“Yes,” I sighed, heavily. “It’s your lucky day, Cei.”
He raised his thick eyebrows. “So lucky that it required you to suggest the goddess of luck perform that particular act on herself with that particular vegetable?”
“She has it coming,” I said, unapologetically. “You are going to get to cross off one more highly-coveted item on whatever chivalric honor code you knights use.”
“And what would that be, Excellency?” he asked, serenely.
“Hosting your liege at an important occasion,” I said, tossing him the parchment.
He read it carefully, and then folded it up again with reverence. When he looked up again, there was a particular look in his eyes that I’ve come to associate with knights. My warmage colleagues and I call it “itchy spurs”.
That’s when they are overcome with an opportunity to live up to the chivalric ideal in some obtuse, obscure, or violent manner, and gods help anything that got in their way. As knights are essentially civil as well as military officers in the feudal structure, there were all sorts of social components to their cult.
I don’t want to even discuss the religious elements – Duin the Destroyer’s chivalric clergy are legendary.
I even understood it, somewhat. Sparks – combat and support warmagi in the various Magical Corps across history – have their own measures and standards of greatness, and they can be just as obtuse, obscure and violent.
Now that the warmagi had become magelords and High Magi, some of those elements were becoming ingrained in the emergent culture, as Pentandra was fond of pointing out. Hells, the three biggest magelords of the Wilderlands, Astyral, Azar and Wenek, were all old comrades of mine who seemed to be competing for professional bragging rights about their achievements in the craft. Currently, Azar single-handedly charging a dragon in the middle of a burning palace put him on top, but I suspected Wenek was already plotting something else as brazenly heroic to supplant him.
But the opportunity to feast and host a liege-lord in grand chivalric style was one thing on every worthy knight’s list of professional achievements. I found the Prince’s arrival an annoyance and headache. Sire Cei saw it as an opportunity to compound his chivalric honor. So, my wizardly wisdom told me it was best to put him in charge, let him bask in the glory of a lavish showing, present his pretty wife and children to His Highness, and show-off the prosperous mageland that the chief of the knights magi had nurtured.
All I had to do was pay for it all.
The expense didn’t concern me, that much, as I was currently pretty comfortable. In fact, even the loan guarantees I’d extended secretly to the Duke of Alshar had been unexpectedly cancelled when he was presented a fortune in back taxes by my former apprentices, so I was more than prepared to drop a purse of gold on this circus if it kept me from being bothered with the details.
My problem – besides the innately annoying person of Tavard, himself – was that this sort of thing was really interrupting my planning and plotting to do far more important things than flatter Tavard’s vanity.
So I gave it to Sire Cei . . . and he relished it, I could tell. He had itchy spurs.
“I’ll host him in the new castle, of course,” he said, aloud. He meant the new gatehouse, but since my neighbors were all a bit concerned with the size of the new fortress behind my crappy old fortress, I was hesitant about bragging about the massive brand-new fortress I was having built in the mountain behind it. So I’d quietly instructed everyone to refer to it as the “new castle”, not the “new gatehouse”, at least until we were ready to show off the real new castle. By then Sevendor will have assured our neighbors of our peaceful intent, I hoped. Conversely, we’d really need a real new castle if we hadn’t.
Feudal politics, in case you haven’t realized it, are complicated.
“We will of course have to hold a tournament of some sort, in His Highness’ honor,” he began reciting. “A banquet afterwards, as a manner of course, and that doesn’t include the Briga’s Day festivities, which will have to be re-arranged to accommodate Their Highnesses. Can I count on you to arrange for some arcane illuminary entertainments, Master Loiko?” he asked my new court wizard politely.
“That was more Master Dranus’ avocation,” Loiko Vaneran, one of the greatest warmagi of our age, admitted as he peeled a hardboiled egg. My new court wizard looked uncomfortable with the request on his first full day on the job. “But I think with the number of eager wizards in Sevendor Town, we can find someone to dazzle the Prince’s fancies.”
