Questions and Answers

Writers: Jane, Vix
Date Posted: 4th September 2007

Characters: Benaran, Rikka
Description: Benaran has some questions for Rikka.
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 5, day 25 of Turn 4

Rikka found the office easily enough but knocked on the door with more difficulty. Nerves - and she didn't usually suffer from anything of the sort. But the Lord Holder's son had asked to see her; that seemed a little unusual. Worrying even.

All the same, she knocked and waited as calmly as she could manage.

Benaran had been pacing the room, waiting - and fuming. At the knock, he paused, glaring at the door, before crossing the room and opening it.
His eyes swept over the woman, though his face showed no expression.
Finally, he raised his arm, pointing to a chair. "Sit."

"Er - thank you, sir." She made her way to the seat and sat.

He took long strides to his own chair and sank into it. Once seated, he regarded her solemnly, his fingers drumming on the arm of the chair as he studied her. Finally he spoke. "My son has spent much time with you lately."

Rikka nodded. "He has been assigned to me to learn something about the craft." Surely it had been this man's idea? Why, then, did she feel like she was in trouble about something?

"I sent my son to learn what a technician does. He was to spend a few days with a craftsman." Benaran's eyes narrowed as he watched her. "How did he end up with _you_?"

How did I end up with _him_, she thought, though in all honesty she had got used to him as the days had gone on. "I don't know. I was just told to take him around and look after him."

"Look after him? I'm sure you enjoyed that, didn't you?" The final words he uttered were almost a snarl.

The journeywoman shifted uneasily in her chair. "I - Well, he wasn't so bad, after a while. Lots of sensible questions."

"Not so bad after a while?" Now the man looked her up and down. "No, I imagine he wasn't. You taught him a thing or two, didn't you?"

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Rikka asked worriedly. No wonder Benider wanted to keep away from his family's notice if this was anything to go by. "That he learn about the role technician craft had in the Hold?"

The holder leaned forward, arms braced on the desk between them. "My son mentions you quite fondly. I assume you taught him more than the role of the technician craft."

Rikka jumped to her feet, then backed around the chair when standing brought her closer to the angry man. "I didn't do anything of the sort," she said firmly, finally realising what the Lord Holder's son was suggesting. "Wouldn't have."

He resisted the urge to smile at her discomfort, taking a cruel delight in her emotion. "Then to what should I attribute his desire to spend even more time in the technician craft?"

"I think you'd have to ask him that," Rikka said, feeling like she was betraying the young man by setting his father on him, but surely Benider was used to dealing with his father? More used to it than she was, certainly.

"I want to hear from _you_ what your contacts with him have entailed."

"Well, he watches me work and asks questions. And I try to make him think about the Hold's dependence on things like electricity production and supply; mechanical devices like the locks and sluices.
Refrigeration ... heating. All the stuff we do," she said finally, thinking she wasn't giving the Lord Holder's son the answers he wanted.

Benaran frowned at her reply; he really could not fault any of that and wanted his son to learn such things, but still. . . "You speak to each other only of the work you are doing?"

"Well, not always. We pass the time of day, like people do. Small talk, you know." It was possible that the stern man didn't indulge in such things, and she was guiltily aware of the few times that Benider had spoken about his family.

The Holder's frown deepened. "He speaks to you as to an equal?"

"He has good manners," Rikka countered, thinking that covered all sorts of things.

Benaran continued to scowl at her. "He's been brought up to have good manners, but he's also been raised to know his position as compared to others."

"Well he is shadowing me at the discretion of the master technician of the Hold."

"And you feel that places you on the same level as one of the Blood?"

Rikka considered that. Craftbred as she was she had been insulated from Hold-life and found some of the attitudes toward the Lord Holder's family exaggerated and slightly ridiculous. It seemed unwise to mention that, though. "I think being a journey-ranked technician - and journey-ranked craftswoman - means that I should be treated with respect by all members of the Hold I am employed by," she said carefully.

Benaran sat back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach in an effort to still them from their angry tapping. "And my son has always treated you with that respect?"

"Of course," the journeywoman said, relieved that he had accepted her statements.

He nodded, still unsmiling, but then stopped to point toward her, emphasizing his words with swift jerks of his finger. "You do realize that there will never be anything beyond that between you and my son?"

Just when she thought he was settling down, he was back at _that_ again.
"I wouldn't expect anything else," she said shortly.

Now he nodded curtly. "Just so we understand each other."

Rikka got to her feet understanding one thing - she really didn't want to still be at Amber Hills Hold if this one of the Lord Holder's sons inherited. "Is that everything, sir?"

Benaran jerked his head toward the door. "You may go." He pointedly turned his attention back to the papers arranged on his desk.

Last updated on the September 8th 2007

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