Chapter Five: Foreplay and Byplay
Shingles Manor, Wensleydale, October, 2019 (immediately following)

In the stillness, in the all-encompassing darkness, only one sense out of five could help me.

So, yeah, I copped a feel.

And, sure enough, the flesh I encountered, everywhere on my body, was firm, female, and, errrr, sensitive. I mean, like, really sensitive. Like “sensitive as a semanticist in a seminal seminar on patriarchy.” Wow! The least touch, the barest motion of silk against skin, caused ripples and waves of . . . .

Okay, Weej. Get a grip!!!

It took all of my willpower, and probably more besides, to sit down on the bed without simply collapsing. I plunged my wandering hands firmly into some handy bear skins. Or whatever the hell they were. Into a nearby animal skin, and it’s . . . .

“Much better, don’t you think?” Holweard’s voice was low and lazy, a whisper just behind my right ear. I could feel his warm breath on my cheek.

When I spun to clock him, I came up empty.

“Now, now,” his voice purred – from a completely different direction – “behave!”

“Why should I?” My voice was as silky smooth as the gown, high and warm. It should have sounded panicked. Or maybe furious. It . . . didn’t.

“Because I wish it.” By my left ear, this time.

I felt a feather-light touch where my collar-bone met my neck, and shivered.

“I desire it.” Another touch.

My mind seemed to be freezing up, just as my body grew warmer. I tried to come up with a stinging retort, but only managed, “Ungggh . . . .”

“Yes, ‘ungggh’ indeed,” he chuckled. “And there are things you want, too. Things you desire. Aren’t there, little one?”

Little one? I felt a finger move slowly, inexorably, down the decolletage of the gown, the flesh underneath turning to flame. “Uhhh . . . . huh . . . .” My voice sounded dreamy.

The exploring finger was joined by its mates, cupping my breast and causing my breath to catch. “So perhaps we can be of service to each other, don’t you think?” Soft lips brushed my neck.

His question echoed in the empty, cavernous space that used to house my hyperactive brain. Don’t you think? Well, sure. Of course I thought. Usually I couldn’t stop thinking, in fact. I had cogent arguments with non-existent people when I was forking asleep, for God’s sake. “Don’t I think?” I asked softly, surprised that sound came from my lips. My full, moist, hungry lips. Lips that wanted . . . . Stop that!!!

“Yes,” he murmured. Another gentle kiss to the neck.

I had a sudden vivid image of vampire canines growing from Holweard’s jaw and shivered again, somewhat more violently. Weej! Think!!!

Well, that just wasn’t going to happen. The hormones held the high ground in their battle with the mind, and they fought dirty. Filthy dirty! But, maybe . . . .

With a supreme effort, I lurched to my feet, grabbed the skirt and whipped the gown back over my head, panting. The panting, at least, sounded like me. I thought I’d give it another try. “No.” Definitely my voice. “We’re going to talk, Colonel. Before anything else happens!”

His chuckle came from a distance this time. “Oh, if you insist. Talk, talk, talk, you Littons. It’s a wonder you managed to survive, all these centuries. Or at least, to reproduce.”

I carefully – almost reverently – lay the gown back on the bed, giving the silk a last, loving touch before searching about with groping hands until I found the heavy wool bathrobe I’d worn on my descent. After confirming OEM factory settings had been restored on my external plumbing, I belted up and sat a few feet from where I’d placed the gown. “You could turn the lights back on,” I complained.

“I could,” he agreed. “Though why I should escapes me. I don’t have any trouble seeing you, after all.”

I chewed on that. “Well . . . you did mention that you want something from me. So, there’s that.”

“Are you offering?”

“I don’t even know what the deal is. I’m not offering diddly until I do.”

“I could provide diddly,” he suggested, suggestively. “Without charge, even. A little bonus.”

“Lights, Colonel!”

“Oh, very well. Dreadful boy.” And just like that, I could see him, back in his bearskin robe in the big chair I had been unable to find when I went hunting, intent on throttling him. I, on the other hand, remained in darkness.

