War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  The damming of the brooks, by no means an inexpensive project, had stopped the flow of sand into the river and caused the water to run clear and deep, so that the sandbars disappeared. The deepening water had also eroded the foundations of the bridge, and in the year Aelfric was born the great bridge collapsed, and Hambar removed it. Now the deep-hulled vessels could sail all the way to Silba, and no longer stopped in Root’s Bridge. Tolls on the D'root family ferry were too high, so the local merchants said, and the ferry was much less convenient than the bridge it had replaced.

  Add to that the construction of two bridges across the Dunwater and one across the Lini near to Elderest, and Root’s Bridge became just another small river town, with no reason to exist outside of its own small market and cattle common. The large merchant levies no longer flowed into the D'root family coffers, and by the time Aelfric was out of nappies the family could no longer be called rich.

  Still, the Askelynes of Kundrel were wealthy, and they made certain of their daughter's provenance by directing half of their trade through the Root’s Bridge pier. That practice ended when Lena died giving birth to Aelfric's younger brother Levin. From time to time Aelfric still visited the wealthy estate just outside of Kundrel in the Barony of Pulflover where his uncles and aunts lived, but more and more he felt the strain of being a poor relation.

  Hambar D'root was a proud man. He refused to take charity from his own distant kin, and he refused to make the compromises that would have kept his family wealthy. He also refused to stint when it came to his two sons. He continued to give Aelfric the finest tutors and sent Levin to the King's Town for religious training in some style.

  Aelfric's tutors had exhausted the last of the D'root family wealth and Levin had gone to Mortentia City and vanished, throwing aside the robes of Lio's Church and falling into a series of misadventures. Occasionally Aelfric had some word from his brother, usually attached to a request for money that his father always honored.

  Last autumn the exchequer of the duke of Elderest had come calling. Hambar had not intended for Aelfric to overhear the conversation, but he had been in the kitchens sneaking a bite to eat instead of in his room, as his father supposed.

  "I'm sorry, Hambar, but the time has come." The exchequer proclaimed over a cup of mulled D'root wine. "Your debt to the duke far exceeds any income you might hope to generate from your tithes and commissions, and since you refused the duke's offer of fealty, your lands must be forfeit."

  "The duke knows I am the king's man." Hambar answered. "The meets and bounds of this land were drawn up by Byroth himself, and he will not permit the accession of Root’s Bridge to Elderest."

  "You mistake the king's favor." Replied the exchequer. "In the days of your glory, you were rich, and you poured a lot of wealth into the treasury. No one disputes that. In addition, your service in the war has not been forgotten, true enough.

  “On the other hand, you insulted the king by your marriage and your lands are no longer profitable. In Maldiver's hands they would be. Your loyalty was proved to the old king, besides. Falante is a new king, and a different sort of man. He knows of Maldiver's loyalty and relies on his tithes. He will not intervene."

  "Give me a season to learn the mind of my liege and I will give you your answer." Hambar D'root replied.

  "The duke anticipated this." Replied the thin, narrow-faced exchequer, facing the square solidity of the resident Lord Mayor. "He will give you one year to speak to the king. If Falante speaks in your favor, Maldiver will dismiss the suit. Otherwise we shall come and take what is ours, by force if need be."

  "There is no need for such talk." Aelfric's father said as he saw the exchequer to the door. "Both the king and the duke know I am bound by my word, as I have ever been. I will meet my obligations."

  The next day Aelfric had confronted his father. "I overheard your visitor, father. Is it true we are to lose our lands to Elderest?"

  "You should not have listened, son." Hambar said, looking suddenly older and more vulnerable than Aelfric had ever seen him. "Still, I'm glad that you did hear. It is a relief not to have to keep our situation from you."

  Aelfric waited, watching his father closely. "When I was your age, Aelfric, I had nothing but a name, a fine horse and a longsword. With these things and loyalty to my king I made a place for myself and for my family in the world. I learned the value of loyalty and honor and many other things. I also became prideful, and that has been my downfall.

  "You will hear that I should have married other than for love, that I should have declined the king's wishes to make something grand of the great river, to make Mortentia stronger. I should have looked after my own welfare more, perhaps. You will hear things like that."

