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

by Guy Antibes

  “I won’t intrude? I’m not particularly good.”

  Jac grinned. “Practice makes you better!”

  Ricky just nodded and listened to the talk. He had to smile at the jokes, as well as wince a few times. No wonder they met early. There wasn’t anyone around to listen. The inmates at the Home were never this loose. He hadn’t been a member of a group of boys before, but the broomball players didn’t seem to mind him. Benno showed up at the very end and had to shovel his breakfast in, just before they left.

  “Jac invite you?” Benno said as they all headed to the gymnasium.

  “He did. Is it all right that I join you?”

  “Sure. He’s the captain of the team. Everyone else here is third and fourth years. They can get a little rough. Can you take it?”

  “Since I don’t know what I’ll be taking, I’ll give you a conditional yes. I’ve found that I am quite durable.”

  “Durable!” Benno laughed and slapped Ricky’s shoulder.

  Ricky had said the first thing that came into his mind, but durable wasn’t the right term. The previous night he had felt fragile and unsure of himself. The word that came out described the opposite of what he felt, especially after the frustration of transcribing the little book filled with strange archaic words.

  Ricky didn’t respond and just let the others exhibit a rowdiness he didn’t feel as they made their way into the gymnasium. They cleaned their muddy shoes and stepped out onto the floor.

  Insippa Baldico made a showy entrance. Ricky thought of performance sorcery, but maybe it was an exhibition of a different kind. The boys surrounded their instructor.

  “I want you to put all you have into practices, this year. I’m working on a schedule to play other schools and maybe even a professional team if you show me that you have what it takes to compete,” the instructor said.

  The boys hooted and jostled one another with enthusiasm. Ricky didn’t think he’d be able to break into such a tight little group. They nearly made up an entire broomball team.

  “Run for a bit, and then we’ll break out into drills.” Insippa spotted Ricky. “Valian, you stay.”

  Ricky watched the group form a running line.

  “Over here,” Insippa said, walking to a table filled with broomball sticks and pads of some kind.

  Ricky picked up a leather piece. It had multiple layers of wool lining the curved piece of leather. “What are these?”

  “Pads,” Insippa said. “They are like flexible armor. Broomball can get pretty rough, and pads keep shins, wrists, and elbows from being broken.”

  “This is…?”

  “A shin pad. Try it on while we talk.”

  Ricky bent down and strapped it on over his trousers. “It goes on underneath?”

  Insippa nodded. “Are you really going to play with the team?”

  “I thought I’d try.”

  Insippa pursed his lips. “It will take more than ‘try’ to get a spot on the first team. I can’t just place you on it, despite Saganet’s wishes.”

  “He wanted you to give me special favors?”

  Insippa nodded. “Saganet and the duke want you to mingle with the noble boys.”

  “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

  “You aren’t one of them at this point. You’ll have to mix it up with the older boys.”

  “I’m a head shorter than some,” Ricky said.

  Insippa looked up and down at Ricky. “I’d say you are in a growth spurt. Your height is becoming less of a disadvantage because you are losing your shortness.” Insippa chuckled at the turn of the phrase.

  “So I need to work hard to join in?”

  The instructor nodded. “You should work hard anyway if you want to play. Broomball players who don’t work hard get hurt more often, it seems.”

  Ricky could see why. He might not have spent a lot of time around other boys, but he wasn’t ignorant of the dynamics. “I’ll work hard then.” He unstrapped the pad and nodded curtly at Insippa and took off running.

  As he thought about Insippa’s words, Ricky wondered if he had been manipulated into joining the morning broomball crowd. It didn’t matter. He remembered Saganet and the Duke's mission for him this term. Ricky didn’t want to fail. If he felt fragile, he’d work on making himself durable, just like he said to Benno. He set the thoughts of shifting relationships aside and made up his mind to make the first team.

  ~

  Life became a bit dreary again. Ricky had a hard time breaking through the archaic Parantian phraseology of the power-linking book. His studies were nearly overwhelming as his school subjects kept getting more demanding. Ricky still struggled to catch up from the term he had missed.