I collected my thoughts, pleased that they once again seemed amenable to an old-fashioned round-up. Yee haw. “Okay, like I said. Not from ‘round here, so I’ll need this in penny packets. What’s a ‘Holweard’?”

“What’s a ‘Luigi?’” he countered.

“Huh? Oh . . . so Holweard is your name.”

“There may be hope for you after all. I was beginning to wonder. Yes. My name is Holweard.”

“Okay. Cool. But ‘Luigi’ is the name of a person. What are you?”

“I’m a sprite.”

“Really? I’ve always been more of a Seven-Up guy myself. Father ruined me on Coke products.”

“Gods! This conversation is going to be excruciating.”

“Roger that, big guy. Feel your pain and all. But if you aren’t referring to a fizzy drink that’s ‘naturally tart and not so sweet,’ what the eff are you talking about?”

“Luigi. Concentrate. Surely your upbringing was not so impoverished that you haven’t heard of sprites. Pixies. Imps. Fairies.”

“Oh, right, right,” I said, once again accessing the part of the brain where I stored random and useless scraps information that got woven into the backstories of games. “And dryads, naiads, nymphs. Okay. Gotcha. So, you’re some kind of fairy?”

“You should talk,” he snarked. “No, I’m a sprite. I told you that.”

“Alright already. I’m tracking,” I said, allowing my annoyance to show. “So what does a sprite, you know, do?”

“What does a human do? Apart from sleep, procreate, and turn food into excrement?” He waved impatiently to cut off my response. “It depends on the sprite. Puck, to take one prominent example, was ambitious. He thought he could look after all of Britain, poor sod. I was always more sensible. I have been the sprite of this hollow since the world was young.”

“I hate to break it to you, but this is a hill.”

“It wasn’t, back when the world was young.”

“You say.”

“Well, I was there.”

“And you just go on living, like, forever?”

“Not . . . exactly. We need mana, like you need food.”

I did another dumpster dive into my memory banks. “Like, Moses in the desert stuff?”

“No. It’s simply power, I suppose. Energy.”

“Okay, I guess I get that. Like collecting Dragon Energy Balls in that game from Second Empire Apps, right?”

“Don’t start.” He looked like he’d sucked a grapefruit.

“Just trying to find a common point of reference here.”

“A commendable endeavor in which, I am sad to say, you are failing utterly.”

“Damn. You really need to get out some. So, let me try it this way. How do you get ‘mana?’”

“Different ways,” he hedged. “Sacrifices, mostly.”

Woa, Nellie! “Seriously? Like throwing first-born babies into the fiery pit of Ba’al?”

“Don’t be absurd. No-one’s done that in forever! Or, a very long time, anyway. Never cared for it myself, though I gather Inti swore by it.”

“Who?”

“Sun god. Incan variety, you understand. Foreign sort.”

“Yeah, well. We haven’t met.”

“We weren’t looking to move the earth out of its orbit or anything. Nothing that would require quite so much mana. We didn’t need more than occasional chickens, geese, foxes.” He closed his eyes, smiling. “The smell of ritual sacrifice in the morning . . . ! Ah, it was a marvelous thing!”

“Not so great for the foxes, I’m guessing.”

“Have you ever spoken to a fox?”

“Do I look like Doctor Doolittle?” I countered.

“No idea. Do you?”

“That would be ‘no.’”

“Well, I don’t know how foxes ever got a reputation for being any sort of clever. They make peers of the realm sound both sagacious and succinct, I assure you. I never felt the least pang.”

I thought about it for a bit. There seemed to be a sense to what he was saying, but I wasn’t understanding the mana . . . economy, for want of a better word. “How do you get people to sacrifice chickens and shit?”

“Be serious! You can’t generate mana by burning manure. What an idiotic notion!”

“Lighten up, dude, it’s a figure of speech! And not for nothing, but you are asking me to ‘be serious’ about ritual sacrifice. Know what I’m saying?”

