A Young Man Without Magic (10 page)

“Who is this regrettable guest, then?”

“Lord Allutar.”

Derhin choked. “The landgrave?”

“None other.”

Amanir chuckled nervously. “You speak very freely, dear Valin, to call him unspeakable.”

“Why should I not? We are Walasians. We are civilized men, free to speak our minds. I say only what everyone in Naith believes, whether they would admit it or not.”

Anrel almost protested, despite his own dislike for Allutar, but held his tongue; he did not as yet know these people well enough to talk so openly with them.

“I think you misjudge,” Derhin said. “A great many people still think him a fine man and a worthy one, despite the sorry condition of the province. Those who have had dealings with him may know otherwise, but most of the citizens of Aulix have not had that misfortune.”

“I think you could name at least
one
person in Alzur who has had dealings with him who yet thinks him a fine man,” Anrel suggested.

“Don't remind me,” Valin said, clapping a hand to his temple.

At that point the serving girl returned with Valin's wine and Anrel's tea; Derhin and Amanir sent her off to fetch another bottle and two more glasses.

The interruption had broken the thread of the conversation. When she had left, the four seated themselves and resumed speaking, but not about Lord Allutar himself; instead they discussed the Grand Council, and the eighteen seats that were rumored to be designated for Aulix.

“Four for Naith, I heard,” Derhin said. “Fourteen more for the rest of the province. And Lord Allutar will probably take it upon himself to name all eighteen.”

“That must not be allowed!” Valin said.

“It won't be,” Amanir said. “The college will insist on the right to name at least one. I would expect the magistrates to have their say, as well.”

“The magistrates will name whoever Allutar wants them to name,” Derhin said. “There isn't a man among them with the courage or ambition to do otherwise.”

“What about the burgraves?” Amanir asked. “Will they also all yield to Allutar, do you think?”

“Does it matter?” Valin demanded. “They're all of a kind.”

“Even your guardian?” Derhin said.

“He is even now closeted with Lord Allutar, auctioning off his daughter's virginity,” Valin replied. “I think that says all we need know.”

“You are speaking of my uncle,” Anrel reminded him sharply. “The man who raised me, who paid for my education, and who trained you in the arcane arts.”

Valin turned to him. “But look at what he's done, Anrel! He has not only failed to persuade the landgrave to free the baker's son, but has instead offered him his daughter! The man has no integrity, no sense of justice. He cares only for his own place in society, and his daughter's.”

“The baker's son?” Derhin inquired.

“Offered him his daughter?” Amanir asked.

Anrel sighed, and Valin launched into a highly colored account of the last few days.

When all had been made clear, and the first bottle of wine had been consumed, the conversation came back to the question of who might be sent to the Grand Council. A few names were suggested, none of them familiar to Anrel; then Derhin said, “Perhaps Lord Dorias will see to it that
you
are named to the council, Valin.”

Valin snorted. “Why would he do that? We agree on nothing.”

“But it would get you out of Alzur, where you could no longer interfere with his plans for Lady Saria.”

Valin started to retort, then stopped. His expression turned thoughtful. “Alzur
is
entitled to a representative, isn't it?”

“Of course it is,” Amanir replied. “At least one.”

“And the burgrave would choose him?”

“That isn't as clear,” Derhin said. “Especially since Lord Allutar makes his home there.”

“Surely Lord Allutar won't begrudge Lord Dorias one selection!”
Amanir said. “Especially if it clears the way for his own courtship of Lady Saria.”

“Are you seriously considering this, or is it the wine talking?” Anrel asked.

“Why not?” Valin said, turning to Anrel. “Your uncle doesn't care a crumb about politics, not really—he gripes about the emperor, but beyond that, he doesn't concern himself with the empire's affairs. He hasn't set foot in his family's house in Lume since he delivered you to school four years ago. He probably cares more about getting me out from underfoot than he does about the imperial accounts, or crop failures, or the abuse of black magic, or anything else the council is likely to consider.”

Anrel could not argue with that. “But the landgrave . . .”

“The landgrave will have several of the other seats under his control, I am sure. He can surely spare one to please his intended father-in-law.”

“And would you
want
a seat, under such circumstances? I thought you wanted the
commoners
to choose their representatives, not Lord Allutar and Uncle Dorias.”

