Well, after a long break, I figure I should get another chapter up ASAP. So here's chapter four, which reprises Nendo.
I'm a bit embarrassed about this chapter, and I don't even know why. It certainly can't be half as bad as chapter three was.
The End of Time
Part One: The City
Chapter Four: Miria Manor
Nendo stood in front of one of the many mirrors in Miria Manor, surveying the solemn boy staring back at him.
He was clean, for one thing, scrubbed free of years of accumulated grime until his skin began turning red and raw. Beneath the redness, however, Nendo could truly see the color of his skin now—a shade akin to burnished copper. Other factors had changed too: The hair that had once hung in dusty tangles to his shoulders had been cut to the base of his neck, and after the wash had become a shiny black. He no longer wore the tattered sackcloth pants of his street boy days, but the standard uniform of Miria Manor’s male servants: a white button-down shirt, black vest, sharply creased black pants, and shined black shoes, the first shoes he’d ever had.
The new clothes felt heavy and uncomfortable on him while the new haircut made his head feel disconcertingly light. He sighed and squared his shoulders, watching a resigned frown tug down his reflection’s lips. This was what he had to deal with, now, in his new life as a servant of Lord Darian.
“Nendo?” Nendo turned; Cura had approached through the open door. “Are you—oh! You look—”
She broke the sentence off, her cheeks turning pink, and turned to the side. Nendo strode up to her, sticking his hands in his newfound pockets. “Yeah, I look different.”
“Y-yeah,” stammered Cura, still not looking at him. “It’s—it’s not bad. The uniform suits you…”
“Does it? I just don’t feel like myself anymore.” Nendo glanced down at the starched white shirt, the glossy black vest. “It’s kind of uncomfortable…the collar itches.”
Cura unleashed a little giggle, before turning around to face the door, the hem of her light summer dress swinging. Nendo quickly crossed the room, falling in step with Cura as they headed out of the dressing room into the hallway.
“You’ll get used to it,” said Cura, offering Nendo a small, but encouraging, smile.
“I hope so,” he said. Her smile twitched upwards, before she turned to face forward, stepping a little ahead of him to lead him through the halls.
“So…this is Miria Manor,” she said. “Home of the Miria family for two hundred years. They say it’s one of the most beautiful of all the manors in the Noble Quarter. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been to any other.”
She flashed him a little smile that Nendo returned. He found it wasn’t hard to get along with Cura—she was kind and helpful, and even her shyness was endearing. He felt that in her, he had an ally at least.
“These are the servant quarters,” said Cura. The halls they were walking through were in the basement levels of the mansion, smaller and narrower than the ones above, with whitewashed walls and gray carpeting. Nonetheless, mirrors lined the walls on regular intervals. It almost felt like there wasn’t just one Nendo and one Cura making their down on the hall, but many Nendos and Curas striding alongside them in their tiny worlds behind the mirrors.
“Room arrangements are negotiable every month,” Cura was explaining. “That way, if you end up with roommates you don’t like, you can always switch. Most servants don’t have a problem with who they end with, usually they just sleep with people working the same job or around the same age.”
“What job am I going to be working?” said Nendo, a bit nervous—he didn’t know how to do all that servant stuff like shine shoes and drive coaches.
“It depends,” said Cura with a shrug of her small shoulders. “Lord Darian isn’t the type to force his servants to work jobs they don’t like. If there’s something you’re particularly good at, or something you like, you’ll probably be assigned that. You can just work odd jobs the first week and see what appeals to you, if that’s all right with you.”
Nendo nodded. That didn’t sound so bad. He paused to peek into one of the slightly ajar rooms, to see a small but serviceable room with two bunks inside, and a scuffed wooden desk and wardrobe. A positive luxury compared to sleeping huddled underneath a stall awning or hiding in the space between two buildings.
There was a slight disused feeling to the room, though—the bedcovers looked like they hadn’t been disturbed for a long time, and a thin layer of silvery dust coated the desk. Nendo turned to ask Cura about it, to see that she’d stopped at the end of the hall, patiently waiting for him to catch up.
“Oh…sorry,” he said.
“No, no, it’s all right,” said Cura, stepping over to him again. “That’s what your quarters will probably be like…do like it?”
“Yeah,” said Nendo. “But—doesn’t seem like anyone’s lived in that one for a while.”
“No,” agreed Cura with a slight shake of her head. “A lot of the servant quarters are empty. Lord Darian doesn’t have that many servants—only about fifteen or so.”
That’s not a lot? thought Nendo sardonically. “There used to me more?” he said out loud.