“Not remotely.”

I rubbed my temples. “Okay. Let me try to get back on track. If I may rephrase, just exactly how do you convince people to kill and burn animals so that you obtain . . . whatever it is that you obtain.”

“You do things for them, obviously. Small things, for the most part. Smile on the harvest. Turn the eyes of a handsome man. Get the cow to stop its endless philosophizing and generate milk.”

“Cows philosophize?”

“Of course. They certainly haven’t anything better to do.”

I could follow the cows down their own rabbit hole, of course – it’s how my brain always works, and I share Gary Larson’s view of just how funny cows really are – but I pulled myself back from the brink. “So you can do magic?”

He shrugged. “Magic? You might call it that. For me, it’s just a matter of using my natural powers, and that requires mana.”

“I’m thinking you probably need to make sure the sacrifices generate more mana than the favor requires you to spend, right?”

“We are required to run a positive net balance in the aggregate, yes. Else we fade away. Become mere mortals. It’s happened to most of us, over the centuries. Even Puck, though I think that was just heartbreak, really.”

I didn’t want to get distracted . . . I wasn’t going to be distracted! I was going to . . .

Screw it. Can’t pass this one up! “Okay. Fine. You got me. Why was Puck heartbroken?”

“Well, he was trying to look after all of Britain, as I said. But he kept getting diverted by one silliness or another. Usually female, if you take my meaning. Then he’d look up and discover that the place had gone to hell while he was otherwise occupied. Thought he had young Godwinson settled once he took care of Hardrada, for instance, so he ambled off for a little tryst, and came back to find Normans all over the place. Frenchmen, you understand. Same thing with the Wars of the Roses.”

“There were Frenchmen?”

“Oh, heavens, Luigi, of course there were Frenchmen. Henry Tudor wasn’t English. Henry V’s French widow took a fancy to a passing Welshman. As one does, I suppose. Anyhow, the rest is history.”

“Got it. Sorry. Couldn’t resist. So Puck gave up because of the Tudors?”

“No, no. He muddled through that. He even made it through the Scots, and that was far worse. But when he settled in for a charming little threesome down in Devonshire and we ended up with Germans on the throne, the poor fellow just gave up.”

“Yeah, I guess I can see that. But, ah . . . Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was kind of under the impression people weren’t doing the whole ‘burnt offerings’ thing anymore. Right?”

“You’d be surprised at how long we managed to keep it going, really. Invaders would come, and they’d bring their own gods, naturally. The Romans, the Norsemen. We all generally got along. We’d keep our little shrines, and pay their gods a bit of mana. Or they’d put up a shrine where we were, but they’d cut us in.”

“Sounds like a protection racket.”

He smiled like a T-Rex. “Just business, young Luigi.” But his smile faded. “Things got complicated when the Christians washed up. That whole ‘your God is a jealous God’ business was not an exaggeration.”

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” I quoted.

“Which would have been perfectly fine,” he said, sounding testy. “No one was looking to go before Him, you know. We were quite content with ‘a little behind, and off to the side,’ if you take my meaning.”

“But no dice, huh?”

He looked momentarily puzzled at the expression, then nodded. “No deals, no cuts. When they built churches right on our nodes, we could usually siphon off enough mana to at least survive, though, so long as we were discreet. Their services aren’t old-style, but they do generate mana.”

“Sounds like what we call ‘theft of services’ in the cable industry.”

He looked pained. “Quite. But of course, even those sources of mana are drying up now. It’s a secular age.”

“So, curtains for those of you who stuck it out?”

“Nonsense, young man! Such defeatism! One just has to get inventive, that’s all. I haven’t relied on burnt offerings in ages.” He looked insufferably pleased with himself.

“What about incense?”

“What about it?”

“Are you gonna tell me that you don’t inhale?”

“One can scarcely not.”

“Tell me about it. Or maybe you don’t enjoy it?”

