Castle Mroczna: Delivered Indulgence
Aleksy sneezed and grumbled as he led the donkey and cart up the slope towards the looming battlements of Castle Mroczna, bringing the latest delivery for certain ingredients the Mroczna Family could not so easily make in the valley for their wines.
And then he would leave with a fresh batch to trade.
He was always nervous doing these jobs, having to speak with Lady Mroczna herself. Those vampires, they were... not the most tyrannical of rulers, nor did they leave a trail of bodies behind them.
But he knew the tales, of falling to servitude as a maid or butler, of being drained dry of one's lifeblood and... certain other fluids.
They were too intense for any one human to endure, and they took what they pleased.
That's what it meant to live in the shadow of the castle, to serve them even if not bound to them directly. At least the people were comfortable, and the weather was warming. It would soon be time to work the land as best able in this hard valley.
Of course, it was still quite cold at night, and Aleksy had to make these deliveries and pick-ups after sunset. The Mroczna Family naturally preferred being awake during the night.
He trudged up to the gatehouse, and knocked on the great doors. It was a particular knock, a code to let the servants monitoring the front doors know it was not a random visitor.
A window opened above, and a man's face peered through.
There were no words exchanged, just a series of gestures, some nods, and then Aleksy led the donkey and cart around a narrow path alongside the walls of the Castle, heading towards the back part of it.
He came to the stables, built outside the rear walls, and overlooking the garden at the back of the castle, a long greenhouse built at the far end of the hilltop the castle was erected upon. It itself overlooked the main vineyard in the gully below, where it was sheltered from the elements, but still received good sun in the months it mattered.
He wasn't there for that. He hitched his donkey at a post on the edge of the stable, and wandered over towards the rear wall of the castle. There was another set of smaller doors in a smaller gatehouse, and it was already open for him.
He ventured inside, looking upon the courtyard, a stone fountain set in the middle ahead of the tip of the dining hall. He could see part of the dance hall across the way, the glass seemingly opaque in the night as a cloud passed in front of the moon.
He grumbled, and crossed the frost-damaged grass, dry and crunching beneath his feet. There were four stone paths, intersecting at the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, with doors leading into the battlements, themselves contiguous with the castle and filled with rooms.
He, however, was seeking a particular entrance, a small trap-door hidden near the base of one of the corner towers.
It was obscured behind a granite statue of a woman in a flowing, tightly clinging dress, but there was enough room for two men to pass by each other, important for what the trap-door was needed for.
He opened it up, and revealed a set of stairs just as wide, though they made several right-angle turns before finally reaching the cellars.
The wine cellars were sprawling, and on the same level as the dungeons, though Aleksy never went there. He hoped he never did.
The ceiling was quite tall for a cellar space... but that was all to the benefit of the one who had come down to meet him.
"Ah, Aleksy, you're here," greeted Lady Mroczna.
The eight-foot tall woman in white turned to him, her red eyes glowing bright in the candle-lit gloom of the cellars, standing next to a stack of barrels.
He did his best not to shrink from her. He'd done this many times already, but still Lady Mroczna instilled fear in him with her presence alone.
She regarded him with a thin, cool smile, and her authority was unquestionable.
"I have the ingredients, and I am ready to take the latest shipment of wine," he stated formally. He wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.
"I trust you have inspected the goods?" Lady Mroczna asked. "I would not wish for my next batch of vintage to come out less than perfect."
"Everything is proper, I can assure you," he answered. "I know well by now how to check."
Speaking of which, he walked over to the barrels filled with wine, and gave them a once-over for any leaks or damage that may have gone unnoticed. Fortunately, Lady Mroczna did not hold it against him, she seemed to appreciate his thoroughness.
If anything, his scrutiny was to avoid her ire.
"All is well?" she ventured.
"Yeah, everything looks ready to ship," he assured her. "Just need your servants to bring in the ingredients, and help fill my cart with the barrels."
Lady Mroczna nodded, and then made a gesture in the air.
Two men and two women in the servants uniform appeared from behind stone support pillars, and silently nodded at Aleksy before moving past him, heading up to gather the ingredients.
Lady Mroczna would personally check them later, but she was in no rush. Aleksy knew well that if he tried to cheat her, it wouldn't end well for him no matter how hard he tried to run or how cleverly he pulled any sort of deception.
It was better to just do the job, get paid, and get on with his life.
Shortly after, the servants returned, carrying the boxes that had been stacked on Aleksy's cart, and Lady Mroczna nodded in satisfaction.
"You've done well, Aleksy," Lady Mroczna praised.
"Won't be done until I have these barrels handed off to the merchants," he said.
"Indeed... please, walk with me," she requested.
Aleksy froze; this was not something she'd ever asked before. He looked at her nervously, before nodding and moving in by her side as she took a walk through the cellars, moving among the pillars and massive casks and wine shelves.
"My family has been making wine for centuries," she stated. "Myself for two of them. I expect to oversee it for centuries more."
He tried to suppress how unsettled he was at the mention of her immortality, Lady Mroczna hardly loathe to hide what she was to those that already knew.
"I see," Aleksy answered diplomatically. He did not wish to be alone with her, but offending her may have been an even poorer choice.