The Spellmonger Series: Book 03 - Magelord

by Terry Mancour

  “All right, Rondal, you take watch for now—”

  “Aww!” he groaned, throwing his head back expressively.

  “—while Tyndal goes back up to the castle to pack. He’ll be back here at dusk to relieve you. After that, it’s one day on watch, one day off.”

  “Master!” complained Tyndal, “I’m senior apprentice! Why do I have to—?”

  “Because, as senior apprentice, I could not deny you the honor of the inaugural watch,” I said, with a smirk. “Rank hath its privileges, but it also hath its duties. Don’t worry; it’s temporary, just until we can stabilize the frontier a bit better. But for the next few weeks, this is home for half of your time. Got it?”

  “Yes, Master,” the moaned in unison. Neither one looked very happy.

  “Just to prove I’m not truly evil, I’ll give you a flask of spirits to help keep you warm. And you’ll be in charge out here, nominally, as the nobleman. But I expect you to defer to the guard captain in most matters. Understood?”

  “Yes, Master,” they said, gloomily.

  I smiled as I motioned for Ancient Dalcalan to bring Traveler to me – I’d had him stabled at the little enclosure behind the dike while we worked. “I’m so glad we could have this little moment of instruction. It is times like this that I really appreciate having apprentices.”

  Chapter Nine

  Winter Court

  We didn’t have to worry much about raiders for the next few days, because a nasty, wet snowstorm buried the valleys under six inches of snow. That was just barely respectable to the rugged Bovali, who were used to the capricious snow gods of the Mindens, Disa and Usa, dumping more than that on the Minden vales sometimes before the harvest even came in. Six inches barely got their feet cold.

  Here in the northern Uwarris, there was the Frost Princess Enulinda, a corruption of some Imperial goddess of yore. The snow she brought was considered a blessing – big snow, big thaw, lots of water in the streams come spring, and a goodly harvest come fall.

  Blessing or not, six inches of snow effectively shut down most of our construction projects and forced people to stay indoors – those who were fortunate enough to have an indoors. We still had a couple of hundred people in makeshift camps on the Commons. Thanks to our magical lumber operation, we had a fair amount of firewood to go around, but the Bovali hadn’t brought their winter gear with them through the molopar.

  Sir Cei knew exactly what to do, and Lady Arnet’s advice about a good castellan came back to me often. The morning after the snow, he had men and horses stomping their way through the snow between castle and village and from there to Gurisham and beyond. By noon every family in the vale had been visited by one of my men, to see if they were in need of food, firewood, or clothing. A few were in need, and Sir Cei had wagons dispatched without my order. I was impressed.

  But while being a magnanimous and generous lord is fun, the stores would not last forever, we quickly realized. Between Yule and the new arrivals, not to mention the few hundred peasants of Brestal Vale we were now responsible for, we were going through our stocks very quickly.

  We had gone through an impressive volume of food since we’d been here. We still had some livestock, but we had culled every beast we could spare without eating into our spring flocks and herds. We still had some roots in storage, and some feed corn for the animals, but our flour and preserves were dwindling rapidly. We’d need to arrange for more as soon as the snow cleared.

  In the meantime, we stuck close to the fire and kept pleasantly drunk during the day, and I even managed to teach the rudiments of playing Rushes to Alya – hard to do without a proper set.

  But I had to do something to distract her. She was only a month or so away from delivery, and she simply could not get comfortable . . . anywhere, in any position. Our bed became festooned with pillows as she tried to elevate various limbs or her back or her neck or head. Every night was a constant quest for the perfect arrangement, none of which lasted very long before they became uncomfortable.

  Nothing seemed to work. And she was becoming less and less gracious with every passing moment. I tried to put a good face on it, but every attempt I made to make her comfortable not only failed, but seemed to frustrate her further.

  The only time she stopped groaning and complaining was when she was eating. Fortunately, that was frequent, allowing me to tend to the business of the realm in my spare moments. But my wife’s growing appetite was also a factor in the decline in the stores. I would not have the mother of my child starving, so I ensured she always got a noble-sized portion of whatever stew we were having that day.

