The Mages of Bennamore

by Pauline M. Ross

  THE MAGES OF

  BENNAMORE

  An epic fantasy

  Part of the Brightmoon Annals

  by Pauline M Ross

  Published by Sutors Publishing

  ISBN:

  978-0-9928819-3-1 (paperback)

  Copyright © 2015 Pauline M Ross

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction.

  Cover design: Streetlight Graphics

  Proofreading: Coinlea Services

  A fragile peace. A clash of magic. A woman with secrets.

  The war between Bennamore and the coastal region was over almost before it began. But the uniquely powerful mage who forged the alliance is dead, and the coastal folk are restless. Now the victors are bringing their spellcraft to the Port Holdings, unaware that the locals have their own less conspicuous magical ability.

  Fen’s new job with the mages of Bennamore seems pleasant enough, but their powers threaten to expose her shady little habits. And then she can’t shake off the attentions of the flirtatious and uneducated guard, Mal. Nothing, it seems, will deter him.

  The mysterious disappearance of a mage uncovers a dragon’s nest of deceit. Mal needs Fen’s help to figure it out, but she has divided loyalties and her past drags everyone into the middle of a violent conspiracy. Yet she may be the only one who can stand between the two countries, and stop them plunging back into a war which, this time, would destroy all of them.

  Books in the Brightmoon Annals:

  1: The Plains of Kallanash, published September 2014

  2: The Fire Mages (The Fire Mages Trilogy Book 1), published January 2015

  3: The Mages of Bennamore, published May 2015

  4: The Magic Mines of Asharim, published September 2015

  5: The Fire Mages’ Daughter (The Fire Mages Trilogy Book 2), published January 2016

  6: The Dragon’s Egg, projected publication mid-2016

  7: The Second God (The Fire Mages Trilogy Book 3), projected publication late-2016

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  Table of contents

  1: A Death

  2: The Mages

  3: The Tower

  4: A Healing

  5: Punishment

  6: A Change of Plan

  7: To Dristomar

  8: The Rillett House

  9: The Holder

  10: Moon Feast

  11: Library

  12: Witness

  13: Desire

  14: A Theft

  15: Kelter Fever

  16: Confessions

  17: A Visitor

  18: The Bell Tower

  19: Perfume

  20: A Confrontation

  21: Dungeon

  22: The Tunnel

  23: A Discovery

  24: A Way Out

  25: The Old Harbour

  26: An Arrangement

  27: A Meeting

  28: The Glass Ball

  29: Voices

  30: Swords

  31: Plotting

  32: A Daring Plan

  33: Kidnap

  34: Watching And Waiting

  35: The Kitchen Door

  36: Rescue

  37: The Water Tower

  38: Convocation

  39: The Heir

  40: The Ships of Bennamore

  41: The Boundary Stone

  42: The High Commander

  43: Sword Ships

  44: Packing

  Thanks for reading!

  About the Brightmoon Annals

  About the author

  Acknowledgements

  1: A Death

  The day before my fortieth birthday, my employer killed himself.

  It was expected, naturally. No ship owner could lose his entire fleet to the waves without paying the price of failure, no matter that the fleet comprised a single ship. Master Krend had to do what was proper, or lose all his rank, leaving his family destitute. It wasn’t his fault his only ship had foundered in a storm. He didn’t deserve to die, but that was the way things were done in the Port Holdings.

  Everything had been prepared. Master Krend had already sent his younger children away. He had been measured for his shroud. He had dictated the notifications of his death to me, my last and most distressing duty as his recorder. Now he had carried out his own last duty. The only person at all surprised was the kitchen girl, who came up from the basement to begin her chores and found the body hanging from the beams amongst the hams and herbs and strings of onions.

  Master Krend’s son, Brin, took charge. He was younger than me but already portly. Grey-faced but calm, he dispatched the servants to their quarters in the basement. They belonged to the house and would transfer to the new owner.

  No such surety for me. I was out of a job and a home, resigned to the prospect of a miserable few quarter moons in a rooming house, cold and hungry, eking out my savings until I could find work again.

  Dragon’s teeth, I could hardly believe this was happening to me again. Just when I’d got comfortably settled, too. Had the Goddess cursed me? Here I was, hammering on the doors of middle-age, a woman without family or wealth or any useful talent, once more forced to scratch around for work. I wasn’t born for this uncertainty, but I wasn’t going to let it grind me to dust, either. I still had my dignity.

  I waited, hands clasped in front of me, as Brin dealt with the servants and then turned slowly to me. He looked at me across the hallway, the closed kitchen door at his back. Behind it, his father’s body still hung, waiting for the shipping registrar to agree that he was indeed dead, and initiate the required processes. At my back, the solid front door of carved mahogany, imported all the way from the northern coast at vast expense by Master Krend’s grandfather. Soon it would open and close for another family.

  Brin coughed. “Do you have somewhere to go, Fen?”

  “I know a place. I have a little money put by. I won’t starve.” True enough, but soup and stale bread was only one step above starvation. “May I leave my things until…?”

  “Of course, of course.” He twisted his hands helplessly. “Fen, I’m so sorry. Throwing you out like this, it’s despicable.”

