The Folly of the World (24 page)

At last her eyes fell from Lansloet’s imperious face. As she took in the frozen hand gesturing toward the interior, and the fact that he was no longer filling the doorway, her strained smile softened into something more genuine.

“Oh, right, sorry, sir.” Quakeyshakes blushed as she took the steps, entering the foyer with a sharp wiggle that dotted Lansloet’s shirtfront with droplets. He had once seen fleas abandoning an old dog, and the image sprang to mind now. Time to break the silence.

“You will not shake yourself like a wet bitch when inside this house,” Lansloet said, careful as ever to keep his voice to a whisper despite his irritation. A soft voice kept people close at hand, and lord or lady, butcher or beggar, nobody was happy with a close-talker. Those who were ill at ease and keen to be away tended to give up more advantages than comfortable folk, and a low tone ensured he would be taken very seriously indeed should he raise his voice above a rasp.

Except the girl seemed not to have heard him, turning her head slowly from left to right, taking in the fine, fur-trimmed cloaks hanging on the rack beside the still-open front door, the brown and black pairs of high leather boots on the floor beneath the garments, the buffed stairway leading up to the second floor, the warm, bright hallway leading to the kitchen, the double doors opening to the parlor opposite the stairs, and then, at last, Lansloet again. She blinked. Her blush had faded to a pale rose, and then her cheeks blanched completely to something like the gamy yellow fat on an uncooked rack of lamb.

“I’m
so
sorry, sir, didja say something? To me?” Quakeyshakes had lowered the basket from her elbow and now held it in both hands.

“Yes,” said Lansloet, and said no more. He was quite aware of how he must seem to this girl—a mean old beanpole of a man, with a face like a long, withered pod. So what if he was?

“Sorry,” she said, the basket’s handle creaking mournfully in her hands. “I don’t always hear so good. My da was a smith, a real guild one, and the clanging—”

“I said do not shake yourself off like a wet bitch in this house.
Ever.
” Lansloet’s chicken-bone fingers went to his chest and sharply flicked across the gray shirt, but whatever water she had moistened him with had already been absorbed into the cloth. Quakeyshakes flinched, stammering an apology, but he raised a hand and she fell silent. “Nor shall you dirty my stoop with your boot scrapings. This home shall neither be filthified nor dampened by your presence. Understood?”

“I… yes,” she said, eyes falling to her basket. The woven willow had caught quite a bit of rain, and in silence they listened to it dripping onto the oak floor. Her face went from pear flesh-pale to cherry-skinned, her knuckles tightening on her load with a squeak. “If I may, uh, if… if I can take this to my quarters, I’ll come and mop up in here. Sir.”

“In time,” said Lansloet. Over the many years and masters he had served, Lansloet had developed a method for letting himself smile without ever displaying it on his face. It was as if the grin spread across someplace so deep and dark that not even its faintest edge could be seen on his eternally frowning lips. He was smiling that secret smile now, wondering how long it would take her to notice he was again holding his hand at his waist, motioning toward the parlor door. About thirty heartbeats, as it turned out. The heartbeat was Lansloet’s preferred method of timekeeping, his own being as reliable as finding frivolity at a feast.

“Oh! Sorry, sir, I’m… I… I don’t.” Quakeyshakes was moving for the parlor when he cleared his throat and directed his eyes to the still-open front door behind her. Throwing the mutts a bone from time to time was just common sense for maintaining respect and order. “Oh! Yes, sorry, sir.”

After closing the door, Quakeyshakes took a step toward him
but paused, like a rumbled rat contemplating flight. He nodded, and she turned back to the door, fastening the heavy bolt into place. She would do well enough, he supposed.

“The parlor,” he said, opening the double doors leading off the foyer and ushering her in. After her initial entrance into the house, he would never permit her to go through a doorway before him, except where the serving of meals was concerned. He should have enjoyed taking her upstairs first, so that her basket would drip all over them and he could then have her wipe them all down again, but there simply wasn’t time. In the parlor, a dark rug, which would soak up the dribbling, covered most of the room—he certainly wasn’t going to let her put her basket down until after the tour.

