“We’ll find them,” I assured her. “If it makes you feel better, I get to hear about the accounting all day tomorrow with Banamor. I’m thinking I’d prefer the Mews,” I chuckled.
“Actually,” she said, leaning back tiredly, “so do I.”
I met Banamor the next day at his customary table at the Market. It was a Market day – the small market, mostly farmers’ produce and trade goods – but the weather was nice. There were enough clouds in the sky to keep it from being hot, and a bit of a breeze coming across Southridge from Hosendor. The Elf’s Gap, it was being called, now, for the traffic across the bridge from Sevendor to the Tera Alon manor.
It took an hour to catch Banamor up on all the important developments surrounding the Raid on Olum Seheri, which he found fascinating. Banamor isn’t the adventurous type, any more, but he appreciated a good yarn. And he liked to know about the big, important events going on, for business purposes.
“Rardine left the palace and went to Vorone?” he finally asked, when I finished with the news.
“That was the big thing you took away from that story?” I asked, incredulous.
“That was the more important part,” he shrugged. “To me, at least. That kind of watershed in the court can have ripples far downstream. If her sister-in-law really does have Grendine’s backing, now, that’s significant.”
“If you say so,” I shrugged. “It just means that court functions are going to be a lot more interesting now. So, how fares the Wizard Trading Company?”
“Arcane Mercantile Company,” he corrected. “We’re already profitable,” he admitted. “On parchment, we made a profit of sixteen Roses, seven Stags on the first run from Sevendor to Wilderhall. The caravan should be headed back out in another two weeks,” he added, proudly. “We’ve another one headed for Wenshar, a full twenty wains.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a lot.”
“That’s the Blue Book,” he confided. “Our public trading records. The magical stuff we cart to market. The Yellow Book, on the other hand, is our more clandestine accounts; the ones involving smuggling bulk, trade, and luxury goods through the hoxters. And the Yellow Book, my friend, is bulging.
“So far, this month alone the Company has profited nearly seven hundred Roses,” he smiled, pleased. “Remeran wine and grain for Alshari pig iron, lead and timber, mostly, but we’re expanding. By the end of the summer, we should have at least four trading houses, with Sevendor as the Mother house.”
“And everyone understands the need for discretion?”
“Oh, it is our watchword,” Banamor chuckled. “No one wants to pay tax on that kind of fare.”
“And how are profits distributed?” I asked, curiously, as I watched peasant girls sell eggs and cheese next to Tal maids hawking carrots and potatoes.
“The chief of each house takes a Rose every month for upkeep, and six silver Stags for overhead. Then he takes on quarter of the profit for himself, as verified by my accounting. The other three quarters of the profit goes to the Company. A quarter is invested in new ventures, a quarter in increasing stock and a quarter is distributed amongst the gentlemen members of the association. Paid out twice a year,” he added.
“That’s a lot of complicated accounting,” I pointed out, my head swimming.
“Two sets, one for the Duke’s tax man, one for us,” he agreed. “But I’ve hired two clerks from the Temple of Ifnia to assist. They will be discrete, of course,” he added.
“Of course,” I nodded. “How goes preparations for the Fair?”
He groaned. “Of course, you would ask me about that. It’s in the bloody chamberpot, with Gareth gone. Oh, we’ll muddle through,” he sighed, “but things ran a lot more smoothly when that lad was overseeing everything. I’ve got four men doing the job he did . . . four expensive men. But it should be well-attended. The academic theme this year is rajira – it should be about as boring and dry a subject as magical history. But an important one,” he conceded. “We’re seeing more and more of it pop up around Sevendor,” he added.
“We have a lot of magi about,” I nodded. “That stands to reason. Especially with all that snowstone sitting there. Recognizing, measuring and evaluating rajira might be boring, but it’s useful.”
“That’s what I thought,” he agreed. “But that’s a long-term problem.”
“We have short-term problems?” I asked, surprised.