  Broomball practice became more intense as spring approached. Sippa would choose the first team after practices moved from the gymnasium to the broomball field. Jac still kept his eye on Mara, but Ricky didn’t notice an increase in the level of their friendship. Ricky now worked on using his sorcery to break down materials in a very controlled fashion, an admission on the part of his professors that there were less showy ways to use sorcery.

  Saganet invited Ricky to dinner with Effie at the commissary. The food was better on the faculty side, so he readily agreed. Anything as a diversion from the relentless work of studying, sorcery, transcription, broomball, and Effie’s demand of incessant weapons practice.

  “Ricky!” Saganet waved when Ricky entered the faculty dining area. Effie looked relaxed.

  “Thank you for inviting me,” Ricky said. “It’s good to see both of you when you aren’t haranguing me about my swordsmanship or using odd weapons.”

  “I do it for a purpose,” Effie said.

  Ricky nodded. “I’ve nearly been overcome with all that I have to do.”

  “There is a break coming up—”

  “And there are tests before the break,” Ricky said.

  “Not one from me. You are tested in every one of our sessions,” Effie said.

  Ricky groaned. “Can we not talk about school?”

  Saganet smiled. “Of course. What do you want to discuss? The library?”

  “I’ve been working on the same book for over three weeks,” Ricky said. “It’s so old, the words are like a foreign language. I’m nearly far enough along to be able to figure out the meaning.”

  “So you haven’t been frequenting the library?”

  Ricky shook his head. “I check with Mara when I run into her. There haven’t been any problems.”

  Dinner came, and Ricky focused on eating. Saganet talked about Tossan politics, but Ricky wasn’t very interested. Finally, over the dessert, Effie asked, “Do you want to hear another Princess Pira story?”

  Ricky smiled and nodded his head. This was more like the diversion he enjoyed. “Certainly. What prank does she do in this one?”

  “What is this, a storybook? Princess Pira’s Pranks?” Saganet said.

  “They would fill more than one volume, I’m afraid,” Effie said. She shifted in her seat, took a sip of wine and began.

  “Just two years ago, Prime Minister Bruto Socavan of Jarrace arrived in Sealio with a large retinue. He bent the ear of most of King Leon’s ministers and a few notable merchants crowing about Jarracian agricultural goods.”

  Saganet nodded. “Jarrace produces the highest quality wine that I know of.”

  Effie glared at Saganet for interrupting her story. However, the pause gave her a chance at another sip of wine. She looked at the glass and the bottle. “This is Jarracian wine.” She giggled a bit.

  Ricky thought she might have sipped a glass too many during dinner.

  “His mission was to sell extra-special olive oil to the crown. Princess Pira, who is always tuned into what is going on in Sealio, sent her bodyguards out to the market to do a little research. I was still there, by the way, and did my part of that task. We found that there wasn’t such a thing as that grade of olive oil. The prime minister was in the process of swindling the king.

  “Of cou
rse, Princess Pira fumed at the audacity of Socavan. She kept the information to herself, choosing to expose the man at the proper time. King Leon demanded that she attend a dinner with the prime minister. The dinner was announced to be full of Jarracian products, fine wines, many special kinds of cheese, and the olive oil that the prime minister wished to peddle.

  “I stood behind the princess as she complained about not being able to drink the wine. She sniffed at the cheeses and declared them overly ripe. Special cheeses just meant they were spoiled, I remember her saying. She dipped a piece of bread in the olive oil, and it was, truly, the best olive oil she had tasted. She whispered to me that maybe she was wrong.

  “The dinner ended, and Socavan ran into the Princess after the dinner. He dared to scold her for her performance. His criticism about her comment on the cheeses only made the princess angrier. The pair exchanged impolite words, and the prime minister ended up telling her that he was amazed that the king could put up with such a poor excuse for a ward.”

  “Didn’t King Leon get angry?” Ricky said.

