The Hidden Mask (Wizard's Helper Book 6)

by Guy Antibes

  “Would you like me to assist you?”

  Of course, she would, Jack thought, why else would she bring it up to him?

  “That would be quite nice of you. We would like something not too old and appropriate for inviting peers over for entertainments. You do that kind of thing during the winter? We do in the First Ring.”

  “There is more of that going on than balls,” Annette said. “It can be quite fun. Sometimes we bring in entertainers or hold small concerts.”

  “Life revolves around the factions, unfortunately,” Lord Floury said. “We either invite those of our factions in small groups, or we have large events where the factions can naturally congregate.”

  “But where does that leave me, where I don’t have a faction?” Lin asked.

  “You must be careful with your invitations,” Floury said. “Faction relationships have deteriorated since my wife died. I don’t get around like I used to in mixed company.”

  “I have that problem myself, Lord Floury,” Lin said, “being a single woman. That is why I brought Lady Penneta and Lord Winder with me. I can have a companion available regardless of the event.” Lin looked at Jack. “If it is a male-only event, Jack can attend with my bodyguard.” She nodded in Lorton’s direction.

  “If you need help, I can suggest a few women who are almost as unattached as you. I would step in myself, but my connections have become a bit stale.”

  “Moldy,” Annette said, giggling.

  “In a sense to the detriment of Annette. She has had to make connections on her own, so that is why we traveled to Corand to, uh, broaden her horizons.”

  “Perhaps Annette can continue to ride with us tomorrow?” Lin said.

  “Of course. I was interested in listening to some of Lord Winder’s exploits.” Lord Floury turned to Jack. “Would you ride with us tomorrow morning and relate your adventures to my men and me?”

  “I suppose I can do that. I’d also like to learn a bit more about Antibeaux culture.”

  “Forewarned is forearmed?” Lord Floury asked.

  “That is ever the case,” Jack said. He would have never used that phrase before, but Lin had insisted he learned twenty or so of those kinds of phrases. He felt like a phony, but Lord Floury would get some interesting tales that might take up the whole time, so Floury couldn’t press Jack into wooing his daughter

  Chapter Eleven

  ~

  J ust before they stopped at a village to rest the horses and have a late midday meal, Jack had run out of stories. He couldn’t mention the gods and goddesses he had dealt with, and that cut the length of his tales. Finally, he stopped.

  Floury and his manservant and the extra driver clapped as Jack stopped. Annette’s maid politely clapped, but Jack could tell she had listened to every word. The lord got right to the point that Jack was dreading.

  “I understand you have a relationship with Lady Penneta,” he began, “but my Annette is interested in becoming more acquainted with you.”

  “I would consider her a friend,” Jack said carefully. He couldn’t denigrate Floury’s daughter. “She has admirable qualities. I like her independence and frank way of speaking. I am more used to that than interacting with ladies such as Lady Kanlinn, should the truth be known.”

  “A winter in Bristone lasts a long time. I would request that you give my daughter a chance.”

  “A chance with a newly-minted noble adventurer with a veneer of the appropriate social graces.”

  Floury laughed. “The veneer is thin on all the nobles in Antibeaux. Winters require a hardy lot, and that wears a lot of the polish off. You will see.”

  Jack smiled. “I suppose I will.” He nodded. “I will consider your request. Now that you’ve mentioned the winter, what do you do other than visit other nobles’ salons? Are the drinking establishments full? Are there nonalcoholic gentlemanly pursuits?”

  The men laughed, but Annette’s maid produced a prunish face. “All men turn into brutes by the end of winter,” she said.

  “But happy brutes,” one of Floury’s men said. He leaned forward and started a much more interesting conversation on what Jack could expect, from racing horses wearing cleated shoes to dueling inside and out and artistic pursuits such as woodcarving and song composing.

  “You will have to try out our traditional garb,” Lord Floury said. “The better selections won’t be available until we reach Chancey. It is the second largest town in Antibeaux with Bristone and Niemeaux in the far north being the only real cities in the country. We have many, many villages.” He looked out the window and pointed to the villages perched on the sides of the mountains on different levels.

