The Witch Awakening (Book One of the Landers Saga)

by Karen Nilsen

  I gripped the top shelf just over my head and leaned into it, my feet braced solidly on the flagstones. "If I was still twelve and believed you, that might sway me. As it is, you can save your breath. I'm going on the campaign, Father."

  "Go ahead. Go on the campaign. It may be good for you to have some fighting experience. It's helped me in my career."

  I laughed, a brittle sound. "This isn't some adolescent rebellion. I'm not doing this to spite you. If you think that somehow your sudden approval will make the prospect less appealing to me and maybe I won't go, then you've overestimated your influence. I don't hate you that much." I reached in my pocket and pulled out my seal ring. "Here, take this."

  He hesitated before he reached out and took the ring. There followed several moments of silence while I looked at my boots, waiting for him to leave. There was no one else in the practice salon--the king's guard had left a good fifteen minutes before, and the quiet stretched out, a dark presence between us. Not able to bear it much longer, I opened my mouth to say something, what I didn't know, when he suddenly spoke.

  "It won't be like practice, all orchestrated and planned, where you can see your opponent's moves coming. They'll come at you from all sides, at any time, and some of them will know what they're doing. I say that because you've fought before, even killed a few, so you may think you know what you're getting into. You don't. I didn't. That highwayman you killed when you were eighteen--he didn't know what he was doing, anymore than that horse thief did a few weeks ago. They were untrained brigands, thieving because they thought they could subdue with a flash of metal and a few clumsy slashes. Some of the ones you meet the next few months will be like that, easy to kill. Some will be like you, trained since they could pick up a sword but not tested. And some will be battle-seasoned warriors. Those are the ones to watch. You've a way with a blade beyond mere training, but you're not a master. Live through the next few months, and you will be."

  He turned then and left the salon. I watched him from under my arm, saw the way the slanted afternoon sunlight gleamed on the side buckles of his boots, the jeweled hilt of his rapier. His back taut, his footfalls quiet, he still walked like he was going to war, even though it had been a good twenty-five years since he'd been near a battlefield. A while ago, some fool had hired an assassin to kill him. The man had leapt out of an alley near the market, dead on Father's sword before he'd even hit the ground. There had been no more assassination attempts.

  He was a fighter. A warrior who had never been able to put up his sword, a commander who had never ceased plotting strategy, a haunted soldier who had never stopped seeing the face of his enemy, even when that enemy was long dead and he was looking at his wife and child. Our battle of twenty years, the battle that had taken my mother, had just ended in a truce, and now I didn't know where to go next. I sank against the shelves, my head throbbing, and wished for Safire and her witch hands.

  Chapter Thirteen--Mordric

  I handed the reins to the Bara groom and dismounted as if I wore a rusty suit of armor. Ten years ago, I had ridden between court and Calcors, a day's ride, with few ill effects. Now even my teeth ached. My horse Hunter whickered and nudged my elbow, and I scratched his withers before the groom led him away. At one time black as soot, he was starting to look a little grizzled around the edges himself.

  The door off the stable courtyard was almost as grand as the front door, with its shiny brass fittings and carved foreign wood. The last time I had been here, when Peregrine's father had still been alive, it had been like any other side door, made of stout, unadorned oak. Peregrine's black trade smuggling must be going well. He was still young, only a few summers older than Merius, and something of an arrogant dandy besides.

  The liveried manservant who opened the door ushered me through a shadowy series of halls with whispered comments about the new paneling, the paintings, the sculptures, most of which could barely be seen in their sepulchral recesses.

  "Does your master pay you to talk?" I asked the man finally when he paused for several moments to elaborate on the finer points of a silver fruit bowl.

  His brow furrowed. "Well, not exactly, sir."

  "Then please desist. I've had a long ride, and I'm more interested in your master's accounts than his fruit bowls."

  We proceeded in silence up to the second floor and into Peregrine's study. The servant threw open a door beside the fireplace which led to a small room with a steaming pitcher, a basin, and several towels on a marble-topped table.

