Chapter 1

* * *

"So you're a nobleman here? I suspected you of being some kind of stranger to the working class! It's not for nothing that you wash your hands in the toilet every time, not for nothing! That noble gut shows itself!"

"Mitrich, stop it. I wash my hands because my father is a doctor."

"The father is a respected man, a doctor! The mother too. A teacher! And who's the son? Ugh, he's a baronish boy!"

"Were you eavesdropping at the door, like Olechka?"

The superior, who rushed into my office right after von Schnitze left, looked at me with a fatherly look, then shook his head indulgently.

"Nikolaich, you should at least use your head. All right, she is young, silly," a creepy growling was heard from behind the door, and Mitrich purposely raised his voice. "And in general - wo-man! But I am an experienced man, I'm from my childhood at the construction site! I understand everything: how the sockets are made, how the ventilation is laid, and where the glass should be pressed against the wall ..."

"So I'm always under the radar?"

"Of course! Come on, confess, where did you get the castle in Europe? Well, you can't steal so much in our office!"

"You shouldn't do that, I've got something... Shit! Never mind, it's from the days when the Chief was tall and curly."

"Was it even before the revolution? Uh-oh! What does the old man want from you?"

"That I might have the grace to look over a property somewhere in the ass of the world. And participate in the political life there."

"Well, get out of here!"

I looked at him grimly. Mitrich responded with the innocent gaze of a sixty-year-old infant.

"Seriously, Nikolaich, come on, take a break! It's the third year you've been working without a vacation, so go away and let your subordinates at least take home a box of paper clips in peace! How should I call you now, "Your Lordship"? Or "Your Highness"?"

"Just say "Baron."

"Come on, write your claim, how long do you need? Well, a week there, a week there, a week for the hangover, back..."

Trying to think of circumstances why it was beneficial to keep me away from work for a month, I came up with nothing of the sort. So after five more minutes of fiddling around, I finally wrote the paper, which the director immediately signed off on.

"There! Now go, and report when you come back! And how you defended the interests of the feudal system there, and the views from the window, and how the rutabagas are sown there - you will report everything. And about the right of the first night, too, since you're such a liege lord!"

Mitrich dodged the eraser thrown at him, laughed, and went out. I took another look at the table and the papers. I estimated how fatal it would be to leave the office and what needed to be finished first. And suddenly I realized with surprise that if I disappeared even for three months... Well, no, not three months, but two months for sure, they would live without me, and not even too much trouble. I had to load someone up for the whole period so that when they arrived and handed out souvenirs, I could lock myself away and scold the wrongdoers according to all the strictness of the instructions.

With determination, I turned off the computer, put on my jacket hanging on the back, and went out.

I felt uncomfortable again at the sight of the poor, humiliated secretary being humiliated by her cruel bosses. The girl sat with her foot resting on the back of her chair. A soft slipper tapped rhythmically on the leg of the desk, a stethoscope was visible in the open drawer. Olechka, following my gaze, carefully pushed the drawer closed and slowly, gracefully turned to me.

"So you, Alexander Nikolayevich, are a real nobleman? And you have a whole castle?" The voice was honeyed and dangerous. God forbid to make a mistake, you may not be able to get out of this embrace. She will take to the painful grasp, and drag to the registry office!

I heard a grunt from behind the door of Mitrich's office as if someone was trying to hold back laughter. Yeah, this bison has had more than that. He's laughing...

"I am... tomorrow. Everything tomorrow!" And bravely slipped along the wall and out into the corridor. What do you think of that? I am a grown man, had seen everything, from a caged sky to a pinned-up coffin lid from the inside. And this chubby girl I'm afraid of. I wish I'd have taken her a long time ago and...

Just in case, I didn't think too loudly after "and". There was a rumor that Olechka's grandmother was a witch, what if she could really eavesdrop on my thoughts?

Five people were standing at the exit, even though it was the middle of the day. All of them, including the security guard, was looking at me with undisguised curiosity! Well, that's how they knew? Olechka blabbed? So she was with us all the time! Who else? How could I know?!

With a stony expression on my face, I walked past. I heard something behind me:

"Here, look how he's going! You can see it! I suspected it from day one!"

Maybe we have eavesdropping pipes in the walls, like in ancient castles? Could the builders have done something like that?

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

On the way home, I pondered all this craziness.

The reports, as it turned out, von Schnitze sent regularly to my old school. I thought it would be hilarious when the principal found out that Sasha

Mogila had become a baron. I did not take into account that two years later the school would be closed. However, this is irrelevant. The important thing is that I can smell a trick with my gut, but if I don't go and check it out in person... I'll never forgive myself. So I must get ready.

My daughter answered on the second ring.

"Anyuk? Hello, kiddo! How are you?"

"Dad! Hi, where are you from? Dad, we're fine. Lenka took second place in the city competitions, I'm doing great... No, Mom, it's not. Mom, that's mine! Mom, give it back!"

With a sigh and a wince, I listened.

On the phone, as usual, taking the phone from her daughter, yelled a woman.

Ex, damn, wife.

A gorgeous little provincial girl who had come to the capital and somehow, unnoticed, turned out to be my wife. Blond, big-eyed, not too beautiful, but very, very cute.

A real viper.

Who gave birth to my two daughters.

Before she kicked me out of my apartment and took over the business. Before the investigators got to it.

The older one, Anna, is thirteen. The youngest, Lena, is ten.