“Oh, a lot more,” said Cura. “In the days of Lord Disuve—Lord Darian’s grandfather—there were fifty servants living in Miria Manor. But he had his whole family in the manor…nowadays it’s only Lord Darian.”
Nendo thought of how huge the manor was and felt a bit disgruntled that one boy had that much room for himself.
“He’s lived in it alone since his father died, six years ago,” sighed Cura, shaking her head in sympathy. “I never knew Lord Darvon, but I’ve heard he was a very kind man. Lord Darian admired him very much.”
Nendo tried to imagine the arrogant young lord he’d met admiring anyone, and failed. He said to Cura, as they began scaling a flight of stairs to the manor proper, “What about Ma—Lord Masudo?”
“Lord Masudo doesn’t live here,” explained Cura. “He’s the Count of Teral, you see, has his own manor…but he visits a lot.”
“Hmm, really,” said Nendo, thinking about Masudo and Darian’s interactions in the parlor. They’d seemed like close acquaintances, if not good friends: Their friendly ribbing of each other reminded Nendo of the way that street children would often trade amicable insults.
“Lord Masudo and Lord Darvon were very close friends,” Cura continued. “After Lord Darvon died, Lord Masudo helped comfort Lord Darian, and they’ve been friends since.”
“I see,” said Nendo.
They didn’t speak again until they exited a door that led to the manor’s ample grounds. Nendo breathed in the spicy smell of kaza trees and admired the colorful flowers lining the walkway he and Cura were following. They passed a skinny man in a uniform similar to Nendo’s, only without the vest and his sleeves rolled up, busy pruning a harrim bush.
“That’s Stron, the gardener,” whispered Cura to Nendo. “He’s pretty new—one of the servants Lord Darian brought to the manor after his father’s death.”
Nendo nodded in acknowledgment and they continued on their way, following the brick walkway up to a long and low white building with a brick chimney. Smoke was rising out of the chimney, bringing with it tantalizing smells of roasting meat, baking bread, sweet fruit—clearly, it was the cookhouse.
“This is the cookhouse,” said Cura, pointing out the obvious.
Nendo followed her inside, through wooden double doors that, like so many of the doors in the mansion, bore the stylized image of a mirror. Inside, the air was hot and heavy with the smells of cooking food; Nendo felt a layer of sweat gather beneath his suddenly uncomfortably tight shirt. He followed Cura as they wove past two white-aproned servants chopping vegetables and kneading dough. They stopped what they were doing to wave at Cura and offer a few brief words of acknowledgment, which Cura returned.
“They seem to respect you,” said Nendo in an undertone, as they wove their way around a two other servants shaping dough into tiny pastries. Cura blushed.
“Well…I am Lord Darian’s personal servant…” she said, somewhat nervously. “It’s nothing, really…”
Nendo could sense her increasing discomfort, so didn’t say anything more on the subject, even though he did feel it somewhat odd for a nobleman like Darian to take a young girl as his personal servant. Perhaps he was just naïve, but Nendo had always thought of personal servants as wise older men.
Looking around, though his first impression had been of a cluttered, activity-filled place, Nendo now saw that the cookhouse held the same air as the servant quarters—the feeling of having once housed many more servants than the four or five Nendo saw now. Many countertops were bare, and ovens empty. It seemed built for twenty servants, not five.
“Who’s that, Cura?” called a servant after Cura’s retreating back. Nendo stopped in his tracks and turned around, to see one of the servants cutting pastry, a girl about Nendo’s age, waving in his and Cura’s direction.
“Ellina,” said Cura, with a shy smile. “Um, this is Nendo…”
“Oh, the street kid Lord Masudo snatched?” said the girl, letting loose a series of short giggles.
A curious heat rose in Nendo’s face, though he wasn’t sure why. Still, he didn’t’ like the way Ellina was talking about him, as if he was just an object. He wanted to protest but couldn’t think of anything to say.
Ellina noticed Nendo’s blush, and, if possible, giggled harder. “How’re you holding up, street boy? Work’s not too much for you?”
“Um…I only just got here,” said Nendo, unsure how to response to Ellina’s teasing tone. He’d never interacted much with girls on the streets, as the girls he knew were either much younger than he was or else hookers.
“Ah, well, you’ll soon learn Lord Darian is one hell of a slave driver,” said Ellina, giggling again. “Isn’t he? Merol?” She poked the boy by her side, who’d been intently shaping the dough into pastries even while Ellina stopped to talk with Cura and Nendo.
“Oh, shut up,” grumbled the boy, Merol. “Shut up and get back to work. You know that little eunuch of a lord will cry if he doesn’t get his pastry—ouch!”
