“Did she, now?” I said, knowingly. “That is so unlike her. I blame motherhood for the slight.” Of course, I knew better. That was Penny purely getting back at me for all those years I’d shoveled parchment her way in the Arcane Orders.
“As the Spellmonger has well and truly arrived,” Gareth continued, leading me over to a table clearly designated for his own use, “those decisions can now be made.”
I frowned. “Can’t you or Carmella figure them out?”
“If we could, we wouldn’t be bothering you with them,” he shrugged. “You think I would make more work for myself on purpose? No, these are matters involving things outside of my jurisdiction, be they political or magical. A few are matters of contention between parties that need judgement. And a bunch are just payment authorizations that need to be reviewed and signed before our workers can get paid.”
“I thought Pentandra set all that up before she went to Falas?” I asked, crossly.
“She did. She designated a competent senior noble as her deputy, empowered to make such policy decisions on behalf of the Baroness.”
“Then present all that crap to him!” I said, desperately, as I eyed the mound of parchment on the table. “I just got here!”
“I just did, my lord Deputy,” Gareth explained. “You may pick up your duly inscribed and sealed copies of your appointment on your way out. For all practical purposes, you get to be Baron of Vanador, as well as the Count of the Magelaw. Don’t worry,” he soothed, “Carm will still handle civic construction policy, and I’ll handle civic administration and all the ceremonial baronial stuff, as her Steward. You only have to bargain with the problems outside of those fields. Pentandra assured me you couldn’t screw it up.”
“Pentandra should know better than that,” I growled. “I’ll find a way. Just watch.”
Thankfully, most of the problems were relatively simply solved. Appointment of barons for several vacant (and sometimes nearly nonexistent) regions was at the top of the list. As was the approval of the appointment of a suitable Chief Magistrate for the town, beyond Father Amberose; appointment of officers to the City Watch; appointments for a half-dozen engineers and inspectors, and a few other civil positions that, for various reasons, Gareth and his staff didn’t feel comfortable filling without oversight.
There were a few disputes with local Wilderlords who objected to the change in status of their land (which Gareth could have dealt with, but didn’t have the rank) and some correspondence that demanded a greater response than he felt comfortable giving.
“The largest of those is the Gilmoran Warrants,” he said with a heavy sigh as we got to that thick folio of parchment. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve gotten scores of them, by messenger. These are from Gilmoran lords who are demanding the return of their villeins to servitude, back on their old estates in Gilmora. Apparently getting enslaved and nearly sacrificed and eaten by goblins isn’t enough to dissuade a lord from enforcing his rights,” he said, sourly. “It’s even worse, now that some have returned home of their own volition, and started talking about the wide-open lands of the Wilderlands.”
“Hasn’t enough time elapsed to get them to give up such thoughts?” I asked, amazed at their temerity.
“They’re trying to rebuild from the invasion, just as we are,” Gareth reasoned. “They need labor, now that the goblins aren’t a threat in Gilmora. They’ll try to get it any way they can. They see demanding their peasants return to their fields is easier than hiring new peasants.”
“Have we responded to these warrants, yet?” I asked, curious.
“I’ve been able to put it off, until a more responsible party happened along to dictate policy,” he grinned. “Now that I can hear your policies, I will be happy to relay them to the Gilmorans.”
“Thus allowing me to begin my tenure as count by making enemies of half of Gilmora,” I chuckled.
“Better you than me,” he pointed out.
“Very well. You’re lucky that I spent the last two weeks talking about this sort of thing incessantly with a drunken lawbrother who thought such things were important. So . . . under the legal custom and principle of ‘town air is free air,’ any villein or serf or other bondsman who has lived within Magelaw’s districts for more than a year is henceforth absolved of previous bonds,” I dictated. That included virtually all the slaves we’d freed from the Penumbra last year. “They are at liberty to return to Gilmora as freedmen, and renegotiate, but their previous bonds to their lands in Gilmora are hereby dissolved under my authority. Does that cover it?”