As soon as she entered the parlor she winced as if struck, the painting that hung above the hearth clearly affecting her as strongly as it did all who beheld it. Christ had never looked more alarming, the far-too-realistic style of the work making him look as though he were about to pounce from the wall and seize the unfortunate viewer in his long fingers. Lansloet had hated the painting when the graaf had first brought it home, as was natural given its ghoulishness, but upon realizing how uncomfortable it made everyone save for the master of the house, he had grown to love it.

“His lordship’s chair is to be brushed with a
clean
, dry cloth every morning.” Lansloet motioned to the cushioned, thronelike lounger in front of the fireplace and its stern guardian. “Then the other chairs, and the tiled table against the wall. The shelves and mantel will be wiped with a dry cloth every third morning. You
may
use the same cloth, provided the chairs are done first, and
then
the table. The vases will be removed from the shelves and placed upon the floor prior to dusting. They will then be wiped with the same cloth and returned to their original positions. In the spring and summer the functional vases will be filled with flowers, the decorative vases shall remain empty at all
times. Under
no
circumstances are you to purchase cheaper flowers in the hope of pocketing the difference—I shall know, and you shall be released from service.”

“I wouldn’t!” Quakeyshakes cried, then blanched again from her own outburst.

“The girl before you was a sneak
and
a snatcher,” said Lansloet, displeased with this exhibition of emotion. If her initial timidity was just that, he would be sorely disappointed, and not just because it would necessitate a new nickname. “After being punished, she was released. I will not suffer a thief.”

In truth, Lansloet would suffer a thief, and did, most of the time. He would not, however, stand for a stupid one. The likelihood of finding an honest and intelligent servant was about the same as finding a master who was both rich and fair. No, the issue was that the girl in question had been an
obvious
thief, and that ruined it for everybody. If he had to choose between an honest, stupid servant and a crafty, duplicitous one, he would take the cheat every time. Unfortunately, Quakeyshakes already seemed the former, but so it went. They were shorthanded, and the Bumpkins were coming.

Lansloet knew Graaf Thirstybird would not have given a belch about appearances if the guests were old Dordrecht blood, but as the Bumpkins were new to the city and likely not yet aware of how lowly their hosts were, an efficient supper service was crucial. If Lansloet had known about the impending visit before this morning, when that troublesome Count Wolfmean had arrived unannounced, he would have further put off hiring a new girl until he could find a better advantage in it—as it was, he had been pocketing the discharged servant’s wages for a fortnight without the graaf or Lady Greenplum noticing they were down a drudge, and now he was out of that, as well as owing his cousin Griet a favor for finding him this new girl so quickly.

Surely Wolfmean had his own designs in forcing the master to host a pair of out-of-town nobles on a day’s notice, but the sly
count was every bit as inscrutable in his machinations as Lansloet’s employer was daft and obvious in his. And thank the saints and Mary and the founding fathers of Dordt for that—having served both sorts of men, Lansloet would take the addlepated lord over the cunning one every time. There were those who held that a man could not choose his master, but by Lansloet’s reckoning, such people tended toward dimness. He had been around longer than the building itself, and took it as a point of private pride that no matter who he was bowing to at any given moment, the house was, now and forever, his in spirit if not in literal deed.

“The dining room is beyond this partition,” Lansloet said, opening the gate section of the high wooden screen. “The table will be wiped clean and polished after
every
meal, and again before breakfast. After that you will crawl beneath to clean up crumbs and sop up spills. After
that
you will…”

“Lansloet!” Dribbling, the cook, was standing in the door to the kitchen. She was every bit as scrawny and old as Lansloet, but far less clever. He had her loyalty, but she was too cheeky by half. “She don’t need to hear everything at once. What’re you called, and where you from?”

“Lijsbet,” said Quakeyshakes. “We were in Hoecke, but after the flood took it, Rotterdam, and then I come here with my husband, but he ran off and so I was working down—”

“Time enough for that later,” said Lansloet, almost raising his voice but catching himself in time. “This is the worst day for you to come. We have guests. Noble guests, in a noble house, and being shorthanded—”

“Being shorthanded, this is the best day for you to come,” interrupted Dribbling. “My name’s Drimmelin, and I’m guessing Lansloet didn’t introduce himself, but that’s him, Lansloet. Now, you get with me, you’ll share my bed in the pantry. We’ll set those things down and put some food in you, ya?”

