30. Lordling
Lordling
We filed out of the barracks when the time came, moving past the stares and jealousy of the others who hadn’t been summoned.
The bastards still waiting for their day watched us go, and conversations died as we walked by.
Some stared openly at the coat, at the escort formation, at what it all meant.
Others turned away, already calculating how the balance had shifted.
“They’re looking at you different,” Maise murmured, keeping her voice low enough that only we could hear.
“Let them look.”
I felt it too, their eyes measuring me with the careful distance reserved for those who might someday hold power over them. Envy and self-preservation doing their usual arithmetic behind tight smiles.
Good. Let them get used to it.
Maise walked on my left, Perrin to my right, Grit bringing up the rear. My team, my guard, moving in formation that came naturally now from countless drills and real combat. They were as alert as I was, hands never quite straying to weapons but ready to move if needed.
We left the Stone Yard through the eastern gate, following a path I’d only seen from a distance.
The route took us past the Backhouse where we’d spent our earliest years, its squat ugliness a reminder of how far we’d climbed.
From there, the path curved upward, each step taking us into territory reserved for those born to better things .
“Never seen the main house from this angle,” Perrin muttered, eyeing the high walls ahead.
“Never seen the main house at all,” Maise admitted.
◇ ◆ ◇
The main house rose before us like a threat made permanent in stone.
Four stories of worked granite and reinforced timber, windows throwing back the morning light in calculated displays of wealth.
This was the seat where children learned to follow, where heirs learned to command, where my mother had drawn her pictures before someone murdered her for what she could do.
Two guards flanked the main entrance, their armor bearing the worked silver that marked house elite rather than common soldiers. They studied us with professional assessment: four armed children, two in training leather, one dressed above his station.
“Danarre de Blaise,” I said before they could challenge us. “Expected within the hour.”
The left guard consulted a list. “You’re early.”
“I don’t waste time.”
His eyes flicked to my companions. “And these are?”
“My team.”
His expression shifted, a flicker of recalculation as he registered what bringing them meant. Permanence. An expectation that I’d need people I trusted close at hand. A small political statement written in formation and loyalty.
“Your team waits in the kitchen hall,” he said after a moment. “Lord’s orders were specific. You enter alone.”
I turned to them. “It’s fine. I won’t be long.”
“And if you are?” Maise asked, the question carrying an edge to it .
“Then you’ll know where to find me.”
A servant appeared, an older woman with the kind of severe expression that could wilt flowers. “If the young lords and lady would follow me?”
Lords and lady. Even she knew the forms, applying courtesy to armed bastards who might someday matter. Perrin almost laughed at the title, catching himself just in time.
We followed her through doors thick enough to stop a battering ram, into halls that belonged to a different world entirely.
Woven panels covered the walls, depicting de Blaise victories in thread worth more than most families saw in a generation.
Light came from glass spheres filled with captured sunlight, the kind of magical illumination that had no business existing in the same world as the Stone Yard.
The servant led us through these wonders without pausing, her route clearly designed to impress while avoiding anywhere truly important. We descended stairs cut from single blocks of marble, past portraits of de Blaise ancestors who all seemed to share Henrik’s cold gray stare.
The kitchen hall sprawled beneath the main house, warm and loud and alive.
Heat rolled from massive ovens, from fires that never died, from the constant motion of dozens working to feed the estate.
Fresh bread and roasting meat and spices I couldn’t name flooded through me hard enough to remind my stomach I’d missed breakfast.
“You may wait here,” the servant announced, gesturing to a table set apart from the main bustle .
The placement said everything. Away from the kitchen staff proper, but allowed inside the building. That careful middle ground where armed bastards could exist without disrupting the order of things.
A younger servant, barely older than us, appeared with bowls of porridge thick with honey and cream, along with bread still steaming from the ovens. Better than anything we’d get in the barracks. Payment for the inconvenience of waiting.
My team settled at the table, but their eyes stayed on me.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Maise said.
“When have I ever?”
“Yesterday. The day before. Most days, really.”
But worry undercut her sarcasm. “Just, whatever this is about, remember you’re not alone.”