My snide reference went over his head. “A minor power boost. Barely worth the mention, really, and certainly insufficient.”

I decided to try being noncommittal. “Uh huh.”

“Come on, scamp. Admit you’re interested.”

“I’m almost fifty . . . hardly a ‘scamp!’”

He raised an eyebrow, wordlessly reminding me that my comment was about as absurd as . . . I don’t know. Bilbo Baggins boasting about his 111th birthday to Gandalf. Whatever. “Okay, fine. Count me as curious. But don’t read too much into that – I’m curious about everything.”

“Well, it’s actually a fascinating tale.”

I groaned internally. He sounded like a teenager who wanted to explain something earth-shatteringly clever that he’d been the very first to discover, like sexual intercourse. I could be asleep right now. In a charming inn.

“You see,” he continued in much the same tone, “I got along famously with the Norsemen when they showed up – part of the reason I was so annoyed with Puck over that whole business with Hardrada. Such a fine, sensible, people. Pragmatic, you know? Transactional view of the world.”

“Yuppers. Got it. And?”

He looked annoyed at the interruption. “Well. A bunch of Danes put a shrine to Freyia right by my hollow and started just pouring mana into it. Lots of lovely sacrifices. Sheep and cattle for the most part. Stolen, naturally, which is why they were so anxious for the favor of the gods.”

“They do sound like an upstanding bunch.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge. Anyhow, Freyia eventually made an appearance and we worked out an arrangement. She let me run the shrine, and I would designate one of the religious sorts to stand in for the Goddess for the fertility rights.”

“I’m sorry, what? You lost me.”

“The fertility rights. Surely you know, Freyia was the goddess of fertility.”

“I . . . uh. Haven’t done a deep dive on the Norse pantheon.”

“Pity, that. Freyia was an absolute peach. Had a chariot pulled by cats, if you can believe it. But the whole thing was grand, you know. Norns. Wolves and serpents. Mischievous squirrels! They were a wild lot.”

Okay, now we were really leaving the reservation. I prevented my brain from doing a Look! Mischievous squirrel! and endeavored to bring the Sprite back to the matter at hand. “You were saying?”

“Right. Well. Freyia and I cooked up a little ritual where whatever religious chap was nominally in charge of the shrine would assume her image for the fertility rights at the major festivals, while I, of course – being Holweard of Holweard’s Hollow – would do the honors on the male side. Generated plenty of mana for my operations, Freyia was pleased with her share, and the religious fellows always agreed – or they were replaced.”

“Convenient.”

“Judgy, Judgy. You haven’t engaged in any sharp practices in your business affairs? Put people in a position where they felt compelled to do what you might want, as opposed to following their own desires?”

“No! Well . . . mostly ‘no.’ I think. I mean . . . .”

“No? I think? I mean?” He gave me a knowing look. “Really, Luigi. I think I know what you mean.”

“Alright, already! I get the general picture. But the Norse haven’t been here in centuries, right?”

“A thousand years,” he sighed. “Such a shame. Good times.”

“The Vikings were ‘good times?’”

“Certainly — if you were a Viking,” he smirked. “Although they weren’t, actually. Vikings, that is. They just went a-Viking. The rest of the time they were farmers, like everybody else. Almost as tedious as foxes, farmers.”

I opened my mouth to argue and shut it. Focus, Weeji! “Okay, fine. Whatever. But they’re gone, so . . . no more visits from your girlfriend the fertility goddess, right?”

He nodded. “No more visits. But that just required me to improvise, as I said. With a few modifications, I was able to use the same basic elements to generate mana from the new, nominal masters of the shrine. Turns out that monks have the same ambitions as laymen, and I could always find one eager enough for the abbot’s chair to, shall we say, do homage for it.”

“Shut up! You seduced monks?”

“We made mutually agreeable arrangements,” he huffed. “The seduction only happened later. You know, to ‘seal the deal,’ as it were.”

