A few stops to ask for directions -- with a quick warning to those currently inhabiting her personal realm that she was hiring household staff -- landed Kestra in the same city quarter as the stockyards, standing in front of a utilitarian building the size of a standard Druerjan quarter-half-field, or in the measure of the Myriad Realms, fifty meters on the short side and one hundred meters to the long side.
The thought reminded her of a song of her childhood, and she hummed the little ditty with a dull sense of nostalgia.
> Forty bows a quarter field,
> Laid to Lady Harvest's weal
> By rule of fours, we grow them up,
> To field, farrow, league
>
>
>
> To Gods of Land, we pay homage
> Blood by cuts made small for small trespass
> Harvest portions paid in flame,
> And sweet milk, and in grain
She grimaced to herself when the cadence of the words forced into this world's language threw off the rhythm of the song. It had been a small distraction, any way, and she forced herself to stop dithering and just be about her business.
The utilitarian building had "Hadenshire Slave Market" engraved center across the long side, and two major doors. The one toward the city wall bore a wooden sign before it that read "Indentures" with "Screening and Placement Applicants; Resale of Contracts". The door toward the city center looked like someone had made an effort to pretty it up, adding some carvings and a stone sign that declared it the door for "Esteemed Contractors". Graemire directed her to the Contractors door.
Inside was a clean, organized lobby. A small group of modestly jacketed people stood to one side, looking attentive while casually talking to each other in low tones. The one nearest the door got a pinched look on his face, but politely asked, "Are you here to contract an indentured servant?"
He blinked with surprise when Kestra said, "A few actually. Are you an agent of the market?"
"Yes," he said, drawing out the word as he tried to catch his mind up to the break in his obvious expectations. "Indenture contracts need to be guaranteed by a gold coin each," he said next, a look of sympathy on his face.
Kestra flashed a Base mana stone. "You can provide me with change, yes?"
His demeanor instantly fell, and he bowed deeply. "Please forgive my rude beginning, Great Lady!"
She sighed as she returned the stone to her storage. "Up, up! No sniveling, please! I don't dress like a Great Lady for a reason."
It was rude, but it also did the trick, getting the man to halt before he got to groveling. Kestra really did not like the obsequiousness built into the culture of the Myriad Realms. On the other hand, talks over tea gave her something to look forward to.
"Call me Miss Kestra. What should I call you?"
"This unworthy one is Agent of the City Market Vin Atelli, Gr-- Miss Kestra," he answered.
"Good. Agent Vin, I've never been to this kind of market. Agent for me, please, and explain how one conducts their business here."
The agent led her to a tea room where he served her a rather insipid watery drink and asked her about what she was looking for. He added in a few questions that baffled her, like, did the servants need to be attractive, or of a particular "look". When she asked what he meant by that, she found out that some contractors cared if their servants were mostly slender or bulky, pale to dark in skin or hair or eyes.
"Appearance only matters if it improves their skills," Kestra said at that. "And I've yet to see a cook pot that cares what the Cook looks like."
She confirmed that the oath of silence she wanted her new servants to take was a common enough condition of their indenture, so she added it in as part of the contract details to be seen to when she hired a servant. Technically, she was buying her servants' indenture contracts, similar to how Sortalheim's Low Council had tried to distinguish indentured servants from common slaves. Kestra didn't mind buying a slave contract, either, as those allowed for the manumission of the slave at the owner's discretion. She had no problem transforming any such slave into an indentured servant with the greater rights that afforded them, but she knew better than to think buying up all the slave contracts would do anything but encourage slavers to seek out more "merchandise" to sell.
If Kestra was willing to spend more time, or open herself to more scrutiny, she would have much preferred simply hiring servants without the indenturing, but there was no central agency for hirelings. They were all matched to new jobs by word of mouth, if not converted from indentured servants to house hirelings.
Once he knew Kestra's requirements, Agent Vin left and came back with a large stack of pages, which he sorted into piles for the various jobs she mentioned: cook, farmer, herder, guards. Kestra figured that she could sort Odelia or the cook she hired into being a de facto House Master, as she didn't actually expect to have all that much for a housekeeper to do. Food and errands, on the other hand, were much more necessarily.
Kestra went through the indenture profiles for her candidates. Some were in the market now, so she interviewed them.
The men and women willing to indenture as guards were a sorry lot, either youths with ideas about what a glamorous life a guard must lead, or mature to elder adults with the kind of maiming that would inhibit most guard recruiters from even considering them.