  “It’s the law, so there’s nothing more to say about it.” I shrugged. It was pointless to rail against the edicts of the Holders. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

  He trod across the hall and hugged me awkwardly. I hesitated, arms at my side, but there was no harm in it now, so I reached round his ample frame and patted his back. He hugged me a little tighter and then released me. I cast a final, regretful glance around the hall at the thick rugs and rich furnishings, a brazier warming the air. Then, with a sigh, I opened the door and stepped through, leaving the Krend house forever.

  Outside, I was shocked to find it still dark. It seemed hours since the maid’s screams had dragged me from sleep, yet the horizon was only just lightening. None of the port offices would be open yet. I fastened my coat, pulled woollen gloves and a battered hat from my pockets, and strode towards the lamps of the highway.

  The port town of Carrinshar Holding sat in the bowl of a valley, and there was hardly a level street anywhere. Master Krend’s house was high on the western side. My steps took me down the hill, away from the secluded walled estates and broad, paved roads, into narrower winding alleys where my boots slid on damp cobbles and I had to feel for the guide ropes in the darkness.

  At length I came out in the market square on the level area of ground fringing the sea, where the wind poked icy fingers through my coat. If only I had a good thick cloak, but it wasn’t proper attire for someone of my station. Ahead of me lay the harbour, a forest of jostling masts. To my left, the squalid docks and warehouses and sailors�
� boarding houses. On the right, a road paved with pure white slabs led up the cliff to where the great stone Hold maintained a brooding watch over us all.

  The market stallholders had barely begun to set up their goods. Lights from soup houses and bars glowed in some of the tall buildings edging the square. I picked one at random, but they were all the same: dark and warm, smelling of yesterday’s fish stew, the air heavy with the smoke of cheap lamp oil. Eyes gleamed in shadowy corners.

  “Want a brew, ducky?” asked a round serving woman at the counter. “Two bits.”

  I nodded, and passed her the coins. All the coastal folk drank hot brew by the bucketful, and each Port Holding had its own favoured recipe. Carrinshar’s was dark and thick, but very sweet. And cheap, a great virtue.

  I took my mug to a seat near the only window, wrapping my frozen fingers around its warmth, and watched as the first trawlers bobbed out of the harbour and the market gradually came alive. Other customers came and went, but no one took any notice of me. A mousy woman dressed in drab skirt and coat attracted no attention.

  Two more brews and a slice of bread filled with cheese passed the time until the sun was up. At the harbour-master’s office, the boy came out to scrub the step. A man appeared on the roof, scattering protesting gulls, and slowly hoisted the first hour flag. The working day had officially begun, and at last I could go to the employment registrar.

  It was not far to walk. All the important offices clustered around the harbour, solid stone buildings three or four storeys high. They were large but plainly decorated, eschewing the porticoes and pillars and statuary favoured by the wealthy merchants and ship-owners. The employment office’s main entrance was crowded with hopeful packers and sailors, carpenters and fish-gutters looking for day work. I went in through a discreet side door to the office for lettered applicants.

  “Fen!” The voice boomed from the far corner of the room.

  “Master Tylk.” I waited for him to weave through the score or so desks dotted haphazardly about the room. Only a few were occupied. I recognised a couple of faces, and nodded to them before Tylk reached me.

  He was a big man in every sense: tall, and broad, lavishly dressed, an imposing figure with a foghorn voice to match. His beard was small, as befitted his rank, but the ends of his moustache trailed almost to his waist. “Fen, my dear girl! Here you are. So he finally did it, eh? But don’t tell me you’ve been wandering the streets all night?”

  “Only since just before dawn. I found a soup house to skulk in.”

  “You could have come to me, dear girl, whatever the hour.” He leaned closer and took my gloved hand in his. He probably thought it a tender and intimate moment, but his words echoed off the walls. “I would always look after you, as you well know.”

  “That wouldn’t have been seemly.” I couldn’t help smiling, though, as I retrieved my hand. I’d been fending off such proposals from Tylk ever since I’d arrived in Carrinshar.

  “Tsk! What does that matter? Fen, I am astounded by your ill fortune. I never knew a recorder be out of work so often, for one reason or another. Ah, but this is the worst reason. To lose the entire business! This must be… what, the fourth time this has happened to you?”

  “The fifth.”

  “The fifth! Goddess preserve us! Remember the woman who did the deed at midnight, on the coldest night of the year? It’s so uncivilised, to throw you out just like that.”

  “You know the rules, Tylk. Everything that belongs to the house is locked in, and everything else is locked out. It’s worse for the servants, cooped up in the basement for quarter moons on end.”

  “Well, let us be thankful that you are out of that house now, and free to look about for a new position at last,” he said, moving briskly from commiserations to business.

  That suited me, too. “So who’s looking for a recorder just now? Anyone interesting?”

  “Well, that’s just it.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “There’s nothing at all going on. I’ve been keeping my eye open for something for you, since we heard… but ever since last year, when we allied with Bennamore—”

  “Allied? Ha! That’s a new word for it. I thought we were subjugated in a humiliatingly brief and decisive war.”

