A Sorcerer's Diplomacy (Song of Sorcery Book 3)

by Guy Antibes

  She shook her head. “Not at all. Maybe less powerful sorcerers could use their talents to suit their abilities. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

  Ricky nodded and sighed. He often wondered if Mara could be influenced by Professor Calasay, who had taken the girl under her wing. The fact that the two women could both converse in Fisttian probably made their bond all the stronger.

  “What will you work on after you finish?” Mara said.

  “I haven’t decided. I wish we could hire more people to transcribe the old books, but I’ll probably work on one of the battle sorcery spell-books. There’s an old one that uses a different philosophy of spell singing. I’ve only read the first few pages, but I think that’s the one.”

  “Will you have time when all the broomball activity starts? I heard there’s a coach now.”

  “Master Insippa Baldico. He’s supposed to be good. I can skip a bit of the initial conditioning. The more books we transcribe, the better I’ll feel. These books are priceless, and the knowledge doesn’t need to be bound up inside the dusty pages.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Enough talk!” Mara said with mock seriousness. “Get back to work!”

  ~

  Saganet looked up from thumbing through the pages of a textbook when Ricky walked into his dormitory room after dinner.

  “Before you head over to join Mara at the ancient library, I’d like to have a word.”

  “Certainly,” Ricky said, sitting on one of the two beds in the room.

  Saganet carefully placed the book on Ricky’s desk and looked at his ward. “I just came from a meeting with Duke Bariani. The duke is interested in you pressing your claim with King Leon.”

  “Claim?”

  “Yes, your claim to the duchy of Naparra.”

  “I’m not interested. That would be like painting an even bigger target on my back than Lord and Lady Taranta did.”

  Saganet chuckled. “I told the duke much the same thing. Other than your name and your magical talent, what proof do you have that you are Adapo Valian’s son? Can your granduncle be trusted to tell the truth when he already claimed you died?” Saganet shook his head. He raised his hands and dropped them. “Sometimes the duke thinks a bit more with his heart than his head.”

  “Maybe I’m not their son,” Ricky said.

  Saganet smiled. “Vera Valian definitely gave birth to a son on your purported birthday. Gobble collected the boy’s inheritance money. It’s your word against his.”

  “And Duke Noacci’s,” Ricky said. “I’m not making a claim. Maybe when I get older, but not now. Perhaps I’ll wait until I’m twenty and an adult, so that I can defend myself.”

  “I had to let you know,” Saganet said, rising from his chair. “Duke Bariani might mention it to Merry. I’ve already told her. She agrees it is your decision.”

  “Our decision, since you are my guardian,” Ricky said. “And we agree, for now.”

  “For now.” Saganet clapped Ricky on the shoulder and left him.

  Ricky sat in the chair Saganet had just exited. He sighed. “Duke of Naparra, me?” he said to the empty room. “No way. I’m just Ricky Valian, the student.”

  He knew he wasn’t ‘just Ricky Valian’ and he understood there would likely be some reckoning with Duke Noacci, but the farther away in time and place that event turned out to be, the better for him.

  Ricky wondered if sending the three lordlings away from Doubli would have repercussions. He had no idea what or from where another attack might occur, but he felt safe in Tossa. At least there weren’t thugs hiding behind every building and looking for the chance to beat or kill him like last year.

  ~

  Mara left Ricky a note saying that she had developed a blister on her writing hand, and that left him alone. He decided to ignore the social and political works and concentrate on sorcery, but Mistress Doubli showed up not long after Ricky arrived at the ancient library.

  “Let’s work on books that described work before the current dynasty,” Merry said.

  “They all are like that,” Ricky said.

  “Work as in social books; you know, commerce and the arts.”

  “Performance sorcery?”

  The Dean shook her head. “No. Novels might be useful if there are any.”

  Ricky had skimmed through the titles to ferret out sorcery books.

  “How about whatever Mara worked on?” Ricky said. He had to repress a sigh.

  Mistress Merry giggled. “That would be good of us. You do want to do good, don’t you Ricky?”

