Paksworld

One of the problems facing anyone trying to run a large establishment new to them is staff.   Old staff–competent?  Trustworthy?   Or dishonest, lazy, troublemakers?    New brooms who have done this before may sweep clean, but someone coming into a completely strange situation may not know where to start, how to evaluate any existing staff, and where the organization needs shoring up.

So it is with Dorrin Verrakai, who would be quite comfortable running the North Marches stronghold–a familiar military establishment–but not the Verrakai holdings.    By escaping from her ancestral home, and absenting herself from the Tsaian court, she’s ensured not only her survival but her ignorance.    A military camp and a ducal household (especially with all those now-orphaned children)  have little in common.  Hence this snippet.

Location:   Marrakai’s house in Vérella.

Occasion: Dorrin is having dinner with Duke Marrakai and his family for reasons that would be more spoilerish than this snippet.    But the conversation comes around to how her domain is faring.

……………………………..

For that matter, she needed a new steward at the steading, and a watchman or someone to stay in the house in Vérella as well as someone–but what and who–to help with the children.  She asked.

Both Duke Marrakai and his lady were glad to help.  “Of course you need a steward, and you also need a housekeeper,” Lady Marrakai said.  “If those children have been left in the care of nursery-maids all this time, they surely need a tutor–at least one.  What staff do you have now?  Are you pleased with them?”

Dorrin explained.  “Some were Liartians–well, most had been threatened into saying they were, but only a few wore the horned chain.  The kitchen staff–I’ve got a very capable head cook, and the one I brought with me is competent with the basics.  Housekeeper–I’m not even sure what a housekeeper does; we never had one at Kieri’s stronghold.

“Ah,” Lady Marrakai said.  “Then you need help, my dear–I hope you don’t mind my saying that–”

“Not at all,” Dorrin said.

“The proper organization of a ducal household will reassure your people, as well as make your life much easier.  To start with, you need experienced senior staff.  Since you already have a cook, you’re in luck–good head cooks are the hardest to find.  How is her bread?”

“Very good,” Dorrin said.

“Excellent.  Now I presume there’s a garden and a fruit orchard?”

“Yes,” Dorrin said.

“How many gardeners?”

Dorrin was ashamed to admit that even after a quarter-year she was not sure, nor did she know anything about the training of the dairy staff, the brewing staff, or even–as Marrakai chimed in–the stable staff.

“Not to worry,” Lady Marrakai said, more cheerfully than Dorrin expected.  “If you have to start from the bottom, you’ll know more when you’re done. Gwenno, go fetch my domestic journal.”

This philosophy was so alien to the Verrakai way of doing things that Dorrin felt once more how inadequate she was.  But Lady Marrakai did not seem to notice.  Instead, she ticked off items on her fingers.

“Steward–someone who can oversee everything–trustworthy to manage while you’re gone–must be good with people and with numbers–”  She paused, frowning a little.  “Didn’t Count Farthen mention sometime this spring that he had an under-steward who was capable of a larger job?”

“Yes,” Marrakai said.  “He’s still in town; I’ll ask him tomorrow.”

Two turns of the glass later, Dorrin was still leafing through the little book Gwenno had brought back and listening to Lady Marrakai’s advice.  Finally Lady Marrakai stopped short in the middle of her lecture and grinned–a grin very like Gwennothlin’s.  “I hope you realize I’m doing this for the fun of it–it’s not that I think you’re stupid or anything.”

………………………………….

Manuals of farm and household management (for different sizes of households) existed before the printing press and household accounts have also survived to the present.    When everything is done by human or animal power (most not having access to magical means) it takes a lot of hands to keep a large household going.    We studied some of this in my history courses and I’ve read more on it since, but putting in everything isn’t possible.  This is just a hint.

Historically (in this book-world) magelords did not work with their hands: both men and women prided themselves on the ability to work magery.   Even as they lost magery, the magelords generally (not all) rejected taking up ordinary work.   There were exceptions: as in Liar’s Oath, the making of ritual objects such as the altar-cloth Dorhaniya makes, was done by hand, mostly by women.

In modern (story-contemporary) times,  Tsaian nobles are a mix of magelord and “old human” stock, with varying amounts of latent talent for magery.   Some (usually the minor nobility)  learn the crafts and trades of their servants and practice them (at least until administration takes over more of their time.)    More women than men among the nobility actually achieve competence in these crafts (IOW, more noblewomen can make edible bread and sew wearable garments  than noblemen can plough a field or scythe a meadow.)    Some take pride in achieving competence in most of the skills they supervise.    Among the manuals of household management from the medieval period, most recommend the lady of the house to be proficient enough in cooking, baking, brewing, spinning, weaving, etc. to teach these and other crafts.    There’s an interesting book on bread-making, written in the 19th c., which has the same recommendation for women who employ a cook: if the cook makes bad bread, the lady of the house should learn from the book how to make good bread, and teach her cook.

In Fintha, where there is no nobility (but definitely richer and poorer)  all children are trained to some practical, fundamental tasks.   A wealthy trader’s or crafter’s wife nearly always had the knowledge and experience to teach new servants how to cook, bake,  spin, weave, etc.  She might not do it now–but she has done it, and often takes an active part–both leader and doer–in household tasks.    And most girls in Fintha, as well as boys, have basic training in a grange: they can march, drill with hauks and practice swords, work together in emergencies like flood or fire.

Dorrin is fortunate that her writer granted her a reliable source of information on household organization and what qualities to look for in new hires…even direct help in finding the staff she needs.     (That helped the writer, too, who wanted to insert enough information to make taking over the estate more realistic but did not want to overload the  book with this particular chunk of background.)