  “Hush, hush, dear girl.” He flapped his hands at me. “If the Holders choose to call it an alliance, who are we to question their wisdom?”

  I snorted. “Wisdom? You know perfectly well—”

  The hands flapped harder. “Fen, Fen! Let’s not start the day with one of your orations.” That was probably best. Tylk knew my opinion of the war, and how we had botched it. Bennamore had waved a few swords at us, and the Holders had surrendered in a moment. But that was history now, and I let Tylk have his way.

  “Come, sit down, have a brew. Morn, fetch a brew for Fen, will you?” A plump girl no more than twenty nodded and scuttled away.

  My day had started many hours ago, and my stomach revolted at the thought of more brew, but I let him fuss around. I needed his help to find a new job, so I smiled and waited obediently for my brew.

  “So you have nothing for me?” I asked.

  “Only old Master Trall, and I wouldn’t dream of letting you go back there.” He shuddered, while I tried not to smile. He’d been more traumatised by Trall’s lecherous attempts on my virtue than I ever was. “Everyone else is waiting until things calm down before they take on the expense of a new employee. The new taxes have been so unsettling, and now there’s some sort of delegation coming from Bennamore. To help us, they say.” He lowered his voice a fraction, leaning closer. “To spy on us, more like. Making sure we do what we’re told.”

  “Naturally they want to keep an eye on us,” I said. “That’s common sense. And honestly, the taxes are not very different. People grumble too much.”

  He eyed me speculatively, as if wondering whether my waspishness was due to more than just losing my job. He’d suspected Worker Brin of having designs on me, and he wasn’t far wrong, either, but I’d never been tempted. Nor was I interested in Tylk. My heart had been lost many years ago.

  ~~~~~

  I made my way through chill drizzle to my new home. Mistress Jast’s rooming house was small and unassuming. It huddled between two bigger buildings like a poor cousin trying not to be noticed at the family gathering. Inside, the furnishings were shabby and no meals or laundry were provided. However, it was on the quieter, western side of town, with a bathhouse round the corner, and high enough up the hill to escape the worst sewage and fish smells that pervaded the harbour area.

  “I guessed I’d be seeing you soon, deary. Come in, come in.” The door opened wide, and I squeezed by Jast, an enormous mountain of flesh with eyes so dark they looked like currants pressed into her doughy face. “You can have the blue room at the top this time, if you like. You won’t mind if I don’t show you the way? I have a batch to go in the oven.”

  “Of course not. I know where it is.” Jast never did go upstairs, but she liked to pretend that she still could, if she wanted to.

  My room was tiny, tucked under the roof, but it had a shelf for my books and a window with a wide seat overlooking the street. I would be able to read at brightmoon without wasting oil on lamps. The only thing blue about it was the door. Inside, every surface was dull brown or grey, coated with dust. The girl didn’t get up the stairs too often either, by the look of things.

  I went back downstairs and into the big kitchen at the back of the house. Jast lolled in a rocking chair fanning herself, while the girl did something involving a lot of flour, and the boy shuffled around with a broom. Jast always had a girl and a boy working for her. They changed pretty often, but it didn’t much matter. They were all the same; fifteen or thereabouts, sulky and lazy, pretending to work when Jast was watching, but stopping the instant she left the room or fell asleep.

  I gave the boy five bits to fetch my boxes from Master Krend’s house, and offered the girl ten to clean my room. I knew she wouldn’t agree to that, but it w
as a game they all played. Well, I knew how to play that game, too.

  She pretended to consider it. “Well… I dunno, see. I got to get the batch in the oven, see.”

  “Twelve?”

  “I could do it for a bar, mebbe.”

  Now I had her. “Never mind. I’ll get the girl from the laundry to come round.”

  “Well… I s’pose twelve’d do.”

  “If you make the bed up as well, and leave a basin of hot water for me, I’ll round it up to fifteen.”

  She smirked, and took off with surprising alacrity.

  Jast’s eyes twinkled. “You were always clever at getting yourself a bargain, Fen. She’s a lazy sow, that one. I didn’t think she’d settle for less than a bar.”

  “No point paying that much,” I said. “She won’t do the work any better.” I’d learned over the years just how much to pay; too much and they think you’re a soft touch, but too little and they get their revenge one way or another. I’d never forgotten the dead mouse.

  Jast sighed with exaggerated energy, her chins wobbling. “And now who’ll finish my batch?” She waved a languid hand towards the flour-strewn devastation. Jast, or rather the current girl, made several batches of brinies each day, which Jast’s sister sold along the wharves.

  “Don’t look at me! I’m a recorder, Jast, I don’t dabble with pastry.”

  She sighed again, resigned this time. “Drape that cloth over the mess – yes, that’s the one. It can wait until the girl gets back. Now…” She patted the chair next to her, eyes gleaming with excitement. She leaned across and whispered, “So… tell me all about it. How did he do it in the end?”

  I was expecting to be questioned. Even so I was unprepared for the rush of grief that assailed me. There were even tears prickling behind my eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, so I mimed the noose.

  Her face fell. “Well. The traditional ways have a certain style, I suppose. But let’s have all the details. Who found him?”