[Continued from here]
As
Nereus left, he heard the Duke and his son begin another banal conversation.
There was no more consideration of the trip Lord Quinton planned to take
tomorrow, nor of the arrangements that needed to be made. Mad men did not think
about the details - that was the job of the advisor. His job. And his job had suddenly become much harder.
The
truth was, for the first time in his twenty-three years of service, Nereus
wasn't sure he could accomplish his job satisfactorily. Lord Quinton was
currently without an advisor of his own. Nereus had been in the process of
acquiring one, but the man he had wanted to hire had suddenly found better
employment with Duke Tarrabon Dependible Mirth, cousin to the king and the
highest ranking Mad Man in the kingdom. He couldn't blame the man for choosing
the better position, but it left him in an awkward position. He couldn't let
Quinton leave home without an advisor, and he couldn't accompany Quinton
himself and leave the Duke, even for a day or two. There was no possible way of
persuading Quinton from abandoning his quest either, not without explaining the
state of affairs, and that was the sort of detail that Mad Men didn't think
about. Not only did Nereus feel it was a bad job indeed if he had to trouble
his Lords with administrative trivia, he had a more worrying reason for not
exposing Quinton to the details of his predicament.
Duke
Winstanleigh was acting strangely, with the slip today being the latest in a
string of occurrences that suggested he was - Nereus shuddered at the thought -
becoming sane. So far, the slips had
been very occasional - a moment of lucidity here, a sensible suggestion there -
but there were too many to ignore now. And if anyone ever found out about the
Duke, he could lose his title, his lands... and Nereus would be the one to
blame.
But
right now, that was a problem for another time. Quinton was leaving on his
first quest tomorrow. An advisor needed to be found, and in a hurry. With the
Duke’s voice fading into the distance, Nereus hurried away to deal with the
problems of the day.
[Part 4]
[Part 4]
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