Mr Forsythe’s beady little eyes fell on me; his expression remained stern as I gave a nervous smile.
“I’ve just interviewed her about the position available in our staffing.” Charles pressed on. I glanced at him and noticed he too seemed very nervous in Mr Forsythe’s presence.
“Ah yes.” Mr Forsythe nodded in understanding, “Very well Charles. She is up to scratch then?” He spoke as if I wasn’t there.
“Yes sir. Of course I wouldn’t bother you if I thought Miss Redding wasn’t right for the job. Although she has no previous work experience, her abilities are perfect for the position I believe. With your permission sir, I’ll have her hired, given a tour of the manor, and a rundown of her duties. She’ll be ready to start tomorrow morning.”
Mr Forsythe nodded and took a sip of his drink. “Very well.” He waved a hand at us before turning his back and walking towards his desk.
I gulped and Charles indicated for us to leave. Once we were back out in the corridor I found that my legs felt very weak indeed. That hadn’t been what I expected. I didn’t even get spoken to. Didn’t the Master want to know anything about me before hiring me?
Charles seemed to pick up on my silence. “Master Forsythe rarely speaks to the staff, and he only speaks to me when he has to. He much prefers it if he pretends we aren’t here at all.”
“Does he live in this big place all by himself?” I wondered aloud as we continued back downstairs.
“Oh no, the Master lives here with his family. His wife is Lady Winifred Forsythe, lovely woman, slightly mad though. She doesn’t go out much so you’ll most likely see her wandering the halls talking about nonsense. It’s best you don’t repeat that to anyone outside of this household too.” Charles added as an afterthought.
“Do they have any children?”
“Yes. Fully-grown now of course-” I heaved an internal sigh of relief (I was rubbish with kids), “There’s Miss Rain Forsythe; might want to avoid her. Young Master Noah isn’t here very often, travels a lot see, but when he is here he mostly keeps to himself. He stays on odd occasions for a few weeks at a time. He should be arriving in a few weeks actually.” Charles said all this in a low voice as not to be overheard talking about his Masters truthfully.
“Then there’s Mister Theodore from the Arthfael family. He isn’t related to anyone here by blood of course, but he is betrothed to our Master’s daughter. He lives with his family in a manor on the opposite side of Frost Arch. Well respected family. They visit often, so make sure you stay out of their way.”
It was an awful lot to remember, and I repeated the names in my head to try and retain the information. Master Forsythe, the man of the household was married to Winifred. They had two children together who were grown-up named Rain and Noah. Rain was betrothed to someone called Theodore Arthfael, who was part of a very important family on the opposite side of the city. I hoped I had it right.
“I think I got all that.” I said slowly, “So how many people work here?”
Charles did a quick count in his head, “at least fifteen other people besides us.”
I raised my eyebrows, “Fifteen people to look after a family of four?” I said amazed.
“Well … There is the specialised household staff,” Charles pressed on, “Like myself. I manage the other staff; make sure everyone is on task and doing their jobs. I also organise wages, and hire new staff. Then we have our chefs who plan and prepare every meal. We have someone to train the Pegasi, and organise travel throughout the city.” I opened my mouth to ask what ‘Pegasi’ were, but closed it again when Charles continued talking, “You already met Jack our household healer. We’re quite lucky to have him actually. Most people would kill for live-in healer. We have a messenger too. Then there are the odd jobs here and there that need to be done, so we hire servants to clean dishes, mop floors, dust tapestries, and feed the humans.”
“There are humans here?”
“Oh, a few. We’ve got a couple in the basement dungeon right now. Not good for much really, seeing as they can’t even string a sentence together. Though I suppose that’s our doing really.” Charles said thoughtfully.
“So what do you use them for?”
“Slave labour of course. Always good to have a few humans handy, as you don’t have to pay them see? Once they’re bought and paid for that’s it really. They’re cheap too. We mainly get them to wash the linen. Simple job. Can’t confuse them too much otherwise they get upset.”
I nodded, my stomach twisting painfully as I thought about Helena back home. I had never actually seen a human before. I wondered whether they looked different from us. I was sure you wouldn’t be able to tell Helena was void of Power, as she looked a great deal like my mother. But pure humans I was curious about.