Edvard watched the new master sprawled across the sitting room sofa, spread out as thoroughly as a man could be without actually falling onto the floor.
At times the young man spoke to himself, in others, he produced only indecipherable murmurs, as though arguing with himself. And from what little Edvard could catch, the debate seemed heated.
He had been there for a good half hour, hands clasped before his body, as still as befitted someone of his position. He had been waiting since the young voroir, everything was already prepared, as his role required. The room, the bath, the clothes, the proper order of little things are impeccable. As it ought to be for the receiving of a voroir. He was pleased and bitter at the new assignment.
To be given to a fylkirn who had become voroir before he had even been taught how to be one was, in theory, a promising fate, but the young man's color displeased him, the missing arm even more so.
Not out of pity, Edvard had little use for pity. But because he liked symmetry, correctness, whole forms, even so, it was what had been given to him, and he always made good use of what was given to him.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, elevated voroir," he said at last, sweeping the insubordinate thoughts away. He stepped forward and bowed at a right angle, neither more nor less. When he raised his face again, the new master was already on his feet, quicker than one expected from someone recently mutilated.
Ordinarily, it was not Edvard's place to speak before his master, before being called upon. But he feared the food would cool too much, also feared not being noticed any time soon if he kept silent.
The young voroir merely kept looking at him, seemed to be trying to understand something, and that was enough for an obvious detail to occur to Edvard. A great many voroirs had been born common, common in station, not only in blessing.
Edvard had spent his whole life serving nobles, high clerics, and people accustomed to being served before they had even learned to speak properly. It was easy to forget that from time to time a man was dragged up from below and thrown upward with armor and prerogatives.
"I beg pardon if I interrupted your train of thought," he said, offering another bow, this one a little less deep. "My name is Edvard and i have been assigned to instruct you to the best of my abilities." He returned to an upright posture, straight as an arrow.
The young man remained silent for a few moments more, something had changed in his eyes. Distrust had given way to other expressions, something slanted that gave Edvard a bad premonition even before Hrafn smiled from the corner of his mouth.
Had he not known better, he might have taken him for a sorcerer. "Do not worry," the young man said at last. "I'm just not used to—"
"Servant or butler will do, Lord Hrafn," Edvard completed helpfully. "It is an honor for me to serve in the development of a voroir." Silence returned. His new master seemed, once again, sunk into some internal debate.
He moved his right shoulder by reflex. The grimace came right after, as if he still surprised himself by remembering there was no limb there at all, then he passed his left hand through his hair. "Just Edvard is fine," he said.
"I imagine you are hungry, my lord," Edvard replied. "I hope there may be something to your liking." He walked to the cart covered by a dark cloth, removed the fabric with a clean gesture, and lifted the lid from one of the silver dishes.
The smell of roasted meat, hot fat, and spices spread through the room. "Food?" Hrafn asked, and happily turned that strange gaze toward the cart.
Edvard clapped his hands once.
Two maids appeared through the side door of the hall, they had already been waiting, as they should have been. They approached in silence and worked in silence, opening the table, laying out the silver, bread and cups, everything in the correct order with the discretion he demanded. The new master watched the operation with a discomfort he tried to hide and failed. He did not even let one of the maids fasten the napkin at his neck.
Soon the table was laid, soon the maids withdrew. "Is this not too much for an initiate?" Hrafn asked.
"Yes," Edvard adjusted the monocle. "It is." The answer hung between them. What would have come next would have been an explanation, Edvard would have given it with competence, as he always had. But he chose not to, he wanted to test the young man.
He wanted to know whether what stood before him was merely a cripple or a cripple and an idiot. The thought might have sounded insubordinate to more delicate ears, Edvard considered it merely practical. To know well the material with which one worked was part of the work. And there were few things that mattered more to him than fulfilling his own purpose with precision.
Hrafn smoothed the absent right shoulder with his left hand. "I understand," he said.
Satisfaction warmed Edvard within, though it scarcely touched his face. "Exactly, my lord," he replied. "You are a voroir now." He could work with that, a man incapable of understanding a cue so simple would have been an exhausting master to serve.
"It will take time," Hrafn said. "But I'll get used to it." After that there was little beyond the sound of utensils and chewing.
Edvard allowed himself to observe. The meat had been cut before coming to the table, as was obvious it ought to be. It would have been a crude error not to foresee the need in such a particular case, even so from what he could tell, Hrafn would have found a way to manage even without that care. The skill he showed with the left hand was too quick for someone only recently forced to use it as his only one.
Uncommon.
"I see they thought of everything," the young man commented after a time.
"As duty dictates, my lord," Edvard replied.
Hrafn made a short sound through his nose, not quite laughter, not contempt either, something between the two. When he finished, he wiped his mouth with the cloth, in the wrong way and Edvard felt the small stab of irritation he always felt before a break in order.
"What comes next?" Hrafn asked.
"Many things, my lord," Edvard answered, mastering himself so as not to correct at once the improper way in which the cloth had been used. "The first of them will be a choice of weapons."
"That makes sense," Hrafn said. "It is violent work."
"Perceptive, my lord," he replied. He clapped his hands once more, summoning the maids to clear the table."Among the many intricacies of the honored functions of a voroir, or..." He hesitated for an instant, the next word seemed almost rejected by his own tongue. "Work, as you prefer to call it, does indeed include violence."
"A great deal of it," Hrafn said. Then to Edvard's immediate horror, the young man reached for one of the dishes already being carried off and took a chicken leg directly with his fingers and brought it to his mouth like some kitchen boy.
"That is not advisable, my lord. To eat at table in that fashion—"
"Yes, I imagine," Hrafn interrupted, as he bit, chewed then swallowed. "But I'd wager an arm you'll get used to it." The smile that came with the line was light.
Edvard fell silent.
The joke about the mutilation struck him full force, he had not expected it. Among people of position, that sort of thing was rarely touched, well-born nobles would avoided the subject. The loss of a limb was a shame to be worn with dignity and silence, not something to be brought to table along with the meat.
Every weakness, among high society and the clergy, was shame. Perhaps above all among them, his master seemed not to share that understanding.
That, Edvard thought, might be harder to correct than the rudeness."Come, Ed," Hrafn said, getting to his feet before the table had even been entirely cleared. "Let's go get my weapon."
Edvard felt something very near a contraction in his face at hearing the abbreviation. "My lord, I—"
"Yes, yes, I imagine," Hrafn cut in, repeating with irritating ease the very formula he already seemed to have learned to use against him. There was humor in the voice and was weariness too. And something else Edvard did not yet know how to measure.
He watched the young voroir cross the room with that uncomfortable combination of imbalance and firmness. Hrafn did not yet move like a whole man, but neither did he move like someone defeated. Edvard adjusted the monocle once more, to serve and educate that man until he stood equal to the position now belonging to him would, without doubt, be arduous work.
Perhaps arduous enough to be worth his effort.