The White Spell (Nine Kingdoms #10)(12)
Well, he was that sort of pompous blowhard, but perhaps that wasn’t a useful thing to admit at the moment. And if he were more apt to meet many of pairs of eyes and reward them accordingly than insist they avert their gazes when he passed, who could blame him? The only thing he loved more than a well-stocked, inaccessible solar full of priceless treasures was a rollicking good skirmish with a mage who didn’t make him yawn.
He was, in truth, a simple man.
“You’ll earn ten coppers a week,” Doghail said. “Can’t do more or I won’t eat.”
“Coppers,” Acair repeated. “Coppers?”
Doghail made a noise that could have passed for a laugh. “Coppers,” he repeated. “You know, those wee coins worth nothing?”
“Ah,” Acair said, feeling somewhat at a loss. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a coin of so little value. He tended to operate in piles of gold sovereigns, but that was obviously not going to be his lot at present. As he’d said before, he was in Hell for the duration.
“Generous, I know,” Doghail said dryly. He nodded toward the barn’s innards. “I’ll show you where you’ll bunk, then you can be about your business.”
“Delightful,” Acair said. He followed Master Doghail through what seemed to be an endless maze of stalls containing an equal number of what looked to him to be rather disagreeable-looking equine . . . things. He caught sight of a lad or two apparently doing what he was going to be required to do and was powerfully tempted to take his chances with that damned spell and bolt for civilization.
Doghail stopped in front of what could have only been termed a minor passageway in a very poorly funded butler’s pantry. Indeed, passageway was too grand a term for it and closet didn’t describe the painful smallness of the place. He was half tempted to call it a stationary dumbwaiter, but he couldn’t find his tongue to speak.
“Luxurious, isn’t it?” Doghail said, without a shred of irony in his tone. “Fortunately for you, all the lads with seniority were sacked, leaving this place free. You look, if you don’t mind my saying so, like you’re accustomed to only the finest.”
Acair gave up trying to express his thoughts. They weren’t pleasant ones anyway.
“You’ll want to change, no doubt,” Doghail continued mercilessly. “Wouldn’t want to get anything on those very fine boots of yours, I’m thinking.”
“Change into what?” Acair asked.
“I’ll find you something.”
Acair would have put his foot down at wearing another man’s boots and cloak, but he supposed he wouldn’t need a cloak for long and he wasn’t keen for anything to land on his own footwear, so he exchanged his handmade Diarmailtian leather boots for something that felt a bit like a cobbler’s experiment gone terribly wrong.
Doghail smiled, then handed him a pitchfork. “The tool of your trade, my lad.”
Acair promised himself many, many hours of thinking on a proper repayment for a certain Cothromaichian prince who possessed spells just waiting to be appropriated, then took the pitchfork and followed his employer to a stall containing a horse that looked as if it were none-too-pleased to see him. He looked at Doghail. “You want me to go in there?”
“Unless you’ve some other way to remove their droppings that I’m not familiar with.”
Acair considered. This was a place where a bit of magic certainly would have come in handy, but there was nothing to be done about it. He eyed the horse inside that stall and had a rather unfriendly look in return.
“Or you could present yourself at the manor and see if Himself might need someone to clean his privies.”
“Ah, I think not,” Acair said without hesitation. There were some things that even he wouldn’t do, no matter the consequence.
He nodded to Doghail, took a firmer grasp on the handle, and hoped he would survive the day.
? ? ?
By the time the sun had set, he was sore, out-of-sorts, and so filled with a desire to wrap his blistered fingers around a certain mage’s neck, he was almost tempted to tell that spell of death to go to hell so he could chance a bit of shapechanging and be off to do what needed to be done.
And if that weren’t enough to add insult to injury, someone had stolen his good boots.
He accepted Doghail’s invitation to see what all his labor assisted, though he couldn’t imagine it could possibly be anything he would be interested in. What he wanted to do was take himself off to that pitiful scrap of floor, cast himself down on it, and sleep like the dead. If he were overrun by mice and other vermin, he honestly didn’t care. It might send him off more speedily to that place in the East where he could rest from his labors. At the moment, nothing sounded better.
But unfortunately his form was frighteningly resilient and his will to live apparently too strong to be overcome. He suppressed the urge to sigh and simply followed Doghail without comment.
They stopped at the end of a very large expanse of dirt that lay adjacent to the stalls. It must have been quite valuable dirt considering the entire bloody thing had a high roof, no doubt to protect the ground against the weather. All Acair knew was it was a place he hadn’t wanted to become familiar with earlier because he’d suspected it would take him half the night to muck it out and if he were found too close to it, that was exactly what he would be doing. Fortunately for his hands, it was being used at the moment for what he could only surmise was horsey exercise.