“Just waiting for your seal and signature,” he agreed, pulling out an edict he’d prepared before I’d arrived. “I figured that’s the route you would take, so I had something drawn up.”
I took a quill, dipped it, and signed my name. I added the glowing magemark of a hammer symbol by magic, because people expect that sort of thing when you’re the Spellmonger. “There, it’s done. Thus my glorious reign begins. Trying to return villeins and serfs to their tiny plots in Gilmora will cost more than it would be worth. If the cotton lords of Gilmora have to pay a little more for their workers, and not cheat them in rents anymore, they can raise their prices at market to cover it. But they will not prey on my subjects,” I vowed.
“I’ll have the clerks start the correspondence, and we can send it by hoxter for distribution. Most of those who were determined to return to Gilmora have done so, already,” Gareth agreed, as he rolled up the edict. “About seven thousand, in all. But those who remain prefer their opportunities here in Vanador, than their old lives in Gilmora.”
“It’s the fresh air and freedom,” I agreed.
“Well put,” he nodded. “I’ve gotten to know some of these fellows this year. The stories I’ve heard about how wicked Gilmoran landlords cheat entire generations into servitude, over a plot of land no bigger than a vegetable garden!” he fumed. “When the Gilmoran peasants realized that they could essentially get all the land they could farm for near nothing, and get help setting up as a bonus, they stayed here.”
“Then here they shall stay,” I agreed. “I can handle the Gilmoran barons, believe me. They still owe me for the Cambrian dragon,” I reminded him. “They can hire some of the refugees from Barrowbell and the Westlands and elsewhere who clog the roads of Gilmora, now. Anyone who survived a few years of goblin slavery deserves every chance they can get to make a better life for themselves.”
“That’s not the only thing they’re worried about,” Gareth confided. “Since word has reached devastated Gilmora about the opportunities in Vanador, I expect there to be some migration this way. And some who were enslaved have sent for their kin in Gilmora to join them, and they’re coming. Slowly, but they’re coming. The first few caravans arrived before winter. I think we’ll see more, once the roads are clear. That’s an exodus that the Gilmoran estates can ill afford,” he warned.
“Let me deal with that,” I promised. “If they get here, they’re under my protection.”
“Understood. And much in agreement with my resettlement policy. Since the old social order is pretty much hashed up, after captivity, I’ve organized the freedmen into hundreds,” he explained. “One hundred men, and their wives, if they’ve got them. Gilmorans and Wilderfolk, alike. Each Hundred is responsible for the behavior of everyone within it. If someone acts up, it’s up to the others in his group to discipline them.”
I nodded, impressed at Gareth’s wisdom. Using men organized by Hundreds was an old remedy to settlement, harking back to how our Narasi ancestors colonized the Vore valley early in their career of conquest. The Narasi apportioned their conquered lands to companies of warriors numbering a hundred, with a priest and lord to lead them. I’m certain that things didn’t go as smoothly with the simple system as legend suggests, but that was the ideal. Gareth had adapted it to the current situation.
“We’re planning on granting tracts to the entire Hundred, to be farmed communally,” he explained, when we got to that series o
f authorizations. “We already have a few early experiments, near at hand, as we reoccupy the closest abandoned farms. They’re settling in little hamlets of one or two Hundreds, although that could change, some, as different tracts prove more fertile than others. It’s a communal scheme that keeps anyone from profiting unfairly. Each Hundred is given a pool of funds and livestock to hold in common, for a few years, as well as rights to the land. A lot of the Gilmorans were among the first to volunteer for the project. It gives us the beginnings of a village culture and some agriculture. Suddenly splitting up a bunch of families to make some Gilmoran barons happy would upset that plan.”
“Those Gilmoran barons tend to have friends in the Castali Ducal court,” I reminded him, frowning. “I don’t disagree with your policy, but it will have some minor ramifications. Nothing I can’t handle,” I assured him, “but be prepared for it. Once those peasants have homes to defend, they will fight to keep them . . . no matter who tries to take them. How much is that costing?” I had to ask. It would have been unseemly of me not to.