  “The higher up, the more herding is done. Our farming is done on the rich soils of the valley floors.”

  Jack looked out the window of the carriage and smiled at the beautiful countryside. The towering walls of stone mountains rose high into the air, but at the feet of those blocks of granite, or whatever it was, the land was green, and the generations of Antibeaux herders had made the levels that Floury talked about. Craggy steeples of churches to Yvessa seemed to thrust up in each village.

  “The place is covered with snow in the winter?”

  “The villages are cut off at times,” Annette’s maid said. “That is when the real mischief occurs.”

  “Mischief?” Jack asked.

  “Human mischief. People cooped up together can be less than nice to each other,” Floury said.

  “Or too nice,” the spare driver said. “It is no wonder that most villages have a church. Yvessa wants them all to live the same way year-round.”

  “I don’t know anything about Yvessa worship,” Jack said.

  Floury waved off Jack’s comment. “It is much the same as with all the gods, Alderach included. Be good to yourself and your fellow man. Be honest in your dealings with others. Don’t take advantage of those younger than you or with the opposite sex. There is plenty of taking advantage of both sides, you know. Alderach priests say the same things.”

  “Then what makes Yvessa so different? Her statue in Boxwood is severe and unrelenting. I don’t see a lot of forgiving in that carven face,” Jack said.

  “There is less forgiveness, and social punishments can be more severe,” Floury said. “I suggest you pay for a priestess to come to your townhouse and discuss proprieties in Bristone if you are concerned. If you can get a Royalist priestess, all the better.”

  “But what if the priestess is a WWS member?” Jack asked.

  “Then don’t invite her. Perhaps the Corandian ambassador can refer you.”

  Jack heard a knocking sound on the roof.

  “We must be approaching the village.” Lord Floury said.

  “We should continue to mix the people in the carriages. Lorton, Lady Kanlinn’s bodyguard, was recently with the Dorkansee police. You might find him full of stories as well.”

  The other men in the carriage smiled and rubbed their hands. Floury nodded. “Varying up the carriage occupants will make the journey shorter, indeed. Spend a little time with Annette, Lord Jack.”

  Jack was happy to exit the carriage when they stopped for a meal and a comfort stop. He was eager to ride on his horse again, looking up at the mountains. He liked the scenery, and when he got to Bristone, he’d like to tour the villages around the city, but he wasn’t quite comfortable with his plan, not with someone in Dorkansee sending a false note. He wondered what they would face when they reached Bristone. Perhaps going riding in the countryside might not be the healthiest thing to do.

  ~

  Jack looked across the carriage at Lin and Sera. Penny was to one side of him and Annette to the other. That was Jack’s solution to riding with Annette, so he didn’t offend Lord Floury.

  “Have you been to Chancey other than to pass through?” Jack asked Annette.

  “My mother’s family is from Chancey, so Father has taken my brother and me there every few years to see that side of the family. It is about the size of Boxwood, but
it is much different.”

  “Can you tell us how?” Lin asked.

  “Our towns are defined by the central cluster of tall buildings—"

  “Like the first town where we stopped?” Penny asked.

  Annette nodded. “Bristone’s center is much larger than Chancey’s, which is larger than our first stop.”

  “What do people do when they are crowded together like that?” Jack asked.

  Annette took a deep breath. “Let me think. I’m not sure I know.” She squinted her eyes while she thought for a moment. “Oh, for one thing, not all the buildings are places people live, or is it that people live in only part of the buildings?” She furrowed her brow.

  “Perhaps it is a combination,” Penny volunteered.

  “Ah, most likely,” Annette said. “I do know that craftsmen work away from the central part of town.”

  Annette showed again that she wasn’t the most aware person Jack had ever met. He imagined that he might be as dim if he hadn’t gone to extended school after most of his friends had ended their schooling at fifteen. She also wasn’t particularly well-traveled. Penny made up for things because she was so smart. He liked Penny being less angry about things, and it made her seem much more intelligent. Jack didn’t consider himself a scholar, but he was well-traveled.