“Is water wet?” he scoffed. “Nothing that cannot be dealt with. But there are always short-term problems. People have been asking questions about our missing mountain,” he said, glancing at the Elf’s Gap. “Wondering what happened to it.”
“Dismiss it as the Spellmonger’s secret project, and act all mysterious,” I proposed.
“That’s what I’ve been doing, but . . . well, people gossip. It’s not a serious issue, largely because the new trade from Hosendor has been good, but . . .”
“Let them talk,” I dismissed. “They will, anyway. It will pass. I’ll pull some new wonder out of my arse, and no one will think about it anymore. I would have thought that the divine visitation would have overshadowed a mere missing mountain.”
“Oh, it has,” he snorted. “That entire episode has been a right pain in my arse. The shrine is under construction, and it will be delightful, I have no doubt. But it forces me to reorganize the entire Fair, and now we have to staff it. And likely build an inn nearby,” he grumbled. “Right in the middle of the new traffic through the Gap . . .”
“Rich men’s problems,” I grunted.
“I’ll take them over an empty belly and holes in my boots,” he agreed, smiling. “If you think Lady Alya will be back, soon, I’d count myself a lucky man if I died tomorrow.” Then his face fell. He looked troubled. “There is one other thing,” he said, quietly. “We’ve started to get some ecclesiastic issues. With the agricultural wands.”
“Ecclesiastic issues? We made certain that the Huinites were supportive of them.”
“It isn’t Huin who’s the problem. I’ve heard tale of a priestess of Colleita preaching in the vales against the wands.”
That was trouble. While Huin was the revered (amongst the peasantry, at least) Narasi god of the fields and grain, he was not the only agricultural god around. There were others, mostly local and regional deities who hadn’t been syncretized with Huin. Some were mere folk cults, others had priesthoods and even shrines and temples.
Most of them were pretty benign, but a few of them were problematic. Colleita was one of those. Originally a small-time goddess of fruit trees, berry bushes, and vegetable gardens in the distant valleys of Merwyn, before the Conquest, once she came into contact with my brutal Narasi ancestors, Colleita and her priesthood changed.
She became a defiant figure of Imperial resistance, at first, one of the divinities that the Dukes couldn’t come up with a reason to suppress. But unlike her grain-focused Narasi counterpart, Colleita’s divine message came complete with an ideology.
Colleita preached that the only worthy endeavor for man was cultivation. It was man’s divine purpose, the industry from which all other culture flowed. Lords, knights, craftsmen, all were secondary in importance to the peasant farmer, in Colleita’s rustic catechism.
That became a problem, after the Conquest. She became a figure of passive resistance to Narasi rule in Merwyn and Vore, and as the other regions of the Magocracy fell to my barbarian ancestors, her cult spread quietly among the rural folk.
While Huin was a relatively placid divinity, Colleita’s clergy had a habit of whipping up resentment against established social orders. While Huin’s priesthood had certainly been behind its share of peasants’ uprisings, Colleita’s priesthood’s rebellions tended to be bloody. They were also terribly effective.
Whereas Huin was a supporter of the established order, Colleita preached against it. She was a fiery rebel, always willing to come to the aid of a peasantry beset by injustice. Some lords tried to suppress the cult, but the truth was that such
actions merely validated the egalitarian message of oppression Colleita manifested to combat.
“That is troubling,” I agreed. “What is their complaint?”
“That the agricultural wands rob the farmer of his honest toil. Without the necessity of a plow, there is no need for a plowman. Or to rent a team. They couch it as a plot to starve the common folk and enrich the gentry.”
“Well . . . the last part is true enough,” I conceded. “But it enriches the peasants who own their strips, too,” I pointed out. “They get the benefit of the wands.”
“And they are in the minority,” Banamor pointed out. “Most peasants rent their land from the manor, on credit, and count on paying it back with money made selling their labor to the manor and the other agricultural jobs. Two families in ten might actually own their strips, and rent to make up the difference – or rent them out to others to farm.
