“With a witchstone as prize there’s little that could deter this crowd,” he chuckled. “Since they stopped distributing them to warmagi, there are very few ways for a common mage to come by one. Unless he wants to make a deal with Sheruel.”
That was supposed to be funny, but I’d run across one of the renegades who had thought that serving the undead goblin who was warring on humanity would be the “easy” way to power. I had stolen her stone, defeated her on the field, and humiliated her by destroying her keep and freeing her slaves. I was hoping the renegade option would start to sound less appealing to others.
“That’s not really my fault,” I admitted. “I’m happy to keep handing them out. But King Rard and his new Warlord want me to curtail my efforts. We’re too dangerous, they say.”
“And you’re going to listen to them?” Banamor asked in a voice just above a whisper. Since he was tacitly advocating rebellion and treason, I appreciated his discretion.
“I am,” I agreed, “for now. After the Great March I don’t really want to attract royal attention for a while. And to be honest, it serves my purposes. There are over a hundred High Magi out there, now. We need to ensure we can administer those before we add many more.”
“A fair point,” he conceded. “Honestly, I’m glad we’ve moved away from the martial aspects of magic, for a change. Developing our new resources is a better wager, in my mind. Show the kingdom what a proper mageland can be like, when magic is put to good purpose. Castles are magnificent works, it is true, but you can build three towns for the cost of even a small one. Make the people prosper with magic and you’ll have power no caste can provide.”
“I don’t need more power,” I complained. “I need more stability. Look at these folk,” I said, gesturing to the busy merchants building booths and arranging inventory for the fair in two short days. “The things they sell aren’t just luxuries, they’re the components of wonder. And right now the only place where they all come together is here, in the shadow of the snowstone mountain,” I said, nodding toward Rundeval in the south. “I want the people to prosper because prosperous people are happier and less likely to suffer, not because they’re better clients or taxpayers.”
“Yes, your sense of nobility does you credit, Magelord,” Banamor said gruffly. “Please mind you don’t spill any on me. I’m here to profit and raise my station. I see the easiest way to do that is by making my products and services as expansive as possible - and only as expensive as they need to be, for now. The best part of the entertainments this year are not the jongleurs or the dancing girls or even the jousters. The best part is the contest for enchantment I proposed, in conjunction with the interest on the art.”
“Contest?” I asked, intrigued.
“I felt the emphasis on swords and spells was ignoring some of the more practical sides of the art,” he explained, as he led me to a large pale yellow tournament pavilion. Inside set upon trestle tables or on the ground, were many different strange objects and contraptions. “So I offered a prize for the most ingenious and useful enchantment, this year.”
“Enchantment,” I breathed.
“You disagree?” he asked, concerned.
“Not at all. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, actually, in the wake of the Great March. I’m intrigued, and it’s fueling an idea of mine. Continue.”
“The early entries have been . . . fascinating,” he said, struggling for words. “A scythe that magically cuts the stalks of entire fields in an instant, eliminating the need for mowing and haying. An elemental enchantment that can disturb an acre of topsoil at a time and leave it as loose as any plow. Sir Tyndal’s magewright rod that turns a log into planks of dried wood with a word. A similar entrant splits a tree into dried firewood in a single spell.
“Gristmills that turn by magic without need of windmill or waterwheel. Simple thermomantic wands that turn water to ice with one end, or heat it to boiling with the other, without the need for fuel. A magically-heating kettle. A magical butter churn that you don’t need to push. A magically lighting pipe. A weathervane that warns when it’s going to rain. There are dozens of entries,” he assured me with satisfaction, as he looked around at them. “Some are fanciful, but many are quite useful. And potentially lucrative.”
“Impressive,” I nodded. Just five years ago such feats were unthinkable. It took the power of irionite to harness the true value of magic. Already that was having an effect. Of all the tradesmen eager to petition the town council for permission to settle and open their businesses here, no chandlers had attempted to compete with a town that used magelights as liberally as Barrowbell once did.
“But what happens when the peasants don’t have to plow anymore? Or mow? Those are two labor-heavy services most manors depend upon.”
Banamor shrugged. “I don’t care that I made some peasant’s life easier. I’m here to sell spells.”
Well, it was hard to argue with that.
This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to see more of, and I praised the mayor profusely as I examined the entries to the contest. I added a magical chamberpot to the prize - an insanely useful device only a pocketstone could create - and one that had a very high value. For me, it was five minutes work with a pocketstone, a chamber pot, and slightly more power than was needed to conjure a magelight. I made a dozen of the things the other day, just to practice the charm and create a stockpile. They made kingly gifts.
How kingly? Banamor confided that he was getting offers of thousands of ounces of gold for them. Not silver, gold. You could nearly purchase a domain for that amount. I could spend an afternoon enchanting chamberpots and buy another domain, if I wanted one. And the funny thing was, that was actually not the most lucrative use of my time.
Now that I had the Snowflake to study, I had a feeling enchanted chamberpots and magical scythes were merely essays in the craft of enchanting. If ever there was an anvil on which to make wonders, the Snowflake was it.
