Some months ago, Martel hired Master Snape to handle the full warding of his Valdis property; to protect it, and to hide it from prying and unfriendly eyes. To put not too fine a point on it, between the two of them there is enough paranoia and sheer power to arm a small country, and when - after many weeks and much work - the wards are complete, they are no small feat.

They are, as a matter of fact, very, very good. It's sort of the point. There are plenty of reasons for that, and some of them Martel might even be persuaded to share with his friends and acquaintances, such as they are.

What's interesting, however, is the fact that despite this one Brody McAdams and one Lucy McClane found their way into the castle, wholly unimpeded in their quest to affix Lisa Frank stickers to a chosen wall. (Just like they went unbothered in their previous plot to attach a selection of My Little Ponies, before the wards went up:

"Sir-"

"Mm, leave them be. Have Langler go take those down in the morning.")

The people Martel becomes fond of get away with some very strange things.

( We don't know if he is frightened. But he stays, he is engrossed, and, facing his reflection, transports himself somewhere else. )

The lady of the house is expected home on the eighth, a full month after leaving, and since his schedule permits (it could as easily be a coincidence as something engineered, and it's a toss up as to whether Martel or Ewar would've done the engineering), Martel is there to meet her when she arrives home.

There's nothing especially unusual in the way he looks when he comes down the staircase to greet her; plainly dressed, his hair neatly tied back, he's probably been in the library for the better part of the day (with Koleika for some of that time, going back and forth as they do). Of course, he's pleased to see her: the point is that there doesn't seem to be anything justifying the fact that Ewar, a few steps back, is watching his lord like the man is a live snake.

As a rule, Martel works too much and too hard. He prefers it to the alternatives (as he sees them); they say the devil finds work for idle hands and for all the dark little jokes about what trouble he could find himself in unsupervised that make Candice fuss, there's more truth to it than he likes to make plain. (So it stays a jest, and he stays occupied.)

He says give me thirty years and we'll see if I've got my thumb on it all and means that, too. For the time being, the passel of students passing through his castle have his direct attention. So do the locked and semi-hidden work rooms that he devotes mainly to sorcery. So does the library. So does Aphrael's chapel. So do his language studies, his personal training, his arrangements with Koleika, his study of Arum and the surrounding nations, his refresher course in Elenic history, his caves beneath the castle, his assembling of his family history (one day there will be children wanting to know where they came from, and he will give them something more than blood and shame)-

And, more than anything, his wife. Yet, between his work and Candice's own, it's more often than not that he'll sit on details until he's worked more out about them before he brings it up with her, and it usually results in having a few things he needs to tell her before it gets long enough for her to be annoyed with him. He's going to her from his conversation with Doul when Ewar falls in step next to him.

It'd hurt more if Kurik had been closer to him, he tells himself, and picks up conversation without missing a beat. "He has a month to start. Did you see Eirene?"

"Briefly. Is there a problem?"

"Possibly. I'm going to have to speak with her. Ideally she won't bean me with a spoon into the bargain. Did you need something in particular, or is this an exercise in nosiness?"

"Nosiness, sir." Ewar's smile is quick and short; he knows what he can get away with.

"I'll indulge your curiosity later. If you'll excuse me-"

After years of exile, something about riding through Elenia gave Martel an unpleasantly familiar feeling between his shoulderblades. All of the bridges had been burned, and he didn't belong any more; he fancied the land knew it as well as he did. His thrice-damned 'traveling companions' didn't make the trip any more palatable - if anything, less - and when they were encamped, he left them to their own devices a while, following a path he'd never realized he wouldn't forget.

The woods they'd stopped in were on the edge of the estate he'd sold years before, in a rush to leave. He hadn't been intimately familiar with the place since he was a boy and a novice, but he knew it well enough. There were differences; time would do that. The kennels were gone, and the stables had been expanded. It seemed to him (in the evening and from the distance) more lively than it had been when it was his family's home; he'd been largely absent after his novitate began, with Romiar and Veleda always a self-contained couple.

