"Yes. The test. This will not be a battle of magics or swords, Demon, but a far more desperate battle. A man who cannot govern his household cannot be trusted to govern himself. Thus your challenge.
Beyond that door lies a household in desperate need of a firm hand. Impose order and control over the household, impose your undisputed rule, and you will win the challenge by demonstrating your right to rule yourself — your right to self-determination. If you cannot govern the household, you will fail, and will —"
Raspu snarled, already triumphant. This a challenge? Ha! "No need to explain the consequences of failure, woman, because I will not fail! "
"Fabulous! Just the man I needed!"
Raspu's face twitched and he took a deep breath, controlling his urge to decapitate her here and now. Later. There would be time later.
"I am the Demon of Pestilence," he finally said. "I can decimate populations, inflict plagues across continents, cause life itself to become nothing but a never-ending scourge. Think you that I can't manage a bunch of twaddle-headed maidservants?"
He straightened, lifted his chin, pulled down the cuffs of his black coat, and seized the doorknob.
With an efficient twist he opened the door, stepped inside, and slammed it behind him.
Gwendylyr folded her hands before her, her face expressionless.
Chapter 49
The Butler's Rule
Raspu stepped inside the kitchen, took in the scene in one appalled and angry glance, and roared.
Maidservants, asleep on the rug before the fire, screeched and leapt to their feet, hastily trying to pat their hair into some order.
Footmen, huddled over a poker game under the dish-racks, pushed chairs and stools to the floor as they hastily rose.
The cook lumbered out of the cold room, a jug of cream in her hands and smears of the clotted stuff about her chin, and stared gape-mouthed at the Demon-butler.
Five small children of indeterminate usefulness and sex scrambled out from the stove alcove, biscuits and cakes tumbling from their hands, and stood before the draining boards, forming a ragged, wailing line of carefully-managed pathos.
Two dogs burst out of a cupboard door, each with a half-eaten joint of meat in their jaws, and fled through an open window.
Several dishes crashed to the floor as they jumped over one of the benches, and a huge canister of flour fell to the floor.
Quiet and stillness descended as Raspu stared about.
Flour drifted down and coated all.
"What is going on here?" Raspu hissed. "Why this sloth, why this mess, why this chaos?"
Instantly excuses burst from every mouth.
"We've not been paid in a month —"
"It's cold outside —"
"My granny died five months ago and I've not been able to think straight since —"
"We've done our best, sir, truly —"
"— but things 'ave been against us, sure for a fact —"
"It's been cold inside, and not fit to work in —"
"Benny beat me up —"
"Frankie knocked me up —"
"No-one's been here to tell us what to do —"
"What shall we do, sir?"
Raspu strode forth and began to snap orders, tug uniforms straight, and jerk braids so painfully that girls cried.
"Clean this up — and yourself — now!
"Why has this been left to rot? Dispose of it. Now!
"Why do you cry, girl? There's work to be done. Now!
"Take this broom, and wield it!
"Have you no pride, cook? No sense of joy in your work? Find some. Now!"
And so Raspu twirled about the kitchen like a mini-tornado, venting anger and orders in equal amounts, pinching and shoving, nipping and poking, sending pages and maids screaming to their tasks, kicking footmen over doorsteps in the pursuit of their vocation, and shoving the cook's face in the pot of cold, starchy porridge on the stove top until she pleaded (somewhat damply) for mercy.
Finally, the kitchen was emptied of the majority of the wantonly lazy staff and those that were left were well on the road to making the room and its utensils sparkle with polish and use.
