Reincarnated As A Peasant - Book 2 Chapter 21: Servants Under Foot

Landar

The next few days were a flurry of studying, cultivating, lectures, and trying for the life of me trying to come up with things for my new mass of ‘servants’ to do.

“Me’lord?” Kai tried to get my attention while I was writing at my desk. I had received a letter from an old friend, and was attempting to respond.

“Yes?”

“The dishes are done.”

“You used the soap I provided?” Kai looked confused. “The soft white bar?”

“Oh, right. We put that in the water with the dishes sir. Like you said.”

“Did you scrub the dishes with the soap?”

“We cleaned them, yes sir.”

I’m going to have to go check, aren’t I? “Good work Kai. I’ll come inspect them in a minute. Until then, go see your family.”

“Thank you sir.” Kai hobbled away on his crutch, towards where his kids were down the hallway, scrubbing the floors with their mother.

Is it seven? It was seven kids right? Those are Mormon or Catholic numbers, sheesh.

I went back to putting pen to page. I hope this gets to him before he gets here. I’d hate to have to—

A knock came at my door. “Yes, come in.”

A tall, lanky woman in clothes that hung off her like a scarecrow’s did, walked in head bowed holding something. “I’m sorry m’lord for intruding and all. Just got this basket from ye mum is all.”

She put the basket next to my small writing desk and immediately made to leave. “Thank you Keisha.” She turned with a somewhat shocked expression on her face.

“Of course m’lord. Only doin me work is all. And uh. It’s amazin how you be rememberin everyone’s names like that. Errie, but amazin.”

I gave her a smile and picked up the basket. It contained several potions I had asked her to make. Ones that would help me grow my chie or ‘life mana’ core, and my mana pool, or as the professors here called it my ‘pure mana’ core.

“Perfect. And Keisha,” she stopped closing the door behind her and looked back at me. “I haven’t gotten everyone’s names down yet.” I’m cheating, I wanted to say but I bit my tongue. They needed to think of me as a good leader, not a lazy cheat for using the System to track them all. “But I’ll get there soon.”

“Amazin lord, amazin.” She shut the door and I heard her children scurrying in front of her as she made her way back down to the main servants hall and kitchen. A place I hadn’t known even existed until the Countess had shown me after I told her the situation with the drudges.

I looked down at my letter and sighed. “I’ll finish you in a minute. I better go check on the dishes. See if my lesson on proper hygiene stuck or not.” I got up and headed out into the hallway, closing the door behind me. I felt more then saw the magical protections there click into place with a low thrum of power.

***

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Yeah, these aren’t done. I thought to myself with a sigh, as I examined the dishes left to dry around the sink. They got the food off them, and most of the residue. But there were clear markings of residue from the eggs I had taught them to prepare that morning.

I rolled up my sleeves, filled the water basin that they had just emptied, and started working. I found the mildly wet bar of hand soap I had given them to clean the dishes with at the bottom of the basin. Simply left there, unused.

After a few minutes of work, I had about half the bowls clean when a man in a well dressed uniform carrying staples like eggs, hard tak bread, and a few thick lengths of stake came into the kitchen and put them in the perpetual ice box. Or freezer, as I had been calling it. It was a magically reinforced box that would hold ice inside in its state as long as the lid was closed. It acted exactly like a freezer from back home.

“Hello,” I said pleasantly as I continued working.

“Hello young master Landar. My name is Nigel, I’m the head of servant services in this dormitory.” The man spoke with a distinguished accent, and he walked with a nearly perfect posture. He placed the goods where they were meant to go, and then turned to face me. “Master Landar, I was meaning to speak with you. Your recent . . . labor acquisitions, have proven somewhat disruptive to the daily tasks of the full time staff here at the academy.”

“Oh? I’m sorry about that. They’re new to their jobs.”

“Quiet. They have misused resources by throwing out perfectly good potatoes just because they had dirt on them, threatened staff when they did not comply with their demands for, and I quote, ‘a bunch’o new cloths for Mr. Landar’, and inadvertently, or at least I hope so, caused an incident with our head bath attendant, when they drained newly infused mineral water because they thought it was ‘dirty’.”

I snickered, and cleared my throat to cover it.

“Ah. Um.” I felt my face growing red as I suppressed laughter. “I have to apologize then, they must have misunderstood my requests. I asked Kai to get me a new belt, as mine is wearing thin. And I mentioned that basic necessities are typically provided for by the staff. As for the rest, well. I’ve been trying to teach them about cleanliness and basic hygiene, and how to clean food. They must have misunderstood . . . well, everything. Has the Countess explained their situation?”

“She has,” his eyes once hard and calculating, softened slightly around the edges. “A certain amount of latitude has been afforded to them, and to you given the circumstances.”

“Thank you.” I inclined my head a bit, trying to show him respect as I had seen others do. But with my arms up to my elbows in soapy water, it must have been an amusing sight as his eyes softened even more and I could see the beginnings of a smile appear on his face.

“Yes, well. My patience, and that latitude is not all consuming, I’m afraid. We simply must find a solution.”

“Understood. I’ll think of something. Thank you for bringing this to my attention Nigel.”

“You are most welcome, Master Landar.” he turned to go, but a thought occurred to me, but I needed to confirm something first.

“Say, Nigal. Your people are all highly trained,right?”

“Of course master Landar. Some of the best servants in the entire kingdom, if I do say so myself.” he did say so, and the pride in his voice at that statement was clear for anyone to see. “I trained most of them myself on the basics of etiquette, and servantry. Though the Mistress of Servants is in charge of teaching them their specific duties.”

“That’s amazing, you must be really good at training servants then.” Nigal’s beam of pride was like a beacon of light going directly into the sky in the middle of night.

“Indeed, I pride myself on my teaching skills, master Landar.”

“Great! Maybe you can help me a bit. Get these, servants, out from under foot all the time.”

His smile fled in an instant. “Well sir, I am quite busy you see.”

“Oh I’m sure you are. But surely you can find a day or two to help teach the basics to a bunch of over eager, under educated, willing to learn students. Right?”

“Uh, uhh,” his mouth opened and closed like a fish’s for a moment. “Well of course, but we are in our busiest time of year when all the new students are and have arrived with their households, and graduating students are leaving. We are having to inspect rooms, clean them and get them ready for the new students coming in even now.

“Wouldn’t that work go faster with more hands?” I asked, knowing his answer.

“Well I . . uh. Hmmm.” I could see as he mulled over the idea that he was coming around to it. “I suppose the exit work doesn’t directly interact with students, and mainly involves cleaning and maintenance work. And in a day or so, I could teach them the basics of cleanliness, how to bow, and dress, I suppose. That might work . . .”

“It would work even better if you gave each of your staff one or two of mine to train up. Once you have the basics down of course.”

“Hmmm. Let us meet tomorrow to discuss it. Say, four in the morning? Just two hours before dawn. I will have time then.”

YES! I wanted to shout it, but I settled for a grin. “Sounds perfect, see you then.”

Never come to a leader without a solution. Or you’ll end up becoming that solution. Thank you Grandpa Mortimer.