“But now that plowing is so much cheaper,” he continued in his matter-of-fact voice, “and harvest has been reduced to sheathing, winnowing, and gleaning, the manors just don’t need the labor they did three years ago. So they’re only spending a fraction, and now people are competing heavily for those few, low-paying jobs. Evictions have started,” he said, worriedly. “Folk who couldn’t pay the rent on their strips had their crops confiscated last harvest. Now they’re starting to get turned out of their cots. That gives Colleita’s lot fertile ground in which to plant the seed of revolt.”
I nodded, understanding. Peasants’ revolts were nasty things.
“Keep an eye on it,” I advised. “Let me know if there’s anything we can do.”
“Well, as a result, labor is cheap, at the moment,” he continued. I realized I had fallen into his trap. “And with most of Sevendor’s labor employed in constructing that lovely new bridge complex over the former mountain, most of our municipal projects have stalled. I’d like to hire a few hundred folk and get them re-started. And I have a dozen new ones that we need to start. It might inject some silver into the local economies outside of the domain, too,” he persuaded.
“Sure, go ahead,” I shrugged. “We have the money. With princes, gods, and emissaries from strange races dropping by at all hours, I suppose we should make the place pretty. What did you have in mind?”
Twenty minutes later, I regretted asking. Gaining a new Ducal charter had emboldened Banamor, and the Sevendor town council he led as Lord Mayor was enjoying unheard-of prosperity at the moment. Banamor wanted to embark on a program of civic development that would make Sevendor the equal of any city in Castal.
He wanted to change the streets around, relocate some residence areas, develop the spot on the Commons around the shrine, pave the rest of Sevendor’s main roads, and a score of other projects that would beautify and – Banamor’s goal – enrich Sevendor, town, domain, and barony.
His plan entailed spending hundreds of Roses and thousands of Stags. Using the threat of Colleita’s priesthood to put me in the right frame of mind, he leveraged the pitch toward his own investment.
“I approve,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “Yes, yes, by all means, let’s spend some of this gold we have.”
“It gets so lonely, when you leave it in a vault all by itself,” Banamor agreed. “But when I’m done, we’ll have everything a major Ducal city has except for slums. Sevendor Town will be something to be proud of.”
“I’m already proud of it,” I affirmed. “We have magelights in the streets, magically running fountains, two markets, a fair, and a lovely market square,” I pointed out, waving to the hubbub around us. “We have the only fully-functioning bouleuterion in the world, a thriving guild community, and the respect and admiration of our neighbors.”
“Yeah,” Banamor sighed. “Things are looking rosy, right now. I wonder how long that will last?”
“Not long,” I prophesied. “You were right to pay attention to Rardine. She represents a threat to the current order. Then again, so do we. With Tavard out at sea, things should be stable for a while – probably through summer. Right up to this Autumn’s Curia. After that, depending on whether or not Tavard gets himself killed on his naval expedition, things could get hairy among the upper nobility. If that happens, all of this might be dashed to bits.”
“Well you’re a cheery fellow!” Banamor fumed. “But probably right. The Riverlands would be the first place that trouble would start, too. Let’s try to keep things safe and prosperous here, as long as we can,” he proposed.
“That’s what I’m doing,” I agreed. “Sometimes, that seems like that’s all I’m doing. My kids live here,” I pointed out. “I want them to have someplace safe and secure to grow up in, and eventually inherit.
“Speaking of which, I’ve got a date to go pick them up from my sister and take them to the pond for swimming today,” I said, standing. “After which we’ll go to the bathhouse and then come to the Alembic for dinner, where they will un-do all the good work the bathhouse did.”
“Well, this might disturb your day, then,” he grunted, taking a small scroll of parchment out of his sleeve. “I stopped by the Mirror Array on my way here, like I do every morning. Our adepts make a point of sending important news along for my private preview – under the wands, so to speak,” he said, mischievously. “This was waiting for me. It came in during last night’s shift.”
He handed me the paper and I unrolled it. It was a report from the Farisian Mirror adept, personally, directed to Banamor.