“Why not make it a competition?” I suggested. “Briga is the goddess of inspiration, and you can get the temple to sponsor it. Offer a fat prize, present the winner at the banquet, where he can talk about how he did it with Her Cumbustionness’ divine guidance, or something.” That would help further cement the good relations between the town’s growing clerical community and the influx of magi that was already starting to cause some professional issues on both sides.
“An excellent idea, and demonstrative of Sevendor’s unique position,” Sire Cei agreed, enthusiastically. “Do you think we could persuade the Alka Alon to lend us a chorus of their folk to perform for His Highness?”
“Whatever you need,” I promised, expansively. “See if they can spellsing him a new personality.” That sort of talk was also covered by the “Spellmonger Breakfast Rule”: anyone could bitch, either generally or about notable personalities – even me – without fear of repercussion. I needed to know what my people really thought, if I was going to trust their judgements. If I was being an asshole, they needed at least one opportunity a day to tell me that to my face and let me reflect on it as a man, not as a lord, wizard, or any of the other things I did.
“That actually would be a good occasion to finally see the wedding of Lady Fal to Sire Ryff,” Sister Bemia pointed out. “We’ve been putting that off far too long.”
My castle chaplain was right – but it wasn’t Sire Ryff who was the one dragging his feet on the way to temple. Lady Falawen had pledged to marry the brave young knight when he saved her father’s life at the Battle of the Red Ice. That was two years ago. One of the many problems with dealing with a nearly-immortal species as allies is that their ideas of “soon” don’t match up with ours.
“She was awaiting the completion of the refuge in Hosendor,” Sire Cei said, referring to the estate turned Alkan settlement, established as part of the marriage contract. “From what I understand, it stands near completed. There are hundreds of Tera Alon there, already, and hundreds more expected soon. As well as an elegant manor house for the lord and his new bride.”
The Tera Alon were a sect, tribe, or club (I wasn’t certain what their exact standing was) of Alka Alon who had pledged to change their forms and fight with their human allies (me, mostly) against the growing darkness in the west.
That was an unwelcome development among many of the more conservative members of the Alka Alon who found the taller, stronger humani forms (a product of Alka Alon songspells using transgenic enchantment) an affront to their shorter sensibilities. Or something like that. Personally, when you live up to three thousand years, you’d think spending a few of them taller wouldn’t be a big deal, but it was.
Symbolizing the alliance, the marriage of Falawen and Sir Ryff was important to both races. Performing the ceremony on Briga’s Day, in front of the Prince and Princess, would demonstrate how important we saw it. I wasn’t certain how the Alka Alon would celebrate it. But Sire Ryff was growing anxious about the wedding, and I needed to push it forward.
If the holiday wasn’t going to be a circus before, it would be now.
I sighed. “I suppose it’s best to do a full baronial court, too, since I skipped the Yule Court. That will assure everyone I didn’t just wander off.”
“But you did just wander off, Min,” Sister Bemia chided gently as she sipped her morning ale. “You disappeared with Sire Cei and didn’t let anyone know where or when you’d be back.”
“We
ll, it was a secret mission,” I pointed out.
“Next time, leave a bloody note!” she said, sharply. I knew a lot of the administrative responsibilities fell on her and her clerks when I was gone, not to mention people all over the vales asking her where I was.
“Sorry!” I pleaded. “Secret mission . . .”
“Was it successful, at least?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
“After a fashion,” I shrugged. “I escaped with my life. I count that as a success.”
I was being purposefully cryptic, because there was a lot about my sudden trip to the middle of nowhere I wasn’t ready to share with people, yet. A wrong word in the wrong ear could dash some part of the complicated plan that was forming in my mind to achieve my every wish and desire. And with Prince Tavard showing up, his entourage filled with spies, I was feeling very security conscious, all of a sudden.
But I should have been more socially conscious, in retrospect. Sister Bemia reminded me of that in a lecture I knew was coming, I was dreading, and I had to endure.