  “Can you tell us something about the Royal Guard?” Penny asked.

  That was something Annette did know quite a bit about. She went on and on about how guards dressed and how they went about guarding in the castle where the queen of Antibeaux, Inez Paragon, ruled.

  Jack drifted to sleep amid the conversation drifting to what the queen wore. Penny poked him in the ribs.

  “We are approaching Chancey. Lady Kanlinn thinks it would be more presentable if you rode your horse.”

  Jack shook the cobwebs out of his brain. “I’m sorry about that,” he said as the coach slowed down.

  He jumped down. Lorton exited Lord Floury’s carriage, which had stopped ahead. Soon the carriages clattered over a wooden bridge into Chancey.

  “Floury said we should spend two nights here to rest the horses. There are a few passes on our route to Bristone. He will be staying with family, so we will split off from them while we are here,” Lorton said. “I can do with a break from playing our roles.”

  Jack nodded and smiled. He didn’t think there was much more Lord Floury could tell him about the factions in Antibeaux. He looked at Oscar joined by one of Lord Floury’s drivers in the driver’s box. The butler had been alternating with the men. It would be interesting to see what Oscar had gleaned from his time with them.

  Once through the city gate, Lord Floury’s carriage stopped. He walked back to retrieve Annette and recommend an inn. From what Lin had said before, it was the same one she had picked out. The lord and Lin thought alike about lodgings.

  In a few minutes of traveling through the streets of Chancey, Lord Floury’s carriage veered off while theirs continued on toward the taller buildings of the city’s center. They were to be by themselves for a few days, and that seemed to feel like a breath of fresh air to Jack. He wanted to meet with Ari Gasheaux for a different view of the country.

  They turned into a stable yard that sat in the middle of a square of taller buildings. Jack looked up at the windows. Some had curtains, and some were bare. A combination of purposes, he thought. Such a simple question had nearly stumped Annette.

  He took his travel bags up to his room. All their rooms were on the third floor, with Lin having a two-bedroom suite with a servant’s closet for the three women. They were to meet in Lin’s sitting room in half an hour.

  Jack plopped his bags in the middle of the floor and decided to close his eyes. The porter who opened Jack’s room said the clocktower within sight of his window chimed every fifteen minutes. The hour had just passed, so he rose after it chimed twice and went to Lin’s suite. Lorton followed in a moment, and Oscar was the last to enter.

  “Did we learn a lot from the Flourys?” Lin said, sitting at a small dining table with a pencil and paper in front of her.

  Most of what the others talked about was repeated. They characterized the factions. Even the drivers had the same impression of the political situation, except Oscar clearly got the impression that the commoners weren’t impressed with any of them, and that included the People’s Party, the Double P.

  “Who do the commoners follow?” Penny asked.

  “They worship Yvessa, but most of them don’t have a party. They just want the government out of their lives. Queen Inez is a bit heavy-handed with her regulations and her taxes. It is a common complaint in the outer rings of Dorkansee too,” Oscar said.

  Jack could relate. He had lived a sheltered life in Raker Falls, since it was so far from the capital, everyone did pretty much what they wanted to. The guards kept crime to a minimum, and for the most part, everyone got along. The commoners in Masukai often complained about the oppressive bureaucracy too.

  As they talked, it became clear that they would have to get involved with people of all four parties. Lin got the impression that the queen had an affinity to the APS from a comment Annette had made, which complicated everything since she was the titular head of the Royalists.

  Lin emphasized that they had to investigate the factions when they reached Antibeaux to verify all the notes she had taken while they talked.

  Sera yawned, causing a cascade of them in the room.

  “I am going to rest,” Lin said, rising from her seat. “We will meet in the dining room for dinner, except for Oscar.” She looked at her butler. “I’m sorry.”