It reported that Tavard had set sail the day before with a fleet of a hundred and ten ships, after he confiscated six more ships at Farise under his father’s name. A great battle had ensued in the Shallow Sea, as the Alshari armada had pounced on the bait.
No result of the battle was known. No ship had returned from the Castali fleet with word.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The Bridge To Tuervakothel
Hosendor is a pretty place. While I’m partial to the security Sevendor’s surrounding mountains gave me, the foothill domain to the east was poor agricultural land, but the same rough country that made it difficult to bring a crop to market also provided a beautiful geological canvas upon which Nature could paint.
Hosendor was replete with waterfalls and tiny pools from the multitude of springs on the eastern side of the ridge. There were some delightful little grottos not too far off the road, the perfect place to picnic, or to lie in wait of picnickers.
One of these delightful little places had been twice transformed: first, during the night my son was born, a largish outcropping on the eastern side of the ridge was affected. It was as snow-white as any snowstone in Sevendor.
But then the small estate that owned the outcropping was gifted to Lord Aeratas and the Tera Alon, after we came to fallen Anthatiel’s aid. He renamed it Tuervakothel.
He’d built a refuge there for his folk in exile. His people had fallen on the dainty clearing and constructed an entire complex of buildings on the site. They’d quarried the snowstone outcropping for the foundations of the central hall, and raised it in Alka Alon fashion . . . only to Tera Alon height requirements.
The effect was intriguing, reflective of the dual nature of the Tera Alon. The central hall epitomized this. It was a round, multistoried structure on snowstone foundations, similar in style, I realized, to the Tower of Refuge. Each successive story was smaller than the one below, but encapsulated by it with an uneven edge. That allowed each floor a dramatic balcony, one that was filled with planters and pots containing the trees and shrubs the Tree Folk were so fond of.
But there were human touches, as well. The most obvious was the most subtle – this place had been built with the Tera Alon in mind, not the Alka Alon. The doorways were gracefully pointed arches, there were stairs instead of ramps, and there was actual furniture within, not just a bunch of pillows.
There were also guards. Tuervakothel was as much military camp as refugee camp, and those who had sworn the oath to keep their Tera Alon bodies until the war against Korbal was won were r
eturning from their first sortie against the hated despoiler of their once-fair city. The returning veterans had raised hope among the others, and now they were practicing the arts of war in the yards and the butts just like their humani neighbors.
When Lady Falawen agreed to meet with me about her father’s death, she bid me come here alone. She would not even bring her new husband from Hosendor Castle.
She met me in her chamber, an exquisitely beautiful tangle of natural Alkan themes that conspired to suggest a forest environment. Falawen wore a black, Riverlord-style sideless surcoat. Indeed, apart from her unworldly beauty, pointed ears, and complexion, she might have been any noblewoman in the vales.
I broke the news to her, relaying the details as quickly and completely as I could. I told her about the treachery the Nemovort Mycin Amana stabbing him in the back, and about how I raised both he and her mother into the spare bodies.
She took it . . . well, I suppose. Hearing that your sainted parents are now undead guardians in the basement of the house you grew up in is a little distressing. Hearing he died by the same hands that slew her mother only intensified her hatred of the Enshadowed.
“With your father’s passing, that means you are the Heir to Anthatiel,” I informed her, unnecessarily.
“Heir? To a ruined city in our enemy’s hands?” she asked, some very humani tears rolling down her fair cheek. “I knew he wasn’t going to come back from there,” she said, bitterly. “I could see it in his eyes. Aye, he promised me that he would live, if I did as he bid and married . . . but I could tell. He never intended upon returning.”
“Do you take any solace in his reunion with your mother?”
“Of course,” she dismissed. “I’ve missed her desperately, since she died, and father has been devastated for centuries. But . . . to leave them in such a state . . .”
“I was rushed,” I admitted. “But it seemed the best idea at the time. My first real dabbling with necromancy, but with the Handmaiden’s help they awoke almost as good as if they were living.”
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 79