I might not have the highest opinion of clergy, especially after they spent significant portions of the day trying to poison me with their horrid smoke. But still! “Alright, spell this out for me. What did you do for the corrupt monks, and what did they have to do in return?”

He gave me a long look, then shrugged. “Simple, really. I rigged the election for the monk who was willing to pay for it. He assumed Freyia’s form by donning the garment she had left with me, and submitted to my, ah, mastery.”

“None of the other monks said anything when the new abbot suddenly looked like the medieval equivalent of a pin-up girl?” My mind served up an image of Marilyn Monroe, rendered in stained glass. Color me skeptical.

“I expect even the unworldly monks would have noticed that. But no. The initiation rite simply had to be performed once before investiture. The lucky monk was his usual charming self in the morning.”

“And that one ceremony generated enough mana to keep you going?”

“Nooooooo. The arrangement was a bit more involved than that. The ritual was repeated once each calendar year, though the renewals naturally weren’t as powerful. But in exchange, I did provide continuing services. The usual, you know. Health and harvest sort of things.”

“No-one ever recanted?”

“Now and then. But without my assistance, things tended to get run-down, you know. Monks would get nostalgic for the old days and wonder if God had turned his face from them. Before long, it was nothing but grumble, grumble. Letters get written to higher-ups.” He waved his arms spaciously. “And then, well. New elections.”

I thought about everything he had said, and the pieces started to fall into place. Freyia. The monks. And, of course . . . . “So, when King Henry seized the abbey and gave it to my family, you just adapted the same formula, didn’t you?”

“More or less. No elections to rig anymore, which rather spoiled my fun. That was such good sport! But I’d known the Littons for centuries already. Plenty of their younger sons wanted to be abbots, being so close to the family seat and all. It was relatively simple to adapt the rituals.”

“And they just . . . submitted?”

“It was always their choice. If they wanted to be Lord Litton – or Viscount Chingleput, when I got them a convenient upgrade – there were things they had to do. They held their lands and titles from the King; they had to pay homage to him for it. But no-one rules in Holweard’s Hollow without also paying homage to me!”

Okay. Lots to unpack here. But . . . oooh, I can’t resist the squirrel! “You were responsible for them becoming viscounts?”

“That? Oh yes. I was there when Cumberland lost that card game to Winnie Litton.”

“You cheated at cards?”

“Nothing so sordid!” He sounded genuinely offended. “I just removed the alcohol content from Winnie’s drinks, so that he played sober for once.”

“And Cumberland didn’t?”

“Dear gods, no! He had frightful brandy breath before breakfast most days. A meal he tended to eat mid-afternoon, which is about when he got his ample Hanoverian posterior out of his poster bed.”

Okay . . . stop now, Weej! Stay on target. “So . . . ummm. Look, all the King requires for fealty is that you swear some oaths. It’s not the same, you know.”

He swatted my objection away. “Those oaths weren’t insignificant back in the day. Any number of your ancestors had to raise troops and fight when the king called in those obligations.”

“Yeah, well. Sure. But they didn’t have to sleep with some old guy!”

“Their loss, if they didn’t. I’ve had a few millennia to perfect my technique.”

I tried to repress my body’s instinctive shiver at the reminder. Yeah, he was pretty slick! But I didn’t want to talk about that. “Did any of them . . . you know . . . say ‘no?’”

“Very few. I’m quite persuasive.” He leered at me.

“Letch!”

“I prefer to think of myself as a connoisseur.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

“Besides . . . You are confusing accidents for substance. I am Holweard of Holweard’s Hollow. That is real. The form is immaterial.” And just like that, sitting in the big chair, sardonic smile lighting his features, was . . . .”

“George Deavers!”

He stood and executed an exaggerated bow. “In the flesh . . . as it were.” Striking a pose, he added, “though perhaps, with your mixed background, you might prefer something with a more Mediterranean aspect.” His shape changed again.

I couldn’t place him. But an old memory was tickling the back of my brain . , . .