  Thankfully she was being helped by a group of Bovali women, including Alya’s sister (who found our castle a better wintering spot than her husband’s rickety hold), who had appointed themselves her nurses and maids and . . . sympathizers. They had all been through pregnancies and had plenty of experience with labor and delivery, and they insisted on sharing it with my wife. One, a matronly old biddy called Mother Vika, had brought nine children into the world and raised five of them to adulthood.

  She alone had lifetimes of experience to pass on to Alya, and she never hesitated to relate an instructional tale or two with every other breath. The others chimed in with their own horror stories, acting as a depressing chorus for Mother Vika.

  All of this sage advice had the effect of informing Alya of every horrific and painful thing that could possibly go wrong in the birthing chamber, which did nothing to improve her mood. In fact, she started spending an hour or so every day in our bed, sobbing and weeping. At first I tried to comfort her, until Sagal pulled me aside.

  “Just give her room, lad,” he assured me in the Great Hall the second day of the storm. “The goddess saw fit to gift women with all they need to prepare for themselves for birth – but it isn’t all flowers and rainbows. She gives every woman a trial with every pregnancy, and they just have to get through it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, skeptically. Alya had just suggested – strongly – that I take a walk after I tried and failed to adjust the temperature in the bedchamber to her liking several times. It was too damp, she insisted, and I couldn’t deny that.

  But every time I removed the humidity from the air by magic, it seemed to creep back into the tower a few moments later. Or so she said. Then she brought my competency as a mage into question, and that’s when I’d retreated to the Great Hall and ran into my brother-in-law.

  “I’ve seen it happen over and again,” he nodded as he poured himself a cup of hot tea from the huge kettle on the fire. “If they need to cry, let them cry. If they need to eat, let them eat. If they need . . . tenderness, then give it to them. The goddess gives each mother a trial with each babe, and that shapes the child’s character. Or so the priestesses say. This is the one time of your life you just have to shut up and ride it out gracefully, if you value your peace. She doesn’t really mean all of that, you know.”

  “I know . . . I think,” I said, hesitantly.

  “Trust me,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder. “When she gets like that, just find somewhere else to be.”

  So I spent a lot of time up in my lab, which didn’t have much in the way of equipment or furniture yet. It was empty and almost useless . . . but it was quiet, and not even Alya would disturb me there without great cause. It might have been a cowardly move in the face of a mere pregnant woman . . . but I will accept that judgment gladly, rather than argue for a confrontation. I love my wife dearly, and my love for her grows every day.

  But some days it grows a little slower than others.

  * * *

  As my apprentices trudged through the snow back and forth to the guard tower, I put whoever was on duty to work re-building and organizing the place. I made them practice their craft on the place. I’d run lessons with them at the castle, on their day off -- basic stuff. But with irionite, even basic stuff could be powerful. The other one improved the gate tower. I used each of them according to their talents.
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  When Rondal was at the castle, I had him organize my notes and books (what few I’d been able to purchase), as well as assemble lists of basic components we’d need. Some he could gather around the valley, but others would have to be sent for or purchased. Things like yellow and red knot coral, thaumaturgic glass, weirwood, that sort of thing.

  Tyndal, on the other hand, I put to work building some basic furniture. The boy had a knack for lumbering, we’d discovered, and he had an affinity for wood. I watched with pride as he used some basic binding spells to whip up a couple of trestle tables that had been trees three days before. One eventually developed a wobble as the imperfectly kilned wood warped, but otherwise they were quite serviceable.

  Rondal, on the other hand, had an affinity with stone I did not hesitate to exploit. He felt compelled to match Tyndal’s carpentry by re-crafting the stone in my lab, knitting the blocks together and smoothing the interior walls to a glass-like finish. He also shaped the narrow windows into rather artful arches, and attacked a number of additional stones in strategic places, creating shelves and hooks.

