“Mostly, they concern land distribution,” Bryon said. “I’m afraid that one of them is...sensitive.”
Emily groaned. “How sensitive?”
“Sensitive enough to upset a great many apple carts,” Bryon said. “A couple of smallholder freemen made a contract that one’s son would marry the other’s daughter, thus combining their lands. The contract was due to come into effect last year...”
He paused, allowing his voice to trail off.
Emily met his eyes. “But?”
“But your laws say that no one can marry until they’re sixteen,” Bryon said. “The contract specifically states that they have to marry as soon as they are of marriageable age. And, at the time the contract was signed, that was twelve. The girl is twelve, the boy is thirteen and their parents want them to get married.”
Emily felt sick. “No,” she said, flatly. “The contract didn’t take the change in the law into account, did it?”
Byron shook his head. “How could it?”
“Then they can get married, if they want to get married, at sixteen,” Emily said. How could she explain, even to Bryon, just how fundamentally wrong it was to push such a young couple into marriage? Even if the girl was capable of bearing children — and the boy old enough to sire them — they were both too young to make responsible decisions for themselves. “And if they don’t want to get married, they will not be forced into wedlock.”
“Most similar contracts are based around marriage ties,” Bryon said, quietly. “If you choose to bar this contract from going into effect, it will certainly cause problems for others.”
Of course, Emily thought, savagely. Who gives a damn about the young couple when land and money is involved? They can just make the best of it!
But it was wrong. And she was damned if she was going to condone it.
“I don’t care,” she said, shortly. “If the contracts were signed before I changed the law, they can be altered to fit the current circumstances. Or they can be scrapped; they should be scrapped.”
Bryon slowly bowed his head. “As you command, my lady,” he said. “But the problems...”
“We will deal with them,” Emily said, firmly. Maybe it had happened, in the past, on Earth. But that didn’t mean she had to tolerate it here. “And if they complain, tell them they’re getting away lightly. There are worse things that can happen than having to tear up a contract!”
Chapter Ten
EMILY STILL FELT COLDLY FURIOUS THREE hours later, even after a light lunch and a long session in the wardchamber, slowly and carefully reprogramming the hearthstone. It should have helped calm her down, but even the most complicated part of the task hadn’t done more than sharpen her anger. She knew, all too well, that her rage might prove a danger to anyone she encountered.
She sighed as she tried to concentrate. The castle had never had anything beyond basic wards, not when its former owner hadn’t been a magician in his own right, and it was something she knew she needed to fix before the guests began to arrive for the Faire. She concentrated, keying both Frieda and Lady Barb into the wards before she devised a series of new ones, one after the other. Finally, she scanned the castle for unexpected magic and blinked in surprise when she discovered that two of the maids used potions regularly.
I’ll have to see what they’re doing, she thought, as she disconnected her mind from the wards. Something to keep themselves pretty...or something more sinister.
“My lady,” Bryon said, startling her. He bowed as she turned to face him. “The first case is ready to be heard.”
Emily nodded. He’d tried to convince her, several times, to hear the case of the invalid contract, but Emily had flatly refused to even consider it. Instead, he had organized a handful of other cases she needed to hear, all of which had considerable implications for the future of her lands. She checked the wards one final time before allowing him to lead her back up the stairs into the Great Hall. No matter how often she stepped into the chamber, she couldn’t help feeling faintly absurd. It was, in intent if not in name, a throne room.
King Randor would have pulled it down, if he had known, she thought, as she sat on the large chair. It, too, was a throne in all but name. It was clear that the baron had regal pretensions.
Bryon stood next to her. “My lady?”
Emily gritted her teeth. Judgement, Lady Barb had shown her, was part of a roving magician’s job, but this was different. She would have to live with the consequences of her decisions, which might be taken on the spur of the moment. In hindsight, she understood precisely why headmen and even kings were so relieved to have visiting magicians handle their cases. The magicians wouldn’t stay in the village, allowing them to take the blame if the population didn’t like the decision.
“Bring in the claimants,” she ordered.
The doors opened, revealing five men. Two wore farmer’s clothing; two more wore city outfits, while the fifth wore a simple grey outfit that marked him as a scribe and recorder. He was here, Emily knew, to record everything that happened, good or bad. King Randor had been quick to see the advantage of keeping careful records, even before English letters had spread through his kingdom. It was astonishing just how much could be drawn from records, she had learned from experience, if someone read them with a gimlet eye.
“My lady,” Bryon said. “The dispute is between Farmer Giles and Farmer Wolsey, both Sons of Hamish. They both lay claim to the farm Hamish left behind when he died.”
Emily frowned as all five men knelt before her. Unlike almost everything else, land laws in Cockatrice had been simple even before Baron Holyoake had been beheaded. The land went from the father to the oldest son, while the younger sons were either expected to remain and work for their brother, or go elsewhere to find their fortune. Daughters, on the other hand, were married off as advantageously as possible. They were rarely considered as productive as men.
That might change, she thought. As farms start to consolidate, daughters will have their own roles to play.