“It’s an expensive prospect,” Gareth began, delicately. “The first few cost as much as three hundred ounces of silver. We’ve trimmed the grants to the bare minimum, but each Hundred still costs quite a bit to outfit, if they are to have any reasonable chance of success. I’m afraid that how many Hundreds we can settle is going to depend on how much coin is spent on it, in the future.”
His hesitancy was understandable, since I was underwriting most of the loans being extended to the people of Vanador. No doubt he was worried that such funds would be less forthcoming, in the future, now that I was here, personally to see the money spent. Gareth was one of the few who understood just how vast my wealth actually was, but he was also one of the only people who knew just how much I’d spent on the effort already. Enough to bankrupt even a prosperous baron’s coffers. By far.
He was expecting a cautious approach from me, no doubt. I think I surprised him with my policy.
“I want you to start lending more money,” I informed Gareth, to forestall any anxiety on the subject. “At very reasonable terms. All these settlers need equipment and supplies to get started, if we want them to have a fighting chance. These artisans need rural folk to sell their wares to. I don’t want either of them to fail because they lacked the coin for an axe, or shears or something.”
“That we can do,” Gareth agreed, after some thought. “Especially if you’re providing the capital. I’ve had some intriguing ideas on that, after our first few attempts at resettlement this fall. We’ve got about a score of farms around the lands nearest the town. Mostly they got by on some donated supplies from Falas, purchased from Vorone, and whatever gear Rael’s agents could scrape up. But a lot of that is prohibitively expensive.”
“So what do we need?” I asked. “We’re wizards, we’ll get it.”
“Anvils, for instance – real anvils,” he corrected, “they have to be cast. Until we can build a foundry here, we have to get them from the Mercantile or use a rock. And even with Rael’s reduced transportation costs, anvils are expensive. But if you’re willing to lend them money to buy things, personally . . .”
“It’s my county, I want it to prosper,” I reasoned. “And these are loans, not grants. I’m generous, not stupid. And for the Hundreds, we make them collectively, not individually. That way we can take shares of their farmsteads until they pay it off, and be lenient in collections.”
That’s more or less what happened, too. As a result of this policy, I eventually owned notes on around half of the new estates and manors being built around Vanador. Lawbrother Bryte, who oversaw my accounts, became worried in the first few months as he saw one draught after another go out of the treasury.
“Can you truly afford this, my lord?” he asked at breakfast one morning at Spellmonger’s Hall, after going through the week’s accounts. “This week alone we’ve loaned out over three hundred ounces of silver. Last week it was half again as much, and the weeks before . . .”
“If I have it, I have it to loan,” I shrugged. “It does no one any good gathering dust in my treasury. I’ll get it back. Most of it.”
“And that doesn’t concern you, my lord?” he asked, surprised. “Most nobles are eagerly counting their future incomes, and preparing to beat any who are in arrears on such large notes. But . . . you seem unconcerned.”
“At the moment, I am,” I agreed. “Money is the lubrication that allows the gears of commerce to work, and commerce benefits us all. No one is going to steal from the Spellmonger,” I reminded him. “Issuing these loans pumps money into the economy. I can afford to lose a little in the short term if it means I have a more prosperous realm down the river.”
“That’s a very . . . generous attitude, if I may say so, my lord,” the monk conceded, doubtfully. “But at this rate, you will have spent—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I dismissed. “Spend it. I’ve got it.”
“My lord has an inexhaustible supply of gold?”
“Not inexhaustible,” I corrected. “But vast. More vast than you suspect. But don’t tell anyone,” I cautioned him. “Especially any Ducal authorities.”
“I am bound by oath and vow to your service, my lord,” Bryte the Wiser wisely observed. “You are my client. I am your advocate before the thrones of the gods, themselves, and required to keep your confidences even from them.”
