They returned to the estate with little fanfare. There was no one there to greet them specifically, just the normal guards on the entrance. They did send a runner, but it wasn’t until they had started releasing the horses from their onerous duty of pulling the cart that someone found them. The boys had watched as Martin accused the horses of behaving like asses, although he had the good grace to point out they were the two best looking donkeys he had ever seen but had the worst attitudes to compensate. Even the stable boy was in stitches by the end of it.

Ruth was the one who found them, and she too was laughing along. When Adam spotted her, he waved a small greeting, getting one in return. He also saw the look that was overcoming her face, and wisely snatched Jay to run away from the upcoming reunion. Ruth had that look on her face that said there was something she wanted, but she was going to make Martin work to give it to her. Adam didn’t know what the look was saying, but he knew it spelled trouble.

In the time it took Adam to get himself and Jay cleaned up, find clean clothes, and get fed the two adults had disappeared. Knowing they’d not be seeing them for the rest of the day, Adam got the two of them bedded down in his room. He’d not been all that surprised to find another small bed had been added while they were gone. He was too tired to bother thinking through the reasons why.

The night passed uneventfully, but they were woken by an irritatingly cheerful Martin attempting to sing them awake by strangling a cat. He ignored their jeers, proclaiming pompously that Ruth claimed he had a beautiful voice. Adam pointed out that she meant for saying nice things to her, and serenading her would end with a similar response as theirs. Good natured teasing and laughter followed them through breakfast, but they left them there when they left. The three of them had a meeting with the duke. When informed of the meeting, Martin had tried to put off the inclusion of Jay, but the servant had been told expressly that he was required to attend.

Once again they all marched into the duke’s study when he called for them. He greeted them with a big smile and open arms. “Success! I believe congratulations are in order!”

Jay, who only had a limited idea of what was going on, remained quietly tucked behind Martin. Adam simply smiled politely, and Martin tried to match the duke’s enthusiasm with limited success. His smile was as large as it was fake, but the duke appeared to care not at all. He gestured them all to seats in front of his desk, and called a servant to bring them drinks. Some of Martin’s mannerisms and decisions during the return trip suddenly made much more sense as the duke began regaling them with a condensed but accurate rendition of their journey.

Adam was deeply disturbed by the blatant fact that the duke had had someone spying upon them. He’d done nothing wrong, betrayed no one, and yet the man had spied on him like a criminal. He could find no reason for it. Was Martin not good enough of a witness for the success of their mission that he needed to send a hidden follower to keep track of everything. That was when he realized that the duke hadn’t just been spying on him, but on Martin as well. His own trusted employee. A man that had saved his life, been granted freedom from slavery, and chosen to stay. If there was anyone the duke should have trusted to handle something as basic as evaluating his ability to defend a child, it was Martin.

And yet he did not.

Ignoring the duke’s continued praises, and commentary on how wise he was to have purchased Adam, the boy instead pursued the thought he had just had. Adam had some experience with not trusting people, and a healthy paranoia towards adults. Even with everything that had made him that way, and the fear of being hunted by Harold, Adam had still had people he could rely on, people he trusted. It was astonishing to find out that he trusted Martin more than the duke did. He considered the reasons he did, and, in retrospect, that may not be such a bad decision on the duke’s part. Martin did help Adam lie to the duke within just a few days of meeting the man. That still didn’t explain the complete lack of any trust that the duke not only had, but flaunted. It was a worrying development, and he would do his best to be very careful in the future with anything he wanted kept secret.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

That final thought led to him missing large portions of the meeting as his mind went over everything they said and did during the adventure. There had been several instances of them discussing his class and skills, the real ones. They had even gone over how to explain away his new abilities by using the fake class they had developed to hide his real one. He was ramping himself up into quite the quandary when Martin bumped his leg. He only caught the tail end of what the duke was asking, but assumed from Martin’s actions that the question was for him.

“-ready now?”

The question could have been nearly anything, but in reality there was only one response that was appropriate. “If you believe so, milord,” he said, bowing his head briefly.

He’d apparently gotten the answer correct, judging by the duke’s beaming smile. “Well then. Martin, your thoughts?”

“I believe he can handle the caretaking portions of the job, but he’ll need some work before I’d feel comfortable signing off on him taking over the body guarding duties. We also need at least a week to ascertain what all he can use for weapons. He recently found another one, and that has opened up a whole new field of ideas for us. It will also mean that he’ll need an additional weapons trainer, one not found amongst the regular guards.” Martin’s response was perfectly in line with their expectations for the meeting, so Adam knew what would be coming next.

“Oh? I didn’t hear anything about that. Do tell.”

That response sent a strange burst of joy through the boy. The duke didn’t know everything, which meant that there was a fairly decent chance that he didn’t know about his real class yet either.

“In addition to the kitchen knives, which he did so well with, he can also use a broom,” Martin stated with some pride.

The duke interrupted him before he could explain. “A broom? What kind of weapon could a broom possible be?”

Martin smiled. He had deliberately left a pause after pointing out Adam’s newest weapon just to elicit that response, so that he could use the perfect reply. “One that channels the elements.”

Everyone was quiet while they waited for the open mouthed duke to process that revelation. Over a few seconds his mouth closed, and grew into a smile. “Care Bear is a casting class? How?”

Martin raised a hand and tilted it back and forth. “Not completely sure on that one yet. He can channel wind through the broom, and hopefully a few other tools, but that doesn’t make him a caster. With his transformation skill, the elemental channeling might be designed to give him range options until the bear form is needed. Not that it matters much at the moment, he couldn’t cut a feather right now.”

Puzzled, the duke asked, “Clarify that. Why not?”

“He doesn’t have any training with how to use his mana. Until he learns to do that effectively his use of the elements is more gimmick than attack. That’s not to say that he hasn’t found a way to use it, it just requires him to still use his knives as well.”

“Do you think that with the proper training he could learn to harness the elements as a useable weapon?”

Martin shook his head lightly. “I’m the wrong guy to ask about that one. I have no knowledge of how to judge mana use potential. Sure, I can tell you when a caster is dangerous, but that has nothing to do with whether a child could become a mage of any stripe.”

“Yes, that’s a fair assessment.” He paused to think briefly, then flipped through a small book on his desk. “Ah, here we go. Yes, I have someone who can do the assessment, and the training if it looks worthwhile. Hmm, I’ll have to rework the schedule I planned for him to allow for it, as well as further weapons training as well. Oh, there we go. I’ll have to double check with Elinoria to see that one of her maids can take a section of the children’s days, but that should free up the required time.” He made a few notations in his small book, then looked up again. “OK, tomorrow morning in the training yard, just after breakfast. Have him there to go through the assessment, and then we’ll meet again in the afternoon to finalize his schedule.”

Adam was impressed that the duke never once looked at him during that spiel. An entire conversation about him, and he was treated the same as a chair. There and useful for a purpose, but pointless to address. Once more he was lost as to why he had originally thought the duke was a good person. Still, Adam didn’t see him as a bad person, more like a human shaped disaster. Like a fire, or a flood. It didn’t care about you at all, and as long as you weren’t in its way you were perfectly safe. Get in its way though, and all bets were off. Martin had certainly instilled a healthy caution in him towards the duke, but even more effective had been listening to his little plan for how to increase Adam's level. He was still worried about that one.