Kestra, on the other hand, weeded out the ones who ended up in the slave market for gamboling or drinking problems, and offered the maimed guards positions on the condition they be willing to act as training subjects for her healing skills -- not to inflict needless wounds on them, but to see what she could do to heal their lost limbs or scar-bound joints. Two had been relatively young and still bound by their original indenture contract. Their current contract holders had to be called in to finalize the transfer of their Heavenly oaths.
Kestra had her new experienced guards pick out four youths. Each youth was to be paired with an experienced guard for training. She ended up with five men and three women, two of whom were among her experienced guards.
The farmers and herders were more of a mixed lot in terms of ages and experience. Most had ended up in the market because the farms they used to work on were lost to monsters, or bought out by someone who didn't want the prior owner's loyal laborers. Farmer contracts were in enough demand that the market made provisions that let Agent Vin handle transferring over their Heavenly oaths.
She passed over a couple of the more experienced of the laborers because she didn't like the feel of them, a matter of attitude and body language mostly. Instead, she hired on a younger couple of farmers that required their contract let them remain together, even if by Hadenshire's laws they couldn't be wed until they were both free of their indenture terms. Along with them, she hired two more not-quite-young women who had some skill with Tailoring, mostly gained from spinning up yarn and thread.
Considering the size of the herds she wanted, she hired an experienced, older man with a lazy face and a sharp gaze to be her herd master. After hearing her plans for the herds, he recommended that she hire three more herders, and then placidly blinked in surprise when she told him that he would nominate his choices. She rejected one, again for a bad feeling they gave her, but accepted the rest of his choices.
When she brought out a sketch of the current fields, they looked a bit pinched faced.
"Those are small for fields," the would-be-wife, Gan Kelly, said.
"Then you'll work with those already there to expand as needed," she answered simply.
That left the matter of the cook, but for the moment, with the contracts that had been settled, Kestra turned over a communications device each to her new Herd Master, Senior Farmer, and the experienced guards. She gave the Herd Master, Lan Joeb, four times over what he estimated buying the start of the herds would cost in a storage broach and reminded him to buy the necessarily tools and oddaments of his trade. Then she sent the herdsmen off with two pairs of her guards.
The third set of guards went with the farmers, their own coin infused pendant to fill up with the tools they would need. "Consider this a test: Assume you will be building up a farm from the start, and have no trees to cut down for lumber. Purchase what you would bring with you, the cost of supply insignificant to the success of the new farm."
The last set of guards was waiting on the senior guard's current contract holder to arrive, and Kestra intended to send them on their own supply shopping venture.
The potential cooks had by then all been given time enough to arrive if they weren't already at the slave market. Kestra had some strong opinions about Cooking, and she intended to challenge the creativity of her potential Cook. Skill ranks were one thing; interest was quite a different matter all together, and she wanted to see who would win her approval in a cook off.
With Agent Vin's approval, she set up five workstations at the back of the room. On the stations, she had simple ceramic bowls to the side for sinks, a pot, pan, and tray along with utensils ready to be used, and the same three spices: ground brumi bark, dried peppercorns, and Lament's leaves. Salt, bite, bitter. She had jars of oil pressed from a mix of the vegetables Natspri harvested for her.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
There were fourteen cooks to interview, and Kestra disliked six of them, some for being slovenly, others for a general off-putting feeling they radiated. Of the eight left, four lacked a creative spark when they spoke about Cooking, though one had still managed to reach in the higher Apprentice ranks.
That left her four candidates so she took back the fifth workstation.
"You have all satisfied my basic requirements for a new Cook, so now is the practical part of my interview. I don't expect you to use your skills without compensation, so for those who are not selected, you will receive a silver coin for your participation.
"The two of you who can control your own fires, do you need any catalyst or reagents for your flames? No? Good. I will aid by controlling the flames for the two remaining. Use only the ingredients that are on your tables, though if you have your own tools, you may use those." So saying, she put out cuts of monstrous snake meat from one of the Transcendental creatures that were slain during the last dungeon run with Graemire, a handful of vegetables from Natspri's harvest, and presoaked whole rice on their stations.
At the mention of being paid, regardless of placement, the two who lacked control over flames perked up. One of them just set about putting together a simple fry, ignoring the unfamiliar brumi bark and Lament's leaves, and a few of the vegetables. It was a safe meal, obvious that he had already given up, and Kestra wasn't going to dissuade him when she had another who wasn't deterred by a bit of skill difference.
The rest at least smelled the unfamiliar ingredients, carefully tasting a few.