Quakeyshakes went to the kitchen without even asking Lansloet’s
permission, so thoroughly had the cook stripped him of his authority. Dribbling was getting revenge for his refusal to promptly replace the former servant, he knew it, as if her work were so hard that she needed extra hands. Between Dribbling and Lady Greenplum, Lansloet was up to his teeth in spiteful, unpleasant women.

“Yes, see that she’s fed and comfortable, then put her to work,” said Lansloet. “There’s much to be done between now and—”

But the kitchen door was already swinging shut, the women tittering to themselves. Lansloet cleared a morsel of something solid from the back of his throat and hawked it onto the dining room table. Standing there for several moments, he watched the door swing back and forth on its squeaky double hinges, and then hunkered down with his forearms resting on the table, eyeing what he had spit there. After some reflection on the amber chunk, he flicked it from the board and straightened up sharply. There was much to be done, but first he really ought to have a nap in the attic while Dribbling got Quakeyshakes sorted out…

The rest of the day passed far too quickly, and before Lansloet knew it, the light beyond the garret window had faded. Rising with a yawn, he cocked his ear to the roof, confirming that the rain was still coming down. He retrieved the yellowing tablecloth that was his perpetual cover story for afternoon sabbaticals in the attic and descended to see if all was in order.

It was.

Count Wolfmean arrived first and settled into the parlor with Graaf Thirstybird, as was his custom. Quakeyshakes was sent up to fetch the lady of the house, who, as was her custom, took her sweet time coming down. Lady Greenplum and Quakeyshakes were chatting as they passed through the kitchen, which spoiled Lansloet’s pleasant postsnooze mood. Fraternizing with the mistress was the first step down the steep stair of entitlement, and Lansloet well knew that entitlement begot sloth. He would have to find a way of destroying their relationship if it progressed beyond casual kindness on the part of Lady Greenplum.

Then, at last, a knock from the front of the house.

Lansloet knew the Bumpkins would be trouble from the moment he opened the door and got a look at the pair. Graaf Gauche wore a purple, pointy-collared suit of riding clothes highlighted with gold and silver thread that would have seemed ostentatious on a Turkish prince, and a brimless beaver hat of such pronounced ugliness that the servant had the momentary impulse to strike it from the rich man’s head on general principle. The brittle pink crust edging the graaf’s blond mustache was the finishing touch on the more-money-than-sense picture drying before Lansloet’s eyes.

If the graaf was bad, his daughter was worse. The broad-shouldered child had been squeezed into what might have been a very handsome gown on a girl half her height. As it was, the effect was heinous, with the hem of the red-and-gray garment falling little farther than a fisher’s tunic, and what
had
to be man’s stripy hose protruding from the dress like taproots hanging from some awful serge grotto. Her bizarrely long gloves matched the hideous yellow clogs on her feet, clogs that clattered all over Lansloet’s clean floor as her father half-dragged her into the foyer after him—Lady Foolsuit had seemed content to lurk on the stoop instead of coming inside from the sleet that plastered her dark hair across her unfortunate features where her bonnet had come up. What was wrong with girls these days, shamelessly displaying their tresses so? They’d be exposing their titties in public, next.

The Bumpkins were unaccompanied by servants, and both smelled like wet hay.

“You the graaf?” Graaf Gauche demanded, seizing Lansloet’s hand and shaking it as though it were a hare he aimed to put out of its misery as quickly as possible. “Ha! I’m the graaf! You the other one? Where’s Hobbe?”

“His Worship is in his parlor, sir, as is Count Wurfbain,” Lansloet said, talking at a normal volume to shorten the duration of time spent in the troll’s company. “If I may take your wet things?”

“Sure, Granddad,” Graaf Gauche said, unclasping the copper
brooch that pinned his cloak. He whipped Lansloet in the face with sodden fox-fur trim as he removed the garment with what must have passed for a flourish in whatever backwater Flemish duchy or fiefdom from whence this fen-lord had hopped. His Toadliness the Sixth Graaf of Froglandia, or whatever his full title was, proved unwilling to wait for a proper introduction. He made off down the hall, away from the parlor doors, calling, “This way, yeah? Hobbe, you back here?”