“His highness is most gracious to say so,” Sigorne remarked. “But quickly now. We must get you inside before…”
“–Shiraazz!–”
“Uhm, before that?” Ranma asked, pointing back to the decrepit skeleton emerging from the ruins across the street. It managed to get three paces before a crossbow bolt pierced the skull. The rest of the bones clattered to the pavement in a pile of dust. However, it did not come to the party alone.
“Why, yes,” Sigorne admitted as she urged him behind the screen of archers. “Come along, now. The streets are not safe at night.”
“Awe. But I want to wan…” Ranma began to protest, then sniffed. “Is that roast meat?”
“Indeed, we have a fine roast beast waiting,” Sigorne agreed, more than a little peeved, as skeletons emerged and fell under a rain of quarrels, but continued to skitter across the road. “Move along now, young male. This is no time to dawdle. … Loth's grasp !”
Sigorne had cried out at a skittering of skeletons that had made it through the volley fire; then her rod sprayed them with webs full of spectral spiders. She turned on Ranma and pointed imperiously with her silver-tipped rod. “Inside the mansion’s wards, now, Your Highness! I will not loose you to such vermin on the very first night!”
“Er, yes,” Ranma decided, yielding to her insistent pressure. He looked over his shoulder as the last of the skeletons crumbled in the web’s tight embrace. “Uhm, and nice technique.” Very freaky, with the spooky creepies and crawlies—but strangely effective none the less! He wondered if he could learn something like that.
“So… does this happen often? Ranma asked, listening to the sound of crossbows thrumming, swords clashing, and bone crunching. So much violence and horror! He really wished he could be out there.
“Why, reasonably often,” Sigorne admitted. “Well, not usually this much. We’ve been cleaning out the undead steadily since settling in. They must have been stirred up by … well, you know who. Don’t worry about them; the bane wardings on this mansion are quite secure — the shan’t be breaking in.”
Ranma sighed regretfully. So much for hope of a little action. Still, as if compensation, there was that delicious aroma leading his nose inside; so he decided to follow where it beckoned. “Let’s eat!”
“So we shall, Your Highness. But first…”—she sniffed pointedly—“… a bath, I think … and also a change of clothes into something more suitable.” She picked daintily at his gi, and sighed an ‘I shall have my work cut out with this one’ kind of sigh.
“Awe, man!” little Ranma complained with all the eagerness of a puppy approaching a bath.
“I can wash myself, you know,” Ranma protested.
“Mmmm? Why, of course you can, Your Highness,” one of the bath attendants agreed, without any sign of stopping. Not in the slightest. Later he would reflect that for people who had lived their whole life underground, his drow had a surprising mania for cleanliness.
Ranma sighed as his hair was soaped by one woman, with another trimming his nails, and his feet being annointed with scented oils by a third. Not only had they stripped him of dignity along with his clothes, they were going about it all wrong! They insisted on scrubbing him off while sitting in the tub of soap lathered water, instead of properly washing off the dirt then soaking in clean water. It was just not right.
He eyed the clothes waiting for him with displeasure. They had had to scramble to find something to fit, since they had apparently been expecting someone older, but they had managed to resize something they considered suitable. He wished they had not; it was all frills and lace, with pantaloon tights. He would much rather his old gi than that, thank you very much!
But there it was, and that was that. From the way his gi had been gingerly carried out, he rather expected it would have been destined for a bonfire rather than the laundry, if he had not spoken up that he would need it for practice. He was not really sure he had saved it at that; for all that they were bowing and scrapping and calling him ‘your highness’, his dark hand maidens left no doubt as to whom they considered to be in charge.
“Stop squirming, young… Your Highness,” advised the attendant as she started scrubbing behind his ears. “Sooner done, sooner gone.”
“Awright,” he squeaked by way of muffled reply It wasn’t that he was surrendering. He would have protested more, if it had not been for that tantalizing smell of roast beast managing to waft through the cloying stench of the scented candles. He could only hope that it lived up to it’s promise.
The feast waiting in the dinning hall at least lived up to his expectations, and then some! You could not fault them for skimping on the food bill. A feast they promised and a feast they delivered. Very strange dishes, a sort of western style food but odd even for that, but plenty of it.
The only problem was Sigorne was taking her position as Governess seriously, and was not shy about rapping him over the knuckles over what she considered proper table manners. Which meant things like: cutting the food into tiny bits before taking an ever–so–dainty bite, instead of just shoveling it into his mouth then trimming off the bits that didn’t fit.
Such a bother. What was the point of cooking food in such large portions if you had to cut it up before eating anyway?
“Chew twenty times before swallowing, Your Highness,” Sigorne whispered sharply, he hand placed pointedly on her spider rod.
Ranma sighed, and chewed his meat –again–; this time with exaggerated slowness so she could see. He had to admit, though, that whatever the roast beast was, it was tender and juicy.
“You see, it is so much better when you savoir your rat.”
Damn, he hated that she was riight— “Rat? This is rat?”
“Of course, there’s plenty of good eating on a dire rat; once properly prepared. Is that a problem?”
“Nah! I’ve had rat before, but … it’s a big rat.” He eyed the remains of the roast platter speculatively. He had thought that it was a roast boar or something!
“Oh, descent of you to say so; though it’s but a fair to middling size, Your Highness,” Sigorne responded. “Don’t worry though; the kobolds do promise to raise a decent pack once we clear out the sewers.”
“Uhn, kovolts?… Og riff.” They were the small lizard folk, he recalled. Nervous, shifty looking fellows. But he supposed that if he was such wee folk among so many he would be a mite on the cautious side too.
“Do not talk with your mouth full,” she reminded him, with a knuckle rap.
Ouch!
Sigorne had style; she had flair; she had an hard, iron rod. That was how she became the governess.
Sigorne had introduced him to several guests. Besides the drow that were to be his retinue, there were several others in attendance to represent their people. People and things; but the things were also people.
There were names to the faces, but Ranma was not able to place them afterwards. There was too much newness to absorb at the time; too many new species to sort out little details like individuals. That would come much later.
For then it was enough to learn that he was to be raised to lead such a disparate collection of refugees and forge a unified kingdom. Somehow keeping everyone from murdering each other in the meantime, apparently.
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(Posted Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:58)
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