  “I haven’t given much thought to doing good. I avoid not doing good. Is that the same thing?”

  “No. Doing good requires conscious effort,” Merry said. “Helping others less fortunate than you. It can be as easy as picking up a dropped handkerchief or a pencil.”

  Ricky frowned. “I already do that.”

  “It is a matter of intent. Helping Mara at the Home. That was a good thing. You didn’t have to include her after the tutoring classes were dismissed.”

  “I, uh, pitied her,” Ricky said.

  Merry made an unintelligible sound. “She wouldn’t like hearing that as your motivation.”

  “But I wanted to help her. She wasn’t like the others.”

  “See?” Merry picked up a book. “She was less fortunate, and you helped her.”

  Ricky wondered where Mistress Merry was headed.

  “I guess I’m capable of doing good deeds,” Ricky said. “I don’t perform them just to do good.”

  “The best kind. Nobles who can think of others are the best kind.” She peered at Ricky.

  “Is this about claiming my father’s duchy?”

  Merry smiled and blinked a few times. “It is. Saganet doesn’t want you to claim your father’s title.”

  “Nor do I,” Ricky said. “I would consider it a good deed not to do so. I don’t want to rely on others to defend me from Duke Noacci. Look what happened to you last summer. I won’t put you through that again, nor be in a position to go to the Home if I defend myself.”

  “Ah, you do see my point, although I’m making you out to be nobler than you think you are. We agree, then?”

  Ricky nodded.

  “It’s important for you to find out what it means to be a truly noble person rather than just act like a noble. There is a difference, you know.”

  After rolling her words around in his mind for a few seconds, he smiled. “I agree. It’s like me trying out for the broomball team and observing the other students. Saganet has already given me that assignment.”

  “Good. It is my wish also. You have good instincts, Ricky. I’d like you to get more perspective.” Merry looked at some of the books Mara had stacked. “On reflection, perhaps you’d be more interested in translating battle accounts and sorcery books?”

  “I would, Mistress Merry.”

  “Then I won’t keep you. I enjoyed our little talk.”

  “Thank you for taking the time,” Ricky said, giving his benefactor a little bow.

  “Don’t mention it.” She flitted her hand as a recognition of his bow and left him alone in the library.

