4.1

Having her own home felt different.

The halls were all made to suit her size, and in that respect they resembled the Eyrie in its proportions. The workers laying the stones had muttered and complained how every hall of the manor was wide and tall enough to race horses through.

The sheer space of it meant the manor and its solid stones would also make for a good keep in case of siege, although it lacked the tall defensible walls and courtyards of Rochford.

Besides the passages, bedchamber, study/weaving room, bathing room, kitchen, cellars and feasting hall sized to Jewel’s comfort, there had also been twenty smaller chambers made to house staff and guests.

Although by any sensible reckoning it was only equipped with the two floors, Jewel’s manor resembled one sprawling with four floors. That however was only because Jewel’s bedchambers, study and bathing room were set higher by the necessity of the hillside the manor had been built into.

Meanwhile the feasting hall, kitchens, staff and guest chambers were settled further down the hill, with the cellars and well under them.

All told, the manor had almost the same scale of interiors as two of the wings of Rochford’s keep.

And standing in it now, it seemed a wonder that so much could have been made in only three years.

Even with the hands of almost half of Rochford involved in its construction.

And Jewel had filled it with her ‘staff and household’. With room to spare for the eventual inclusion of her betrothed and his own staff.

Muriel had a room to herself and would be sleeping there even after the barracks and stables were completed in the coming years.

As did Smithson, her Squire, Master of Horse and eventual knight.

Then there was Hożanka’s third son Dariusz.

He had taken up her offer as master over her kitchen and the cooking staff as a freeman. He’d joined the household with his wife Eryka who was now taking up a position with him on the staff seeing to the cleaning and upkeep of the manor.

Jewel, via ‘Gem’, was also becoming acquainted with their four children.

The younger three, Jewel was still struggling with the names - ‘Gem’ mostly thought of them as the smaller one, the just-her-size one and the bit-taller one.

The eldest of them at thirteen winters was Cibor.

He already labored well in the kitchen with his Father and Mother, but seemed ill at ease around ‘Gem’.

But it was not like he was required to interact with her overmuch.

Jewel had her squire for that.

Smithson had gotten the less than flattering cognomen of the ‘nurse knight’ amongst the village already for his doting on ‘Gem’, but Jewel heard a fondness in their tone. And she appreciated the service he offered her in calming the erratic tumult of her smaller self’s emotions too much to ask him to stop.

It’s not as if Jewel’s own unofficial title of ‘the kinder-guard-dragon’ was much better. At least Adorján thought it was suitable that the both of them made a pair like that - and it apparently was easing the tension and fear she had brought with her assumption of the demesne as lady over Valasect

She probably should introduce her ‘daughter’ to the children of the village when she was next called to watch them.

After that, staff were two girls who once worked the Rochford Kitchens and then?

Well, there was only so much staff Jewel could in good conscience take from Rochford, and although they had tried, Adorján had yet to find anyone willing to take up residence in the manor itself when their family home was just down the road in Valasect.

Jewel had not yet even found anyone to lead the staff in her manor, or see to the arrangements of which peasants would spend their obligation of service to her in cleaning and upkeep rather than to toil in the fields.

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Perhaps now that she was settled in, the offer of hot water for baths scented in lavender might entice more?

It was yet difficult to speak directly with anyone in Valasect in person save Adorján. Nevermind the still-lingering trepidation and fear - Jewel was yet having to see to the settling of all her affairs and stewardship.

The procurement of firewood (and for more than just her own bathing).

And seeing that the stores of grain, meat, cheese, honey and other food were maintained and filled to Dariusz and his far more critical wife’s specifications.

And the tracking and accounting of pay and obligation towards the one freeman, two free women and one squire of what Jewel was finding to be very dubious and hard-to-settle status regarding accounting.

And the assurance that her shares of harvest would either be put to her granary or otherwise stored as-is or arranged for sale (usually to her father or sir Kroak so far) for spending silver.

And That the accounting of that silver was properly parceled into a correct and separate coffer just in case she wished or needed to spend a tithe to her father (and from him the Countess Bathory) for the next two years to hold off on an obligation for war.

And that was just the stewardship and accounting for her manor!

Jewel’s demesne then had its own concerns, such as the inevitable shearing of wool when the shepherds came down from the high pastures with their veritable floods of wooly sheep.

Rochford’s immediate demesne had their own sheep, but Valasect’s place on a gentler incline made it the preferred place for the long absent highland Shepherds to have their winter homes.

Apparently this was in fact where most of the cheese that sat in Father’s reserve was actually made.

And where a good portion of the wool Jewel had been spinning came from.

As a town, Valasect could double in the number of men and women living within it over winter. And absolutely fill to bursting with the sheep folds besides.

And all of that was now Jewel’s responsibility!

It was all utterly crowding into every waking hour of the day! And Jewel was obligated to see to all of it!

Thus, Smithson was a star-sent blessing! Even with his ‘duty’ to seeing to ‘Gem’ and her care, Jewel’s squire assisted her in any way he could. Mostly speaking to the people in the village on her behalf. Trying to find those of the character and means to fill out the roles that Jewel had not yet found for herself, and ferrying messages.

He was taking to all the new responsibility in her service with the same steadfast dedication he had once set the buckles of her harness or unwrapped her rations on the road.

Which was why it was rather disturbing to see him entering her study like the Marzanna herself had descended from the black sky of winter to curse him personally.

Jewel looked over to her pale, haunted squire with some concern.

“Smithson... are you alright?”

The boy, who really was much more of a man by this point, looked disconcertingly like Jewel had felt after the war. Shocked and not all together in command of himself.

Shaken loose of his foundations in the world he knew.

It was a disquieting thing to see in her normally bright and dutiful squire.

“I don’t think I am, Lady Jewel.”

The worry bloomed into genuine fear and concern as Jewel moved to check her friend for injuries, but his leather maile was freshly shined, not a drop of blood was on him and even when she patted him down there was no reflexive winces of bruises or broken bones.

But even with her fussing over him like he did ‘Gem’, Smithson did not fully break from that shocked stare ahead of him.

Her concern bled into her voice.

“Smithson, my squire, my friend, please tell me what happened?”

He finally broke from vacant shock and looked up at her, and there were tears in his eyes, barely holding back and the thought that this boy was more properly a man fell away like water.

Yes, he had a scruff of beard to his chin and was no longer soft-faced like a child.

But those haunted eyes were every bit the stable boy that had attended her most of her life.

“I’m sorry, my Lady...”

Jewel hushed him.

“Smithson, whatever it is, please just tell me. I swear I will keep it in confidence. But you have to tell me what happened to see you in this state.”

He hiccuped and nodded, struggling with himself to even admit whatever horrible thing had occurred.

But when he finally mustered the words Jewel was left utterly stunned.

“I lost an argument with a cow.”