“All of Italy’s great,” he said, with a completely flawless American accent. “And your Mom’s lasagna’s awesome!”

“Fuck me! It’s Pizza Boy!”

“You aren’t the only one to conduct a little reconnaissance.” He resumed his seat, along with the Colonel’s visage, though Deavers’ grin remained throughout. “You forgot your metaphysics.”

I had, and couldn’t repress either a memory or the smile that attached.

“It’s all in Plato?”

“Naturally.”

“Bless me,” I murmured. “What do they teach in those schools?”

He looked puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”

“Never mind. Slightly more contemporary reading.” Okay, Weeji. Bite the bullet.

But he must have sensed where I was going next from the darkening of my expression. “Go on. You want to ask about Grace. Yes, he declined. Rather vociferously.”

“Grace? Oh, you mean Father. Why do you call him –”

“I called him Grace to annoy him,” the sprite said bluntly, interrupting me. “Look, I don’t know how much you know about your father’s past, before he decided to pickle his internal organs like they were a Sixth Form science experiment, but he was a nasty young man.”

“Would that be before or after you sprang your little ceremony on him?” I made no attempt to hide the accusation in my voice.

“Before. Well before.” He leaned his head on one fist, giving me a sideways look. “I’m afraid your grandfather, the Eighth Viscount, was a silly man. Had no trouble with the ritual – he was the sort to look at the ceiling and think of England, or at least of Shingles, but that’s perfectly acceptable. And he did his dynastic duty by finding someone suitable and getting both an heir and a spare. But he was also one of the most notorious . . . well. His sexual preferences were considered unorthodox. And, at least at the time, illegal.”

I rolled my eyes. “So Grandfather was gay.” This is a big deal because . . . ?

“Oh, quite. Flagrantly and flamingly so, by the standards of the day. The peerage shielded him from the consequences somewhat and I did what I could, but he definitely made things difficult.”

“And you think that was ‘silly?’”

“Incautious. Great good heavens, there were gaggles of gay men gamboling about back then. Back whenever, come to that. Perfectly normal. But society at the time demanded a certain degree of discretion, and Hugh wouldn’t have it. Eventually he got so tired of the nonsense that he decided to take off to France with a gorgeous man considerably younger, to recapture the glories of his youth.”

“Sounds pretty sensible to me,” I shot back.

“Perhaps. But it put me in a bit of a pickle. Without the annual ritual, I had to be very careful of my mana reserves. I couldn’t spare any for the little things that make life easier around here – including ensuring the Viscount’s good health.”

“He’d have to be here for that?”

“Or I’d have to be there – wherever ‘there’ might be. I can’t leave my node for long, and I can’t do as much when I’m away, but I’m not completely helpless. So, yes, I went off to France and tried to convince Hugh to return, but he said he’d never set foot in England again. He didn’t.”

“Okay. I mean, not really. But I see why he felt that way. What’s that got to do with Father?”

Holweard’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “You can see, surely, why having a parent who was the laughingstock of his public school would have mortified your father? And why he might try to, shall we say, overcompensate?”

“How?” I wanted to sound incredulous, but all I managed was to sound small.

“The usual ways. For starters, by sleeping with every girl within a fifteen league radius. Pretty, ugly, tall, short, rich, poor, old, or . . . young. Too young. It didn’t matter to him. I’ll give him this much, he did take precautions, or you’d have bushel-baskets of half brothers and sisters scattered all around the countryside like sheep. Remember that Gorgon who gave you the castle tour?”

I certainly did! “You. Cannot. Be. Serious.”

“Scout’s honor.” He did a thing with his fingers.

“Get out. You were NOT a Boy Scout!”

“Well . . . no.”

“But . . . you are serious? Really?”

“Really. It wasn’t enough for him to tumble all the girls, though, he had to bully the boys as well. And they couldn’t very well fight back. He was going to be Viscount Chingleput some day, as he was very quick to remind them.”

