Maedis Verith impressed his wife with his calm and rational behavior in a dire situation. But he impressed his in-laws with his mental organization skills.

So, as he is faced with a situation that blends new and old to become very upsetting, he takes a moment to adjust and then begins to categorize.

First, he bows slightly. “I accept your thanks and welcome you into the Verith stronghold. I am the margrave, Maedis Verith. Who might you be?” He starts planning the strongly worded letter in the back of his mind. To whom it may concern, please send warning before you send twenty knights…

The little bird-boned girl in front of the party straightens and takes her foot off the lead knight’s. “We are the Casmenoc’s gracious offer of reinforcement for the ramparts.”

Ahh. Reinforcements. Usually unannounced reinforcements have been banished here to be punished for some misdeed. “I see.”

The lead knight will not be silenced. He bursts out with, “Your hospitality is lacking severely! We were made to wait outside—”

“In the pouring sunshine and whispering winds,” mutters the knight standing next to the little girl. Note: funny. Note: do not send to the South Fourth, where Caranesek will just bandy banter back and forth with any jokesters sent his way. Note: definitely said that to make the little girl giggle, considering how pleased he is at her reaction.

“—which is a grievous breach of discipline and conduct!”

“I will take that under advisement, Sir…?”

“Gurstel Dhorak, of the Dhorak barony in the Western Duchy!” Sir Gurstel pulls himself up tall. Maedis adds a new mental folder labelled Dhorak, places Gurstel in it, and labels the document with the categories (Knight) and location: North Sixth. Rugan will whip Gurstel into shape, mostly by ruthlessly destroying that bloated ego. The folder itself he notes with produced annoying knight and puts away for later.

Now the most alarming issue: the little girl who could be quite pretty if she didn’t look half-starved and terrified. Her hair is a beautiful sapphire hue and her pale purple eyes are large and clear, but she’s incredibly thin and the tendons show in her hands. She’s clinging to the funny knight’s hand, but clearly trying to look mature otherwise.

Maedis knows how to approach terrified children. He steps down off the dais and gets down on her level in front of her. “May I know your name, my lady?”

She twists her hand in the hem of her faded brown dress. “I’m not a lady. I’m just Irenis.” She swallows. “I… my father is Triolun Casmenoc, but Mother was a maid.”

Oh no, Maedis knows this story.

“And… I’m a bastard daughter, so I should have stayed quiet and out of the way. But I didn’t, and I thought that when I became a sword master—”

Excuse Me. Maedis pulls out his mental folder on Rudhek and edits the note on his son’s grudge against the Casmenocs: weird entirely valid, revisit to assist. “You’re a sword master?”

Sir Gurstel snorts and the only woman standing within arm’s reach of him sneers, “So she claims. She’s never showed it off to us.”

“I don’t believe I asked you,” Maedis says curtly. “What happened, Irenis?”

“Mm. They didn’t believe me. And sent me here to get me out of the way.” Her lip wobbles. “The margrave said that since I was so eager to fight, I should at least do so somewhere useful.” Irenis clings to the funny knight with both hands. He stares down at her with a furious wrinkle in his brow, so apparently not everyone was in on the reason a little girl was sent to the ramparts.

And little girls need rest and recuperation after two months’ travel, even more so than adults. Maedis straightens. “The rest of you, introduce yourselves to me and my butler—” Hello, Jaevis. Good timing. “And then we’ll be able to get you set up in guest rooms.”

The knights all clamor to introduce themselves immediately. The guest rooms make a great motivator. Maedis takes note of their names and the interactions between them all. Gurstel has four or five hangers-on who have clearly stroked his ego. Most of the knights don’t get close to them, especially the female ones. The funny knight is Sir Jacryn, and he stands off from his peers, instead letting Irenis cling to him. On the one hand, it speaks well of him that he stands to protect the weak. On the other, his peers’ avoidance of him might be a red flag. Maedis puts a note on the file labelled Jacryn (Knight): further observation.

