"You'll be getting rid of it, then?" Oliver asked.
"In time," Thomas said, "Master Idris has already made plans to see it replaced with something else. The workmen should begin to arrive one week hence."
"Seems a terrible waste," Oliver noted. "It looks fine enough to me. Rich, even."
"…It does," Thomas agreed. "If you were to tell that to Master Idris, he would no doubt keep it to be in line with your tastes. But what he does is no less than is expected of him by tradition. A Lord must put his own stamp on his quarters. It is an opportunity to display his artistic taste."
"Ah," Oliver said, a bit disappointed by it. "It's another one of those traditions, is it?" For the sake of tradition, they would be incurring such waste. The amount of coin spent on the renovation of these chambers alone – it was the type of thing that could change the lives of a whole village in winter, yet the nobles were bound by their traditions to spend it so recklessly.