  "I've heard them already, father."

  Hambar fixed him with a sudden penetrating gaze. "I daresay you have. Said them, too, I guess."

  Reddening, Aelfric looked away. They sat for a while in silence, one man in the prime of his youth, the other in the decline of middle age.

  "Aye, and not without justification, perhaps." Hambar sighed. "Still, I was always loyal to the king. No one can say that I was not. I am loyal to his son, too, Aelfric, as you should be. Byroth D'Cadmouth was a great man, and Falante promises to be equally great, young though he may be. The D'Cadmouths represent the greatest of things to come across the water to Mortentia, and they are not burdened with our curse."

  "Oh, please, father." Aelfric, forgetting himself, exclaimed with disgust. "Not the curse. You can scarcely blame our family's misfortune on a three-hundred year old blood curse."

  Hambar raised his voice sternly, a sure sign that Aelfric had overstepped his bounds. "I don't blame my personal problems on the curse, Aelfric, but don't you have the cheek to think for a moment that it is not real, just the same. It will find you in your life, as surely as the two of us sit here, and you will have the need to be strong enough to face it when your time comes.

  "Even if there is nothing more to the curse than the second glance people give you when they hear your family name, you will have to face it. There are many proud moments in the history of our family, Aelfric, and those are not to be forgotten. None of them will blot the shame of what the Black Duke did though, at least not in my lifetime nor yours. The curse of that madman's obsession may be the ruin of the D'roots, as well as the Arouths, O’roots, D'Arouths and Roots and all of the other names his descendants choose to use.

  "I promise you this, though." He put his hand on Aelfric’s shoulder. "I have given you what tools I could. You know how to manage the day to day operation of a household, you know how to win people with words, and you know horses and the sword when words fail. That is more than I knew when I was your age. Even your brother will find he can do much once he grows up."

  The entry of his profligate brother Levin into the conversation ended it, as far as Aelfric was concerned. Levin could run off to Mortentia City and lie drunk in brothel after brothel, running through money as if the family coffers were boundless, and still Hambar D'root would find no fault in him. Aelfric looked out the window to hide his anger as his father continued.

  "I will go to see the king. My prior service was not without honor, and there is a debt there. Should the son prove honorable as did the father, I expect I shall return with a writ to satisfy the Duke of Elderest. If not? Well, there are other postings and other ways for two healthy men to make a living. Three should your brother choose to return to us."

  "When are you leaving?"

  "Tomorrow will be later than I should have gone, but tomorrow it will be."

  "Can I come with you?" Aelfric asked, realizing that he sounded as eager as a small boy, but unable to help himself. He had never been to Mortentia City, and the thought of seeing the King's Town, with all of its mighty bridges, towers and the famous palace on the mount infected him with longing. He knew what his father's answer would be, though, even before he spoke.

  "I need you to stay here, son. I trust regent Malli with many things, b
ut letting him run the keep without a reminder that he does not own it is not one of them. I need you here to keep an eye on things. Besides, you need a chance to get a feel for running the place without me here to back you. With luck I will be back by first snow."

  First snow had fallen; then second snow, and still no word came from the King's Town. Winter sent floes of ice down the Dunwater, and when Aelfric saw the first of them, he knew his father would not return before the spring thaw. Ice would make the river impassable, and as much as he trusted in the law, his father was not fool enough to try to cross the Duke of Elderest's holdings by land with a writ that would wrest a fiefdom from his grasp.

  Through the winter Aelfric managed that fiefdom himself, deferring to Malli Adkel in complicated matters, but doing his best with simple judgments settling disputes between landholders and holding petty court. The people coming before him as judge had known from childhood. They were apt to smile when he assumed the robes and judicial device of his father, but they took his words seriously.

  "I do be proud of you." Commented holder Amar Stoneholt, even when Aelfric had judged against him to the tune of fifty silver pennies. "Your father would probly made the same judgment settin' there. I wunta 'greed wit' him and I don't ‘gree wit' you, but I'll pay. I'll pay right enow." Amar's brown eyes twinkled as he put the tiny coins in the court's escrow. "You take after him, sure." Aelfric collected the fees and added them to the small amount of coin in the keep's treasury.

