"That sums it up fairly nicely," the baroness agreed with Mialla's summary of the most common laws one could expect to find almost everywhere. She could think of a few laws that applied to Lancrest in particular, but taxation, land ownership, and the like didn't seem terribly relevant to the bard and her stay in the castle. Just nodding her agreement, she focused instead on what Mialla had to tell. That one of the goldsmith of Scarborough had recently died and been buried to great fanfare was just gossip to most, but the baroness had to wonder if someone would fill his shoes at the summer's fairs. Alan of Scarborough had been a mainstay of commerce with the Frontier Baronies for some years, conducted much of his business in person, despite his ripe old age.<br/><br/>"All you have distracted me from were tax reports, and I welcome the distraction. But perhaps I should return to it soon. Still... I have time enough to take you back to the kitchen, leave you in the hands of Marian and Petrus for now, and stretch my legs a little in the process."<br/><br/>The baroness led the way back to the kitchen, explaining to Mialla on the way where everything was in the main building. The main hall and the baroness's personal quarters covered most of it, but on the ground floor, below her quarters lived one of the maids, and the castle's scribe, next to the office where most of the keep's paperwork and the barony's record keeping was done.<br/><br/>When they arrived in the kitchen, cook and maid had been joined by a boy of about fourteen who was busy tending the fire. Clearly he had been told what to expect, for he flashed Mialla a big, unsurprised grin from a face that mixed the features of cook and maid in equal measure. In the bard's absence, the cook had finished with his onions and was now at work cutting some beef into chunks, from the looks of it intending to feed at least a dozen with it.<br/><br/>For a while then Mialla was left to finish her meal of bread and cheese, while around her the routine of a well-run kitchen unfolded. But when a second cook and a second helper turned up a while later, to prepare a large second meal in a addition to the meat dish Petrus was preparing, the kitchen became crowded. It was then that Marian asked Mialla for her help in setting the table in the main hall, perhaps as much looking for help as trying to get the bard out of everyone's way. She handed Mialla some flint and steel. "Could you light the braziers while I get the fireplace going? We still have an hour or so, but getting some warmth into this place takes forever." Kneeling down at the fireplace, Marian asked, "so you'll be staying with us for a while, I guess?"