  Ricky guessed that Mara didn’t have a blistered hand after all. He sighed, but then he grinned. It felt good to have two people interested in his welfare. Merry practiced what she preached.

  ~~~

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ~

  “L INE UP BY HEIGHT!” INSIPPA BALDICO SAID to the thirty boys standing around him. “Shorter to my left, taller to my right.

  He looked down at the page of names. Ricky wondered how well the man could read; he examined the names for so long. Ricky found his place somewhat in the middle. He glanced down the line at Benno, who gave him a thumbs up, and then at Jac, who currently examined the ceiling of the gymnasium, looking bored.

  “I’ve already met a few of you,” Insippa Baldico said. “We will have two teams of twelve, a senior team and a junior team. The senior and junior designations relate you t
o your ability, not to your age. We will be competing with other schools, so I will select only the best players for the senior team. I’ll have a few other faculty members help with the selection to eliminate any personal biases I might have.”

  Baldico paused and let the boys buzz for a bit before he continued. “I’ll be evaluating your physical shape, your ability to pick up the game if you haven’t played with proper broomball sticks before, and your head for play.” He looked left to right at the potential players. “Is everyone familiar with the rules? Who isn’t?”

  A few boys tentatively raised their hands, Ricky included.

  “Basic rules. Each team fields eight players. Two stay on the goal side. There are twenty-minute halves with a fifteen-minute break in the middle. The goals are three by three boxes. The worst penalty is purposely hitting another player with your stick. You can’t run with the ball, but you can pick it up and throw it at the goal without taking another step. You won’t want to do that.” Baldico glared at the boys. “I don’t abide excessively rough play. It will get you kicked off the team, regardless of how good you are. Understood?”

  The boys muttered their agreement.

  “Good.” Baldico put his hands on his hips. “We will start by running fifty laps around the gymnasium. You can start now.”

  Ricky grinned. He had kept up with his conditioning for swordsmanship and took off. He came in first, having passed all the field.

  “Showing off, Young Valian?”

  “Me?” Ricky shook his head. “I run laps every day during my class with Saganet.” He barely got out the words, having not quite caught his breath.

  “Professor Crabacci?”

  Ricky nodded. “Professor,” he said.

  “No favors, Valian,” Baldico said quietly. More loudly, he chided Ricky. “Get out of the way of the others as they come in.”

  Ricky slid to the inside of the gymnasium floor as Jac came in with the first large group. Benno arrived in the middle of the pack.

  Jac trudged over to Ricky, his face red and sweating from the exertion. “Impressive,” he said with a quick grin before he leaned over and put his hands on his knees.

  Ricky shrugged. “I do it every day to stay in shape for my swordsmanship class.”

  “My weapons trainer said running was unnecessary,” Jac said.

  Ricky eyed Baldico, who seemed to be drifting within hearing range.

  “Professor Crabacci has a different point of view; one that I agree with.”

  Benno joined them. “Ricky knows. He’s fought before.”

  Jac’s eyebrows rose. “In Tossa?”

  Ricky nodded. “Last year. I ran afoul with a local lord. He and his son hired thugs.”

  “And he lived to tell the tale,” Benno said.

  “You’ll have to regale me with the details, but not here,” Jac said as Baldico raised both of his hands and whistled.

  “Stop. I didn’t write down your results today. We will have a running test in two weeks to see who is serious about broomball and who isn’t, Insippa said. “I want you all to spend the rest of today passing a broomball in groups of three or four. Each of you take a stick and one ball for each group and get to work. I’ll whistle when it’s time to stop.”

  Ricky saw barrels full of broomball sticks and one filled with wooden broomballs.

  “You can join Benno, Ubbo, and me,” Jac said to Ricky.

  “I’ve never used a real stick before,” Ricky said.

  “You won’t say that after our session,” Benno said, grinning.

  Ricky grabbed a stick and followed Benno, Jac, and a tall, long-haired boy to a corner of the gymnasium. Each of them stood a few paces from each other. “What do we do?”

  “Just catch the ball with your stick and pass it to someone else. Don’t try to do it in one motion if you’re just learning,” Jac said.

  Ricky saw the wisdom in that. He watched the others pass it amongst themselves for a few turns before the ball rolled his way. Ricky stopped the ball easily enough. When he hit the ball, the stick turned in his hand.

  “The stick moved,” Ricky said.

  “Broomball players need strong wrists,” Benno said.

  Ricky looked at his arms. He had the skinniest wrists among the four of them. He’d have to ask Saganet how he could get his grip stronger. Saganet had taught him a loose grip style with the sword and broomball required a different technique.

  He struggled for the first few times, but then he learned to grasp the stick harder and play became easier. Baldico watched them passing the ball. Ubbo tilted his stick and let the ball fly up a bit. He slapped it Ricky’s way. The ball sped towards Ricky. He couldn’t deflect the ball, traveling a few feet above the ground. It hit him in the leg.