“So did your former apprentices,” she continued, in a low voice. “Barely. Have you spoken to them, yet?”
“Not in person,” I admitted, guiltily. “I . . . I let them know I was back. They gave me the highlights of their mission, but . . .”
“They are recuperating at Taragwen Keep,” she pointed out, “which is a day’s walk or a half-day’s ride over the ridge. They were worried sick about you,” she accused.
“I know,” I said, defensively. “I’ll go see them this evening, I promise.”
“So was Lady Estret,” she said, shooting her eyes at Sire Cei, whose eyes were glazed over in some chivalric fantasy. “Taking her husband away from her children on Yule – Yule! – for some damnfool secret mission, and then popping back here like you were just running into town for a pint . . . do you have any idea how worried she was?” she asked, accusingly.
“I had to—”
“Yes, I know,” she said, flatly. “You had a ‘secret mission’. One you can’t tell anyone about. While your own poor children—”
“My ‘poor children’ were being feasted and feted by their adoring grandparents in the lap of luxury, and barely noticed I was gone,” I informed her. That was the first place I went, once I brought Sire Cei, Joppo and myself back to Sevendor.
Almina and Minalyan were still basking in the post-Yule bliss of young children who have been stuffed with cookies and treats and given the most fantastic toys that the enchanter’s art could produce. They and their cousins had stayed at the Baker’s Hall for the holiday, and my parents and sisters had spoiled them rotten.
“They weren’t suffering,” I added, guiltily.
“As you say,” the nun conceded, unconvinced. “I just hope that . . . whatever it was you were doing was important enough to cause all that worry.”
“It was,” I assured her. “You should know by now I am not prone to actual foolishness, Bemia. Else none of this would have come to pass,” I said, gesturing toward my peaceful, prosperous Great Hall. It was late winter, but the weather was pleasant, and the doors to the hall were wide open allowing the castle folk to go about their business.
“You hire good people,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“That, I do,” I agreed. “Yourself included. So while I cannot elaborate on the nature or outcome of my quest, I will tell you that Lady Alya is . . . better,” I said, cautiously. “And there is hope that she will be better still. You’ll have to take that morsel and be content with it, because that’s all I can reveal right now.”
The nun’s eyes widened, as did a few others around the cracked stone table.
“That’s all you get,” I repeated. “And keep even that much to yourselves. I’m certain my absence was noted, in certain quarters, just as I am certain that Lady Lenodara performed her duties well, as I directed her. But sometimes wizard’s business requires such sacrifices. It wasn’t the first time I was called away from Sevendor, and it won’t be the last.
“But until this . . . matter is resolved, you’re all going to have to bear with me and some inconvenience as I have to be elsewhere. Especially now that Prince Tavard is coming here. That complicates things,” I sighed. “In ways you cannot imagine. I will make the best of it, and who knows what could come out of such a visit? But we will host him here with all due honor and respect. Or at least Sevendor will, and I’ll show up and look important. Believe me, the last thing I want with Tavard right now is any sort of quarrel or conflict.”
Organizing a baronial court on relatively short notice wasn’t as much of a problem for me as it was my noble peers. One of the advantages of being a magelord is that you aren’t reliant on the whims of weather and the lives of messengers to communicate with your vassals and allies.
Nor did I have to wait days for a reply. Every one of my vassal domains now had a resident wizard installed, at my own expense, to handle arcane affairs for their territory. For those few who were High Magi, possessing irionite, it was a matter of a mental conversation. For the rest, I had the local Baronial Mirror Array send word.
By nightfall of the morning I got the message, all of my vassals and local allies had been informed of the Prince’s pilgrimage to Sevendor, and the special baronial court I would hold in his honor.
There was a significant amount of business piling up, since the last real court I held . . . sometime before Greenflower. Sire Cei was adept at stalling important matters, thank Luin, but I had to give the barony some official attention.
