Edvard watched the new master sprawled on the sofa, spread out as much as a man could be without actually falling to the floor.
At times the young man spoke to himself. At others he produced only indecipherable murmurs, as though debating with himself. And from what little he could make out, the debate seemed heated.
He had already been standing there for a good half hour, hands clasped before his body, as still as befitted a man of his station. He had been waiting since the young voroir had been shown to the chamber. In truth, he had been waiting since long before that. Everything was already prepared, as his role demanded. The room, the bath, the clothes, the meal, the silver, the linen, the proper order of small things.
Impeccable.
As it ought to be for receiving a voroir.
He was both pleased and bitter about his new designation.
To be given to a fylkirn who had become a voroir before he had even been taught how to be one was, in theory, a promising fate. There was prestige in shaping such a one. There was purpose, there was a future.
But the boy's color displeased him.
The absence of the arm, even more.
Not out of pity. Pity was of little use to Edvard. But because he liked symmetry, correctness, whole forms. A man who began broken usually required inconvenient adjustments from the world.
Even so, he was what had been given to him.
And he made good use of what was given to him.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, exalted voroir," he said at last, brushing aside his insubordinate thoughts.
He took a step forward and bowed at a ninety-degree angle. No more, no less.
When he raised his face again, the new master was already on his feet.
Quick.
Quicker than one would expected from someone so newly mutilated.
Ordinarily it was not Edvard's place to speak before his master, before being asked. But he feared the food would grow too cold. He also feared he might not be noticed for some time if he kept his silence.
The young voroir merely kept looking at him. He did not speak. He seemed to be trying to understand something, and that alone was enough for an obvious detail to occur to him.
A good many voroirs had been born common.
Common in status, not only in blessing.
Edvard had spent his whole life serving nobles, high clerics, and people accustomed to being served before they had even learned to speak properly. It was easy to forget that, from time to time, a man was snatched from below and hurled upward with armor and prerogatives.
To forget that was an error.
Edvard did not like errors.
"I beg pardon if I interrupted your train of thought," he said, offering another bow, a little less deep this time. "My name is Edvard. I have been assigned to instruct you with the best of my abilities."
He returned to an upright posture, straight as an arrow.
The young man remained silent for a few moments more. But something had changed in his eyes. Suspicion had given way to another sort of expression. Something slanted. Something that gave Edvard a bad feeling even before Hrafn smiled from one corner of his mouth.
Had he not known better, he might have taken him for a sorcerer.
"Don't worry," the young man said at last. "I'm just not used to..."
"Servant or butler will do, Lord Hrafn," he supplied, helpful as ever. "It is an honor for me to serve in the development of a voroir."
Silence returned. His new master seemed once again to be sunk in some inner debate.
He moved his right shoulder by reflex. The grimace came right after, as though he still surprised himself when he remembered there was no limb there at all. Then he passed his left hand through his hair.
"Just Edvard is fine," he said.
"I imagine you are hungry, my lord," he replied. "I hope there is something to your liking."
He walked to the cart covered with a dark cloth, removed the fabric with a clean motion, and lifted the lid from one of the silver dishes.
The smell of roast meat, hot fat, and spices spread through the room.
"Food?" Hrafn asked, and thankfully turned that strange look toward the cart now.
Edvard clapped his hands once.
Two maids emerged from the side door of the hall. They had already been waiting, as they should have been. They approached in silence and worked in silence, opening the table, laying out the silver, the bread, the goblets, the warmed plates, the sauces, the cloth for the lap, everything in its proper order, everything with the discretion he required.
The new master followed the operation with a discomfort he tried to hide and failed.
He did not even let one of the maids fasten the cloth at his neck.
Soon the table was set, and soon the maids withdrew.
"Isn't this too much for an initiate?" Hrafn asked.
Edvard adjusted his monocle.
"Yes," he said. "It is."
The answer hung between the two of them.
What would have come next would have been an explanation. Edvard would have given it competently, as he always had.
But he decided not to. He wanted to test the young man.
He wanted to know whether he had before him merely a cripple or a cripple and a fool.
The thought might have sounded insubordinate to more delicate ears. Edvard considered it merely practical. Knowing well the material one worked with was part of the work. And there were few things that mattered more to him than fulfilling his own purpose with precision.
Hrafn smoothed the absent right shoulder with his left hand.
"I understand," he said.
The satisfaction warmed Edvard inwardly, though it scarcely touched his face.
"Exactly, my lord," he answered. "You are a voroir now."
He could work with that.
A man incapable of understanding so simple a hint would be an exhausting master to serve.
"It will take time," Hrafn said. "But I'll get used to it."
After that there was little beyond the sounds of cutlery and chewing.
Edvard allowed himself to observe.
The meat had been cut before reaching the table, as of course it ought to have been. It would have been a gross error not to foresee the necessity in so singular a case. Even so, from what he could tell, Hrafn would have found a way to manage even without that care.
The skill he showed with his left hand was too quick for someone newly forced to use it as his only one.
Uncommon.
"I see you thought of everything," the young man remarked after a time.
"As duty dictates, my lord," answered.
Hrafn made a short sound through his nose. It did not quite amount to laughter. Neither was it contempt. Something between the two.
When he finished, he wiped his mouth with the cloth.
The wrong way.
Edvard felt the small stab of irritation he always felt before a breach of order.
"What comes next?" Hrafn asked.
"Many things, my lord," answered, restraining himself from immediately correcting the improper use of the cloth. "The first of them will be a choice of weapons."
"Makes sense," Hrafn said. "It's violent work."
"Perceptive, my lord," answered.
He clapped again, calling the maids back to clear the table.
"Among the many intricacies of the honored functions of a voroir, or..." He hesitated for an instant. The next word seemed almost rejected by his own tongue. "Work, as you prefer to call it, does indeed include violence."
"A great deal of it," Hrafn said.
Then, to Edvard's immediate horror, the young man reached for one of the plates already being carried away and picked up a chicken leg directly with his fingers.
He brought it to his mouth like a kitchen boy.
It was a glaring error.
Edvard did not like errors.
"That is not advisable, my lord. To eat at table in such a way-"
"Yes, I imagine," Hrafn cut in.
He bit, chewed, swallowed.
"But I bet an arm you'll get used to it."
The smile that came with the line was light.
The blow was not.
Edvard fell silent.
The joke about the mutilation hit him with full force. He had not expected that. Among people of station, such things were rarely touched. Well-born nobles avoided the subject. The lack of a limb was a shame to be worn with dignity and silence, not something to be brought to the table along with meat.
All weakness, among high society and the clergy, was shame.
Perhaps above all among them.
His master did not seem to share that understanding.
That, Edvard thought, might be harder to correct than his coarseness.
"Come on, Ed," Hrafn said, getting to his feet even before the table had been fully cleared. "Let's go get my weapon."
Edvard felt something very close to a twitch cross his face at the abbreviation.
"My lord, I-"
"Yes, yes, I imagine," Hrafn cut him off, repeating with irritating ease the phrase he already seemed to have learned to use against him.
There was humor in the voice. There was weariness too. And some other thing Edvard still did not know how to measure.
He watched the young voroir cross the room with that uncomfortable mixture of imbalance and firmness.
Hrafn still did not move like a whole man, but neither did he move like someone defeated.
Edvard adjusted his monocle once more.
Serving and educating that man until he was worthy of the station that now belonged to him would, without question, be an arduous task.
Perhaps arduous enough to be worth his effort.