  Ricky’s face burned with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Professor Baldico.”

  “You’re new to broomball?”

  “I’ve only played in the streets with real brooms and rag balls. I haven’t much skill with a stick.”

  Jac and Ubbo laughed. “Then we don’t have to outrun you to make the team,” Ubbo said.

  “You’ll get plenty of opportunities to improve, Young Valian,” Baldico said.

  ~

  Karian laughed with his eyes as he painted Mina, Saganet’s daughter, with his gaze. Saganet leaned over and whispered something in Effie’s ear after telling his joke. Ricky sat at the end of the cottage kitchen table, playing with the cold remnants of his dinner.

  Table conversation was restricted to mundane subjects that did not interest Ricky. He sighed as he put the congealed lump of mutton in his mouth. He shoved his chair back a bit from the table and folded his arms. He wondered why Saganet had even invited him if he was to be so ignored by the two couples.

  The screech of the chair made Saganet turn his head. “I’m sorry, Ricky. We haven’t paid sufficient attention to you.”

  No attention, Ricky thought.

  “That changes right now. Effie has some information on your Juvenile Home acquaintances. Some developments are good, and some not so good. Effie?”

  Ricky liked Effie when she was with Saganet. She lost some of the hardness that she liked to flaunt at the gymnasium.

  She took a sip of wine. “I received a letter from Nania Sarini. She was let go from the Home at Duke Noacci’s insistence. He replaced her with one of his cronies. At least that happened after she released most of the boys and girls for helping defeat the former Duke of Applia. Gil, your friend, now trains with the best of the boys at the Royal Barracks. General Farlotti has been discreet in reporting on your role in the uprising and the death of the duke.”

  “Farlotti is a member of the Order,” Saganet said. “He knows when to keep his mouth shut.”

  Effie glared at Saganet for interrupting her and continued. “Nemo Mattia and Nania have relocated back to Sealio. Siria Asucco and Mirano Bespa are there as well.”

  “Can Nania rejoin the bodyguards?” Ricky said.

  “Of Princess Pira? Very doubtful. The Princess is careful with her retainers. Once one leaves, they are not expected to return,” Effie said. Ricky sensed there was more to her comment, but Effie shrugged. “That is all I have.”

  “It’s enough to know my friends at the Home are out of it. I guess it will revert to the old ways before Warden Sarini arrived. At least Antino Pacci and Leon Pisan are not around to torment anyone,” Ricky said.

  “There is that,” Saganet said. “Effie, why don’t you entertain us with a Princess Pira story? Ricky might be interested in that.”

  Ricky moved his chair closer to the table. “I am. I hear about her, but what is she really like? Is she so terrible that you and Nania had to leave the palace?”

  “You’ve heard the phrase about barking and biting?”

  Ricky nodded. “Sometimes a dog’s bark is worse than its bite.”

  “Princess Pira is a bit like that. First, let me give you a little background. She’s not the king’s daughter, you know, but his ward. The dynasty is
dying out, and she is the closest relative to King Leon’s throne, being the only daughter of the King’s only cousin.”

  “She will be the Queen?”

  Effie shook her head. “Not if King Leon can help it. He is anxiously engaged in producing an heir, regardless of what woman helps him do it.”

  Ricky leaned back. “Is she in trouble if the King sires an heir?”

  Saganet looked at Effie and grimaced. “Perhaps. The king keeps her close in some ways to protect his throne, but being the closest heir, he is bound by Parantian law to protect her, and we think he is sincere in doing so.”

  These facts gave Ricky insight into the former Duke of Applia’s actions. “The kingdom is a boiling pot, then. The Duke of Applia was pushing King Leon. That means the monarchy of Paranty is weak.”

  Effie smiled. “It is. Princess Pira is unhappy about it and demonstrates her unhappiness on a regular basis.”

  “Can you describe her?” Ricky said. “I see a pinched face, dark eyes and a long thin nose. Her expression is always sour. Am I close?”

  Effie laughed. “Not at all. She is quite attractive for a girl your age.”

  “My age? I thought she was in her twenties or thirties.”

  “No. Pira has been a willful little thing since she was seven or eight years old. She is as smart as a whip and as prodigious in infuriating those around her as you are as a sorcerer. The princess has a biting tongue full of sarcasm unbecoming a person of her years.”

  “Then she is like Loria Mansali?” Ricky looked at Karian and Mina intently looking at Effie. Everyone was caught up by Effie’s description of Princess Pira.

  “No, no. Pira can be sweet one minute and harden into a harridan the next. After the next breath, she is killing you with a coy kindness.”

  Ricky laughed. “She is an actress. Using her talents to persuade as best she can. I can see that.”

  Effie’s eyes flashed. “Exactly. She would eat Loria Mansali for breakfast. Although the king doesn’t encourage cannibalism.” They all laughed. “Princess Pira is a voracious reader of the Royal Library. She wheedles state secrets from King Leon’s staff and has made acquaintance with some of the nobles in the Notables chamber. If she ever ruled, Paranty would be a different place.” Effie shuddered. “I am at a loss to envision how different.”