But these enchantments gave me guidance. Banamor’s contest hadn’t been focused on power, elegance, or subtlety of art; it had been focused on utility. If magic were to be truly powerful it had to have use to people. These simple plowing rods and self-turning gristmills were the beginning of a new era, I envisioned wondrous conveniences that also had the capability of changing how people did things. Freeing up resources, time, and energy spent at drudgery.
We were already seeing the effect in Sevendor. The peasants rarely plowed. Instead one of the High Magi would use a powerful land-disturbing spell that shook the dirty to perfect plantability. With Master Olmeg’s assistance, planting and weeding changed dramatically to fit the new style. Indeed, the very way that fields were apportioned among the peasants changed, as the old system was based on time shared on a community plow.
In the summer mowing season, the chore was done in half the time after a mage cut the stalks. A few folk to glean and bundle the straw into stacks and it was done.
Don’t imagine for a second that my peasants had an easy time of it. The castle charged a modest fee for the services, and even with magical assistance farming is never easy. But it did allow them to spend their energies at other productive work, and as a result they quickly improved their standard of living. My villeins now lived better than the freemen of most other villages. And my freemen lived like burghers. And my burghers lived like magelords.
I studied Banamor for a moment. Here was a man who had lived by his wits for years, using nothing but his meager magical talents and his ambition to better himself. He had risen as far as any footwizard with a cunning intelligence and a keen memory could aspire, and if the cut of his robe suggested he spent a peasant’s month’s rent on it, I could hardly begrudge the man the display. He was earnestly trying to make something of Sevendor, as well as himself, and he was the right man to do it.
“Quite right!” I said clapping him on the shoulder. “You said something about a pint?”
He got a vague look in his eye that suggested someone
was speaking to him mind-to-mind.
“Perhaps in a moment, Min,” he apologized. “Just got word from the Diketower. Another great and powerful wizard has arrived. One important enough to require me to personally kiss some ass.”
“Who?” I asked, intrigued. I thought my ass was his first kissing priority.
“The one you threw out of the fair last year. Baron Dunselen. And his lady wife, Isily. Anyone below rank of Baron, I wouldn’t bother, but . . .”
I nodded, slowly. “Later, then. And . . . let’s make it spirits shall we?”
I felt a good drunk coming on.
Chapter Three
A Civil Discussion Among Colleagues
DESIDERATUM
“When the enchanter first considers his approach to an enchantment, defining the ultimate goal of the essay is essential to its success. Establishing the desideratum in conception, regardless of the ambition of the ordinant, provides him with a vision of completion, which establishes the expectation of outcome. In matters of the Will, such visions can inspire and assist the ordinant overcome obstacles in theory or material through inspiration and resolve. Therefore the desdideratum, establishing the desired effect of the enchantment, must be manifested and held firmly in the imagination of the ordinant throughout the entire process of enchantment.”
Raster’s Pandect of Gramary
It was quite an eventful fair.
For one thing, it was huge. Attendance was almost double last year’s numbers, and the services that Banamor prepared against his wildest visions were strained to the breaking point. Over three thousand fairgoers took the oath, in addition to thousands more who just wandered around the domain. Good weather and locally peaceful conditions had encouraged folk to come to Sevendor to see the Everfire in the temple of Briga, the odd white mountain and castle, or just to gawk at the plethora of odd folk.
Plenty of real magical business was getting done. Tradesmen and footwizards from around the kingdom bargained and negotiated with each other for days before the start of the fair, and far into the night every evening. Everything from thaumaturgical glass to snowstone was bought and sold.
There were plenty of freelance magi who offered their services at the Fair. Anything from dowsing for wells to finding errant cattle to increasing crop yields and herd fertility was for sale by all manner of magi. Nor was the spellmongering confined to the lower orders. Planus, Pentandra’s enterprising cousin, did a booming business for his firm in mercantile-oriented magic. Warmagi specializing in defensive work offered to strengthen castles.
As predicted, the enchanters at the fair did a booming business. Banamor sold much of his year’s inventory of everything from magelight wands to enchanted saddles within the first few days. Andalnam took orders years into the future. Fellow wizards, curious lords, and ambitious merchants were all looking for ways they could turn magic in to gold. It was, professionally speaking, highly gratifying . . . particularly since I usually got a cut of each deal, one way or another.
Of course, it was hard to concentrate on all of that knowing that my former lover and mother of my illegitimate daughter was staying in an inn in Boval Village.
Lady Isily had wed Magelord Dunselen on his home estate of Greenflower at midsummer, while I had been busy introducing the Orphan Duke to his young Kasari subjects. As a wedding gift to her loyal maid of honor, Princess Rardine gifted the couple with two large estates . . . and convinced her brother to raise Dunselen to the peerage.
Baron and Baroness were, by all accounts, doing well in their new lives. Isily’s youth and vitality had given Baron Dunselen a focus for his attentions, and she exerted a calming influence over the ambitious magelord. They were affectionate in public, despite the difference in their ages.
