[Sidenote: Comradery and Organization of Castle Folk]
Conon, on many mornings, is thus kept busy adjusting petty matters concerning the estate. The seigneur is the center, the disposing power for the whole seigneury, but he is not the despot. The castle is one huge family, and shares its joys and troubles together. The upper servitors hold their position by a kind of hereditary right. Guilbert, who presides over the smithy, is son of the smith before him. In similar case are the chief cook, the master huntsman, and many others. Even the dubious post of baronial executioner is transmitted by a kind of hereditary prerogative. For Conon to dismiss any of these subordinates save for very obvious reasons would be resented by all their fellows and produce a passive rebellion unwelcome to the most arbitrary seigneur. Even tyrannous Baron Garnier had to wait a suitable opportunity ere changing an unwelcome servitor. Every person has his own little sphere of influence and privilege. The successful baron respects all these "rights" and handles each inferior tactfully. The result is that there is a great deal of comradery and plain speaking. The baron and baroness must listen to flat contradictions every day.
"You are absolutely wrong, Messire," says Herbert, the cowherd, to-day, when Conon directs him to wean certain calves. "I shall execute no such order." And the baron (who would have fought a mortal duel with a fellow noble ere accepting such language) wisely acquiesces, with a laugh. Herbert is "his man" and as such has his own sphere of action, and, besides, Herbert and all his fellows will fight for their seigneur to the last drop of their blood, and obey all strictly military orders with touching fidelity.
Indeed, the St. Aliquis people are somewhat like grown-up children. They are often angry, turbulent, obstinate, contentious, even exchanging cuffs and blows. The women are almost as passionate as the men. But tempers cool with equal rapidity. Two varlets who almost drew knives this morning will be communing like twin brothers this afternoon. Furthermore, despite much apparent friction, the three-hundred-odd people who sleep behind the walls of St. Aliquis are fairly well organized. First of all the baron has his three squires, youths of friendly baronial families who are being "nourished" by Conon preparatory to knighthood and whose education will be described later.[11] They are, of course, "noble," and are looking forward to ruling their own castles. Noble, too, is Sire Eustace, the seneschal, the baron's old companion in arms, who carries the great gonfalon of St. Aliquis into battle, and who, in peace times, is chief factotum and superintendent of almost everything about the fief. The marshal who has charge of the stables is also "the son of a good house," and the chamberlain, who has oversight over all that interior economy which does not pertain to food, drink, and mealtimes, is an elderly, childless knight who became lamed in the service of the baron's father, and who really holds an honorable sinecure. There are, besides these, four other petty nobles, whose estates are so small that they find it pleasantest to live at St. Aliquis, ride in the baron's hunts, and command his men at arms.