She pushed the thought out of her head and pasted a calm expression on her face. “You may rise,” she said. She wasn’t going to pay any attention to the lawyers. “The claimant may speak first.”
Farmer Giles looked up at her, then down at the stone floor. He was a strong man, wearing clothes that had been patched so many times they might have very little of the original garment left. His hair was dark, his eyes darker still; beside him, his brother looked almost identical, except for longer hair. It was difficult to be sure, but Emily suspected that Giles was the older brother.
“My lady,” he said, in a rough tone. “I am the firstborn son of my father. I seek nothing more than clear title to my lands, which were passed down from my father.”
And that, Emily knew, was his argument in a nutshell. He was the firstborn, thus he was his father’s natural heir. Nothing else needed to be said.
“Thank you,” Emily said. “Farmer Wolsey?”
“My lady,” Farmer Wolsey said. His voice was lighter, but still bore traces of someone who had lived his entire life in one location. “My brother is correct; he is indeed the firstborn son of our father. But he chose to leave the farm, ten years ago, and seek his fortune in the wide world. He only returned a week before our father died, leaving the farm to me.”
He paused. “I was the one who stayed with our father,” he continued. “Our father saw fit to leave the land to me, the son who remained. It was I who, in our father’s declining years, took control of the farm, planted the crops, organized marriages for my sisters and trained my children in the skills they would need to be farmers. Giles, for all of his adventures, has done none of those things. He hasn’t even married or fathered the next generation of farmers!”
Emily concealed her amusement with an effort. Everyone seemed to be obsessed with having children, but then it was the only way to ensure immortality. For nobles and commoners alike, it was the only way to keep their lands and possessions in the family. Giles might have
had adventures — there was something oddly familiar about the story — but he hadn’t attended to his duties.
The prodigal son, she recalled. She’d read the story once, before she’d largely dismissed religion as anything other than the pre-TV opiate of the masses. The moral of the story, according to the book, had been that one should always welcome one’s children and siblings home. But she’d always been convinced that the youngest son had had a point. Why bother to work for one’s rewards when rewards went to everyone alike?
She sighed, inwardly, as the full scope of the problem became clear. Giles should have succeeded his father, but he hadn’t worked for the reward. And yet his brother, legally, had no claim to the farm, even if his father had willed it to him. Upholding the law or turning it upside down would cause problems, no matter what she decided.
Damn, she thought, crossly. No wonder Bryon had stalled until she returned to Cockatrice.
She looked at Giles. “You have no wife or children?”
“No, my lady,” Giles said.
None that you know about, Emily translated, mentally. A bastard child could inherit, in certain circumstances, and having such a child could only have strengthened Giles’s claim to the farm. There had to be a next generation, after all. But what the hell do I do with you?
She closed her eyes for a long moment. “Did you disavow your claim to the farm?”
“No, my lady,” Giles said.
“You left,” Wolsey snapped. “You certainly did nothing to keep the farm!”
Emily tapped her lips, urging them both to the quiet, then ran through a set of possible options. Cut the baby — the farm — in half? But that would leave Wolsey trying to maintain his family on half the land, while Giles would be unable to farm his own lands alone. And who would have all the items the family had built up over the years? Separating the farm into two equal shares might prove tricky. It would certainly take a great deal of time.
“Do you really want to be a farmer,” she asked, silently casting a mild truth spell into the air, “or do you merely want land?”
“I want land, my lady,” Giles said. He blinked, no doubt wondering why he’d told the truth so openly. “I’m growing older and I have little to show for it.”
Emily sighed and made up her mind. “Wolsey remained on the land and worked it, while you left to have adventures.” She wondered, absently, what Giles had done with his life. Served in the Baron’s illicit army? Or something worse? “He has a family who will take the farm themselves in time, while you have no family and chose to leave the land as soon as you could. Your father, I suspect, understood that you had no true claim to the farm.”
“My lady,” Giles began. “I...”
Emily held up a hand, cutting him off. “Wolsey’s children will inherit unless you have children of your own,” she added. “I can understand you wanting to find your own niche in the world, but not trying to take a farm you don’t want. Therefore, I have no choice but to deny your claim.
“However, there are other options, other places you can work. Why not see what you can find here?”
She watched as Bryon dismissed the group, then shook her head. Maybe Giles would find somewhere he could work, or maybe he would do something stupid. Maybe something from his father could be sold to give him a small stake, upholding family feeling if nothing else. But, in the end, she’d told the truth. She couldn’t throw a hardworking man off the farm — or subject him to his older brother — just because he’d been unlucky enough to be born second.
“You handled that well, my lady,” Bryon said. “But what will Giles do with his life?”
“There’s no shortage of opportunities,” Emily said. “Perhaps we could find him a place here, if nowhere else.”
The next case was relatively simple. A traveling trader, completely without any magic Emily could discern, had sold his own medicines to villagers, medicines that didn’t actually work. Emily listened to his lies of having studied under several famous alchemists, including Professor Thande, then ordered him handed back to the villagers for punishment. The trader was lucky he hadn’t actually managed to kill someone with his brews. He probably would have, Emily suspected, if he’d fed one of them to a child.
