The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  “I don’t know about simply,” said August. “I don’t know that anything to do with him could ever be simple. But I like to think we’d be happy, no matter what kinds of messes I’d get us in around company, and I really don’t mind the thought of waiting. I just wish I knew how long it’ll have to be, and maybe a bit of what will happen in the meantime.”

  “March will be here soon enough,” Bennie told her. “Try to enjoy what time you have until then, because it won’t be pleasant when it comes. Enjoy Kansten’s birthday this Saturday.”

  “I can’t go,” said August. “I have to work. I’ll have the baby. I don’t dare ask to take her with me, so I’d rather just stay here.”

  * * *

  Vane was looking forward to his return to Traigland at the end of the week, even more than he let on when he met August in his garden that Tuesday afternoon. He had no time to rest besides those brief two hours with her for the next four days. The procuring of decorations and furniture at Oakdowns was far from completed, though his aunt and servants were taking charge there. A number of rooms, extra rooms, were still not furnished at all, which meant that after leaving in the morning to respond to invitations from his fellow nobles, Vane returned after dark to look at fabric swatches and fist-sized pieces of stained wood, or chips of marble and granite, and then the paintings and sculptures that had been bought that day, until by Thursday night he told Teena as she approached him with a basket of linens in the parlor, one of the first rooms they had put in order, “I can’t deal with this now. You take care of it, please God! I trust your judgment, and I don’t care about the décor in the empty rooms, I…. Teena, I’ll be ever so grateful.”

  Teena was a short, vibrant woman with a spring to her step, a plumpness that seemed almost airy, and more gray than she would have liked mixed with the scarlet hair she usually let flow loose. Around servants, she and Vane used different names than the ones they had called each other the boy’s entire life. He was Valkin and she Aida, but they were alone just then. “I’ll handle this, don’t worry. You take care of those other things, the things I can’t.”

  Vane nodded his thanks. His head was pounding; he had not slept well the past month, but the last week had been worse than before, and he did not foresee he would rest much that night either. He just couldn’t seem to shut his mind off. His thoughts ran in a cycle, from whatever nobles with whom he had passed the day to a specific one he had not seen, and how glad he was Carson Amison had left the city; to August, and how horrified someone like Amison would be to think a man of Vane’s birth would even consider marrying a commoner, and how guilty Vane himself felt for all the stress he was putting August through, stress that would only worsen in the next few months; to how much he hated that he could only see her once a week, at Oakdowns; to his estate and how huge it was, how obnoxiously, annoyingly huge, and how much he abhorred having servants; back to the other nobles and how comfortable they were around their servants….

  Teena put a motherly arm around him. “I’m proud of you, kiddo. I’ll get the manor in shape, so don’t waste your energy worrying about that. I’ll have tea brought in as well, in a bit.”

  “I don’t want….”

  “It helped you sleep as a toddler, and it’ll help you sleep now. It always does me. Anything else I can help you with while I’m here, you let me know, all right? You just let me know.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Teena. I will.”

  She propped up her nephew’s chin. “You can still walk away, Vane. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to.”

  “Want and should don’t always coincide.”

  Teena could tell he preferred to be alone, though he was fighting the desire to ask her to leave. “To do what you feel you should is one thing. To run yourself ragged is another. I hate to see you this drained, this distracted.”

  Vane thought of August. “It’s not all bad distractions, at least.”

  “I know, Dear. That August’s a gem. But don’t forget to take care of yourself in all this, do you hear? Enjoy our visit to Traigland tomorrow. I’m excited to go, and I want you to relax while we’re there.”

  “I’ll try,” Vane assured her. She tousled his hair like she had done since he could crawl and let him have some time to himself. When she had gone, he walked over to the one piece of décor in his oversized manor he did care about: a portrait of his parents he had found wrapped in a sheet in the attic. He was amazed Zalski had not destroyed the thing, as no portrait of his grandparents, or great-grandparents, or anyone else had been tucked away anywhere.