  "Mistress Chenoa wishes you to refresh yourself," he said stiffly. "The master will be along presently." Peregrine's mother Chenoa was a generous, fine woman, a rarity of her sex.

  I made good use of the hot water, splashing off the road dust. I found a comb under one of the towels and slicked back my hair. The door creaked, and I turned from the mirror. Chenoa of Bara stood there, her hands folded together decorously in front of her. Her graying tresses were pulled into a heavy knot at the nape of her slender neck, the way women had worn their hair when I was a cavalier. It had taken a true connoisseur of the weaker sex to undo one of those knots. One had to know just which pin to pull.

  "Do you want any refreshment, Mordric?" she asked. "I'm afraid our doorkeeper has been remiss not to offer you anything." Her voice was low and mellow, her tone cool and cultured, like the voices of the best nurses when one had just been run through with an enemy sword. The perfect court wife, I had often thought--attractive without being seductive, intelligent without being opinionated, polite without being fawning. Merius might still have a mother if I had married a woman like this.

  "Thank you for the pitcher and basin." I toweled the last drops of water off my face. "How do you fare, Chenoa?"

  "Fine. And you? I heard," she hesitated. "I heard Merius joined the king's guard."

  "Just for the length of the Marennese campaign." I loudly slapped the towel through the air before I hung it over the edge of the basin.

  "You're good to spare him."

  "He's good to spare himself, you mean."

  She smiled. "It's hard when you only have one son, especially when he's strong-minded. Levan despaired of Peregrine many times, but he always redeemed himself in the end."

  I bet so--the Bara inheritance would make redemption easy, even for a scoundrel like Peregrine. Of course, Merius's inheritance was more extensive than Peregrine's, once I counted the worth of my holdings, and Merius had refused it all in favor of adventure and some witch's fickle love. His seal ring was still in my pocket, an irksome weight. Irksome youth, with its frivolous passions, its conceit, its utter pig-headedness. Why couldn't heirs be born middle-aged and responsible? He'd return in six months, begging back the inheritance he'd so casually thrown away, and he'd manage it because he was young. If I shifted my position like that in the council chamber, I'd be accused of prevarication. I should make him marry as soon as possible when he returned from Marenna--that would settle him down. A suitable marriage could be a condition of getting back his inheritance.

  "What of your daughters?" I asked Chenoa.

  "Betrothed, all. Selena will wed midsummer."

  That was out then. Probably a good thing--Peregrine had coin aplenty, but he could be denounced by the council if Cyril ever got his hands on one dirty ledger. No point in allying the Landers name with potential scandal. We had enough of our own.

  "It'll be a lovely wedding," Chenoa continued. "In the Calcors cathedral, with plenty of roses and a velvet altar cloth embroidered in gold. We're having SerVerinese silk and pearls from the Sud Islands imported for the gown. I only hope my other girls' nuptials will be so fine."

  "Hmm, well, they're of an age for marriage." It was an asinine remark, but what else could one say when women started talking about their daughters' weddings?

  "Peregrine too. It's a shame the Landers haven't any daughters for him." She delicately refrained from mentioning Eden.

  "If I had a daughter, he would be my first choice for her." Empty gallantry, that.
If I had a daughter, I'd lock her away in a convent if Peregrine wanted to marry her.

  "I keep telling him he could marry into a high noble House, but young men never listen to their mothers. He's been wooing a most unsuitable girl. Good, old family, a little poor, but there's no dishonor in that. It's the girl herself. An absolute hoyden, that one. She came here to dinner with her older sister and father a couple years ago. Her hair was uncombed, she knocked over her wine--twice--and then she suggested that our library wasn't complete because we didn't have some poet. Sirach, I think. What business has a young girl reading that improper Sirach, anyway? And the older sister was so quiet and polite--knew just what to say to the servants, to everyone. If Peregrine had to pick some sparrow noblewoman, why couldn't he have picked the elder sister?"

  "Because Selwyn did."