  Further, in a rare display of artistry from my normally-reserved apprentice, he collected stones and knit them together to create an impressive-looking fireplace bearing a striking resemblance to a dragon’s head, down to the fanciful fangs made from splintered flagstones.

  Tyndal, not wanting to be outdone, turned a trimmed crown of oak branches into a cunning rack for weapons, wands, staves and such.

  And it wasn’t just my lab that benefited. Both used their time away from the tower to curry favor with Lady Alya, too.

  Tyndal presented her with a clever hanging cradle on a wooden spring to help bounce a little tyke to sleep.

  But I have to give Rondal the most credit for winning my wife’s affections. He turned a spare corner of our bedroom (and yes, a round tower room can have corners, spare and otherwise) into a deep basin crafted of broad sheets of slate and magically vitrified clay. After he sealed it tight and smoothed it down, it was larger than a coffin.

  He’d built my pregnant wife a bathtub.

  “I got the idea from reading Cullet,” he explained to me, when he demonstrated it for the first time. “When Empress Olifera of the Valley People bore the twin future archmagi Tesnaras and Tarsus, she prevailed on Archmage Andrus II to build a giant bathing pavilion outside her bower, so that she could suspend herself in the water and relax the great strain on her back. I thought that Lady Alya might benefit from such a device.”

  “Let’s find out,” I shrugged. Like everyone else in the castle I didn’t really expected a proper bath until after the Equinox, when the water outside was warm enough for a quick one. But there wasn’t any reason that Alya had to wait. I had a couple of servants fill the basin with snow and used spells to warm it until the melted water began to steam. I inspected it carefully for leaks – none, not even around the wooden stopper in the drain. He had wisely positioned it to exit through the exterior wall and into the courtyard.

  Alya was skeptical when she saw it, and spent a long time on the edge of it just trailing her hand through the water. I finally convinced her to hang her feet in the water, and after that she quite immodestly threw her clothes off and plunged in.

  “Oh, dear Ishi’s beneficent grace, Rondal, after I’m done bearing Min’s brat, for this pleasure I’d consider bearing one of yours!” she exclaimed, causing the poor boy to stutter unbearably. That led to my highly embarrassed apprentice switching up with Tyndal and spending the next two days at the tower.

  Alya didn’t care – the tub was the first hint of comfort she’d enjoyed since she came to Sevendor. After that she’d spend an hour resting in the water a couple of times a day, surrounded by her matrons-in-waiting . . . while I was safely elsewhere.

  Sir Tyndal abandoned the effort to curry favor with her after that, but that did not end their competitive nature. I learned that both boys had spent their time at the guard tower just as busy attempting to show each other up. There, out of my sight, they had rivaled each other with less restraint.

  First, Rondal had reinforced and strengthened the stone facing of the tower’s foundation and remaining walls to a sturdy (if unattractive) condition. In some cases he had to raise fallen stonework into position before sealing it, in others he had to replace the stone with near-by rock (thankfully we had an abundance from excavating the dike). It only took him a week to get the lower two stories of Hyer’s Tower into defensible (if not livable) condition.

  Then Tyndal had turned a nearby stand of pine trees into tight-fitting flooring and a spiral staircase for the tower. Rondal countered by grafting slate merlons to the edge of the roof, which Tyndal rendered even more useable by constructing a rough third story, open to the elements but roofed with tightly-woven (and tightly spellbound) boughs on a stable wooden frame.

  Rondal riposted with a three-story chimney with a small fireplace on each floor. Tyndal volleyed back with a trestle table and three chairs, and further shaped the wood to look like hideous faces. Rondal (during his two-day self-imposed exile) began the foundations for a secondary building attached to the tower, which eventually became the guardhouse, proper.

  They also took to advertising when they were on duty, after that first week. Once Tyndal had capped the tower with his pavilion, the lads took to casting a bright magelight at the peak: Tyndal’s was a bright, fiery red, while Rondal’s was a deep blue. Either one could be seen across the vale, all the way to the castle. And after they had done that for a week I began floating a similarly bright magelight above my tower, in bright irionite green.