Irenis’s file is categorized as (Orphan) subcategory [Underage]. With how she speaks of her mother in the past tense and her father’s cruelty, it’s probably accurate enough. Maedis adds note: allegedly sword master and note: expects abuse and blames self for it.

He does not think about the fact that several of his nieflings were once in that category.

With the initial greetings done, Jaevis takes the visitors to the guest rooms. Maedis stretches, checks his schedule—free, and heads back to his office.

His spymaster, Cennac, is already waiting for him there. Maedis sits down and begins the process of transferring his mental folders to real life. “I assume you were watching the audience?”

“I was, my lord.”

Maedis taps his pencil against the folder he’s working on. Jacryn has nice hair for a knight, but poor skin, like he hasn’t been sleeping well. “Keep an eye on our visitors, especially Irenis and Jacryn. I’d like to trust Jacryn, but I won’t take the risk that he doesn’t have other motives.”

“Understood.” Cennac bows and disappears.

—

Irenis is split off with the woman knights. On the one hand, it does mean she gets away from Gurstel. On the other, instead of Jacryn she now has Asnathe.

The head maid, a stout woman with purple hair, laugh lines, and a curved dagger at her waist, props her fists on her hips as she looks at them. “You are all too skinny. Come with me, I’ll show you your rooms.”

Irenis follows her. Maids can usually be trusted, if not to actively help, then to turn a blind eye. And these ones probably won’t be fired for helping her! She’s a guest, after all, not a stupid bastard!

The head maid gets to a door and opens it. Then she opens another door further down the hall. “These two rooms can hold four apiece. It’s up to you who sleeps where.”

There are four knights and one Irenis. They all look at each other. Irenis shrugs. “I will be happy with wherever I sleep.”

Asnathe runs into the room on the right. “Dibs on the lone room!”

One of the other knights, who Irenis thinks might be named Meitha, huffs and tosses her long blonde hair. “Well, now I’m tempted to room with her out of spite.”

While sleeping arrangements are hashed out, Irenis ventures into the room to find it’s more of a suite. There’s a common area with several doors leading out of it and a large bay window on the west side. Irenis pokes her head into one of the doors and finds a water closet, one even more modern than the master bathroom back home. “Whoa.” She tugs on the toilet chain and it flushes smoothly and quietly. Fascinating. She pulls the chain again to watch the water go.

The head maid clears her throat from the door and Irenis jumps so badly she nearly falls over and cracks her head on the floor.

“Sorry, lass, didn’t mean to startle you. That’s a toilet.”

“I know. Thank you.” Irenis bows to hide her flaming cheeks. I suppose she must have heard me.

—

“These are the guest suites, so it’s more like having your own room—”

The toilet flushes again. Briensyn pauses and looks toward the offending noise. “How many times has that flushed now?”

The Casmenoc knights start snickering. The blonde one offers, “At least three?”

Briensyn, familiar with the kind of chaos preteen children can cause, hurries to investigate.

—

The room arrangements are made (Irenis has the bedroom closest to the exit door) and their stuff is delivered for them to unpack. Meitha and Asnathe get into a sniping fight about the quantity and quality of skin and hair products the other uses. Meitha escalates to chemical warfare and starts spritzing lavender perfume at Asnathe, who reacts as though it’s poison. Irenis sneezes and decides to evacuate. She takes her little bundle of stuff into her room. Then she reads the books on the little bookshelf until someone knocks on her door. She drops her current book and opens the door. “Yes?”

It's a pair of maids who bow upon seeing her. “Shall we show you to the bath house?”

Yes, please! Irenis curtsies. “I would like that!”

All the knights are gathered in front of the two doorways when Irenis arrives. The head maid and butler are both there, and Irenis has a moment of confused panic while she wonders whether they’re shirking their duties to show guests around. But that is not her problem, and aggravating them could just make things harder for her. She follows the head maid into the baths.