“Good,” I replied, deciding to entrust the man I’d named my chancellor with a few of my concerns. He’d proven loyal, thus far, and more importantly he’d been invaluable in organizing the affairs of my new county. “You may know that I am in exile from my lands in Castal,” I began. “That is largely because His Highness, Prince Tavard, blames me for the death of the prince heir in last year’s dragon attack on Castabriel. Thousands died. I likely saved ten thousand more.
“But when Donrard’s Spire fell, the prince heir was within,” I said, sadly. “Their Highnesses both blame me for that. I think Tavard would have had me executed, had King Rard not intervened. Instead he served me with three years’ exile, at his discretion as duke.”
“That’s terrible, my lord!” Bryte said, shaking his black shaggy head.
“It is all terrible,” I agreed. “But that is how the politics lie, at the moment. As angry as Tavard is, I can only hope that his temper will cool ere I return from exile. What I suspect is more likely is that he will attempt to find other means of striking at me. I have been alert for such moves, and while he has yet to be open in his enmity for me, my informants in court have spoken of murmurs in the Ducal Court that confirm my suspicions.”
“While I am empathetic about your situation, my lord, it seems to me that spending your fortune on a back-woods castle, expensive magical experiments, and improving the lot of a bunch of landless peasants and tribal barbarians, while the very definition of noble, are not necessarily in your best interests,” he counseled.
“On the contrary, Brother Bryte,” I countered, “what is not in my best interest is to sulk in the Wilderlands for three years in the hopes that Tavard’s fury will cool. I have forces in Sevendor, but they could not defend against the entire duchy. Nor do I wish to subject them to that.
“But here, in the Magelaw, I have a chance to build a force in relative peace . . . a force that Tavard does not suspect I am building. Vanador is being built to withstand the worst that Korbal and his lackeys can throw against it. It is remote from Tavard’s realm, and difficult to reach. If he wishes to strike against me here, he will have a long journey before he even gets to the field. And he will have to bring quite an army to do so over rough and unfriendly terrain.”
“You really believe that Prince Tavard will make war on you?” Brother Bryte asked, skeptically. “He seems to have his hands full, with the results of the Curia disrupting his realm. Or so the gossip says.”
“I doubt it is a high priority,” I conceded, “but if he finds an opportunity to strike at me, he will take it, I’d wager. If not by force of
arms, then through politics. That is his mother’s preferred method . . . but Tavard fancies himself a warlord.”
“He did conquer Maidenpool,” chuckled the monk. “And forced the Goblin King into a treaty. His Highness is a most puissant noble. I concede your point, my lord.
“But see to mine: while perhaps not as acutely informed as you, I do have my sources. His Highness is likely to find himself occupied for years contending with the sudden shift in power, in the kingdom. There is strain between his court and his father’s. But that could also lead to him deciding to attack his father’s flanks, through his trusted counselor, the Spellmonger.”
“Exactly,” I murmured, around my pipestem. “It is best I be prepared for either possibility. And since attack from the Penumbra isn’t a possibility, but a certainty, preparing defenses against one serves to defend against the other. The problem,” I said, gazing into the fire, seeking inspiration, “is that we need to project strength we do not yet possess to one foe, while feigning weakness to the other. If Tavard suspects I am building an army that could be used against him, he will find some way to come at me from behind. Perhaps through Sevendor. That, I cannot risk.”
“So, you make the prince think you’re weak and pitiful, suffering in exile, while making our foes in the Penumbra believe we have castles and armies we don’t have,” he summarized. “That should be quite a trick, my lord.”
“It passes the time, for a wizard in exile,” I shrugged. “The real trick will be the Alka Alon problem,” I sighed.
“There’s an Alka Alon problem?” Bryte asked, surprised.
“There’s always an Alka Alon problem,” I chuckled. “As you are new to my service, you are blissfully unaware of most of them. There are two, in this case. The first is the issue of the Tera Alon. Their camps are overcrowded, and they are eager to deploy in the Penumbra. That is, to here.”
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