  It was a point of pride to Hambar that during winter the D'root ferry continued to operate. Aelfric himself often undertook the hazardous job of breaking up the ice to keep the passage across the river open. The hours spent hacking up and removing blocks of ice in the freezing wind gave him time to think, although his thoughts were far from pleasant.

  When his father returned from the King's Town in the spring things would be different. After five months of running the D'root freehold Aelfric could hardly be expected just to step aside and resume the dutiless life of a privileged holder's son, and Hambar D'root would not expect him to. Running a fiefdom of seven thousand people was a job for more than one man, and Aelfric's father had already made it clear that he did not fully trust his regent, Malli Adkel. The people coming before him in court and in conversations on the streets of Root’s Bridge made it clear that they, too, expected Aelfric to assume the job of regent once Hambar returned from 'his visit to the king'. Aelfric little considered where that would leave Malli.

  He saw little of Malli over the winter. The two of them had never been friendly, and without the presence of his father to act as a buffer, Aelfric knew there would be friction if he did not avoid the perpetually dour regent.

  Throughout his time as Lord Mayor, Hambar D'root had managed to keep Root’s Bridge independent of the two sovereigns whose border the town's fiefdom straddled. To the north was Pulflover Barony, ruled by Baron Brego D'Tarman, at whose side Hambar D'root had fought in the king's royal army. While Brego had built an empire out of his royal grant and private stakes in several large mines, Hambar had been content to remain in Root’s Bridge, neither extending the bounds set by the king nor permitting them to be diminished.

  Root’s Bridge was an old holding, and it had been called Root’s Bridge long before Hambar came to it. Like the town of D’rut across the river and and D’root Keep, the town had been established by Tolrissans who bore the same name that Aelfric did, two centuries ago, after their exile from Tolrissa. The line of those early D’roots and D’ruts had dwindled, and then disappeared altogether, and the freehold had reverted to the crown. Aelfric’s father came from a branch of the family that lived around Arker and Zoric. The rewarding of it to Hambar had been a restoration, of sorts.

  To the south lay the Duchy of Elderest, a very old holding ruled by Duke Maldiver D'Cadmouth, the oldest son of Pissepe D'Cadmouth, the king's dead cousin. Maldiver dreamed of someday ruling in the King's Town, it was said, but that was the future. For now, he had ambitions to expand Elderest. Hambar's poor judgment in taking credit from the man had placed them in their present difficulty.

  The people of Root’s Bridge loved their Lord Mayor, and they liked his son, but Aelfric was under no illusions. They loved peace more than they loved the D'root family, and there was among them a sense of wounded pride. Root’s Bridge had been a wealthy town on its way to becoming a city before Hambar deepened the river and washed away the great bridge, and king's will or not, the action had not set well with many of the older residents. Their loyalty would not extend to refusing the claims of Duke D'Cadmouth.

  So Aelfric sat on the balcony like a man in a giant’s story, a story of a castle in the clouds, for beyond a few hundred paces, the fog swallowed everything. Somewhere above him the unconcerned sun floated above the clouds and fog, but he was only present as a slightly brighter place in the fog.

  He drank from a small bone cup of exquisite porcelain. The cup was the last remaining from his mother's collection, etched with scenes of winter sports and small children. Levin and he had carelessly broken all the others in the set. The drink was merely water, but cool and clean, drawn from the keep's good well.

  Aelfric could see the near landing in the shadow of the keep, and he could see that the ferry was not moving. The ropes had become fouled again on the near bank's spindle. He sighed angrily. Fat Loseth, the ferryman, had hired a new man, a hulking half-Aulig named Haim, and put him in charge of the lines. Apparently the man didn’t know the line had to be hand fed onto the spindle or the heavy wet rope would fall across the dry stuff and tangle it. He would have to see to the matter at once.

  With an oath, he put down the cup and stalked through his room, cursing the unmade bed.

  In the first month of winter, he had discharged Mati and L'nelle, two of the keep's housekeepers, trying to save a few marks. An unmade bed was the least of his inconveniences.

