehead creased. “I never thought of any of this…except I vaguely remember my father starting to make a similar speech, then cutting himself off and saying, ‘But we’ll talk about this in a few years.’ Except rather than being about the servants as such, it was about the duty of the lord to his liegemen. I do spend one day a week dealing with the common business of the Duchy, not the magical protections — mostly approving what the Factor and Eric recommend — but since my father or King Edmund chose most of the people who work with me, I never had to think much of it. How did you work all this out, anyway?”
“I didn’t. When Mother died, once Father had recovered a bit and realized I was trying to take over the household though I was only ten, he sat me down and gave me almost this same speech.” She smiled, a little sadly, because both of them had been so grief-stricken still, but the memory was a good one. “Almost, because obviously, we don’t have nearly this many servants, so later when I was older, I found out about how Great Houses like yours are run. This is why and how when we both fell apart, the entire household pulled together to take care of us quietly and invisibly until we could go back to our duties. And it’s why the mirror showed me this morning that things are going much more smoothly than I had ever dreamed they would…”
And suddenly, as she said that aloud, she understood that yes, that was exactly what was happening. Everyone in the Beauchampses’ household — well, barring Genevieve and the twins — knew what needed to be done, and they were doing it, as they had when her mother had died.
And maybe Genevieve will decide that she needs to manage the household in reality rather than pretending to do so… She couldn’t be as incompetent as Bella had always supposed. Her father loved her and had married her, and he really would not fall in love with a stupid woman. And she had once had her own household and had presumably managed it…
Bella felt an unaccustomed guilt. What had she been doing all this time? Treating her stepmother like an idiot; refusing to hand over the household — not overtly, but by manipulation; getting up so early that by the time Genevieve awoke, everything was done. Now, Genevieve was more than a bit lazy, and no doubt on one level she enjoyed the fact that she didn’t have to lift a finger and the house ran smoothly. But on the other hand — who was in charge? The wife, or the daughter? The daughter, obviously, and that had to rankle.
She was so lost in her own thoughts for a moment, that she didn’t notice that Sebastian was lost in his own, as well. It was only when he spoke that she realized that the silence had gone on for quite some time.
“And what about someone who doesn’t really fit into this whole arrangement?” he said, but it was clear that he was speaking his own thoughts aloud, and not talking directly to her.
It was also clear whom he meant. Eric.
“It is the duty of whoever is at the top to find the right place where he fits — or make one,” she said firmly. “That is what my father would say.” He looked at her as if he was surprised to hear her talking, then slowly nodded.
“Your father is a very wise man” was his only reply. There was more silence, then he looked up at her again. “So what has all this to do with the Spirit Elementals?”
“The stupid ones really don’t need that sort of organization. The clever ones…I think they have put it together on their own. You might not have been aware of directing them, but you must have been. At least enough for them to count you as their Master in their own minds, and arrange themselves accordingly.” That was the only thing that made any sense.
“Huh. And how many of the smart ones are my personal servants?” he asked. “I’ve noticed that the colors of the armbands in my workshop and room don’t change.”
“All of them,” she replied.
He fingered the bridge of his nose. “Huh.” Then he smiled wryly. “Well, I hope they don’t resent me for treating them like trained dogs.”
She could only shrug. “I’ve only ‘spoken’ to Verte, Sapphire and Thyme. The rest can’t write.”
“Now I am going to feel awfully self-conscious. You know, I liked it better when I thought they were all stupid.”
“But they admire you and regard you with esteem,” she pointed out to him. “So you must be doing something right.”
“Still.” He sighed. “Well, what kept you too busy for dinner and made you late for supper?”
“Something that almost resembled the Labors of Hercules,” she replied, and began to describe the mess in the stillroom. He listened with every evidence of interest.
“Does this mean that when you’re done you can supply me with botanic components?” he asked excitedly.
“If I have the materials on hand, yes,” she said with pardonable pride. “There is nothing, from salve to tincture to compound, that I do not know how to make. Tell me what you need, and I will make it.” She smiled at him and he beamed back at her.
“That’s going to make things ever so much easier!” he exclaimed, although to her brief disappointment he did not go into what the “things” were. “Until now I’ve had to make my own and that makes everything take twice as long.”
“Well, as soon as things are set to rights, I am going to restock everything, so you will have very basic supplies very soon.”
