Knighthood, 93

The Administrative Parts of A Job May Not Be Exciting, but They Can Be Fulfilling too

Ao3 Link

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Sometimes Edwin felt that since he’d been knighted, all he really did was paperwork.

Which he knew was his own fault, because he’d been offered this job and accepted it, so it wasn’t like he had anyone to blame but himself in reality. And Owen had told him that Gavin was feeling overwhelmed lately, so he couldn’t even blame Gavin for convincing him he deserved it, because that would be mean.

Edwin sighed. “Problem?” Warren asked, sitting with him at the table in their room in the castle.

Edwin shook his head. “No, it’s fine. Just that if I’d wanted to do this much writing, I’d have gone to scribe school instead of knight school.”

Warren nodded, turning back to the book he was reading. “Do they have scribe school?”

“Don’t know,” Edwin admitted. He thought about it. “I don’t think so.” Franz’s scribe was just someone who worked for him and had learned to be a scribe. “I guess it’s probably a master-apprentice thing like most jobs.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. A bit weird that our job isn’t like that, honestly.”

“It is a bit,” Edwin said, tapping the paper as he made sure the expenses all lined up and trying to ignore the boner that arose at the thought that he could have been calling Erik ‘master.’ “I mean that’s what being a squire is for.”

“Yeah. But like, scribes don’t go to scribe school and then get an apprenticeship, why do we?”

“Uh…I think it’s so our training is standardized?” Edwin wasn’t sure. Not knowing how to work with his fellow knights would definitely lead to unnecessary loss of life on the battlefield, but he was also learning that not knowing how to work with his subjects ran the risk of starvation and poverty. If there were keep owner training classes, Edwin would definitely enroll, even if the teacher was only half as hot as Gavin was when he explained tax theory.

Coming out of the privy, Evan sat with them. “It’s so I can’t take on my son and his friends as squires and never let anyone into the order who’s more loyal to the kingdom than to me. And more importantly it’s so that Sir Owen can’t take on his son and his friends and never let anyone into the order who’s more loyal to the kingdom than to him.”

That made sense to Edwin. “Is it especially Owen because he’s royalty or because he’s hot?”

“I feel like it’s both,” Warren said, leaning back in his chair. “I mean, if a hot enough person asked me to overthrow the monarchy I’d probably do it.”

“Good thing Ash wouldn’t ask, then.”

Warren grinned. “Exactly.”

Edwin snorted, though it wasn’t like he didn’t get it. Fortunately, none of the hot people he knew were anti-monarchists either, and many of the hot people he knew were, in fact, the monarchy. He put his newly practiced signature on the bottom of the paper and stood up. “Okay, I have to go give this to the prince and then I’m going home. See you guys later.”

“Say hi to Robby for us,” Evan said, as Edwin left the room and crossed the hall.

Erik was at the door with Parry, and Edwin patted his shoulder. “Evan and Warren will be here in a second,” he said, going inside.

“Awesome, thanks,” said Erik, as if Edwin had done anything. Well, he’d written the schedule, he supposed.

Inside the room, Gavin was sitting at the table by himself, writing something. Eddie was behind him, holding paper and extra quills. “Hey,” Edwin said, coming to join them.

“Hi,” said Gavin, tilting his head up. Edwin leaned down and kissed him. “Going home?”

“Yeah. I need you to sign this.”

Gavin took it and looked it over. “Why is replacing Ash’s boots coming out of my budget?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Gavin looked at Edwin. Edwin looked at Gavin, then he looked at Grey Rain’s door. Gavin sighed, shook his head and signed the paper. “Thanks,” he said.

Edwin nodded. “You doing okay?”

“I’m fine. I was tired for five minutes one afternoon a week ago and since then Owen has had everyone babysitting me,” Gavin grumbled. “I’m fine, please stop asking me if I’m okay every time you see me.”

Edwin kissed him again. “No. See you tomorrow.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

On his way out the door, Edwin bumped into Greg, who looked a little down. “Hey,” he said. “I’m headed to Stag Keep. Want to come for lunch?”

“Hm?” Greg asked, blinking. “Oh, um. No thank you, Edwin. I appreciate the invitation.”

He always appreciated the invitations, without ever taking Edwin up on them. Edwin nodded. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

“Have a good day.”

Warren and Evan were relieving Parry and Erik, and Edwin took Erik’s hand. “That’s very unprofessional of you, Sir Edwin,” Erik teased.