I didn’t believe a word of it.
I don’t know why it troubled me to see her. I’d encountered other previous lovers, even with Alya present, and not had the same troubled mind as I did over Isily. The fact that her daughter’s conception had been ordered by her mistress, the Princess, who had an iron hold on her, mitigated my mistrust, somewhat. I didn’t know if loyalty or leverage was to blame, but if Rardine wanted someone dead, Isily (or any other of the beautiful female assassins the Kingdom’s intelligence apparatus ran) would smile prettily and they would die.
Only in this case instead of killing me, Rardine had commanded Isily’s womb, without my knowledge. I didn’t even “officially” know about the three-year-old little girl in Wenshar whose name I actually didn’t know yet. My adept footwizard spy Iyugi had discovered her foster parents called her “Bishi”, but that was clearly a nickname or pseudonym. She was well cared for on a remote estate belonging to Isily’s family in Wenshar.
But I couldn’t even pretend to know about the girl lest I put her life in danger.
I did my best to avoid the pair at the Fair, and at first it wasn’t hard. The fair ensured I had plenty of people to meet and speak to. I had an near-endless stream of folk who wanted to speak to the Spellmonger, enough to busy me from sunup to sundown. Everyone from mercantile houses to magelords to footwizards and hedgewitches desperately wanted to talk to the Spellmonger. I also had obligations to entertain my important guests. This was my fair, after all, and I had to be seen enjoying it, no matter how much I was suddenly fretting inside.
I tried to keep busy. Alya and I attended the Dragonslayer’s Tournament and watched seventeen young entrants throw themselves at each other on horseback from the comfort of the reviewing stand. The prize was taken by a handsome squire from Sendaria, one of Arathanial’s lads. The Baron of Sendaria brought a large contingent as he made the rounds of his allies.
He was stirring up a local war against Sashtalia, my neighbor to the west, and while I’d already let him know I would not be sending him lances, I had not forbidden my vassals from selling their swords for the season to Arathanial. A lot of country knights made ends meet by hiring out as mercenaries in private wars. Sire Cei himself would ride with the baron, as his domain was in fief to Chepstan Castle. He was looking forward to the opportunity in an almost unsavory way.
But at the tournament he was the Dragonslayer, gracious figure of legend, who charged a dragon with his lance and taken his head. There was actually a lot more to the story, for those of us who had been there, but Sire Cei had earned his glory honestly. No need to ruin a legend with facts.
He and Lady Estret were hosting the event, so they tastefully entertained the reviewing stand full of important personages with high style. Sire Cei kept the wine flowing like a gentleman, and Lady Estret sang and played the harp for us between rounds. Her daughter from her first marriage, Ferrah, daintily served as cupbearer when she wasn’t tending her new little brother.
Sire Cei himself was the very picture of chivalry as he rewarded well-struck blows, counseled squires on their form, and entertained his lieges with song and story. He was gracious and magnanimous, the perfect knight. And he was loving this. Sire Cei is a modest man, but he does have an ego.
Executing a splendid and entertaining tournament for his overlords in noble style was just the sort of thing in which he reveled. He ended the tournament by adding a healthy purse to the second and third-place contestants’ prizes, and then lauded the victor with an additional gift of a new war lance from his collection, a nod toward Arathanial’s bellicose vision.
Then he presented elegant little gifts to his guests. He and Estret gave Alya and I a large bottle of mead - the first from their new meadery - and a gorgeous silver plate and chalice engraved with a snowflake motif, each snowflake in the midst of a honeycomb. It became the plate and cup Alya and I shared at every feast.
To Baron Arathanial he gave an extremely detailed map of the Bontal Vale, including all of the County of Lensely and beyond. It was smartly done in ink on full oxhide, and as I admired it I realized that the domains of the Lord of Sashtalia were particularly detailed . . . down to the number of lances each castle boasted. And where strategic bridges and fords were located.
It was done to such precision I had to guess that magi were involved in its making somewhere along the line . . . but I didn’t ask. It was a stunning gift with tremendous meaning which Arathanial grasped at once. He embraced Cei like a brother and they said a bunch of vainglorious chivalric crap about the field of battle. Knights are weird.
That night Sire Cei hosted the winners and his liege at a small feast in the Great Hall of Sevendor Castle. I sent Alya to represent me, as I regretfully had to make an appearance at the Arcane Order’s hall for the lecture series on enchantment . . . where I would inevitably encounter Baron Dunselen.
He was there in his capacity as Head of the Academic Order of Magic. I had to admit, the old boy was looking much better than the last time he’d been in Sevendor. Clear-eyed and with a ruddy complexion instead of his former pallor, the former court wizard looked healthy. His burgundy and gold robes were clean and tidy, as was his hair and beard. Dunselen had even lightened up on the amount of lime he used to streak his hair white to make him look more mature. Whatever else was afoot, I had to admit that married life agreed with him.
Enchanter (Book 7) Page 4