Of the two who could control their own flames, one was an old man, not quite Venerable, but close to it. He took a great delight in testing all of the ingredients, obviously learning their flavor profile. He set aside what Kestra had come to know were common plants, and then cut apart sample bits of the plants he didn't know, roasting, boiling, baking and frying those to test their tastes. Only after that did he begin to assemble a meal. The joy on his face as he worked was a reflection of his happy mana.
The other with flame control skills was a young man just into his maturity, earnest, and focused enough on his workstation that he didn't see what the others were doing. He, too sampled all the foods on his table, but he didn't experiment with how the unfamiliar cooked up.
Last, the youth without her own cooking flames, a girl about Odelia's age, watched the others enough to focus on the elder's actions, which she promptly mimicked. She didn't try to make the meal he made, however, but she did try out the flavor profiles of the foods she didn't know, and then set about her task.
Only bothering to try the simple fry of the man who hadn't truly tried from politeness, Kestra found it well prepared, but lacking. She gave him a silver, thanked him for his time, and permitted him to take the rest of what he had prepared for himself before she stored his workstation.
The young man with his own fires, Kesh Belar, had prepared three dishes for his meal, each incorporating different amounts of all the ingredients provided. The soup came out with an interesting blend of tart and salt. The baked dish was heavy on the grains, which had a mild sour flavor that complemented the strips of snake meat and the more bitter of the vegetables. His pan dish was heavy on the sweeter meat, and heavily, though not unpleasantly, seasoned with the pepper. Belar hadn't used the Lament's leaves.
Kestra let him take possession of the rest of the food he had made and cleaned up his station, but asked him to remain while she tasted the other meals.
The girl, Wun Cai, had diced up most of the ingredients. She cooked the diced mixture in the pan while boiling the grains to a pleasant softness. She ignored the bake sheet, wrapping the now cooked diced mix in some of the broader leaves, then added oil to the pan and fried them. After removing the fried rolls to a plate, Cai mashed the last of the vegetables into a paste, mixed in generous amounts of the spices, and blended with the frying oils to make a sauce for the rolls and grains.
The Lament's leaves hadn't mashed up perfectly, but on the whole it was an enjoyable culinary experience.
Again, the girl got to keep what she cooked, her station cleaned up, and asked to wait.
Which left just the obviously experienced elder's meal to try.
The elder, Mong Lol had created a curry, making a well seasoned paste with the more strongly flavored vegetables, after roasting them to really bring out their flavors. While roasting the veggies, he had steamed the grains mixed with a light touch of finely chopped leaf tops from some of the more sour vegetables, using his flames and one of the bowls. He thinned the paste with oil and water, added the Lament's leaves whole, and set it to simmering in the pot. Then, the snake meat and larger chunks of the blander vegetables were pan-seared before being adding to the simmering sauce. He removed the Lament's leaves when the simmer was finished, and the whole was served over a beautifully plated scoop of the grains.
Kestra wasn't even all that surprised at the Living Scroll that popped up for her.
♦•♦•♦ You have eaten a Journeyman Grade meal! ♦•♦•♦
+5% to Stamina and Mana Recovery for the next 2 days
♦•♦•♦ ▲▼▲ ♦•♦•♦
That made Kestra smile. The smile faded as she looked at Lol with a critical gaze. "This is a level of quality that far exceeds my expectations of an indentured servant. Why are you here?"
The man's proud grin deflated. "I lost a bet," he grumped. Then he sighed, and explained. "I ... was rude to a stranger, oh, about a decade back, and he called me to task. Things were getting heated, and some of the insults that flew about resulted in a bet before the Heavens that I couldn't name all the ingredients in his recipe. I had just spent all my coin on new tools, and so I foolishly put myself up as collateral for the bet, service for twenty years.
"The other man was a Cook, and we did not get along well at all, so we agreed to sell my indenture. I ended up as the Head Cook at the Bright Scallert. Sadly, the man who ran the Scallert was nowhere near as good with money as I with food, and the restaurant and all Gand Raol's indenture contracts were claimed by the city to pay taxes owed last week. I'm told that my age makes me of less interest to those who seek indentures at the city's slave market."
Kestra nodded, understanding. "Are you interested in teaching?"
The elder snorted. "Can't take on apprentices while you're indentured, just like you can't marry or buy land. I would like to have a legacy, but I'm not likely to gain the levels I'll need to see that happen."
"But would you teach these two, if you were all given freedom of my cook room and larder?" she pressed.
The sadness in his express froze, his mana stilled, and then Mong Lol looked over at his two competitors with a different kind of assessment. "Yes," he said, with a considering tone. More resolutely, he bowed and said, "It would be my honor, Great Lady."