  “Princess Pira didn’t want to bother the king. She had other things in mind. The princess tasked us to gather mice, not a particularly hard thing to do at the palace if you know where to look. We put the mice in the olive oil Prime Minister Socavan had presented to King Leon as samples at the dinner.”

  Saganet howled with laughter and had to stop when other faculty members stared at him. “How did Pira get the mice noticed?”

  “Her plan was meticulous. She demanded the staff parcel the flagons into smaller jugs for storage.”

  “The king agreed?”

  Effie shook her head. “She used other means. Princess Pira went straight to the head cook,” Effie said. “When the mice were found, King Leon was enraged. He dismissed the prime minister and had the olive oil poured into the ocean. Later, Princess Pira admitted that the olive oil tasted much better than usual, but she could do without the quality, referring to the taint of dead mice.”

  Ricky laughed more discreetly than Saganet. “But was the olive oil really better?”

  Effie shook her head. “The cook admitted that she never used the Jarracian olive oil for the feast. It was a special pressing from orchards southeast of Tossa.”

  Ricky shook his head. “Has King Leon ever caught her?”

  “I’m sure the king suspects, but he’s not particularly sharp, our monarch,” Effie said.

  Saganet sat up straighter. “Enough talk about King Leon.” He cleared his throat, an obvious signal to change the subject.

  “Were you always part of her tricks?” Ricky asked.

  Effie nodded. “Always. Such things wear a person down.”

  “I thought you left her service because she was always complaining.”

  “That’s my story,” Effie said, pursing her lips, “and I’ll stick to that.”

  Ricky looked at Saganet. “Does the princess have a bad reputation?”

  Saganet shrugged. “She is known for being difficult and demanding, but I’ve never heard a report of her being such a jokester.” He turned to Effie. “Are you pulling our legs?”

  Effie raised her chin. “No, I’m not. I warn you, if you ever meet her in Sealio, remember that she is capable of anything.” A smile formed on her face. “I did leave her service, remember.”

  Ricky didn’t know what to think about Princess Pira. She seemed more like a legend than a real person. Saganet yawned, rather theatrically in Ricky’s opinion. That meant dinner was over.

  He went to bed in much better spirits than when he had awakened that morning. The behavior of the princess made him wonder what kinds of thoughts went through the young woman’s head. If King Leon ever died, he wondered what kind of a queen Princess Pira would make. She might have the power to turn things upside down.