“I know.” I adjusted the coat, already feeling confined by its quality. “Eat. Enjoy the good food. I’ll be back soon.”
The severe servant cleared her throat. “My lord’s time is valuable.”
My lord. A subtle distinction that said everything about where bastards stood in the hierarchy of the house.
I followed her back up the stairs, leaving my team in that warm kitchen with their good porridge and their weapons close to hand.
The distance between us measured in more than steps.
They could follow me to the threshold of the main house, but no further.
From here, I walked alone.
◇ ◆ ◇
The servant led me higher, past the public floors where house business happened, up a private stair that led to family quarters. Each step took me further from the world I knew, closer to whatever game Henrik had decided I needed to play .
The walls here bore different decorations. Smaller pieces, personal ones. A child’s practice sword mounted with pride. A painting of the estate in winter, every detail captured with care that went beyond craft into devotion.
My steps slowed. Someone had told me, Cromwell or maybe one of the kitchen staff who remembered her, that Clarissa had been a painter.
That she’d spent hours at these windows, mixing pigments she ground herself, turning light into something you could hold.
Small initials marked the lower corner, C.H.
, and I didn’t need anyone to tell me whose hand had held the brush.
“Keep pace,” the servant said, but her tone had softened. She’d noticed where my attention had gone.
We climbed higher still, the Knight Brand pulsing warm between my shoulders. The heat wasn’t warning, and it wasn’t danger. Awareness. I was entering spaces where different rules applied, where a bastard in fine clothes was still a bastard but might become more if he played the game well enough.
The servant paused at a heavy oak door, its surface carved with the de Blaise thunderbolt. She knocked twice with precise spacing.
“Enter,” came Henrik’s voice from within.
The servant opened the door but didn’t follow me through. “You’re expected,” she said, and somehow those two words carried more weight than any threat.
I stepped into Lord Henrik’s private study. The door closed behind me.
The room wasn’t what I’d expected. Where the public spaces of the house displayed wealth like armor, this room favored function.
A desk scarred by decades of use. Chairs chosen for weight and durability over beauty.
The only decorations were weapons, real ones, showing the nicks and stains of actual combat.
Henrik stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back, studying the courtyard below. He didn’t turn when I entered, letting silence establish who controlled this space. I waited. Didn’t fidget. Didn’t speak first. That was his move to make.
“You brought your team,” he said finally. “Good. Loyalty should be visible when it matters.”
“They’re waiting in the kitchens.”
“I know.”
He turned. Those gray eyes studied me with the same intensity he’d shown at the tournament selection. “You clean up well. You look like you could almost belong here.”
Almost. The word hung between us, defining boundaries.
“Why am I here?”
“Direct. Also good.”
He moved to his desk, pouring from a crystal decanter. The liquid was dark. He paused, looking at me properly. “I forget, you’re just thirteen.”
He grabbed a pitcher of water and poured a second glass instead. He offered it to me. I took it.
“Duke Hemmrich has confirmed the tournament. More importantly, he’s confirmed who will attend.
” He took a sip from his own glass. “Cardinals from several temples. Minor nobility from across the realm. Representatives from the merchant guilds. And one particular priest who serves as spiritual advisor to powerful houses. ”
The Hierophant moves his pieces. Hel’s warning burned fresh in my mind. The vision of corpses in a tournament arena. The White Cardinal walking among them.
“The White Cardinal,” I said.
Henrik’s gaze sharpened. “You know of him?”
Careful. Too much knowledge would raise questions I couldn’t answer.
“Danzing mentioned he’d be there. Said tournaments drew that kind of attention.”
“They certainly do.”
Henrik set down his glass. “Which brings us to why you’re here, dressed like more than you are.”
He gestured to a chair. I sat, the coat’s fabric shifting against leather.
“The tournament isn’t about combat alone,” Henrik continued. “It’s about politics. About showing the realm that House de Blaise produces quality in all its forms. Even its bastards.”
“Especially its bastards.”
“Perceptive.” He leaned back, fingers steepled. “You’ll attend the opening ceremonies. The formal dinners. The social gatherings where real alliances are forged.”
“I’m thirteen years old.”