  She recoiled. "Oh, I forgot about that. I apologize, Mordric--I never engage in idle gossip, but I could have sworn I didn't say their names . . ."

  "You didn't say their names. Your description was apt enough."

  "I shouldn't have been so uncharitable with Safire. Really, you should have stopped me. She lacks a mother's influence to calm her high spirits, poor thing."

  "I'd say she lacks more than that." I wondered suddenly if Safire was a plot of her father's to bring down all the head Houses. The little vixen had almost brought down Merius, at any rate, and now she was starting on Peregrine.

  "It's just that I can't let Peregrine make such a mistake. The wrong marriage can break a House, and Levan worked so hard building this one. Would you talk to him for me?"

  "Who, Peregrine?"

  She nodded. "He may listen to an older man, especially you. He respects your remarks at council, and I know you're prudent in these matters."

  I was saved from comment by the sound of the study door. Peregrine appeared at the entrance of the side room. He acknowledged Chenoa with an incline of his head.

  "Good evening, sir," he said.

  "Good evening."

  "I was just asking Mordric if he would stay to dinner," Chenoa supplied quickly. "Would you?"

  "Thank you, but no. Our business here shouldn't take long."

  We moved into the main room. Peregrine stood at the side of his desk until I sat in the leather-cushioned chair before it. Then he took his seat, pushing a ledger aside so he could prop his elbows on the desk.

  "If you won't take dinner, would you accept any other refreshment? Brandy perhaps?"

  "No brandy, but if you have any whiskey, I'd be partial to that."

  She brought a cut glass decanter from a side table with a tumbler to match and set them before me with a heavy clinking.

  "Many thanks." I leaned forward and poured the liquor.

  "Anything else?"

  "I'll call Geoff if we need anything else. Thank you, Mother." He dismissed her as he would a high-ranking servant.

  Her skirts rustling, she left the room without a word, pulling the door quietly closed behind her. The mild scent of lavender lingered after her, and I almost wished I was staying to dinner. Peregrine sat for a moment or two in silence, his hands loosely joined in a triangle over his mouth as he watched me. I picked up the tumbler and sniffed the whiskey once before I quaffed it in a long swallow. It was fine, but not fine enough to warrant a king's office at court. Peregrine's ambitions were higher than his tastes.

  "Has Merius sailed yet?" he asked finally.

  "This morning."

  "He's wise to go now. If my father were still here to run the House, I'd go on campaign."

  "Ah, yes, duty excuses much."

  He stiffened almost imperceptibly, an alert cur catching the faint scent of insult. "My duty to the name my father left me is my first priority."

  "I only wish Merius's sense of duty was so strong, that he would smuggle and treat with robber princes to uphold the name of Landers."

  "I beg your pardon?" His hands were clenched together under his mouth now, a double fist. Calmer than Merius when threatened, but still one of the angry ones. Good--I hated snivelers. I always worried about snivelers when I blackmailed them. If they broke down at a few carefully uttered words, then how could they manage to carry out my orders properly?

  "Your father ran seven fleets of merchant ships and always had coin to spare, but he never brought a gold watch to council finer than the king's. Nor did he wear fresh linen on every hunt. You should be subtler, Peregrine."

  He shrugged, though his hands were still clenched. "I've had an excellent season--no pirates, only one ship lost in a hurricane. If some are jealous of such fortune, let them be. But that hardly gives them the right to make unfounded accusations."

  "I wouldn't say some are jealous--I would say many are jealous. And suspicious. All it would take is one turncoat cohort, one badly balanced ledger, and you could lose not only your duty bound name but your head as well."

  "There are no cohorts and there are no ledgers. Why would there be? I've done nothing wrong. You speak of impossibilities."

  He abruptly stood and went over to the side table, where he poured himself a tumbler of some amber liquor, likely sherry. He splashed it around in his glass, watching it swirl before he threw his head back and gulped it down.