  He took the stairs down to the main portion of the keep two at a time, as was his habit. Coming out of the stairwell he almost collided with the same Mati and L'nelle, the two housekeepers he had recently discharged. Surprised, he stopped as Mati, much the older and more traditional of the two, bowed her head and curtsyed. L'nelle did not curtsy or even bow, fixing him instead with a cool, challenging stare.

  L’nelle always disconcerted him a mite, for when he was fourteen she had been seventeen, both flirtatious and knowing, and things had gone where they oughtn’t have, although not as far as she’d wanted. She made a point of remembering it to him.

  "What are you two doing here?" He demanded, too surprised at their unexpected presence to reprimand L'nelle for her discourtesy.

  "Beggin' your pardon, milord." Mati said deferentially while L'nelle stood by with her arms crossed beneath her small bosom and a knowing smirk on her sharp face. "We've come back to our old jobs, like Master Malli said. I knows we're early, on account of he said not to come before noon, but we thought we could get the place cleaned up a bit…"

  "What do you mean? I gave no such order…" Aelfric began, but he was distracted by the sound of a hard driven horse thundering into the courtyard of the keep. "If that's Malli, by Lio, I'll give him a word or two."

  He turned to the two housekeepers. "I'm sorry, Mati, I think you've wasted a trip from town. There's been some mistake. Please just have a seat in the main hall until I get this straightened out."

  "We'll see who’s made a mistake, milord." He half-heard L'nelle mutter as he walked to the front door.

  But when Aelfric walked into the courtyard he saw that the rider was not Malli Adkel. Malli was not known for running his horses anyway, and neither Aelfric nor his father would have permitted him the use of such a fine animal as the light-saddled bay he saw tied to the hitching post near the stables. Instead, a young man dressed in the dust-covered pale yellow livery of a Mortentian post rider stood by the horse. His pale hair hung in his eyes.

  "Pardon me, sir." Said the rider in a voice both deferential and uncertain. "Would you be Lord Aelfric Askelyn
e of D'root Keep? The townspeople assured me this was the right place."

  "Well, I'm the only Aelfric here." Aelfric said, scratching his head at the appellation the rider had used. "My mother was an Askelyne, so I guess I'm the man you are looking for."

  "I have an urgent message from the King's Town." The rider pronounced. "From Lord Askelyne of Upkirk Street. If you would be so kind…" The rider, scarcely more than a boy Aelfric realized, held up a tied scroll sealed with a device with which Aelfric was unfamiliar. It looked something like his own family crest, but instead of a griffin triumphant wreathed in victory laurels it bore a griffin dexter bounded by cords, designating hardship and ambition. Beneath the griffin the great bridge, Hambar’s special symbol, was unmistakable.

  "Who gave you this?" Aelfric asked as he broke the seal and opened the message.

  "Lord Askelyne of Upkirk Street, as I said, sir. He said you would pay the post and … pardon me, his words not mine…provide me with something to eat and drink as a reward for fast delivery."

  "I've never heard of a Lord Askelyne of Upkirk Street." Aelfric replied, still somewhat confused. "Still, if you've come all the way from the Regency you've certainly earned supper. Go on into the keep and see Dajna in the kitchen. I'll take care of the post once you've eaten."

  "Thank you milord." The rider said with an expression of relief as he made to pass Aelfric. "And sir?"

  "Yes?"

  "You might want to make ready for visitors, sir. I passed a score of Elderest armsmen coming into Root’s Bridge, milord, and they looked to be heading this way."

  "Thank you, rider."

  His curiosity now firmly aroused, Aelfric broke the seal on the scroll, noting that it had been posted on Waterday, the 14th, fifteen days earlier. It was written plainly, in his younger brother’s usual terse script:

  "Mortentia City, 3 Mardis, Falante 3

  Dear brother.

  Father came to town in Vindus, and I received word that he was seeking an audience with the king. People I know and trust saw him enter the palace and come out again bearing a missive bounded in the royal colors. Since it is rare enough to see father in the King's Town, I thought to pay him a visit at his inn, but when I went by a few days later, I found a number of Elderest's men cleaning out his room. I made like I'd gone to the wrong room by mistake, but it was definitely not the wrong room.