They'd matched each other, he reflected; once he'd been grateful that they were already gone before his dishonour, when they could still be proud of who their son had become, but by the time he had his feet on what used to be their land again it was a passing thought already long since scoured from his mind. It didn't matter any more. With his hand on a tree that Petrana had claimed for her own by shoving him in the chest with her feet until he swung (upside down, indignant like a ruffled cat), he thought of his grandfather. The last true Pandion in their history; that legacy had died with him, and any hope of continuing it would eventually die with Martel.

Thoughts he wasn't having interrupted by movement, he made an irritable sound and turned away, walking back through the trees without bothering to properly acknowledge Adus. "When we leave, burn it," he said, shortly. "Try not to attempt creativity, Adus, it only embarrasses me."

Would you, I am asked, accept absolute power.

In recent years I told a man - brother and enemy, who survives me now as prince consort to a queen he raised, and I don't think I'll even begin to discuss that - that I am the lion, and thus, to me goes the lion's share. I'm sure I could provide you with a dozen references, easily, who would cynically predict my response, and I won't say the opportunity to be contrary isn't a pleasant little bonus of the fact they would, with a few possible exceptions, be wrong.

( Power doesn't exist in a vacuum. )

The Brucolac's presence on Martel's property comes to his attention relatively quickly; he is his own security system, as it were. Really, he looks forward to when Severus completes the wards and he won't have to deal with unexpected guests (...as if this happens often, which it doesn't). Ewar's sent down to the library almost immediately to collect him, his expression decisively neutral.

"Sir," he says, matter of fact, "the Lord-" he makes it sound vaguely like some form of nickname, oddly, "-suggests you come and introduce yourself. I'll show you the way." It's undoubtedly obvious to everyone involved that this is not, actually, a suggestion - but fairly polite for how much Martel dislikes having his hard-won privacy invaded.

Between the things that keep Martel and Candice respectively quite busy, sometimes it takes him a while to corner her to talk (he can corner her really quickly for...other things), to appraise her of what he's been acquiring and generally to do something other than make a nuisance of himself.

Candice is quite possibly the most patient woman in the multiverse, sometimes. Martel likes to give the impression, occasionally, that he lacks any patience whatsoever; this is not true, like many things he likes to give the impression of from time to time.

"There you are."

When Doul arrives, he'll be met at the guarded nexus door by a young Arum man by the name of Ewar, who introduces himself as his Lordship's swordmaster and informs the older man he'll be escorting him to aforementioned Lord.

Castle Valdis is...an interesting place. Old, very old, but much of it seems new or at least fresh clean; recently renovated, much of that only recently complete. It's a life's work, this place, and Martel is happy to make it his. The lights that follow through the building are seemingly glass torches, lit up with enchanted fire by a command. (Some of the Arum men seem more used to it than others, but they all take it roughly in stride.)

The staffing is sparse, only the necessities, and Doul is led to Martel's library - to which the most effort has been devoted in restoration. It's an impressive room, and large. Martel, lately Lord of Valdis, is at one of the tables nearer the fireplaces and their cushioned armchairs, bent over a choice of maps and family histories.

"Thank you, Ewar," he says, without looking up and almost before the door is quite open.

( ...these fears that fell to my lot out of every day stirred a hundred other fears, and they stood up in me against me and agreed among themselves, and I couldn't get beyond them. In striving to form them, I came to work creatively on them ; instead of making them into things of my will, I only gave them a life of their own which they turned against me... )

prompt: the end [268]
word count: 350
notes: martel's first RP appearance wasn't the first moments he spent in the nexus. tada! ...this is slightly gross, ftr.

Potentially against his better judgement, Martel's recently taken on another student - Anna, a sharp-eyed little thing from the nexus, plotting murder she's calling justice and he's calling vengeance in his head - and today he expects to see her, in the afternoon. There's a full morning's work that requires him before he can bathe and change his clothes (it's very physical work), and tell Ewar to collect the girl from the nexus doorway to see him in his study.

With the castle's required renovations more or less complete (the warding waits for Master Snape; Martel has more patience than some people realise), it's not an unimpressive place, and the casual touch of magic is fairly plain about it. If only because the unnatural choice in lighting is impossible to miss. On time, Martel doesn't wait; he works. (It's fascinating how much paperwork is actually manufactured by his endeavours, but he'd been aiming for Vanion's own desk once upon a time - he's not unprepared.)