“I’m starting to feel less bad about needling him all those years.” And starting to understand why he had to be peeled off the ceiling when he found me in Mom’s lingerie!

Surprisingly, the Sprite waggled his fingers noncommittally. “I don’t know that I’d lose any sleep over it myself – not that I actually sleep, you understand. But his father was at least partly to blame. And he paid a stiff price even before you were born.”

My look was a question; I assumed he could see it.

“He’d been so keen to be the Viscount, he could barely manage to look somber throughout the interment ceremony after Hugh’s body was brought back from France. When he found out the price, though, he was completely destroyed.”

“I guess I don’t understand. Legally, he was the heir. How could you prevent him from becoming the Viscount?”

“I couldn’t. But, you know, things just happen when my authority here is tested.”

I looked skeptical again. “The beer goes sour? The cattle start reading Kierkegaard? Come on. Why would he care?”

“Times change. Try parliamentary commissions of inquiry, on various improprieties. The powers that be – the mortal sorts – were less inclined to look the other way, after dealing with Hugh all those years. I can shield the Viscounts from this and that . . . but nothing says I have to.” In a harsh tone, he added, “I am no mortal’s servant, and I don’t work for free!”

“Blackmail?”

“Scarcely. The improprieties were real, and I wasn’t responsible for them. I wasn’t keen on cleaning up after your father’s escapades, either, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Sometimes I have to stare at the ceiling and think of England, too.”

“Or Shingles?”

“Shingles? Bah!!!” He barked. “No. Holweard’s Hollow. This is my place. I am the master here!”

I sat with that for a minute. “Uncle Geoffrey?”

“Your Father came storming up from the crypt, hunted down Geoffrey, and threatened to have him hung, drawn and quartered if he so much as spoke with me.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t listen.”

“He laughed in his face. Grace had bullied him for years, of course. When your uncle saw his chance, he took it. Your father naturally couldn’t bear to see Geoffrey elevated in his stead, so he decamped for that barren wasteland where you were born. I still ended up dealing with the messes he’d left behind, but only because Geoffrey requested it.”

“And gave you the mana.”

“Just so.”

I couldn’t bear to sit anymore. I got up and began to pace, back and forth, across the bottom of the enormous bed.

The Sprite watched me, staying silent.

I think better when I’m moving, so back and forth I went, and when that didn’t work I tried forth and back. The thinking thing still wasn’t functioning very well. Eventually I discovered that I’d stopped moving. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough that I could now make out the creamy sheen of Freyia’s gown, gleaming on the bearskins. I stared at it stupidly.

Holweard broke my toy train of thoughts, which was just as well. It hadn’t gotten beyond HO scale anyway.

“So there it is, Luigi. Chingleput is all yours. I think I can also assure you a long and healthy life, a decent harvest, and continued good ale at the village pubs.”

“If I yield to you.”

“Is it so much to ask? For all that?”

I closed my eyes and managed, somehow, to reboot my brain. Then I turned and looked straight at him. “Why would I want this place?”

He looked dumbfounded. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sweet Jesus!” I exploded. “I feel like I’ve been trying to tell everyone this my whole life. You. My mother. Heather.”

“Oh, yes. What did become of that delightful gold-digger?”

“I have no idea. Don’t distract me. Look, here’s the thing. What does a lord do, anyway? Sit in the House of Lords or something?”

“That’s, ahh, somewhat complicated these days.”

“I’ll bet. Okay, fine. Do I, like, hang out with other ‘lords?’”

“It’s considered good form.”

“Met ‘em when they were in their twenties, some of them. Did nothing for me.”

“Perhaps they’ve improved with age.”

“You compared them to foxes, I think.”

“I did?”

“Yerp.”

“I did, didn’t I?” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, then his expression brightened. “Well, speaking of foxes . . . the hunting in the area is exceptional.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m quite serious. It’s an absolute must!”

“And you're on, like, horses, right?”

“Naturally.”

