Lord of the Manor -- Section 2

[Sorry this took so long to post. I didn't get to my writing until this afternoon.]

            Maddie's mom walked into the kitchen of SPRINGFIELD PIZZA AND SUBS.

            "Looks like someone's moving into that old mansion," she said. "Didn't the old man die?"

            Maddie sat up straighter on her stool and stopped flipping through the pages of a National Geographic magazine. "Who is it?"

            Her mom shrugged. "Some boy. I worry about him, out there all alone. The old man did die, didn't he?"

            "Yes, Mom. Mister Arches died last month."

            "Arches! That was the name. What's up with a name like that?"

            "Mom? Seriously? You're walking around with the name of 'Sparks,' and you're making fun of 'Arches?'"

            "It wasn't my name to start with. I used to be a Robinson."

            "So you CHOSE to be a Sparks," said Maddie. "That makes it even worse."

            "No, honey," said her mom, patting Maddie's shoulder, "I chose to marry your father, and that made it better."

            Maddie gave her mother the best fifteen-year-old glare of disgust she could muster, but it didn't last very long. Actually, she liked that her mom and dad still seemed to be in love with each other. Sure, it was a little bit wrong when people over forty kissed in public, but she supposed it was a small price to pay for a family that wasn't split up across the country.

            "So who's the boy?" she asked.

            "Not sure," said her Mom. She stuffed her permed, brown hair under a hairnet and grabbed a scoop for flour. "Looked about your age, maybe, but short. Quite a bit shorter than you, actually."

            "Thanks, Mom." Maddie was a solid five-nine in flat shoes. "I blame your genetics, you know."

            "It's not wrong to be tall," said her mother, dumping flour into the massive mixing bowl. "It makes you a powerful woman. A valkyrie."

            Maddie rolled her eyes. "Oh, nice. Didn't they swoop down from Valhalla to collect the souls of dead warriors?"

            "Exactly. They got to pick up the best."

            "Right," said Maddie. "And then they took them back to a big mansion where the warriors all ate a lot and got drunk. No thanks."

            "You worry too much about your height," said her mother. "Your father is three inches shorter than I am, and he still married me."

            "Four inches," said her father, backing out of the walk-in refrigerator with a crate of bell peppers. "What are we talking about?"

            "Maddie's worried that she's too tall for the boy moving into the old mansion."

            "Mom!"

            "Good looking, is he?" asked her dad.

            "Dad!"

            "Pretty cute," said Mom. "He has these beautiful blue eyes and looks like a smart kid. He's short, though. Maybe five-one."

            "What size are his feet?" asked Dad.

            "I didn't think to look."

            "If he's got big feet, then it's a sure bet he'll grow into them. Then he'll be perfect for you, Maddie."

            "I'm not interested in the boy," she protested. "I haven't even seen him! I just want to know more about the manor."

            "You mean the mansion?" asked her dad.

            "It's not a mansion," she protested. "It's a manor."

            He dumped the peppers into the sink and started washing. "What's the difference?"

            "I don't know," said Maddie. "A mansion is...generic. Cheap. A place where people with too much money and no taste live. Daimon Home isn't like that. It has class. It's OLD money."

            "Not enough of it, from what I hear," said her mom, measuring more ingredients into the mixer. "Place is falling apart."

            Maddie sighed. It WAS falling apart. She knew, because she was always the one who delivered the pizza out there. It was a little far on her bicycle, but Mr. Arches had never seemed to mind the wait. He asked for her every time, and he always had peppermints for her. She didn't really like peppermints--on principle, mostly, since she didn't particularly like anything else with the word 'pepper' as part of its name--but when Mr. Arches gave her the candy, she took it. It made her feel good to talk with him, like he was HER grandfather. Of course, he was probably old enough to be EVERYONE'S grandfather, but that didn't stop her from feeling special whenever she saw him.

Hadn't stopped her.

            "Maybe the new owner will be able to fix it," said Maddie, more hoping than actually believing.

            "A place that large?" said her dad. "The property taxes alone must be astronomical."

            "And the staff to take care of it all," said Mom, "though as far as I can tell, he has none. How is that boy going to manage out there?"

            "The mysteries of being wealthy," said her dad. "Maybe he's just the advance party, and the rest will show up later."

            "The rest of who?" asked Maddie.

            "The rest of the people who are going to eat our pizza. Speaking of which, Maddie, these peppers aren't going to cut themselves."

            "You're making them sound mentally ill, Dad."

            "Hey now," he said, giving her a level gaze. "Don't joke about that stuff. And get a knife and come kill these peppers. I know it gives you satisfaction."

            Maddie hopped off her stool and went to wash her hands. Her dad was right: the only thing peppers were good for was cutting into very small pieces.

            "He's here," said Bunch, slipping in through the hole under the Noon Clock.

            "I heard," said Crooks, chewing on his fingernail. His last one that hadn't been chewed on, in fact. He forced himself to put his hands on the arms of his small wooden throne and ended up tapping his toes instead. "He went to the Great Hall, didn't he?"

            "Yeah," laughed Bunch, scratching his round, shirtless stomach. "The idiot. Trying to get himself et up, is he?"

