Seni Manse

“In sooth, my love, look at the size of this manse. It’s ridiculous that for years I have been the only one residing on four floors and three wings—it belongs more to the servants than to the family, for more of them dwell in it…! Even when all four of us lived here, it was still too much. A place like this begs to be an administrative center, not a personal house. Or if it is a personal house, it should have far more persons in it.” Jeasa Seni Galare, to Jahir, about the size of the Seni Manse.

Grounds

"The gardens landscaped around the manse pretended to convention and succeeded in fooling the incurious observer... but pressing past them into the fields surrounding the estate, one found riches, wild and lovely and untrammeled. Everywhere the eye roved, it found a darling glade, a breathtaking copse, a picturesque stand of trees or a storybook rill. [Unlike Imthereli, where chimera and basilisk lairs had been taken over by boar and bear,] Seni was unicorn country."

"The bridge leading over the brook was something out of a fairy tale, with its mossy stones and lanterns."

There's a back lawn. ("Longest Night")

Any other data I have about the forest around here. Maybe the path leading to Ingleside?

Or maybe all that goes in the territory section of the Seni Fmaily page? No, I think that needs to be more general, for the entire province.

Rooms in the Manse

First Floor

Receiving Rooms

• a pretty chamber facing the east, with lavender wallpaper and a pedal harp, with furniture with embroidered cushions (Jeasa likes this one)

Other Floors (Maybe?)

The Library

Overlooks the back of the estate, with a chimney rising between two long windows with matching window seats. Warm auburn wood shelving, brighter rugs and furnishing, cushions on the chair are a sunny gold worked with cream and apricot-colored floss. The edge of one of the rugs is stained from a dropped glass of juice had never quite come up (Amber's doing). Jeasa hid that edge under the table's shadowed corner.

The Study

Separate from the Library. Large with a wall of windows with delicate wooden casements. Mural on the ceiling, dainty furniture. Has a desk, and some chairs for visitors. A sideboard with sherry.

Dining Room

The smaller dining room more commonly used by the family has a set of double doors at its eastern end that leads to the little 'retiring room' for men to have their brandy. There are windows on the southern wall (lancet, very tall.) Not sure what floor it's on.

This dining room doesn't have a fireplace, but the retiring room does.

Jahir's suite

Several flights of stairs, and half the house away from the kitchen. Across the hall from Amber's rooms.

It has a parlor, a bedroom, a study, and a bath. The parlor and bedroom share a fireplace, the study is lined with books, and there is a harpsichord and a jeweled orrery in the parlor. All of the rooms are hung with tapestries and paintings, many featuring horses, and the floors are covered in silken rugs. The bed is huge and curtained, with brocade covers and mounds of pillows, and there is a stepstool for it painted with flowers and leafed in silver. The windows are stained glass.

The Solar

On the second floor, south facing wall. "...with a vaulted ceiling that extended to the fourth floor, and the roof, allowing for skylights that curved downward like the windows of a cathedral."

A gracious rectangular room with great windows paneled in clear beveled glass, its stone walls faced with pale wood, with large green carpets on the floor. Musical instruments are scattered throughout: a harp taller than Vasiht'h, a keyboard instrument, four various string instruments hanging on wall brackets. There are elegant upholstered chairs.

The Lunar

Top floor, northern side. Has a windowseat. Jeasa's favorite place to read novels that are not improving.

People

• Saressa (works in the kitchen)
• Tharel (he guided Sediryl from the front door to the kitchen, so he's either a butler or a footman).
• Seni family