  Would the Council of Notables and the nobles let her? Could she use the monarchy to protect herself? He wondered if Princess Pira agreed with her guardian about the restriction on sorcerers. Ricky suddenly developed a desire to talk to Princess Pira. He snorted in the darkness. How could that ever happen?

  ~~~

  CHAPTER NINE

  ~

  “I WOULD LIKE YOU TO CHOOSE PARTNERS FOR A PROJECT that will take the place of a mid-term examination,” Professor Uddolfi said. “Pick a partner, and then both of you can sit down.”

  Ricky felt he had an adequate grasp of World History, so he didn’t care who he partnered with. He remained standing. He looked across the classroom and spotted Loria Mansali on the far side.

  She looked at him and gasped, pointing, “Not you. Absolutely not you!”

  Loria ran from the classroom. Ricky just shook his head. He didn’t feel slighted, but he did feel sad that his presence spawned such a negative reaction. Ricky looked at Professor Uddolfi, who made eye contact. They both shrugged at the same time. The action made Ricky smile.

  “I’ll work with you,” Mara said coming up from behind him.

  Ricky couldn’t help but feel surprised. “I didn’t even know we shared this class.”

  Mara smiled. “I’m always late and slip in the back. I don’t contribute much.”

  “Your Parantian is more than acceptable,” Ricky said.

  “But I’m a scholarship student.”

  Ricky knew how she felt. He wasn’t even a scholarship student last year. He audited his classes, which was even lower on the social acceptability scale. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “Good. I didn’t think it would.” She looked around. “I think we can sit down now.”

  Ricky had partnered classmates sitting around him. “We can go up.”

  She nodded, and Ricky gathered his things, and finally everyone had found a partner. Ricky didn’t care if Loria did or not. He focused his attention on Professor Uddolfi’s assignment.

  “I’d like you to choose a country and track a specific attribute through the last five-hundred years. It could be carriage design, wheat production, or religious architecture, for example. It needs to be very specific, but enough so that you can do a ten-page report, including illustrations. This project is required. If your partnerships do an adequate job, as most of you should do, then the pre-Spring Break examination is waived.”

  Mara tapped her pencil on her lower lip. “Can we use the library?”

  “Oh,” Uddolfi said, interrupting the buzz in the classroom. “You can’t use anything about Paranty. This is a world history course.”

  Mara groaned.

  “We still can,” Ricky said. “Aren’t there books on other countries?”

  “There are,” Mara declared, brightening. “Shall I do a bit of research?”

  Ricky nodded. “We don’t have much time, so find another source.”

  “You are still having trouble with the sorcery volume?”

  Her question made Ricky frown. “I’m getting close to reading it. I’ve written down enough words to make a new dictionary.”

  “If you’ve guessed the words correctly.”

  “Right,” Ricky said.

  Saganet had reminded Ricky to be closer friends with Jac Griama, and that prompted a request. “See if there is something on Dimani that we can use,” Ricky said. “That is where Jac Griama lives.”

  “Does he?” Mara said.

  Ricky narrowed his eyes. “You already know that.”

  Mara laughed. “I do,” she admitted.

  ~

  A few days later, Ricky met Mara in the library.

  “I found something interesting,” Mara said. “I have a journal on the history of mining in Paranty, but there is plenty of information on the surrounding countries, including Dimani. It’s one of the more recent books in the library, and it focuses on the political aspects, but we should be able to find more recent books on the subject,” Mara said.

  “And if we get stuck, we might be able to ask Jac if he knows what the current status is.”

  Mara colored. “We could do that.”

  Ricky cau
ght her reaction. “I’m sure he’d talk to the both of us.” Mara would be an attraction to get Jac’s cooperation, Ricky thought, assuming his friends were still interested in each other.

  “Let’s see what’s available in the book you found and use that as our beginning point,” Ricky said.

  ~

  Ricky spent the next evening at the academy library and worked on Dimani mining techniques. As a reference, Ricky wrote a page of notes on what current mining practices were in Paranty. It appeared that Dimani lagged behind all the other countries. He would have to ask Jac why that might be.

  He woke early and headed to the commissary for the early breakfasts that he shared with the older broomball players and sat down next to Jac and Benno.

  “Do you know much about mining practices in Dimani?” Ricky asked.

  Jac’s eyebrows rose as a look of suspicion flashed across his face before he broke into a smile. “Why do you ask?”

  Ricky noticed the change in expression, but he carried on. “Mara and I are working on a project for World History. She found an old book on mining, and it had information about Dimani. I thought of you, and we decided to use that as our subject.”

  Benno leaned over. “Uddolfi? He did the same thing last year. It’s good you didn’t choose fashion. That subject will get you taking the test.”

  “So how can I help?”

  “If you know anything at all, we’d like to go over our notes with you so our paper will be authentic.”

  “My family owns a few mines. Since I am the heir, Father has already kept me abreast of the basic processes.”

  Ricky grinned. “That’s great. Perhaps you could join Mara and me for dinner tonight.”

  “Mara?” Jac’s eyes lit up. “I’d be delighted.”

  That went easier than Ricky had thought. His subsequent broomball practice did not. Insippa Baldico stopped him on the way out.’

  “You look dejected,” the instructor said.

  “I don’t seem to be making any progress,” Ricky said.

  The man laughed. “Don’t be down on yourself. I can see your skills growing. The other boys have been playing this kind of broomball for years. Keep at it, and let’s see how we do when we move practices outside. We are getting so close. I’m just awaiting permission from Jockal, the gardener, to use the field. Go on to class.”