“There’s nothing ‘natural’ about trusting your life to a brute whose brain is the size of a tomato!”

“You do them a grave injustice.”

“Plus, I’m thinking the graphics are gonna suck. I’ll stick to video games.”

He winced. “Alright. ‘Bottom line,’ as you Americans are so fond of saying. The title comes with a fair bit of land in fee simple absolute. You own the entire village — shops, hotel, pubs, the works. You also own significant acreage in crops, and a sizable herd of sheep. All of which combine to generate profit at year’s end on the order of three million pounds sterling. Three million pounds, Luigi. Every year. For doing nothing. Isn’t that worth a little bending of a knee?”

“Or two?”

“I’m not fussy about positions.”

The absurdity of the situation began to overwhelm me. Here I was, in the bowels of the earth in the dark of the night, arguing my price with a creature who had been there before the Caesars stamped the first coin that could have been rendered unto them. I snorted, trying to hold it back. Hiccupped.

But I couldn’t contain it. My laughter sounded hysterical even to me, which just made me laugh harder.

Holweard looked positively perplexed.

I laughed harder still. “You . . . you . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I was laughing so hard my sides ached and I collapsed back to sit on the bed.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to share the joke,” Holweard asked acidly.

“Do you . . . have any idea . . . what . . . I did . . . for a living?”

“Yes, your ridiculous ‘video games.’ You’ve mentioned.”

“Uh huh.” I tried to compose myself. “I was good at it.”

“No doubt.” He didn’t sound impressed.

“No, seriously. One of the best.”

“We’re not talking about games, Luigi. This is real.”

“Okay, well.” I wiped my streaming eyes. “Let me lay some ‘real’ on you then. I sold my company a few months ago.”

“Better late than never.”

“Yeah, whatevs. Might not have been my best move. Care to guess what I got for it?”

“Money, I’m sure.” The tone, as ever, was dismissive.

“You could say that. Call it six hundred eighty-nine million dollars, give or take, plus some pretty favorable stock options that might be even more valuable than the cash in five years, assuming the buyers don’t completely screw the pooch. But the cash alone I could chuck into an index fund and net thirty mill a year in passive income, easy.”

For the first time since I’d met him, Holweard seemed at a loss for words. “That’s . . . that’s . . . .”

It felt good to get some of my own back. “Real, Colonel. It’s real. Land isn’t power anymore. And that, as ‘we Americans’ like to say — that! — is the bottom line.”

“It’s obscene!”

“Judgy, judgy! Plowing unwilling monks isn’t?”

“Pfffft. They were all willing, young man!”

“Whatever. You made them whores. My family, too.”

“Everyone had a choice, and the alternative wasn’t exactly starvation.”

“Yeah, right,” I sneered.

His eyes flashed fire. “Would I have done better, do you suppose, to rot the minds of children with constant images of violence, mayhem . . . pornography?”

“What do you mean?”

“Reconnaissance. I’ve seen some of the characters in your games!”

“Hey!”

“Well? Can you deny that ‘Princess Pinata’s’ preposterous proportions are purposefully drawn to, shall we say, get a rise from your ‘target demographic?’”

“Just because –”

“Of twelve year olds!”

“Dammit, that’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it?” His rejoinder scorched the air between us.

I wanted to rage at him, but . . . Be honest, Weej. You weren’t just in those meetings, you chaired them. You know what calculations went into the decisions. I swallowed. Hard. “Okay. Point made, Colonel.”

“Good!” He rose. “Well, I see that I have nothing to offer you after all. I suppose I shall have to deal with the McDonalds, gods help me. Still, if Puck could stomach the Stewarts, I shall manage somehow. Perhaps they can at the least be taciturn!”

I took a deep breath. “I haven’t said ‘no’ yet.”

To be continued . . . .

~o~O~o~
Author's note: Many thanks to RobertLouis and AlisonP for their help reviewing this story.

I’m doing a long road-trip for a few days and may be slow responding to comments. But you know me: I will respond!

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