I see them once a month, because the mother, who married a promising businessman from the capital, believes that if a man at forty does not have a million, then he is not a man.

Which, however, does not prevent her from pulling money from me under any pretext.

Which, however, does not prevent me from not giving it, paying only the daughters' expenses.

In general, the usual story.

Listening to the shouts, I noted to myself - to buy the girls presents and congratulate Lenka, then I scratched the back of my head and cut in for another phrase:

"Elka, you white-haired cow! I'm going to Europe for a couple of weeks, on business..."

"What's the bandit up to now?! You're shipping stolen cars again, aren't you?!"

"You, stop yelling!"

"So, what do you want?"

Once again marveling at her ability to change volume instantly, I finished:

"Going somewhere to the north, some business suddenly appeared there. It's none of your business!"

She snorted noisily but remained silent. In addition to her bad temper, her wits, and her angelic appearance, Elia had an almost feline curiosity.

"When I get back, I'll take the girls for a week!"

"Where did you find the money? Did you finally steal from your beloved chief? It's about time, your little gang..."

I took the phone away from my ear again, not wanting to listen to the scandal-ridden woman. She would let the girls go. Just for the sake of questioning them thoroughly later, to confirm the "my ex is a deadbeat loser" thesis, but she would get on my nerves, I could tell.

Well, it was never boring.

Waiting for the final shriek, I turned off the phone and went into the closet.

After the divorce, all she gave me were two suitcases with clothes and some memorabilia. Pictures of my family that I had taken from the "home place" when I went to find happiness in the capital, souvenir trinkets, and other magnets. I still did not believe that I had escaped and did not bother about the rest. Later it was too late, and I did not want to get involved in the squabble. The strange thing was that neither Elka nor I thought, for some reason, that we had parted for good. I had intervened a couple of times when she was in trouble. She had been successfully expanding her business, probably doing better than I had, and when I had been hit by a car three years before, the first person I saw when I woke up was my ex-wife. She explained to me right away how stupid I was and that it was the right thing to do. It was as if she hadn't been sitting at the bedside for two days, hissing at the doctors.

But we didn't risk getting together for a long time. We'd fight again, scare our daughters. They were too young to understand that sometimes it can be useful to fight. Or do they already understand? Damn, Anna's thirteen...

The "Diploma of Barony," or whatever it was, was found quickly, in a folder of papers from my very first job, with a picture pinned to it with a rusty paperclip. It showed five young, adventurous, slightly drunken guys taking pictures against the Eiffel Tower. We just turned in another case and decided to take a ride, to see how people live. Everyone in the picture was desperately young and carefree - "Well, guys, come to think of it, we're in Paris! Oh, for fuck's sake! Geez!"

Dimka tried heroin for the first time three months later - he was in a hurry to live, pouring everything he earned into any available pleasure. Money and life were enough for three years. Vaska disappeared after five years. He just left in the morning for work and no one saw him again. Roma was stabbed in a fight - he liked to play tough, but he ran into even tougher guys. Mishka died on his own. A heart attack at the age of thirty-six. A month before the "mask show" came to visit me. It was just me and the Chief. He got his nickname not just because he was the most important, but from a cartoon about Vroongel. Small, arrogant to the point of amazement and without one finger.

After stroking the picture, I unfolded the parchment, fiddled with the seal. I took out von Schnittze's travel voucher, looked closely, comparing it. Yes, the seal was the same, with the same chips and irregularities. So the old man was telling the truth. Though what was the use of lying? What could you get out of me? Only liver and it is worn out by life. It is decided - I go!

The next day, having made sure that no one at work was glowing with happiness, deprived for a whole month (two is too much!) of my attention, by noon I escaped. By unscrewing the fuses, turning off the faucet, and giving the key to my neighbor. Judging by the intensity of her gaze, she didn't work in the library until her retirement, as she said, but worked in the prosecutor's office. I went to meet my... Is he really the seneschal? A castellan, perhaps? Or some other faintly familiar word? Shit, I need a cheat sheet so I don't look like an ignoramus. I don't know a thing about baronry, or nobility, for that matter. It's all right. I'll see what I can do.

The tickets were in economy class. I didn't expect anything different from von Schnitze. "Noble frugality," which turns into stinginess, is a common thing for natives of those places. Back home, I looked closely at the maps to find "my" castle. A small peninsula, if you lay trails across the sea from all the neighboring states - exactly the same distance will turn out... Well, if you don't count the Federation, they only have to pass through half a kilometer isthmus, and that's it, Eskenland.

I went there once, exactly once. And a fellow traveler, standing beside the ferry, explained that it was the most boring place in the region. There are only kilometer-wide tidal flats, dunes, and fields. If you believe the wiki, there are two castles on the peninsula - Gravstein, and Eskenborg. The other barons lived on the estates. We have another cottage cooperative much larger, and to the same - baronies! One word - Europe. Everything is small, stable, and has not changed for centuries, judging by my manager (who, by the way, turned out to be the most famous popularizer of the history of the Esk people, the autochthons of Eskenland).

* * *

"The history of the Esk people is as interesting as it is dramatic. The centuries of being under the heel of foreign conquerors and the unyielding desire for freedom and self-government have greatly influenced the national character, giving the Esks a peculiar view of life that has become known to all neighbors."

Egelbert von Schnitze "History of Eskenland"

"That's right, there are a lot of jokes about them."

Commentary with a pen in the margin.

* * *