            "Who knows?" said Crooks. "Some men fancy themselves brave. Think they can face the dark mysteries of the world and come off victor. Perhaps he's one of that type."

            "Don't think so," said Bunch. "A boy like that? Nope, don't think so."

            Crooks' toes stopped. "A boy?"

            "Right. A boy. Not much of one, either, by human standards. Maybe five lags high, or two and a half bags. There about."

            "A boy," muttered Crooks. "And a young one. What was Master Arches thinking?"

            "What's that?" asked Bunch, crunching on something green that Crooks preferred not to look at too closely.

            "Nothing, Bunch. Thank you for coming to tell me. Do you know where the boy is now?"

            "He wandered round to the North Wing. Last I saw him, he was talking with old Spit-n-Polish."

            "That's Master Silver to you, Bunch. And thank you." Crooks looked at the imp meaningfully.

            "Oh, right," said Bunch. "I'll be off then." He bent down his bat-like ears and squeezed himself back out through the hole where he'd come in. Crooks was left alone in the small, hidden room that was about all that was left of his kingdom. True, he did have a number of loyal retainers still, but considering what problems faced Daimon Home, there wasn't much he could do with the few and the small that followed him. He needed numbers, and to get numbers he needed the support of the Lord of the Manor.

            And now a boy had come. A young boy, if his size were any indication. What had Master Arches been thinking? Crooks stood and began pacing a circuit around his small room, smacking his fist lightly against each wall as he came to it. A boy. Surely Master Arches had understood what they were dealing with here--no, Crooks was CERTAIN Master Arches knew. They'd talked about it often enough in the months of struggle and decline.

            But why leave the manor to a boy? Perhaps at the end his mind had gone. Crooks hadn't seen it, but truly, he didn't understand humans all that well. Such a changeable race. Mercurial. Perhaps Master Arches' body had failed him at the end and he'd made a mistake. Perhaps the boy wasn't the old Master's heir at all.

            If that were the case, then Crooks hoped all the powers of Air and Earth and Darkness would help the boy, because he'd need it. Even Master Arches' considerable strengths hadn't been enough to control what had taken root in the Great Hall.

            Michael looked down. "What--um, hi," he said.

            "Good day to you as well, young Master. You are Master Arches, are you not?"

            "I--yeah--yes, I think so. That's what the attorney, um, Mr. Canker called me, anyway."

            "Excellent," said the small man--man? "Please follow me. I suppose you're hungry. Teenage boys always are, in my limited experience."

            "Right. Yes, I am. Great," said Michael, knowing he was babbling, but babbling on anyway. He forced his mouth shut.

            "Leave your things there," said the small person. "No one will touch them in this part of the North Wing." Then he turned and walked into the clean, tiled hall.

Michael stared. The...person...that had welcomed him was maybe two-feet tall--maybe--and looked like a very small butler. Pressed, clean suit, white hair, prominent nose, all the things Michael had imagined in a butler. Except for the wings. Most butlers probably didn't have bat wings. Of course, Michael didn't have much experience with butlers, but he was pretty certain that a survey of manor houses throughout the world would turn up very few with bat-winged butlers.

            To the small man's credit, they were very well kempt bat wings. Shined and polished, almost like fancy shoes. In fact just about the exact same shade of black as the butler's highly glossed footwear.

            "Are you coming, Master Arches?" The small man had stopped by a door on the left of the hall, just a few feet down the passage.

            "Sure. Of course." Michael pulled his suitcase in through the door and pushed the door closed. He looked down at the suitcase, then at the butler, then back to his suitcase.

"Truly, Master Arches, your suitcase will be fine. Please come with me and I'll find you what food I can. I'm afraid our supplies are somewhat limited since the war over the Scullery began."

            "The war over the Scullery," Michael repeated.

            "Quite," said the butler. "The three Masters of Feast had a falling out after the old Master Arches' passing. I've tried to mediate, but I'm afraid I'm not much liked. Dignity and camaraderie are not always close companions."

Michael nodded his head, recognizing that the small man DID have quite a lot of dignity, and not much space in that tiny body to keep it. He supposed a person could squeeze a bit more dignity into bat wings, if he did it right--and apparently the butler knew how to do it right.

            "I expect," said the butler, "that conquering the Scullery will be among your first orders of business. But for now," he gestured to the door, "shall we?"

            "Of course," said Michael, leaving his suitcase and tucking his thumbs under the straps of his backpack. "But...what do I call you? I mean, are you a..."

            "Butler? Yes. I am the butler of Daimon Home. And, unfortunately for the moment, the only of your manservants. I am Master Silver, but you may call me Silver."

            They settled in what Master Silver informed Michael was his 'pantry.' Michael didn't see food anywhere, or even shelves for food, so he assumed that 'pantry' was an old word for 'room where the butler sits in very small chairs designed for people with bat wings.'

            Not that the butler was sitting at the moment. He was opening a normal-sized cupboard. Then he was looking up at shelves stuffed with packaged snack food.

