"Oh, I'm not disappointed," I said. "Intrigued, maybe."
He studied me for a moment, then stepped back from the doorway. "Come in, if you want," he said.
I didn't have anything better to do just then, so I followed him in. The room didn't smell much better during the day, with its windows boarded shut. It was lit by two small oil lamps. He indicated a cushion on the floor. I sat down. He brought in an Eastern wine that was mostly water and slopped some into chipped porcelain cups, then sat facing me. He said, "I intrigue you, you say. Because I don't seem to fear you."
"You have an unusual disposition."
"For a Teckla."
I nodded.
We sipped our wine for a while, the Teckla looking off into space while I studied him. Then he started talking. I listened to what he said, becoming more and more intrigued as he spoke. I don't know that I understand all of it, but I'll give it to you as I remember it and you can decide for yourself.
You're titled, aren't you? Baron, isn't it? Baronet, then. All right. It doesn't really matter to you, I know. We both know what Jhereg titles are worth; I daresay you know to the nearest copper penny. The Orca do care; they make certain that orders of nobility are given or withdrawn whenever it's proper, so the quartermaster is of a higher rank than the bosun, yet lower than the mate. You didn't know that, did you? But I've heard of a case where an Orca was stripped of her county, granted a barony, stripped of that, given a duchy, then another county, then stripped of both and given her original county back, all within the same forenoon. A bookkeeping error, I was told.
But, do you know, none of those counties or duchies really existed. There are other Houses like that, too.
In the House of the Chreotha, titles are strictly hereditary, and lifelong unless something unusual happens, but there, too, they are not associated with any land.
But you have a baronetcy, and it is real. Have you ever been there? I can see by the look on your face that it never occurred to you to visit it. How many families live in your dominion, Baronet Taltos? That's all? Four? Yet it has never occurred to you to visit them.
I'm not surprised. Jhereg think that way. Your domain is within some nameless barony, possibly empty, and that within a county, maybe also empty, and that within a duchy. Of what House is your Duke, Baronet? Is he a Jhereg, also? You don't know? That doesn't surprise me, either.
What am I getting at? Just this: Of all the "Noble Houses"—which means every House except my own—there are only a few which contain any of the aristocracy, and then only a few of that House. Most of those in the House of the Lyorn are Knights, because only the Lyorns continue to treat titles as they were when first created, and Knight is a title that has no land associated with it. Have you thought of that, most noble Jhereg? These titles were associated with holdings. Military holdings, at first, which is why most of the domains around here are those of Dragonlords; this was once the Eastern edge of the Empire, and Dragons have always been the best military leaders.
My master was a Dzurlord. Her great-grandfather had earned the title of Baron during the Elde Island wars. My master had distinguished herself before the Interregnum during some war with the East. She was old, but still healthy enough to go charging off to do one thing or another. She was rarely at home, yet she was not unkind. She did not forbid her Teckla to read, as many do, and I was fortunate enough to be taught at an early age, though there was little enough reading matter to be found.
I had an older sister and two younger brothers. Our fee, for our thirty acres, was one hundred bushels of wheat or sixty bushels of corn, our choice. It was steep, but rarely above our means, and our master was understanding during lean years. Our closest neighbor to the west paid one hundred and fifty bushels of wheat for twenty-eight acres, so we counted ourselves lucky and helped him when he needed it. Our neighbor to the north had thirty-five acres, and he owed two gold Imperials, but we saw little of him so I don't know how hard or easy his lot was.
When I reached my sixtieth year I was granted twenty acres a few miles south of where my family lived. All of the neighbors came and helped me clear the land and put up my home, which I made large enough for the family I hoped to have someday. In exchange, I had to send to my master four young kethna every year, so by necessity I raised corn to feed them.
After twenty years I had paid back, in kind, the loans of kethna and seedlings that had gotten me started, and I thought myself well off—especially as I'd gotten used to the stench of a kethna farm. More, there was a woman I'd met in Blackwater who still lived at home, and there was, I think, something between us.
It was on an evening late in the spring of my twenty-first year on my own that I heard sounds far to the south. Cracking sounds, as a tree will make when it begins to topple, but far, far louder. That night, I saw red flames to the south. I stood outside of my house to watch, and I wondered.
After an hour, the flames filled the sky, and the sounds were louder. Then came the greatest yet. I was, for a moment, blinded by a sudden glare. When the spots cleared from my eyes I saw what seemed to be a sheet of red and yellow fire hanging over my head, as if it were about to descend on me. I think I screamed in terror and ran for my house. By the time I was inside the sheet had descended, and all of my lands were burning, and my house as well, and that was when I looked fully upon death. It seemed to me then, Lord Taltos, that I had not had enough of a life for it to end that way. I called upon Barlan, he of the Green Scales, but he had, I guess, other calls to make. I called upon Trout, but he brought me no water to dampen the flames. I even asked Kelchor, Goddess of the cat-centaurs, to carry me from that place, and my answer was smoke that choked me and sparks that singed my hair and eyebrows and a creaking, splintering groan as part of the house fell in.
Then I thought of my springhouse. I made it out the door and somehow lived through the flames that, my memory tells me, reached taller than I, and made it there. It was built of stone, of course, for the dampness would have rotted timber, so it still stood. I was badly burned, but I made it into the stream.
I lay there trembling for what must have been the whole night and into the day. The water was warm, even hot, but still cooler than the air around it. I fell asleep in that stream, and when I awoke—well, I will not try to describe the desolation around me. It was only then, I am ashamed to say, that I thought of my livestock, who had died during the night as I nearly had. But there was nothing to be done for them now.
And what did I do then, Baronet? Laugh if you will, but my first thought was that I could not pay my master for the year, and must go throw myself on her mercy. Surely, I thought, she would understand. So I began to walk toward her keep—southward.
Ah! I see that you have thought it out. So did I, as I began to take my first steps. Southward was where her castle stood, and southward was the origin of the flames. I stopped and considered for some time, but eventually I continued, for I had nowhere else to go.
It was many miles, and all I saw around me as I walked were burnt-out homes and charred ground, and blackened woods that had never been cleared, until now. Not another soul did I see during the entire journey. I came to the place where I had been born and had lived most of my life, and I saw what was left.
I performed the rites as best I could for them, and I think I was too numb to realize what it meant. When I had finished I continued my journey, sleeping in an empty field, warmed by the ground itself, which still felt the heat from the scorching it had endured.
I came to the keep and, to my surprise, it seemed unharmed. Yet the gate was closed, and no one answered my calls. I waited outside for minutes, hours, finally the whole day and that night. I was ravenously hungry and called out from time to time, but no one answered.