  "The gold watch, the fresh linen, Trident . . . see, I know how much you paid for Trident. I set the price myself, never expecting anyone but the king would be able to pay it. That was your first mistake--that horse was meant for the royal stables, yet I come home one day to find that Whitten had sold him to the son of a middling merchant. Don't misunderstand me--your father was a canny courtier, but he was too much of a gentleman for the dirty competition of shrewd trade. You, on the other hand, have a gambler's sensibility. Cannon powder in wine casks is a common enough ruse, so common the king's agents know to shake every cask to make certain it sloshes. If the casks slosh, they never open them for fear of ruining the wine, so they never find the false bottoms, the watertight compartments underneath stuffed with powder on the outbound voyages, jewels and ivory on the inbound ones. You started long before your father's death, didn't you? No one pulls off such clever simplicity without practice."

  He set down the tumbler with a clank. "What hangdog whoreson has been talking?"

  "That's my affair. All you need know is that it was difficult. You were careful enough, you see. You likely bought the powder for a generous amount, so generous an amount that your supplier wouldn't dream of betraying such a good customer, which he couldn't anyway since you use proxies. You haven't flooded the jewel or ivory markets. Just a sale here and there, with enough middlemen in between to make it almost impossible to trace it back to you. Your only mistake was boasting of your new-found wealth by buying and investing too much too quickly."

  "Again, fodder for suspicion, nothing more. You can't prove any of this." He leaned against the side table, his arms crossed as he watched me.

  "I don't want to prove it. Cyril does, and you're a fool if you think he'll stop where I did, once he's picked up on your trail."

  "Why did you stop?"

  I smiled. "You're in a highly useful position, Peregrine."

  "So it's to be blackmail."

  "Of a fashion, though you'll benefit more than you'll pay."

  He raised his brows. "What are you getting at, sir?"

  "If the council's to gamble with the SerVerin market, raise the wheat tariff and such, it would be a good idea to have an insider at Tetwar's court. Someone who could report back to the prince and not raise suspicion. Who but a black market merchant who maintains the mask of his family's legitimate House and name?"

  "And how would this benefit me? I have a highly profitable connection with Tetwar that I don't want to jeopardize. They don't care for spies in the SerVerin court--the last one hung by his ankles in the palace courtyard until the vultures picked at his corpse."

  "He was a fool, a mere diplomat in over his head. Selling secrets to the pirate Razere, who is a SerVerin slaver on the sly--naturally he got caught. Of no use to Tetwa
r, except for his limited knowledge of clandestine treaties. You, on the other hand, know the ins and outs of trade between all the major principalities, who's in the black market, who's not, who can be bribed. All that in addition to the fact you've been a source of Tetwar’s precious cannon powder. Even if he suspects you a spy, he'll likely leave you be for now."

  Peregrine set his glass down. "In exchange for this little assignment, I expect full protection on the council. Make sure Cyril calls off his hounds, all of that. I assume that was the benefit you mentioned earlier."

  "Naturally. We can hardly expect you to stay in Tetwar's good graces without a pristine record on the council and the Cormalen market."

  "What do you mean by we?"

  "Prince Segar, of course. He's been rather interested in your activities. If not for my intervention, he might have listened to Cyril's suspicions and cast you off the council."

  He turned and poured himself another measure of sherry, all his movements carefully constrained as if what I had just said had left him indifferent. "And why would you have intervened for me?"

  "I know an opportunity when I see one. We can hardly expect Cormalen to prosper without a black market, without a few men willing to operate outside the bounds of the law. A saint's land soon becomes someone else's land."

  "You could be describing yourself. At least I‘ve never blackmailed anyone." He sat down again, watching me.

  I shrugged. "I've never shirked from doing what I had to do to advance my House and my country. That said, you'll never find anyone who'll admit I've blackmailed or bribed them. Evidently, you're not so lucky in your comrades. Your trail was difficult to trace, Peregrine, not impossible. You can only use the same marked cards or weighted dice in so many games before someone else notices. I can only offer you protection as long as you comply."

  He thought for a moment, drumming his tumbler on the desk. "Understood," he said finally.

  I took a little more whiskey. When my throat felt pleasantly afire, I began to speak. "There is another matter."