He turned and walked away, leaving Frederick standing alone in a sea of curious faces.
Mind the mud. Such a simple instruction. Such an impossible one.
Frederick looked down at his already-stained boots, then at the churned earth of the village green, and made a decision. If he was going to fail today, and he almost certainly was, he was going to fail trying.
And suddenly he stepped into the mud.
***
The first hour was a disaster.
Not a dramatic disaster, not the kind with shouting and recriminations and clear villains. It was worse than that. It was the slow, grinding disaster of social failure; the accumulation of small awkward moments and unintentional offences that left Frederick increasingly certain that he should have stayed home.
It started with the candles.
A woman, whose name he couldn't remember, was selling beeswax candles from a stall near the edge of the green. They seemed well-made, and Frederick, desperate for something to do with his hands and his attention, approached.
"These are quite fine," he said, which was true.
"Thank you, Your Grace." The woman's voice was stiff, wary.
"The colour is particularly good. Consistent." He picked one up and examined it. "And the scent is quite pleasant. Floral, almost."
"It's the local clover, Your Grace. The bees favour it."
"Ah. Excellent." He set down the candle and reached for his purse. "I'll take a dozen."
"A dozen, Your Grace?"
"Yes. For the manor. We use quite a lot of candles."
He thought he was being complimentary. Supportive of local industry. The kind of thing a good landlord was supposed to do. But something in the woman's expression shifted, a tightening around the eyes, a flattening of the lips.
"What price would Your Grace consider appropriate?"
"I..." He hadn't thought about the price. "Whatever you normally charge, I suppose."
"Our normal price is three pence per candle. But perhaps Your Grace has... standards?"
The word landed like a slap. He remembered, too late, the story of the rejected candles, the chandler forced to re-wax an entire shipment because the Duke of Corvenwell found fault with the wicks.
"Three pence per candle is perfectly acceptable," he said, but the damage was done. The woman took his money with the tight-lipped efficiency of someone who wanted the transaction over as quickly as possible, and Frederick retreated with his candles, feeling worse than when he'd arrived.
And it went on like that.
At the next stall, a farmer was selling vegetables; carrots and turnips and the last of the summer squash, arranged with evident pride. Frederick approached, determined to do better.
"Fine produce," he said.
The farmer, a weathered man with hands like old leather, grunted acknowledgement.
"The carrots in particular. Very..." Frederick searched for the right word. What did one say about carrots? "Very orange."
"They're carrots, Your Grace. Orange is generally expected."
"Yes. Of course. I only meant…" He was floundering. He could feel it. "What soil do you use? For the growing?"
"Soil, Your Grace?"
