He had just completed a pleasant interview chewing out the head chef; he had suggested that the chef himself, old and tough as he was, nevertheless would make a better roast than the meat the chef had sent in to Their Charity the evening before. One of the duties that Memtok assumed personally was always to sample what his lord ate, despite risk of poison and despite the fact that Their Charity’s tastes in cuisine were not his own. It was one of the innumerable ways in which Memtok gave attention to details, diligence that had brought him, still in his prime, to his present supreme eminence.
The head chef had grumbled and Memtok had sent him away with a taste of the lesser whip to remind him that cooks were not that hard to find. Then he had turned happily to his paper work.
There were stacks of it, as he had just completed moving the household from the Palace to the Summer Palace-thirty-eight of the Chosen but only four hundred and sixty-three servants; the summer residence was run with a skeleton staff. The twice-yearly move involved a wash of paper work-purchase orders, musters, inventories, vouchers, shipping lists, revisions of duty rosters, dispatches-and he considered advising his patron to have some likely youngster muted and trained as his clerk. But he rejected the idea; Memtok did not trust servants who could read and write and add, it gave them ideas even if they could not talk.
The truth was, Memtok loved his paper work and did not want to share it. His hands flew over the papers, checking figures, signing his symbol, okaying payments. He held his pen in an odd fashion, nested between the first three fingers of his right hand-this because he had no thumbs.
He did not miss them, could barely remember what it had been like to have them. Nor did he need them. He could handle a spoon, a pen, and a whip without them, and he had no need ever to handle anything else.
Far from missing his thumbs, he was proud of their absence; they proved that he had served his lord in both major capacities, at stud when he was younger and now these many years as a tempered domestic. Every male servant over fourteen (with scarce special exceptions) showed one alteration or the other; very few could exhibit both, only a few hundred on the entire Earth. Those few spoke as equals only to each other, they were an elite.
Someone scratched at the door. “Come!” he called out, then growled, “What do you want?” The growl was automatic but he really did dislike this servant for the best of reasons; he was not subject to Memtok’s discipline. He was of a different caste, huntsmen, wardens, keepers, and beaters, and was subject to the Majordomo of the Preserve. The Majordomo considered himself to be of the same rank as the Chief Domestic, and nominally was. However, he had thumb€.
Memtok’s greatest objection to the Summer Palace was that it put him in contact with these servants who had the unpardonable fault of not being under his orders. While it would take only a word to Their Charity to crack down on one of them, he disliked to ask, and while he could touch one of them without real fear of reprimand, the louse would be sure to complain to his boss. Memtok did not believe in friction between executive servants. Bad for morale.
“Message from Boss. Rayed to tell you Their Charity on his way back. Says four savages with escort. Says you better tear up to the roof, take care of them. All.”
“’All’? Damn you, what do you mean ‘All’? Why four savages? And in the Name of Uncle when are they arriving?”
“All,” the servant insisted. “Message came in twenty minutes ago. I been looking all over for you.”
“Get out!” The important part of the message was that Their Charity was arriving home instead of staying away overnight. Chef, Receptionist, Musical Director, Housekeeper, Groundskeeper, all heads of departments-he was phoning orders even as he thought. Four savages? Who cared about savages?
But he was on the roof and accepted their custody. He would have been there anyway, with the Lord Protector arriving.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137