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DerynifanK

March 17, 2024, 03:48:44 PM
Happy St Patrick's Day. Enjoy the one day of the year when the whole world is Irish.

A Gryphon by the Tail Chapter 22

Started by Alkari, October 18, 2010, 04:02:07 AM

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Alkari

Nigel doesn't have to raise his voice at all when speaking to them.  He will calmly listen to their account of the matter, and then deal with it.   (After all, he learnt from his own uncle, Duke Richard.)

Like Alaric with Lady Trimmett when she insulted Richenda, Nigel has a devastating line in 'quiet polite chats' when required.  Shame there were no recording devices ...  ;)


AnnieUK

Yes, I am looking forward to seeing more of Duke Richard in CM3.  I think we'll see a lot of what influenced Brion, Nigel and Alaric into becoming the men they did right there.

DesertRose

He may not raise his voice, but they'll skulk away with their tails between their legs nonetheless. :) 

I know a number of people who can impress upon one the seriousness of one's error without having to raise their voices, and Nigel would be that sort, I think.
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

Elkhound

I don't understand why Richenda was so concerned with how her servants would react to her marrying Alaric.  Wouldn't it be a matter of "this is how it is going to be; deal with it or find another job"?

Alkari

#19
For the simple reason, Elkhound, that Richenda actually likes to treat her staff as people, who have feelings of their own - and these two have been with her for some time.  Lily has been with her for two years, and Joan has been helping out with Brendan for well over a year.  During that time, Richenda has been through a great deal herself (like the death of her daughter, followed by the treachery and death of Bran), and those two women have been with her, comforting her when she's cried her eyes out (which she's done many a time), and just somehow kept going.  They know her and she knows them.

Of course they will have to find other jobs eventually if they can't accept it: she's not going to want a couple of mutinous thunderclouds working for her!  But naturally she hopes they'll get over it in a day or so, and be glad that she's happy after all she's been through.

Richenda is basically a Nice Person, and she particularly likes to stand by those people who have been loyal to her and helped her through difficult times - whether they be family, friends, servants or anyone else.  End of Story.

ETA:  Richenda also understands that Lily's fears are all Deryni-related, and for the most part, Joan's are too.  Like almost the entire population of Gwynnedd, they are scared of the Deryni, and even fearful of Richenda's soul (and theirs).  The Church has preached about the evils of the Deryni for 200 years, and now their mistress is about to marry the big, bad Deryni sorcerer, about whom they've heard all these terrible rumours.  As Gwynedd's new regime understands, the only way to deal with those fears is to gently show people that not all Deryni are like Wencit and Charissa, and if you note, both maids start to come round once they've actually seen something of the 'real' Morgan, playing with Brendan and showing him sword fighting techniques.  Plus Joan's now heard Brendan suggest that he thinks Morgan would make a nice new Papa ... and she loves little Brendan.  Aside from the fact that Richenda is a nice person, there are practicalities: it would be difficult enough to find new maids at very short notice in Rhemuth, and possibly also hard enough in Marley.  Coroth won't be a problem for employing staff, but it's going to be more than three months before she gets there!

AnnieUK

And also when you've trained someone up over that length of time and they are used to how you like things done, it is a pain to have to start again.  Plus, Brendan has been through enough upheaval that Richenda wouldn't want him to have to get used to a new nurse if that could be avoided, when he has got used to her.  It also ripples through any other staff you have if you are seen to be heavy-handed with anyone. 

I know this is C12 and considered to be big, bad and brutal, but I'm sure whatever age she was born into Richenda would treat her maids with consideration and compassion, because that's how she's made.

Evie

Of course, Mirjana is going through a similar dilemma right now, though for very different reasons.  In her case, she'd be reluctant to simply fire a servant (especially one that has been loyal to the Ducal household, if not to her personally, for many years) without first giving them a chance to mend their ways.  In her particular case, of course, she realizes why they would have objections to her, and she'd also realize that some will never come to accept her.  Even so, she gave those a choice of leaving voluntarily before resorting to outright dismissal.

In this particular case, Joan and Lily have years of knee-jerk anti-Deryni prejudice working against them, but even though we readers know that the prejudice is unjustified, they don't know that.  Their horrified reactions at first stem from being truly caring, loyal servants who want the very best for their mistress, and who are afraid of her inadvertently following the "evil Deryni Duke" into spiritual peril and eternal damnation.  Now that they are getting to know him better, they are coming to realize that he's not the wicked sort that everyone has talked him up to be.  They might not be 100% won over yet, but they're getting there.  But changing that sort of ingrained mindset takes time and patience.

Why bother?  Because of course Richenda cares about her servants just as much as they care about her.  She knows their worries stem from the heart; they're not just being spiteful or petty.  So she would want to reassure them until they come around to seeing that her marriage to Alaric is a good thing for her, not a bad thing.  And they're making steady progress in that direction now.

If they simply couldn't accept Alaric, though, I think she'd still care enough about them to give them the choice of resigning rather than being fired, and possibly would try to point them towards positions where they could serve someone else who wouldn't put them in the sort of moral/ethical bind they'd feel like they'd be in if they remained with her.  Why?  Because even if she couldn't agree with them, she'd still care about their welfare.  They stuck with her through some of the roughest moments of her life.  She'd not just discard them because they don't feel like they can follow her where she's going now.  Fortunately, since they are coming around, Richenda won't be put in that difficult position.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Alkari

Not that it is at all relevant to this fic, but in my "background" notes for these people, Lily does end up going to Corwyn with Richenda (and marries someone there), but Joan stays in Marley.  And that is not because Joan doesn't want to go with Richenda - she does - but because her own family back in Marley need her (daughter in law dies suddenly, and son who is a Marley retainer needs help with his young family). 

However, Joan stays on as a servant at the manor house in Marley, and is always delighted to welcome Richenda whenever she manages to make it back there.  Richenda tries to visit when she can, and takes Brendan when he is a little older, so he knows his inheritance and some of the people.