            "What would you prefer, young Master? Oatmeal cookies? Peanut butter filled crackers? Pretzel sticks and cheese, perhaps. Oh, hang on just a moment."

            He fluttered his wings and lifted up to about Michael's head height. "It seems I have a bag of corn chips as well, though I thought the grumbles had made off with the last of those ages ago. They do enjoy corn chips, and they're such a rare thing these days." Master Silver settled back to the ground and turned to face Michael.

            The boy sat in the one human-sized chair in the room. Hard. "Oatmeal cookies please," he said.

            "Very good, Master," said the butler. He turned, withdrew a package from the lowest shelf--and yes, he 'withdrew' it; it was much too dignified to qualify as a 'pull'--opened one end of the ridiculously large package with his tiny hands, and placed the entire thing on a silver tray that Michael hadn't noticed before. It was on a napkin, on a silver tray, all at least the size of Master Silver's head. It was absurd. It wanted to be funny. Michael didn't dare laugh.

            "Here you are, Master," said Silver. "Would you care for something to drink as well? I'm afraid all I have to offer you is bottled water. I attempted to preserve some cranberry juice, one of the old Master's favorites, but in the chaos of the last month I have had much to do and only one pair of wings to do it with. I hope you'll forgive me."

            "Water's fine," said Michael, taking the tray and settling it in his lap.

            "Very good," said Silver, and he left back into the hallway.

            Michael looked around. The room looked a bit like his grandpa's study--his Grandpa Midwinter, not Grandpa Arches--but in miniature.  Same leather furniture, same kind of hard-wood desk, same wooden paneling on the walls, just all of it sized for the diminutive butler. And with slots for wings. There was no bed, so he assumed that the small door in the back wall led to Master Silver's bedroom. That is, if the butler slept here. Michael was beginning to realize he had no idea how a manor worked. He didn't even know what a scullery was, though apparently it was something quite important.

            "Here we are," said Silver, returning through the hall door. "Pure, mountain spring-water, bottled by the purified imps of the Alps. Or so the packaging says, though I have had my doubts."

            Michael supposed he should have expected it, but he was surprised that, instead of handing him a bottle, the butler placed yet another silver tray on a small table next to Michael's chair. On it was a cut-glass tumbler and an opened bottle of water, half of the bottle already poured into the glass. Michael looked at the label on the bottle: Imp Alp Winter Water.

            "Thank you," he said in a rather small voice.

            "Of course, sir. I'm embarrassed to even ask, young Master, but would you mind if I sat? I normally abhor such informality, but I'm not as young as I used to be and my wings and my feet tire more easily than they should."

            "Yes," said Michael. "Please. Absolutely. Sit. I've never had a butler before, so I didn't even know you weren't supposed to. Are you not supposed to?"

            "Generally one stands while serving," said Master Silver. "The old Master Archer allowed me perhaps more familiarities than were proper, and so I apologize in advance if I cause offense through some unfortunate lapse."

            "Don't even worry about it," said Michael. "Whatever Great-Grandpa had you do is fine with me, I'm sure. I'm not used to being served. If I ask Mom for some water, she asks me if my arms are painted on."

            Silver blinked at him.

            "It's a joke," said Michael. "Because painted arms would be useless. And I couldn't get any water."

            "Aha," said the butler. "And thus she expresses her desire for you to obtain your own water. That is rather clever, though I would never presume to treat you with THAT level of familiarity."

            "No," said Michael. "That's not...um...thanks for the water. And please, sit down."

            "Thank you," said Silver, and he sat, carefully folding his wings through the slots in the back of his leather armchair. He settled down with a small sigh, and Michael could see him flexing his feet in his shoes. They really were highly polished shoes. He could even see the lights reflecting off them.

            "Lights," he said, looking up. There were ceiling lights. Electric bulbs and everything.

            "Is there something the matter with the lights?" asked Silver with some concern.

            "No. They're fine. In fact, the fixtures are pretty fancy. I just didn't know if you'd have lights or not. I expected...I don't know...gas lamps, or something. Candles, maybe."

            "Old Master Archer made certain that the North Wing was fully renovated. We have excellent wiring, plumbing, and even internet, though I'm afraid it's down at the moment. The wireless router needs to be reset, and that is in the old Master's Study."

            "Can't we go to the study?" asked Michael.

            "The Study? Oh no, I'm afraid not. It is on the other side of the kitchens, near to the West Wing. Very dangerous region of the manor at the moment, though I expect you're here to do something about that. Is it presumptuous of me to ask about your plans for retaking Daimon Home?"

            Michael realized his mouth was open. "Retaking?" he said, swallowing. "I just got here--that is, I'm not sure--"

            "Of course," said Master Silver. "I understand. You'll want to rest before beginning anything. A long trip such as that must have tired you. I'm afraid I only have the room next door to offer you. It isn't the master bedroom, but the master bedroom is, unfortunately--"

            "On the other side of the kitchens?" asked Michael.

            "Exactly, sir."

            "Yeah," said Michael, looking down at the cookie that he still hadn't taken a bite of. "Why don't you show me my room. If that's okay with you."

            "Young Master, this is YOUR home. You certainly don't need to ask MY permission."