Gunwitch

I should have told Vasil to mind his ‘manors’, but I didn’t, and now it was too late and I was going to have to live with the knowledge that I had a great comeback that I’d never be able to use. A true Graecian tragedy.

I looked back once and sighed. Such a good pun, wasted. I shook my head and focused back on Ola, who was walking a little bit ahead of me now.

“Here we are,” Ola said with a smile.

I expected to be walking for a while but it turned out my house was actually on the corner of the square, about fifty feet from the town hall. Not sure why they kept insisting it was a manor, when it clearly was a townhouse. Just a very big and fortified one. Maybe a townhouse could also be a manor? I was sure there were rules for this that I was not aware of. I guess in the end it didn’t matter.

The building was a massive, three-story tall thing made of red brick. They had used yellow sandstone around the doorways, the windows and the triangular pointy bits also looked to be made of it. The sandstone was full of intricate carvings and looked really nice. Someone had put a lot of work into making this look good.

Maybe they had known I was a sucker for a good carving and did this just for me. Maybe some long-dead Silesian [Stonemason] had looked into a crystal ball, seen me, and thought “Yes, this girl deserves the finest triangular pointy bits.” I respected that kind of forward-thinking craftsmanship.

The ground floor windows were narrow and fitted with heavy iron bars. The upper floors had wider windows without iron bars. An oversight. What if you got attacked by air? Come to think of it, they probably had been. Strzygi could fly, after all. At least they hadn’t messed with the nice carvings. Would have been very rude of them. I mean, slurping people up was already quite rude, so defacing works of art was probably right up their alley as well. Glad they had managed to refrain from doing so, else I would have had to kill them. I chuckled to myself. Totally already did that.

“This is amazing,” Kasia said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

That shook me out of my thoughts and I refocused back on the house. I’d never seen anything like it either, but I still had my fumble with Kasia’s house that was a dump in the back of my mind and wasn’t sure how to comment. It would have to be something normal and not weird that at the same time wouldn’t remind her of her dump. Her house.

“Haha, yeah, bricks,” I said for some reason, immediately turning white, horrified at what had just come out of my mouth. That was not something normal at all.

Kasia slowly turned her head and gave me a long, way too amused look.

“Bricks,” she repeated. “Yes, those are indeed bricks. Red ones, if you can believe it.”

“I… uh, can? Believe it?” Once again I felt my sweat drops preparing to mobilize. I imagined my face must have been pretty red as well. My heart started pounding in my chest. What was wrong with me? “I like b-bricks,” I stammered.

Kasia slowly nodded, still amused. “I can tell.”

“And carvings,” I added, like that would somehow make it better.

“The carvings are nice too.”

At this point I was even more grateful than before that Ola had prepared new clothes for me, because I was sweating profusely. I was trying to think of a way to end or fix this conversation and at the same time I was trying to think of some way to tell Ola that I appreciated her. All of this was made a lot harder than it should have been because I couldn’t stop thinking about my sweaty face and my sweaty back and my pounding heart and my idiot mouth that couldn’t stop saying stupid things. Why did I have to be so much like… me? Why was it so much easier to kill a man than to have a normal conversation?

Ola coughed politely (thanks, Ola), saving me from more embarrassment. “If I may, Lady Aurelia, we have fully swept and prepared the interior. We prioritized your manor over the others, of course. I also took the liberty of laying out the new garments in the master bedroom on the first floor. I hope the tailoring meets your approval. I am no [Seamstress], but I do have a skill that makes me somewhat proficient at adjusting clothing.”

“I am sure they are magnificent, Ola.” I managed to say like a normal person. “And your assistance is greatly appreciated. Perfect timing too, since it’s such a hot day today.”

“It is?” she asked, her breath visible in the cool evening air.

Damn you, Silesian autumn! “Can we please go inside?”

Ola inclined her head. “But of course Lady Aurelia, follow me.”

To my side I heard Kasia chuckle, but I didn’t dare look over.

Ola pulled an iron key from her apron and put it in the lock of the big, heavy wooden door. It opened surprisingly smoothly.

As we stepped inside, we entered the grand, vaulted foyer. The ceilings were high. For some reason I’d been a bit scared that it would be awful like in the town hall, but no, this was classy. It also didn’t smell like stone. It just smelled clean.

I sniffed the air, trying to identify just what the smell was.

Ola smiled, a hint of pride in her expression. “One of my skills. I am a [Prime Maid], after all.”

I gave her an appreciative nod. “The primest of maids, if you ask me.”

If that sounded dumb to her, it didn’t show on her face. She gestured up the stairs. “On the first floor, right off the main staircase, you will find the antechamber, which is typically used as waiting room. The grand salon is followed by the dining room. Moving past the dining room you will find the study and a salonette. In the back of the floor you will find the master bedrooms, and of course the private chapel.”

In other words, the house was big.

“What about the second floor?” I asked.

“Those contain the guest suites and the staff rooms. Nothing you need worry about.”

“I have staff?”

Ola inclined her head. “You are Lady Aurelia, the mayor of Viswa. And you are Hecate the Radiant Dawn.”

“Right. So I have staff?”

“Yes.”

There really weren’t that many people currently in Viswa so that didn’t seem very efficient. What would they do when I wasn’t around? Normal people stuff? Other jobs? Maybe she counted everyone in the order as my staff. I didn’t want to risk looking stupid by asking her, so I didn’t say anything at all.

I was clearly out of my element. In Graecia houses didn’t look like this and nothing worked like this. Our house didn’t even have windows on the street side, this place had a million. In Graecia the staff… or slaves, occupied the ground floor. The top floors were for the women and children. Now, of course in our house the women were not as isolated as in most homes, because my mother was who she was and I was me. No one ever said anything about it, though. No one wanted to risk upsetting my mother.

When we reached the first floor I was in awe. The floors were made of gleaming polished dark wood, which were barely visible through the thick rugs covering them. The walls were covered in fabric woven in a repeating pattern of fancy silvery-gold curly plants on a dark brown background with blue accents. Everything was perfectly symmetrical. The skill and patience it must have taken to create this must have been insane. The ceiling was made of bright white plaster, also formed in intricate patterns. There was stuff everywhere.

This was not what houses looked like at all back home. All this stuff hanging from the walls, we didn’t do that. We usually left them plain or painted them a single color. There were no rugs on the floor. The ceilings had grids of recessed, painted wood panels. The only “ornaments” were usually weapons or religious pottery or bowls. Everything had a function. It was the complete opposite in Silesia. There was stuff everywhere, and none of it seemed to have an obvious function. It made Graecian homes look plain and empty. Silesian homes were busy and crowded. Especially this one.

“Uhh…” Kasia and I said in unison. Ola didn’t seem impressed. She’d already seen it so it probably wasn’t that special to her. Or maybe she’d been a [Prime Maid] long enough that this sort of thing was normal for her. Or maybe that’s just how she was.

She started walking toward the back, leaving us no time to recover from the extravagance we’d just witnessed. “Don’t worry, the master bedroom is much nicer than this.”

She actually thought this was not nice? How crazy would the master bedroom be? Would it have a bed made of pegasus down? Would the pegasus be standing right next to it? Would it cool you with its wings in the summer? Would it snuggle up to you in the winter to keep you warm? I always wanted to have my own pegasus. Could my dream finally be coming true?

The closer we got to the end of the hall the more excited I got.

“Here we are,” Ola said, placing her hand on the door. “The master bedroom.”