There were matters such as the continuing problems in Northwood, the wedding of Lady Falawen and Sire Ryff, a number of minor issues regarding the new barony in Sashtalia, people to honor, people to punish. Magelord stuff. It would take me a few days to consult with Cei and his staff about it. That would be tedious, but necessary.
I wish that was the extent to which I had to prepare, but the truth was having Tavard here was inviting political disaster in any number of ways.
My young liege was a proud, bellicose, and not particularly bright. That is, he was about typical of his age and class, not really any better or worse than most of the nobility.
But Tavard was a bully. He was used to power he hadn’t earned, and as a result he was subject to whims and reactions that an older, wiser man would be wary of. Worse, he was so heavily favored by his mother that she’d shielded the boy from honest criticisms that might have made him stronger.
There were plenty of court rumors about episodes from his youth, when his impetuous nature and viciousness (something else that Queen Grendine encouraged in her son) led to a variety of minor scandals. What’s killing a few peasants or sporting with the wives of your vassals against their will, after all?
While I’d been careful to distance the Arcane Orders from royal politics, I hadn’t been entirely ignorant of what transpired in Castabriel. I’d watched the decline in importance of my own people, and the increase in importance of Remeran commercial interests . . . and I was perfectly happy with that. Magelord Planus was a close friend and business partner, and he was ideally positioned to inform me of what was happening through his insidious web of commercial contacts in the court.
Courts, actually. Because there was a growing political split in the Kingdom as King Rard was trying to establish a true government for all of his territories from his new palace at Kaunis, north of Castabriel . . . while his son, twenty miles down the road, seemed to be determined to contest important issues as Duke of the richest part of the realm.
It was well-known that there was a lot of resentment festering under the surface after the coronation that the Castali had all worked so hard to pull off. Rard and Grendine had to broaden the ministers of the Royal Court to reflect their new realm, including prominent Wenshari, Remeran, and even Alshari nobles for important political reasons.
That left the remnants of the old Castali ducal court with their best minds gone. New ministers had replaced the old, ambitious men who were quite willing to accept
a powerful position at a mere ducal court rather than the Royal Court. And with the titular management passed over to brash young Tavard, there were already scandals and plots brewing.
Chief among the plotters was the new ducal Prime Minister . . . Count Moran. The ambitious noble hadn’t been invited to any official position in the Royal government, so he was quick to advance himself as the replacement for the previous Prime Minister, the venerable Count Kindine, who got kicked upstairs.
The Castali high nobles welcomed him as a counter to the sudden importance of Remere in the royal councils, and in the last few years Moran had slowly but surely promoted his own partisans into positions of power within the Ducal administration. Now that the King had unofficially left the ducal palace in Castabriel for his grander new royal palace at Kaunis, Count Moran had crushed opposition and consolidated power in the ducal capital.
That was starting to produce some friction, as the two power centers disentangled from each other. Moran was subtle, though, and would not move overtly against the Royal Court. He was too afraid of Grendine’s army of pretty assassins. But that didn’t stop him from causing trouble in other ways.
Everything had come to a head, Planus informed me, when Princess Rardine was captured at sea, along with some royal ministers and her entire entourage, by pirates off the coast of Farise. Instead of demanding ransom themselves, as was traditional, the pirates sold off their prize to the rebels in Enultramar, who in turn traded her to Korbal the Necromancer.
That raised a permanent split in the courts. The Royal Court was – officially – furious at the kidnapping, and was – officially – pursuing all means to secure Rardine’s release. But Tavard’s ducal court, under Moran’s guidance, was dead-set against that course of action. Instead it had agitated for an all-out assault on Enultramar, to punish the rebels for their role in the crime.
And, along the way, conquer the richest part of Alshar for Tavard’s own.
None of which did a damn thing to rescue Rardine from Korbal. But it gave Tavard every excuse to try to raise a fleet to assail the most heavily-guarded maritime power in the Five Duchies.
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 4
