Navigating the halls of Ravenhold was like walking through the bowels of a giant, asthmatic stone beast. There were no grand tapestries, no suits of gleaming armor, not even a decent rug to cover the uneven flagstones. It was just damp, gray rock that permanently smelled of mildew, stale draft ale, and mouse droppings.
By the time I reached the heavy oak doors leading to the courtyard, my bare feet inside my rough leather boots were freezing. I shoved the doors open, wincing as the rusted hinges screamed in protest, and stepped out into my domain.
The air hit me like a wet, smelly blanket. It was a glorious, complex symphony of odors: wet dog, woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, and the sharp, acidic tang of manure. In my old life, I would have gagged and sprayed half a can of Febreze. Now? I took a deep, theatrical breath. It smelled like poverty, desperation, and a whole lot of unwashed women working up a sweat. I was in heaven.
"My Lord. You are finally vertical. A minor miracle."
I turned to see an old man marching toward me through the ankle-deep mud of the courtyard. He looked like a raisin that had been left out in the sun and then dressed in a brown tunic. He had a ledger tucked under one arm and a permanent scowl etched into his weathered face. The memories helpfully supplied his name: Willem. My steward. Sixty-five years old and fueled entirely by spite and stress.
"Willem," I said, trying to summon a lordly tone and mostly just sounding like a hungover frat boy. "Good morning. The keep looks... exactly as miserable as I remember."
Willem stopped a few feet away, his eyes darting to the fresh scar tissue visible through the unlaced top of my shirt. He let out a long, long-suffering sigh. "We thought you were dead, My Lord. The Maester said the fever would take you. I see it only managed to take what little manners you possessed."
"Death looked at my bank account and decided I wasn't worth the paperwork," I replied smoothly. "Now, give me the report. How broke are we?"
Willem blinked. "Broke, My Lord?"
"Destitute. Penniless. How empty are the coffers?"
Willem opened his ledger, the parchment pages crinkling loudly. "As you well know, My Lord, it is the second week of the harvest moon. Which means the King's tax collectors are due in a fortnight. They will expect their seventy percent of the grain, the livestock, and the silver."
"Seventy percent," I repeated, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.
"Indeed. Then, by the laws of Aldoria, Ravenhold claims its twenty percent for the protection and maintenance of the lands."
I stared at him, doing the math. "Hold on. The King takes seventy. I take twenty. That leaves ten percent."
"Yes, My Lord."
"Ten percent. For the people who actually grew the shit."
"That is the nature of the realm, My Lord," Willem said, looking at me like I was a particularly slow child.
My inner monologue immediately began screaming. Are you fucking kidding me? A ninety percent income tax? To live in a mud puddle surrounded by a wooden fence that wouldn't keep out a determined badger? If I tried to run a World of Warcraft guild with these tax rates, my players would dox me, SWAT my house, and burn my PC. These peasants aren't surviving; they're just dying on layaway!
"Right," I muttered, rubbing my temples. "And what does our twenty percent amount to?"
Willem cleared his throat. "Currently, our treasury holds forty-two silver stags, a handful of copper pennies, and an I.O.U. from Baron Grell for three barrels of mead that he claims were 'spoiled' upon delivery."
"We're poorer than my Netflix subscription after I pirated everything," I mumbled.
"Pardon, My Lord? Net-flicks?"
"Never mind. Just walk me through the yard. Let me see my glorious kingdom."
Willem sighed again and turned, gesturing for me to follow. We squelched our way through the courtyard. It was less a seat of power and more a disorganized farm outhouse. A few scrawny chickens pecked desperately at the mud. A blacksmith was hammering away at a horseshoe, looking so malnourished I expected the hammer to pull him down with every swing.
As we walked, my eyes inevitably wandered. Over by the well, a girl was pulling up a heavy wooden bucket. It was Bess, old farmer Jeb's daughter. She was thick in all the right places, her rough dress clinging to her hips and thighs. The exertion of hauling the water had her face flushed, and a beautiful, glistening sheen of sweat coated her neck, dripping down into the cavernous cleavage barely contained by her bodice.
Holy mother of medieval assets, I thought, my modern pervert brain short-circuiting. Forget the economy. This right here is the real gross domestic product.
I puffed out my chest, puffing up like a majestic, lordly rooster. I needed to make an impression. I needed to strut over there, drop a smooth, terribly inappropriate line, and establish dominance. I smirked, locking eyes with Bess as she turned toward me. She paused, her eyes widening slightly at her Lord's sudden, intense stare.
"Watch your step, My Lord," Willem warned from somewhere to my left.
"I'm always watching, Willem," I said smoothly, not breaking eye contact with Bess. I took a confident, swaggering step forward.
My heel hit something soft. It wasn't mud. It had volume. It had texture.
Time seemed to slow down. My foot shot forward, acting like a sled on a ramp made of pure, unadulterated horse shit. My arms pinwheeled wildly. I saw Bess gasp, her hands flying to her mouth. I saw the gray sky above.
With a wet, echoing SQUELCH, I went completely airborne and landed flat on my back.
Pain shot up my spine, but it was nothing compared to the immediate, overwhelming smell of fresh, steamy equine feces that was now thoroughly plastered up the entire back of my trousers and my shirt.
The courtyard went dead silent. The blacksmith stopped hammering. The chickens stopped clucking. Bess was frozen, desperately biting her lower lip to keep from bursting into laughter.
"I warned you, My Lord," Willem said, peering down at me with an expression of profound exhaustion. "The stable boy has the ague. The horses have been... unconstrained."
I lay there for a long moment, staring at the dreary Aldorian sky. I was a Lord. I was the master of this domain. And I was currently marinating in horse shit while a peasant girl tried not to piss herself laughing at me.
"Willem," I rasped, not moving.
"Yes, My Lord?"
"If you ever tell anyone about this, I will invoke Prima Nocta on your wife."
"My wife has been dead for twelve years, My Lord."
"Then I'll dig her up and complain about the economy to her skull. Help me up."
Willem reluctantly offered a hand and hauled me to my feet. I dripped. Actual, literal shit dripped from my clothes. The smell was eye-watering.
"You will need a bath, My Lord," Willem noted dryly. "But the river water has not been heated."
"Fuck the bath for a second, I need to get out of these clothes before my skin absorbs the peasant-level poverty," I grumbled, waddling awkwardly with my legs apart to keep the mess from spreading. "Where's the washhouse?"
"Just past the kitchens, My Lord. But Marta and the maids are currently—"
"Perfect. Go update your ledger, Willem. Try to find a way to tax the mud."
I left him standing there and waddled toward the stone outbuilding he'd pointed at. As I got closer, the smell of horse shit was thankfully overpowered by a different scent. It was the acrid tang of cheap, harsh lye soap, billowing steam, and something else. Something heavy, musky, and distinctly feminine. The smell of a dozen women scrubbing heavy fabrics in a boiling hot room.
My pervy sixth sense started tingling. The anger of slipping in manure evaporated, replaced entirely by a surge of base, degenerate curiosity.
I reached the heavy wooden door of the washhouse. It was cracked open just an inch. Plumes of hot, scented steam rolled out into the chilly air. I peaked through the crack.
The room was practically a sauna. Huge wooden vats of boiling water bubbled in the center. But it wasn't the water that caught my attention. It was the large, woven wicker basket sitting near the door.
It was overflowing with the morning's laundry. Tunics, aprons, and right on top... a pile of rough-spun, damp, sweat-soaked undergarments. The maids' undergarments. Marta's, Elara's, Sienna's.
My breath hitched. I looked down at my shit-stained hands, then back at the basket of medieval holy grails.
"Jackpot," I whispered.