Braydon was wandering slowly through the halls of the lord’s mansion. Even though he had been harsh with Nela, he himself did not like the idea of Cinar being in harm’s way either. He might not know him as well as Nela or the King did, but it was hard not to like the man. And the past several weeks had let him spend a lot of time with him. He had grown to view Cinar as a friend of sorts as well, he almost wanted to go to their camp on the Harmony to try and convince him to swap out with someone else too. The problem was that he knew that he could not leave and anyone else who might be able to persuade Cinar was not able or allowed to leave the main army.

*sigh*

“I at least hope that she won’t hold this against me.” After putting in so much work to get her to go see her father, Braydon was now the one keeping Nela from going to see him. An irony that was not at all lost on Braydon.

“Wait, didn’t Roan say that they had brought Gerald back with them? Where on earth did that slippery bastard manage to run off to?” Braydon knew that he was just distracting himself but it was better than thinking about a topic that he could not really do anything about. Not to mention it was true, when he left Roan to ‘guard’ Nela, the latter had mentioned that they had brought Gerald along with them. And since Braydon did not feel up to continuing with his duties for the rest of the day, he could at least shove them off onto someone other than Corban for once.

“Ah, Karim, good timing.” It was at this moment that he saw the mansion’s butler as he turned another corner. He had an idea of some of the places that Gerald would have gone but that did not mean that he was going to look in each one of those places personally. It would take too much time, not to mention that he had servants for this kind of thing. The man in front of him was case in point.

“You need my assistance?” When Braydon called out to him, Karim turned around and bowed before speaking. Braydon was sure that not all that much would have changed for Karim since he became the new lord of Mapjess. Most of the mansion’s staff had been kept on, either serving in Cliforge castle or still in the mansion. And since he was already the butler of the mansion, it was just a matter of serving different people.

“Can you send someone to go and look for Gerald. He should have returned with Roan and Nela but I have yet to set eyes on him.” Braydon hoped that Gerald could be found rather quickly, otherwise the work that he wanted to dump on him would have to wait. There was no doubt that he had already found some alcohol from somewhere, it was just a matter of how much he had been able to drink in that time.

Since he had been staying in the castle for so long, Gerald had been able to spend more time with his drinking buddy. In the time since the iron mine had been located Aran, the retired prospector and blacksmith, had decided to settle down in Midbury as the town blacksmith. Since it was a relatively small town, there was enough work for him to be satisfied without being too busy to partake in his favourite pastime, drinking. Something that Gerald was more than happy to join him in whenever he could. Braydon was still amazed that Aran could get a hold of enough of the stuff considering the lack of merchants that actually crossed the mountain pass.

“Certainly.” Karim bowed once again before quickly heading in the direction of the servant’s quarters. It was one of the places that Gerald often liked to hide from responsibilities, and if he wasn’t there there would still be servants there who Karim could send to look for him.

*knock knock*

“Come in.” Braydon was once again awoken to the sound of a servant knocking at his door. Even though it had been like this for over a month at this point, Braydon was still not quite used to servants other than Steven looking after him.

“What is it?” Since the servant did not speak up, he thought that it must be a messenger with some important news. Since it was the case, Braydon sat up lazily before opening his eyes only to see Steven in front of him.

“Missed me?” Steven replied before moving towards the wardrobe to get Braydon’s clothes. It took Braydon several seconds to realise why it was Steven in front of him.

“You know, I forgot that I told Roan to ask you to come back.” Braydon had truly forgotten. It was not exactly his top priority when he had asked Roan to go with Lani to find Nela. Not that he was complaining, it was far more comfortable for him to have Steven looking after him than it was for the other servants to do so. Not that he thought the other servants did a bad job, He’d have fired them otherwise, but Steven had been looking after him for almost as long as he could remember. There was more familiarity.

“I noticed that.” Steven replied, getting a guilty laugh from Braydon. Steven had returned before Roan and Nela, but Braydon had failed to notice it at all. He could hardly say that it was down to a lack of time.

“I hope you had a good rest.” Braydon tried to shift the conversation to something slightly less awkward for him, Steven just shook his head at Braydon’s antics.

“Do not worry, I had Gerald there to remind me of what I was missing.” Steven jabbed, they both knew that Gerald could be like Braydon but more so when he wanted to. Something that Braydon would never admit to and Steven would happily use during their morning conversations.

“Speaking of, I should probably grab him and send him to Corban before he thinks of hiding and drinking the day away.” Braydon knew that Gerald would try it, he just hoped that the latter hadn’t woken up yet. That was a fifty-fifty proposition at best.

“I saw him up and about before I came in.” Steven shut down that hopeful thinking immediately.

“Then I really do need to get up now don’t I?” Braydon sighed as he got out of bed.

“You needed to regardless of that.” Steven replied as he started to get Braydon ready.