  The man smiled. “As long as Lorton, Jack, and I can seek out the alcoholic underbelly of Chancey afterward.”

  “You three can do what you want as long as you don’t land in a Chancey guardhouse.”

  Jack had already had enough rest, so he walked down to the lobby and unfolded the note Fasher had given him.

  “Can you direct me to this address?” Jack handed the note to the person at the front desk.

  The man frowned. “This is not in an appropriate part of Chancey,” the man said as if he had bit into a lemon.

  “A friend of mine specifically requested that I greet his friend. I am duty bound to meet him, regardless of the demeaning aspect of the errand,” Jack said.

  “Very well.” The clerk pulled out a page of cheap paper and sketched out directions. The district wasn’t far from the inn at all.

  Jack strolled through the streets of Chancey, and as he moved out of the center, he noticed men wearing leather shorts and long woolen stockings. They looked odd, but there were enough of the costumes to show him that it was some kind of traditional garb.

  The building height suddenly dropped to two- and three-stories high before he entered a residential district with narrow townhouses. They all were clad with the white stucco common everywhere else in Antibeaux. There were fewer of the mural decorations on the walls, but those were replaced by many of the dwellings sprouting window boxes filled with flowers.

  He found the address. This house had window boxes, but they were filled with herbs rather than flowers. Could Gasheaux be a healer?

  Jack knocked on the door. The paint was cracked and peeling in places. There wasn’t an answer, but when he went to knock again, the door opened.

  “You are?” A tall, frowning, white-haired man looked down at Jack, who stood on the stoop. The man had darker skin than the dusky Masukaians.

  “Jack Winder. I am hoping you are Ari Gasheaux?”

  The man’s face brightened. “Jack Winder, Fasher Tempest’s protege? Come in, come in.”

  “You have heard of me?” Jack said, surprised.

  “Your name has been bandied about in certain circles,” Ari said.

  “Fasher can communicate with you?”

  “Ah! Caught me out. He did mention that you might be coming to darken my doorstep. Darken it no longer. Come in, as I said.” Ari turned his back on Jack and walked away from the door.

/>   Jack stepped into the man’s house and closed the door behind him. The place smelled, but it wasn’t objectionable. It was spicy, Jack thought. He remembered the herbs in the window boxes.

  “You aren’t from Antibeaux originally?” Jack asked.

  “No. Don’t I look it? Originally, I am from a much farther place than Corand or even Lajia.”

  “You couldn’t be from Bornan, could you?”

  Ari raised his finger and wagged it at Jack. “I believe you are the only one who has ever guessed correctly. Not many of my country’s herbs grow well in Antibeaux, but those that do, I cultivate. The others have had to be replaced with approximate substitutes. I’m also a healer of sorts.”

  “I understand. I spent some time in Masukai recently. They have different herbs and spices than Corand and even Lajia.”

  “Good for you, Jack! You do understand.”

  Ari nudged a door open to reveal a sitting room quite unlike any he had seen so far in Antibeaux. “More Bornan-style things?” Jack asked.

  “An old man likes to immerse himself in the things that once made him happy,” Ari said.

  “You don’t look that old.” Other than the white hair, Ari didn’t look much older than Grigar.

  “I have been told that I age exceedingly well,” Ari said. “I would like you to tell me what brings you here?”

  “How much did Fasher say?”

  “I don’t care what Fasher Tempest said, I care about your story.”

  Jack told Ari about the mask and their travels to date. “Fasher said you might be of some help. I think I might need more help since I have discovered that my magic is not as strong in Antibeaux as it is in Corand.”

  “Your magic? You should be able to do everything you could in Corand.”

  Jack sighed. He’d have to tell him about all his objects for things to make sense. His traveling companions knew about them, so if he were to ask Ari to join their group, he’d need to explain how he obtained them.

  “I am a special case,” Jack said.

  “In a way, we all are special cases,” Ari said.

  “I’m a real special case. I have seen five gods and have spoken directly to one more. I have received objects of power from a few, and I have even made some of my own,” Jack said.