  The portrait looked to have been made not long after the previous duke and duchess had been married. They had stood before the hearth in this very room, Laskenay in a gown with long, flowing sleeves, probably to hide the sorcerer’s mark on her forearm, Vane had realized. At least his was behind his shoulder, more easily hidden. Like Rexson had always claimed, Laskenay’s son did look remarkably like his father. His large, dark eyes, his shapely nose, even the cut of his chin and cheekbones, Vane inherited that all from Valkin Heathdon.

  Vane still had not grown used to the idea that every noble he had met in the last few days had been among his parents’ social circle. He wondered what the couple had thought of them: whether Laskenay had found dinners as tedious as Vane did; whether his father, like Vane himself, had felt nauseated when his hosts insulted servants to their faces. One thing Vane knew, Laskenay’s secret had been well guarded before Zalski’s coup and her subsequent flight. She and her husband had been spared the awkward silences and painful questions that had become the norm for their son. They had never endured the whispers that ceased when Vane entered a room and started up when he turned his back. The men mostly limited themselves to queries or strange looks, all direct; it was their wives and daughters who gossiped. Vane knew what they were saying even out of earshot.

  “Do you think he does magic when he’s alone?”

  “Could he do something unintentional if he’s not careful, do you think? Is he safe to have here?”

  “I’ll tell my brother to be especially kind, for his mother’s sake. I loved her, that I did. She was a sorceress, but decent. We’d never have known if not for…. Well, he was her twin.”

  “The lad seems decent enough. But so did his uncle, I remember, at one point. Oh, I have chills just to think…. Who’ll the boy end up like, him? Or her?”

  “My husband said the king trusts him. Even had a hand in raising him. That means nothing, of course. Zalski and Rexson’s brother were like brothers themselves.”

  Vane despised their pity and their unease, their presumption in assuming they knew the slightest thing about him; and that evening, the whispers had been more pronounced than usual. The Duke of Podrar had hosted a dinner party in Vane’s honor, allowing the new duke to meet the extended families of the nobility in a setting less formal than the Palace could provide. Mason Greller agreed with Rexson that the sooner Vane grew acquainted with his peers—the more time between initial introductions and the announcement of the council—the better. Though Vane appreciated Greller’s aid in the task, the process itself was less than pleasant.

  At least the evening had held one pleasant surprise. Vane had been disconcerted on Monday to walk into Rexson’s office and discover that, besides Hayden, he was the only man present much under the age of forty. Most had been older than Rexson. These men, of course, had children and grandchildren much closer to Vane’s age, and the young men, at least, seemed to take all the idiosyncrasies concerning Vane in stride. Greller’s youngest son, who was twenty-two and soon to marry, even apologized for the behavior of his mother and sisters (and the other whispering women) by making light of it. “There’s nothing else happening at the moment, is the trouble. Give them a week or two. An engagement will be announced, and you’ll be old news. Sorcery holds nothing to a wedding gala.”

  Thad—that was Greller’s son’s name—introduced Vane to his fiancée, Carlina, and her three brothers. Carlina was the Count
of Fontferry’s daughter; her family owned a vacation home in Podrar, and she was staying there to plan the wedding, which would take place in the capital that summer. Thad even finagled to speak to Vane in private toward the end of the night, to invite him on weeklong hunt he was planning. Vane had to refuse, and used the ongoing operations at Oakdowns as an excuse, but he appreciated the gesture and countered with an invitation to Thad and his sisters to come to Oakdowns for tea. Though Carlina struck Vane as shallow he said to bring her too, and any of her brothers who might be interested. Solidifying ties with the younger generation seemed the way to court acceptance among the nobility, and as supportive as Greller had proved thus far, his family seemed a solid entry point. How much farther could Vane progress before March and news of the Magic Council? That was the critical question.

  Vane would lose the next day as an opportunity to make inroads, he knew that much. In the morning, he planned to walk the market streets of Ingleton and familiarize himself with the district entrusted to his charge. After that, he and Bendelof would be paying a visit to Traigland, Teena too: she and Ilana Porteg had known each other as girls.