It happened so fast Nendo almost missed it: one moment Cura was by his side, the next she was standing in front of Merol, her hand raised, her entire body quivering in rage. Merol had tumbled to the blackened brick floor, a bright red mark on his cheek, his eyes wide.
“Don’t you dare speak of Lord Darian that way,” hissed Cura, her words taut. “You understand?”
“Er—of course, of course, Miss Cura,” mumbled Merol.
“Good,” was all Cura said, still tautly. “Come on, Nendo.” She was by Nendo’s side in a flash, taking his arm in hers. Nendo jumped, startled by the feel of her soft hand through his sleeve.
“Um,” began Nendo, even though he didn’t know what he was going to say. Cura, however, was resolutely leading him away from the scene, leaving behind Merol and Ellina.
“You liking Miria Manor so far, Nendo?” called Ellina after them. “It’s exciting, huh?”
They exited the cookhouse, stepping into the cool morning air outside. Nendo breathed in the floral-scented air, surprised by how much cooler it was outside than it had been in the sweaty cookhouse. Nendo glanced at Cura as they started trotting down the path again. Her strides were long, her cheeks still flushed red from anger.
“Er…” he said, trying to order his thoughts. “What he said, back there…is Lord Darian a eunuch?”
He thought that maybe there was some logic in that—after all, the ballads often sang about the eunuch nobles of days of old. And Lord Darian was definitely not the manliest man Nendo had met.
“No!” cried Cura, releasing his arm and turning to face him in rage. Nendo blinked at her, disconcerted by her anger. It was the first time he’d seen her get so angry and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“I’m sorry, Nendo, I don’t mean to be snappy…” Cura sighed and shook her head, a few strands of hair that had escaped her bun swinging. “It’s just…Lord Darian might not be a paragon of manliness, but he is a man. A very kind man, even though it might not seem that way at first… He’s done so many things for me, it just—it just isn’t right when others insult him.”
“All right,” said Nendo. He could understand Cura’s loyalty—wasn’t that the same way he felt about Tey?—although he had yet to see any example of Darian’s supposed kindness.
The rest of their tour through Miria Manor proceeded without further incident. Cura led Nendo around the grounds, showing him the flower and vegetable gardens, the groundskeeper’s hut, the lines of earthen pipes that delivered water from the river to irrigate the manor’s greenery. She then led him to the burdenbeasts’ stables, located at the very edge of the grounds, where she introduced Nendo to the old stable hand and showed him the four burdenbeasts Darian kept. They were fine creatures, covered with silvery feathers, flicking long trunks and bushy tails in enjoyment when Nendo stroked the hollows of their necks. He’d always liked burdenbeasts; their placid natures appealed to him, and in return they always seemed to like him back. Sometimes on the streets, Nendo had been able to make a small pittance by caring for others’ burdenbeasts. He found he could even get along with the most ancient and irascible beasts.
Cura and Nendo spent quite some time in the stables, conversing quietly with the stable hand and feeding the burdenbeasts sour perlo berries. Cura seemed to enjoy the burdenbeasts’ quiet company too, her face lighting up and an easy smile that Nendo had never seen before on her spreading across her face. Nendo was all too sorry to leave, but Cura insisted they had to get the tour over with.
So they went inside, following the covered walkway from the cookhouse to the mansion’s back door (the servants used it to deliver food inside, Cura explained). Once indoors, Cura showed him all the places he was allowed: the parlors, the dining rooms, even the armory. Nendo asked Cura what the armory was for; she explained that it hadn’t been in use since Lord Disuve’s time but was meant to arm the members of the household in case of attack. Not that, she reminded him, anyone was going to be attacking Miria Manor these days.
Nendo found himself looking out the wide, airy windows he and Cura passed in the halls, down at the peaceful green grounds spreading around him, and thought that Cura was right.
After the tour was done, and Nendo felt that he’d seen enough mirrors to get him through a lifetime, Cura paused in front of the stairs leading down to the servants’ quarters, blocking Nendo’s way down. Nendo paused in front of her, surprised.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
“It’s…” Cura turned to the side, biting her lip, looking embarrassed. “It’s just…I wanted to show you something, Nendo…something of mine…”
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Which marks the cut-off point. Not a scene break, just approximately halfway through the actual chapter.
Looking back, I think my deepest grievance with this chapter is that it feels so...poorly crafted. Chapter three dragged and was convoluted, but at least I feel it's a little more polished than this. Then again, first drafts aren't supposed to be polished! *headdesk*
Rip apart, ladies and gentlemen. Don't worry, the next part is a little more exciting, as there's a bit of action and Darian actually shows up.