  In case you haven’t noted, most magi have egos.

  Using magelights thus, so casually, had an unintended effect, Sir Cei informed me three weeks after Yule. The Bovali and even the suspicious native Sevendori saw the beacons as both marks of security and badges of pride. Sir Cei claimed that the common folk felt safe and protected by their magelords when they saw the lights, so I encouraged the practice. Since food stocks were beginning to wane, and tensions were beginning to build between the Bovali and the native Sevendori, I needed everyone to feel as secure as possible.

  “And it’s not just the stores that are declining, Magelord,” Sir Cei informed me quietly when the subject came up at breakfast one morning. “Our treasury is much depleted.”

  “How depleted?” I asked, worried at the answer.

  “There are, perhaps one thousand ounces of gold, four thousand ounces of silver,” he said, after ensuring no one else was listening. He would know – the castellan was the keeper of the lord’s vault, which in this case was located in Sir Cei’s private chambers. I had been considering building a more secure treasury, but from what he told me I would have to worry less and less about robbery. “It occurs to me that it will cost at least six thousand ounces of silver to feed the people of the two Vales through the winter, Magelord. No less. Perhaps more.”

  “And my emeralds?” I asked, my heart sinking.

  “You have but two, save for the one your Lady bears,” he admitted. “Together, uncut, we could fetch a thousand ounces of gold. Perhaps. In a large city.”

  I was getting the message. I could get my fief through the winter, he was saying, but I’d be broke if I did.

  “What about revenues coming in?” I asked. “Rents and such? Don’t I get those?”

  “I’ve re-worked the accounts, since Brestal was included and we made such a dramatic change in administration among the estates. Our revenues from all of them, at present level, will bring us between two hundred to five hundred ounces of silver. Of which a third will go towards paying the garrison for the season, a third to maintaining the castle’s household, and a third to pay for essential services.”

  “Essential services?” I asked, dumbly.

  “Yes, Magelord,” Cei said, patiently. “The men who tend the roads and fences for the fief. The men who repair the roads and bridges. The men who keep the underbrush cleared from around the castle. In truth, My Lord,
we’ve hired three times as many such laborers as Sir Erantal had, and yet we need thrice as many to do a proper job. If Magelord wishes to see the fief prosper,” he added. “Oh, and one more thing, Magelord.”

  “What?” I asked, dazed.

  “The expenditures I mentioned . . . those were all after the month’s tribute to the Duchy. Thankfully that bill will not be due in full until midsummer.”

  “We’re really spending that much on services?” I asked.

  “Yes, we are,” he said, dropping the formality. “And we need to. You can’t properly defend a land without keeping the roads passable, the bridges crossable, and the defenses in good repair. You can’t. And that takes money. And a fief’s only certain revenues are fees and rents and taxes.”

  “But the taxes are . . . they aren’t enough to cover our expenses, are they?” I observed.

  “Exactly, Magelord. This means we have only a few means of recourse. First, we can raise the rents and fees and taxes.”

  “That’s hardly going to be popular,” I said, my throat dry. The rent-raising landlord was a fixture in the lore of the common folk – and one rarely portrayed in a good light. Indeed, tales that began with them often ended in peasants’ revolts.

  “But not unusual,” he countered. “Don’t forget, there are a lot more people here now than there were last year. I think we can expect a jump in our revenues, once we get everyone settled. By this time next year, we could have rents and taxes in excess of eight or nine hundred silver pieces a month. Of course, to sustain that rate we will have to increase our expenditures accordingly. In the long run we stand to make a small profit, with careful management.”

  “That’s in the long run. You said that raising rents was the first thing we could do. What’s the second?”

  “You could collect ransoms and extort money from your fellow lords,” he suggested. “Baron Distine of Gilmora made a fortune by engaging his peers in duels and wars, and ransoming them back.”