  It was a visit sorely needed. The excitement of Kora’s sons when Vane walked up, their tight grip when they hugged his leg and would not let go, was therapeutic. Kansten was thrilled to tell him all about the birthday picnic she had planned the next day for her friends, and how she had caught a humungous trout fishing with her dad, and how she had helped him and Grams clean up all the toys in the living room so the house would look neat when Vane came over. She showed Vane the book about the early settlement of Podrar she was reading, from Uncle Zac’s library. The duke knew it as one of his.

  “I’ve read that myself,” he told the girl.

  Kansten grabbed his sleeve at that. “What’s Podrar like? Can you take me there one day? I know I can convince my parents. If they’ll let me go, will you bring me to Herezoth?”

  “Kansten, I....”

  Kora’s daughter scowled. “Not soon,” she said. “Not anytime soon, you know Mom’ll make me wait. But when I’m older, will you take me there? If I have to put it off until I’m grown, I will, but Vane, I have to see Herezoth. Will you take me?”

  He was so relieved she kept from begging to return with him that night that he readily consented, knowing full she would hold him to his word. As well she should, he considered. Traigland had made even him a restless soul. He could only imagine how it would eat at Kansten’s peace as the years wore on.

  Soon after Vane arrived, he watched Viola stumble around and was able to congratulate Joslyn, who was now in her sixth month and quite obviously with child. Kora took Bennie to the kitchen to bake tarts, because Ilana was tucked away with Teena putting the finishing touches on a dress that was to be Kansten’s birthday present. With so much going on, it took a while for Vane to get Zacry alone to update him on conditions in Podrar. They slipped out to the yard to talk. When Zacry seemed disconcerted to learn of Amison’s veiled threats, Vane told him the pompous oaf was full of hot air. Zac responded, “I know he isn’t, and so do you.”

  “So do I?”

  “Those circles under your eyes look like mine did when Viola had colic and none of us slept for a week. Don’t tell me you’re not concerned.”

  “It’s under control,” Vane insisted.

  “When will you see him next?”

  “In three weeks.”

  “How are plans for the council coming?”

  “They’re coming. Rexson has specific papers to give the story to. Others will pick it up, of course, but we need at least one paper to print nothing but the king’s angle. The Yangerton Gazette will.”

  Zacry blinked. “The Gazette wasn’t always so favorable to him.”

  “Well, Zalski’s long gone, and the people who run the Gazette are still happy to give anyone powerful a voice. It keeps them in production. There’s a second paper in Yangerton Rexson judges will be fair: the Weekly it’s called. They’ll publish the news too, so the story’s not just propaganda from the Palace. And Podrar, of course, has the Podrar Bugle. We’ll release word about the council and a call for applicants with those three outlets.”

  The first printing presses and newsletters had erupted in Podrar shortly before Zalski Forzythe’s coup. Even now, production was small. Some two hundred copies or so of a given paper were printed on a daily basis, mostly bought by nobles and well-to-do merchants, but the stories spread far and wide by word of mouth. Most reporters were aspiring scribes, hoping to be hired by the counts or dukes who read their reports, and held other jobs, generally as a schoolteacher. Taxes subsidized the running of the presses, making up for what costs their sales failed to cover.

  Zacry repeated, “Call for applicants? The king won’t mention you in his interviews, will he?”

  “If he’s asked, he’ll have to.”

  Zacry said dryly, “He’ll be asked.”

  “And he’ll say I’m welcome to apply like any other magicked individual, and that as the man who saw to my upbringing, he’s aware of my character and would not deny me a seat if I prove interested in taking one.”

  Perhaps it was the moonlight, but Zacry looked paler than normal. He said, “No good can come from those papers mentioning you in the first articles, you understand?”

  “There’s no way to avoid it, Zac. I’m a noble and a sorcerer who just appeared from out of nowhere. They’re already printing stories about how I took up residence at my family estate. There are small throngs at the front gate of my property all the time, trying to see if reports are true, to get a glimpse of me. I’ve taken to sending my carriage out empty when I need to leave and transporting, just in case someone tries an ambush. Nothing as of yet,” he assured Zacry. “But I’m being cautious. My point is, the news is out I’ve arrived, and when the papers learn the king’s forming a Magic Council so shortly afterward…. I’m going to be mentioned.”