But the one afterwards took on a darker tone. “They took me in to work for them,” a dark-haired girl said, pointing to the defendants. “I worked for them for years, enduring everything, until they said I was a thief. They took me to the headman and cut off my hand! And then their oldest son said he’d taken the food.”
Emily blanched. The girl was thinner than Frieda had been when Emily had first met her at Mountaintop, and her skin was marred by nasty bruises. Her right hand was missing, her lower arm ending in a stump. Someone had cut it off and wrapped a cloth around it before kicking her out of the village. She’d been incredibly lucky it hadn’t become infected.
“Yin was always rude andungrateful,” the woman said. Her voice was high enough to be unpleasant, grating at Emily’s ears. “How were we to know she wasn’t the thief?”
“You could have waited for a magician,” Emily said. She shuddered in horror, unable to hide her reaction. “If you had, your son would have been able to clear her name before she lost her hand.”
She looked at the girl and shuddered, again. It was a miracle Yin had survived long enough to reach the castle, let alone press charges against her former master and mistress. Emily didn’t want to think about what she might have been doing to survive, or what prospects she might have had if she’d been kicked right out of the castle. The Nameless World could be very cruel to a cripple, even one born into the aristocracy.
Magic crackled over her fingertips as she fought to keep a hold on her temper. She could kill them both, easily, and no one would say her nay. Or she could crush their souls, turn them into toads, cripple them so completely that they would be turned out of their home by their family...there were so many options it was hard to decide. The old baron wouldn’t have cared, she knew. But Emily cared. How could someone just cripple a helpless servant on suspicion? It wouldn’t have been that hard to obtain a truth potion.
“First, a healer will tend to your victim,” Emily said. Her voice sounded strange in her ears, as if someone colder and harder was speaking through her. “She will have her hand rebuilt and her body cleansed of damage. You will pay for her treatment, without argument, no matter how expensive it becomes.”
Yin gasped. “They can do that?”
“Yes,” Emily said.
Yin fainted. The woman opened her mouth to object, but her husband caught her arm and silenced her.
“Second, after the medical bills have been paid, you will surrender half of your remaining property to Yin, to compensate her for your mistreatment.” Emily wondered, absently, just how involved the husband had been. No matter; he’d either supported his wife or lacked the moral courage to stop her. He could go to the devil. “Third, you will no longer be considered freemen. You will be placed in the hands of your oldest son as serfs. And I hope, for your sake, that you taught him better than it seems.”
The woman started to scream abuse. Emily ignored her — she’d heard worse from her stepfather — and watched, dispassionately, as they were hustled out of the chamber. It wasn’t quite what she’d wanted to do to them, she admitted privately, but it would utterly destroy their lives. Serfs had no legal rights; they couldn’t own property, sign contracts or go where they pleased. Indeed, they would be the only two serfs in Cockatrice.
“There will be talk,” Bryon observed, once the maids had helped the stunned girl out of the chamber and down to the castle’s small clinic. “And people will wonder.”
“Let them,” Emily said, tiredly. It was a terrible punishment...but they’d deserved worse, much worse. She could have taken their hands, if she’d wanted. “Maybe it will stop people from abusing their servants in the future.”
She rose from her seat and stepped down to the stone floor. “Are there any others?”
&
nbsp; “Not at the moment,” Bryon said. “There will be several more by the end of the month.”
“We can put time aside for it,” Emily said. Two weeks...the Faire would be well underway by then. And Caleb would probably have arrived. She was tempted to drop it all in Bryon’s hands, but knew she couldn’t. “Have them hosted in the city, if there’s space, then brought up when we have a free moment.”
“Yes, my lady,” Bryon said.
“You handled that well,” Lady Barb said. Emily jumped. Beside her, Bryon looked as though he would very much like to have jumped too. “But your wards need work.”
“I know,” Emily said, embarrassed. “When did you get back?”
“Twenty minutes ago,” Lady Barb said. “But I trust you are not trying to make more work for me? That girl needs a proper healer.”
“I appointed you as the security chief,” Emily said, before Bryon could say a word. “But if you would help the girl, I would be very grateful.”
Lady Barb gave her a long, considering look. “There are several healers in the city,” she said. “The girl can be taken to one of them, but you’ll owe me something.”
Her voice was very cool. “I’m your advisor, Emily, not your servant. It isn’t a good idea to take me for granted.”
“I know,” Emily said. She looked at Bryon. “I’ll see you later.”
Bryon bowed, hastily backing out of the chamber, leaving the two magicians alone. Emily didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t have wanted to get between two magicians, particularly if she’d lacked magic of her own.
“This was my mistake,” she said, before Lady Barb could say a word. “I didn’t realize how large the Faire would become. And I didn’t know who else I could ask.”
“That’s what you get for making decisions in haste,” Lady Barb said, tartly. “I will serve as your security chief, if you want, but you’ll owe me a very large favor.
“I understand,” Emily said. She would have been annoyed if someone had signed her up for something without consulting her first. Lady Barb had every right to be annoyed. “What would you like in return?”
Love's Labor's Won (Schooled in Magic Book 6) Page 10
