Page 6 of Centerpiece

“I do?”Agreeable stopped, then focused on his plate, using another buttered roll to clean up the gravy.“Should I call you anything?”He peered over.“It doesn’t have to be your true name, either.I could understand not wanting to be connected to me.”

The man leaned over to pour himself half a cup of wine and took a drink.“My name is Holburn.”

A warm name.

Agreeable nodded.“I thank you for the meal, Holburn, as well as the protection.”He didn’t mention repayment.He had only one thing to offer and that didn’t seem to be wanted.Holburn had asked for something else.“My ma might call you a good man,” Agreeable informed him.“She works for the Count.Most from my village do now.”

“Why not you too?”A sensible question.

Agreeable shrugged.“I’m not trained in the ways of a grand house, and I was taught to farm, not to cook or smith or anything useful in a home.”

“All of you in the same situation, then?You and your not-thief friends?”

Another sensible question.Agreeable couldn’t be angry about it.

“You’re a sharp man, too.Your grandfather raised you well.And yes, I suppose that’s so.Where were we to go?We can be hired for the fields, but that’s not year-round, is it?And it’s a strange thing, tending to fields that used to be yours.”

“I imagine it would be.”Holburn had another sip.“Eat and drink your fill.Don’t worry about me.”Agreeable nodded and helped himself to more bread and gravy and a small bit of wine.“Now,” Holburn continued, “you could be trained for work in a grand house.Not to offend you, but many lords and ladies prefer to have staff who are pleasing to the eye.Though I suppose there’s some danger there.”

“Pleasing to the eye?”Agreeable sat up.“Am I?”

He received a puzzled frown.“Surely you knew that, if you are so sought after.”

Agreeable stared at him and then away from him, to the fire.“No one’s ever said.It’s more that I’m there, you see.Pleasing?”He looked back.“Am I really?”

“Yes.”Boldly stated, although Holburn did not go on to say why.“Your friends are true cads, exactly as I first named them.”

Agreeable started to argue, but had nothing to say.He poked at his plate, the gravy-soaked hunk of bread, then tore that into small pieces to try to eat as delicately as possible.When he was done, he put the plate on the table, had another sip of wine, cleaned his hands on the damp towel as if he were a good and well-mannered lass, and sat back.“I don’t know what else to tell you of the Count.I’ve only seen him in passing, or heard whatever my ma or his other servants have said.”

“Does he treat them well?Pay them properly?Reward years of service?”Holburn tossed out questions quick as lightning strikes.“Do his guards act well?Does he start fights with his neighbors?How was he with the Duke of this region?”

“I guess you’d need to know all of that if you wanted to do business here,” Agreeable mused aloud, although he frowned as he thought it all over.“His pay is all right.Though I don’t know what I’m supposed to compare it to.I do worry what will happen when Ma gets too elderly for the hard work of the kitchens.Though I try not to think on it, because where am I to house her?I’ve no house at all.Just a place in the woods under a tree.”

Holburn scowled.It was the least jewel-like he’d been so far.Agreeable had an urge to smooth away the scowl with a gentle touch.He’d seen a woman do that once.She’d been seated on her sweetheart’s lap while petting his frowns away.

“So, you don’t feel he’s treated you or anyone fairly.”Holburn declared it with confidence.Agreeable had said no such thing but it had perhaps been in his heart.“And I can’t say that you’re wrong.Not if there is a village’s worth of people living without houses while the Church has extra coin at his say-so.And this is to impress the Duke?”

Agreeable shrugged again.“So they say.There’s been no visit from the Duke in my lifetime.And no invite for the Count to go visit him.Not that I’ve heard of.”

Holburn continued to scowl.“And the punishing of thieves with beatings or worse also goes on, despite the obvious cause?”

“Obvious cause?”Agreeable stared without blinking.“You are likely very wealthy, so perhaps you can escape most consequences.But you should be careful when you say such things.”

Holburn’s scowl deepened, then slipped away as if it had never been.“I didn’t mean to worry you, Agreeable.I apologize.”

Agreeable opened his mouth but only a strained squeak emerged.He coughed and tried again.“You keep apologizing to me.”

“I do not say that everyone in the country is like me.”Holburn spoke as softly as Agreeable.“I only say that things in the rest of the country are not as they are here.And I am sorry you haven’t known that, and that you have lived such a life.Although you have stayed honest—as honest as an accused thief might be—and worried for the life of a stranger, and sweet in your manner.If that is the doing of your parents, know that I think they are proud of you.Or should be.”

Agreeable drew in a breath and then could not speak.He lowered his head and stilled his kicking feet and finally let the breath out.“I will never be the same after that, Holburn.”

“Should I apologize again?”

Agreeable hesitated, then shook his head.“Is it truly different elsewhere?”That was a less upsetting topic, though only slightly.

“Depends on the nobles and the region.The King doesn’t want anyone else to be too powerful and demands visits from his Dukes a few times a year.But mostly he leaves each Duke to rule their regions as they see fit.Some closely follow the Church, some leave it to itself but pay it little mind.Most would not care about some peasants with no homes—but some would.And some would be greatly bothered by a Count with plentiful wealth that has not been shared with his people—or with the Duke and the King as it should be.”

“That makes more sense, then.”Agreeable felt a bit of his tension leave him.“Nobles mad at other nobles over money.That seems like something they’d do.With us as an afterthought.”He stopped, guilty, then remembered it was Holburn, who twitched his lips into a familiar half smile.“What do you think of the Church?Begging your pardon if you’re one for deep faith.I clearly am not.”

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