“You requested my presence, Sire?” Karim asked as he entered Braydon’s study. After the months of serving Braydon, he looked much more sure of himself than when they had first been ‘introduced’. Meeting each other after your former employer just died on the battlefield would do that. In spite of their first meeting, spending so much time running around cleaning up after the King’s allies together during the civil war put any of that behind them.

“Yes, I am sure you have heard of Nela’s pet project by now?” Braydon asked. He did not want to offer becoming a tutor for the school if he had not even heard of it. There would need to be an explanation first.

“I am aware of it.” Karim nodded.

“Good, I would like to ask you to start training servants for my properties. You might have noticed that I am short staffed everywhere but this very castle. I think it is about time that we change that. This school that we are setting up would be a good place to do so.” Braydon made the offer. It was a fairly decent offer if he thought so himself. Having seen how well Karim worked even with half of the Kingdom’s minor nobles running around his mansion in Mapjess, he did not doubt that he would do a good job.

“And my current responsibilities?” Karim asked. He was very much aware that Braydon did not have many senior servants that could take his place.

“You are free to recommend someone else if you accept my offer, or can go back to it after training our servants. I do not plan to be spending much time in Mapjess in the near future nor am I expecting to receive guests there, so your temporary absence should hopefully not affect things too much.” Braydon at least hoped that he would not be having guests in the near future since he planned to be marching through eastern Shuluk. It was not like he would be able to receive them.

“How many people are we talking about here?” Karim was slightly concerned about that. Braydon had mentioned that he was short on servants in almost all of his properties. Karim had only seen the state of the manor in Mapjess but considering how many had to be sent to Cliforge Castle, he could guess how the other places were doing.

“There is the manor in Mapjess, as you already know. Then there is the mansion in the capital that I was rewarded by the King, there is also Baron Abel’s manor and Baron Walker’s manor too. So that would be almost the full staff of a mansion and a manor, and I have not had time to see the quality of the staff of the other two manors.” It sounded a lot worse now that Braydon actually said it out loud.

“Then I might think it good for someone to take my place, since it would take a long while to train that many servants. At the least there are a number that have prior experience even if I need to retrain them.” Karim almost started sweating when Braydon just listed off how many places he would have to train the staff for. He was aware that there was a problem but not quite how bad it would be.

“Then you accept?” Braydon asked, Karim had just said that he would need someone to replace him in Mapjess. That meant that he had already accepted.

*cough*

“I guess that means that I have accepted.” Karim only noticed that he had subconsciously accepted that he would be training the new staff before actually accepting the offer but it was too late to back out. ‘At least it gives me something to be doing now.’

“I will have Collin send you a list of the servants that we do have and how many we will be needing in each manor.” He noticed that Karin was likely consoling himself in his mind so he decided to carry on before he got second thoughts.

“That would be helpful, Sire. When will you need me to start training these new servants?” Karim asked.

“As soon as would be expedient. We do also need to start telling my subjects that I am hiring servants. I am sure that there will be more than a few that would be happy to work for me.” Not because Braydon thought he had a great reputation or anything like that but more because being a servant for a noble generally paid better than farming. It was also a happy coincidence for Braydon that he was hiring mercenaries and servants at the same time. One would hopefully distract people from the other.

“Then I will make arrangements.” Karim bowed before he turned and left the study.

“Looks like I will have to go and speak to the village elders tomorrow. No better way to get the word out.” Braydon said to himself once Karim left the room. He would already have to talk to them about levying more men for his army, telling them about the school would just be another thing for the list.

Roan had already been sent to Wathamalin to start recruiting mercenaries whilst Rhydian took up looking over patrols of the border and training the troops in his absence. Braydon would have sent Rhydian to do it but he was a bit too high profile for something that was meant to be discrete. Whilst Roan was still a knight, he was by no means as well known as Rhydian was. Whilst it would be odd for Braydon to be hiring mercenaries right now, there were lots of newly appointed lords who needed men of their own, so it would not be unheard of for unknown knights to be hiring mercenaries.