“I’m off-duty, I can be unprofessional if I want,” Edwin told him, kissing his cheek. “See you guys.”

Edwin had finally convinced Gavin not to have the portal in his apartments, so it was now a few doors down in an empty room that was normally locked. Edwin took Erik into it, slapping his ass and taking a key out of his pocket to lock the door behind them before going for the armoire in the room, where the portal was. “How was your shift?”

“You were there for most of it.”

“I was making small talk.”

“Sorry.” Erik smiled as Edwin opened the portal. “It was fine, how was yours?”

“You were there for most of it.” Edwin grinned as they stepped into Stag Keep. “But it was fine. After lunch let’s go to bed.”

“But I’m not tired.”

Edwin pulled Erik into a kiss. “I’ll fix that.”

Before Erik could answer, Nigel cleared his throat from the doorway of the main hall. “Welcome back, Sir Edwin,” he said, when Edwin looked at him. He said it pretty formally, which was how Edwin knew there was someone in the keep. “You have some guests.”

“Sometimes I hate that you’re so popular,” Erik whispered in Edwin’s ear.

Edwin did too, but he nodded, stepping away from Erik. “Who is it?” he asked, following Nigel into the hall.

He saw who it was before Nigel introduced them. “Masters Willy, Walt and Winston, sir.”

“We’re really not masters,” said one of the ram triplets. It would have been hard not to remember them even if Edwin hadn’t had an incestuous heart to heart with them at the orgy. “Hello, Sir Edwin. We’re sorry to intrude.”

“It’s not a problem,” said Edwin, gesturing for them to sit at one of the tables. He sat with them, and so did Erik. Nobody else was around, but it was a little late for lunch, so they’d probably already eaten. He thought about offering his guests food anyway before remembering Nikolai had planned to make mutton. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, uh…” the three of them looked at each other, and the one in the middle spoke first. “We’d like to work for you.”

Edwin blinked. “What?”

“We’d like to work for you,” said the one on the left. “Here in the keep.”

Hm. Edwin didn’t need to think about that for very long. He could see how much closer together they were sitting than when he’d last seen them. “Do you want to work for me, or do you want to work somewhere where you know nobody’s going to ask why you only need one bed for the three of you?”

They went red in tandem, and one of them made a very quiet sound that was definitely a bleat. “It’s just…we’ve been talking a lot and we want to, you know.”

“Fuck each other, yes, I know,” said Edwin, only partly to see if they’d make the noise again.

Instead they all nodded. “And, and a couple of people were kind of joking at the orgy about this being a brotherfucking paradise, and, uh…it’s just that…well we want to work. We don’t want to just come here and ask you for charity. We’re all hard workers with a lot of varied skills.”

Edwin let them talk slowly while he thought about it for another second, trying to think up an answer. He was pretty sure he had one, and he smiled. “Listen, I don’t really need any more servants here. Nigel and Nikolai have it under control on their own, I’m pretty sure.” Nigel nodded in the corner of his vision.

Six horns tilted down as they took that in. “Oh,” one of them said. “Okay. Well, thank you for your time…”

Edwin held out a hand and got them to stay sitting. “But that said, are any of you interested in farming?”

“Farming like…growing vegetables and raising chickens?” the one on the left asked. Winston, maybe? He had a way of tilting his head just a little when he talked that his brothers didn’t. “I mean we’re familiar with agriculture as a concept.”

“We’ve never done it,” said the middle one, who was tapping his finger on the table.

“Our parents in the Empire were architects,” said the one on the right, whose voice quavered just a little.

“Right,” said Edwin. “Would you be interested in learning? I can’t give you jobs here at the keep, but I do have two farmers who are retiring and looking for someone to take over their farm. With its, you know. Slightly isolated farmhouse with only one bedroom and very few neighbours. But whoever takes it over would need to be willing to learn to do the job.”

The three brothers looked at each other. “You can think about it for a bit,” Erik offered. “No need to decide right now.”

“No, we’ll do it,” said the one in the middle, and the other two nodded. “We’ll do it. It’ll be good to do something that’s…useful, you know?”

“I know,” Edwin said, smiling. “Let’s eat lunch, and then after that I’ll get the paperwork and I can take you guys down to the farm to meet the current farmers.”

Nikolai brought out some pies that he made clear were full of chicken, and Edwin got him and Nigel to eat with them so they could meet their new neighbours. And after that, there was even more paperwork than he’d thought, but Edwin didn’t mind it this time.

It was the job he’d signed up for, after all, and he was helping people in doing it.

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