  “How large are those crowds?” demanded Zacry.

  “I told you I’m taking precautions.”

  “Vane Unsten, how large?”

  “Between twenty and fifty people. On a rare day up to sixty or so, at any given time. It’s not a problem. No one’s tried to demolish the fences, but five times the numbers there couldn’t bring them down. They’re magically reinforced.” Vane did not want to discuss this further, and changed the subject. “What about you? Have you found a job?”

  Zacry’s expression made clear he knew Vane was dodging an uncomfortable topic, but he said, “At the schoolhouse here in Triflag. I start in two weeks. Joslyn’s relieved we won’t have to move, to say the least.”

  “Mm-hmm. And Kora?”

  “I haven’t told her yet.”

  “You can’t keep this hidden, Zac. She’ll find out you’ve stopped writing. She’ll notice you haven’t moved to Herezoth.”

  “I have some time.”

  “Well, there’s no time like the present. She’s just baking right now, isn’t she?”

  “It might be useful to have Bennie around for this,” Zacry mused. Vane rolled his eyes, mostly to disguise how glad he was to see Zacry wasn’t letting Dorane’s spite eat away at him. Zacry’s speed in finding work and his preoccupation about Vane proved his bitterness had ebbed, and of course, the baby on the way went far to explain the sorcerer’s contentment. That timing had been significant, to say the least.

  Zacry went inside and wove his way through his nieces and nephews, past where his brother-in-law was speaking with Joslyn, to the kitchen. Kora and Bennie were just sliding a tray of tarts into the wood-burning stove.

  “I’m not moving to Herezoth,” said Zacry. The women glanced up; they had hardly marked his entry. Bennie wore a confused frown, and Kora said, “Oh? You talked to Joslyn? I figured you wouldn’t leave this year, not with a second baby.”

  “I can’t move back until Dorane’s dead,” he specified. “And that might be a while.”

  Now Kora looked as confused as the redhead. “What does that mean?”<
br />
  “I told you Dorane agreed to keep silent about Rexson’s magic and about you, for the council. That wasn’t the whole story, Kora. He wants me to stay here and stop publishing, or he’ll talk.”

  Comprehension washed over Zacry’s sister. Her bottom lip shook in waves of guilt. “He’ll reveal the king’s powers?” she asked. “Or my little excursion?”

  “Both.”

  “Zac, I’m so sorry. I’m responsible for this. Good Giver, I never would have gone. I never meant….”

  “It’s not your doing,” her brother told her. “Look, I’ll be fine here. I’ll be teaching downtown. And I don’t want you blaming yourself, Kora. That’s the only reason I didn’t tell you before now. God knows I owed you this, even had it been your fault, which it wasn’t. You got that?”

  Bennie shook her head with a smile. “I guess you two are even now, aren’t you? Kora giving up that chain when Zalski demanded, Zac agreeing to stay here…. So now, neither one of you needs to feel bad about anything the other did for you.”

  Zacry explained, “I’ve known the truth about your chain for a while. Rexson talked.”

  “So he told me.”

  “I didn’t know how to thank you.”

  “You’ve more than thanked me. I’d have had to leave my kids, Zac. Parker would have kept them here, without me. At first I was thinking, I can hide in the capital, but that would only have been possible so long. I’d have had to leave Traigland, stowaway on some boat to God knows where before….” She took him in a tight hug. “Thank you. Zacry, thank you. I would rather have died in the Crimson League than lose my family now. I’d have ended up….” Kora trembled. “I’d have ended up in Esclavay.”

  Esclavay was an island nation larger than Traigland, a week’s journey to the east, known for allowing and even promoting slavery. It was large enough for its internal economy to remain strong through regionalization. Though both Traigland and Herezoth refused any kind of trade with the kingdom, smuggling was far from uncommon.

  Zacry said, “It was the least I could do. What you risked for my sake…. Kora, my living in Traigland pales in comparison.”