She turned to the two others, the youth and young man. "Well, Belar, Cai. Will you be happy serving in my cook room and receiving instruction from Master Cook Mong Lol?"
They both practically fell over themselves bowing and declaring how great the honor would be.
While they were finishing up the contracts for the cooks, the last of the contract holders for the guard showed up.
Kestra maintained a neutral expression when dealing with the people selling off their guards' contracts when said guards had been harmed in their service, but when everything was done, and it was just her and her new servants, Kestra let the disgust show through.
She didn't say anything, though, just shook away the foulness of their meeting. "Alright, now, Lol, here is a communications device keyed to mine, and funds to stock your cook room." She turned over the two devices, the storage one another pendant, then pulled out a list Inspri made of the vegetables, grains, and spices growing in her retreat realm to hand him when she had a sudden question. "Are you literate?"
"Yes, Great Lady," he answered, with another bit of pride, confidently settling the communications device over his ear and the pendant around his neck.
Kestra handed him the thick sheaf of papers. "These are the records of my larder. Don't disclose them, but do use them as a reference as you go about stocking the cook room. Call me when you are done for the day, and I will tell you where to meet."
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Ralouf and Graemire had been talking through their communications devices throughout Kestra's interviews, and he had asked Kestra about the numbers and natures of her hires. Now that she had a moment to herself to check on her retreat, she spotted the Sage Wyrm with Orespri and Stonspri setting up homes for Kestra's new servants.
She then checked in with Odelia, who had said her farewells with her friends among the the tailors and was presently over at Ben's Beasts. Kestra asked her to wait there, seeing as it wasn't actually that far off from the stockyards, where she wanted to meet up with her new herders.
Beast Traders in the Myriad Realms turned out to be very near to the monster [Tamers] of Moh. They used contract spells with the creatures of the Myriad Realms to tame them, explicitly being required to care for those they tamed to retain their compliance.
Graemire didn't object to those contracts in general; merely, he objected to them being forced onto sapient creatures. For the creatures that had yet to achieve sapience, the contracts usually meant a better chance to grow and survive to reach sapience. In fact, he knew a number of creatures that rose to sapience through such contracts, many of whom happily dedicated themselves to watching over their original master's descendants.
Still, he kept himself inside the edges of Kestra's mana, just to be safe. The mana of the Ascended was not subject to the binding used to tame creatures.
Ben Adal was a pleasant enough youth, and offered to show Kestra the beasts his family bred for sale, but she declined, not happy with Graemire's discomfort.
Adal was the last of Odelia's friends to get her farewells, and so they were off to the stockyards. There, her new Herd Master was just wrapping up the purchase of one of her new herds, a dainty breed of goat-looking cattle called nanags, known for their fine fur, which grew in silky ringlets between fifteen and twenty-five centimeters long.
Kestra hung back until they were done, the sale finished, and Herd Master Joeb and the former owners of her nanags parted ways. Then, she called him over and asked how everything was going.
"We have the start of a nice fiber herd, and a couple milk cows like you asked. It's not the best season to be buying pigs, but there are a few rumors I can run down for that. Dadaky's are in full hatch, though, so they'll be no trouble to acquire, especially young birds to start off a new flock. We'll want wagons to move the birds, and grains enough until the first feed lot harvest is in. Depending on the soil, we might need some supplements, but I won't know till I see how the herds are doing on their new forage."
Kestra spun up a silence ward with Control Air, and said, "When you're ready to move the herds out, I will be opening a gate to their new home. I don't really want that to be widely known, though, so would it be better to take all the herds out at once, or some here and there with the herders we have?"
Joeb scratched his chin as he considered. "For secrecy, Miss Kestra? All at once, but only if we don't have to go much farther than beyond sight of the city walls. Even with the guards you've hired, we can't protect that many cattle from monsters, let alone bandits. The lowest of us you hired are into Apprentice ranks for the Herd Keeping skill, and that's enough to keep the lot of these beasties together." He glanced at the pens around them, then back to Kestra. "We'll still need the wagon."
"Fair enough," she agreed. "How much longer do you think you'll need in town before you're ready to leave? Include time to say farewells to friends or family in the town, or send messages to those too far to meet with."
"Well, now, that would be day after next, I 'spose," Joeb answered.
"Good. If you need more funds, let me know. I'm going to arrange lodging for you all. I'll send out the map data and inn name when your rooms are ready. And I'm taking guards Jensa and Klo with me."
Kestra had a similar conversation with the farmers when she caught up with them, and they appreciated the time that Joeb's schedule gave them to say their good-byes.