“But think about it, Anrel! If I am the representative for Alzur, I will have a chance to speak
for
the commoners. I can make certain that their voice is heard, through me!”

“But you,
Lord
Valin, are not a commoner at all,” Anrel pointed out. “How can you speak with their voice? Were you not saying that the commoners of Alzur should choose one of their own?”

“And have you not been telling me that would not be possible? Here, then, is a compromise!”

“He's right, though, Valin,” Amanir said. “You
aren't
a commoner.”

“I was until I was twelve,” Valin said. “Even now, while I am called ‘lord,' other sorcerers see me as the lowest of their class—I have no family ties, no hereditary lands or talents. My magical skills, while real enough, are dismissed as hopelessly inadequate for any great rank or important post.”

“Are they?” Derhin asked. “I hadn't realized.”

“I can cast a decent ward,” Valin said defensively. “I can manage any of the simple bindings. I can do as much as half the lords in the college here. But no, I cannot perform the sort of grand magic that caused the
emperor to name Lord Allutar a landgrave, nor the complex wardings that my guardian maintains around Alzur. His ancestors have built those up over the last two centuries; they're in his blood, while in my own veins flows the blood of shop keep ers.”

That speech made clear to Anrel a few things he had not entirely understood about his friend Valin. Yes, Valin had made the jump from commoner to nobleman—but as he saw it, only to the bottommost rung of the nobility. That seemed to rankle.

“At any rate, if the representatives are to be appointed by the nobility, as seems so inevitable to many, can you name a
better
choice than myself?” Valin demanded.

“No,” Derhin said mildly, “but I would still prefer to let the people choose their own representatives. Even if they make a worse choice, it will be
theirs,
and not the whim of aristocrats foisted upon them.”

“
Pfah
,” Amanir said. “If the right choice is made, does it matter who made it?”

“Exactly,” Valin said.

At that same instant Derhin said, “Yes,” and the two turned to glare at each other.

Anrel beckoned to the serving girl for more tea.

The discussion continued through much of the day; on occasion other young men joined in, either taking seats at the table when there was room, or crowding around to listen and comment. It became clear that a great many people in Naith knew Valin, and that most of them seemed to think highly of him.

Anrel wondered at that; for his part, he did not find much wisdom in Valin's words. Derhin seemed to have done a better job of thinking through his positions, and keeping them consistent, than either Valin or Amanir, but when disagreements arose, most of the audience tended to side with Valin.

Listening to them, Anrel came to suspect that this was because he was
Lord
Valin, while the others were all commoners. Valin might feel that he was not respected by other sorcerers, but it would seem that he needed no distinguished family or powerful magic to impress the people of Naith; the bare title was enough.

Although Valin had claimed to have come here in pursuit of the latest news, Anrel heard little evidence that anything under discussion was based on more than gossip. No one cited sources; simply saying, “I've heard,” seemed to be sufficient grounds to treat a statement as proven fact. In some cases the tales obviously originated from the provincial magistrates, or members of the College of Sorcerers, but others gave every sign of being pure speculation and wild fancy.

As the crowd around the table grew, Anrel grew steadily more nervous. In Lume a gathering like this would have long since drawn the attention of the Emperor's Watch; there would be bowmen atop the nearest arch, and a sergeant coming to break it up. Naith had no network of arches, and no one here would answer directly to the emperor, but surely, there must be watchmen who would take a dim view of what amounted to sedition, should they realize what was being said. When his concern became unbearable Anrel tried to push back from the table and dissociate himself from the conversation, letting another young man take his place while he moved his teacup to a low wall, away from Valin's table.

Once he had settled in this new position he sat silently, declining to contribute further. He refused offers of wine, restricting himself to tea and some lovely sweet rolls. When the others ordered a midday meal of stewed beef, complaining mightily about the price as they did so, Anrel made do with a mild onion soup.

The conversation rambled on, across a variety of inflammatory topics—the food shortages, the emperor's debts, why there were rumored to be hired magicians from the Cousins at the imperial court, why the money that paid for those magicians was not being used to import food or pay the imperial debts instead, the lingering mystery and scandal surrounding the gruesome death of Lady Arissa Taline, and half a dozen others—but in truth, none of these discussions were anything new to Anrel. He had heard all of the complaints and accusations, and many more, in Lume, in the taverns and common rooms. They had never been aired as openly as this, out in the streets, though, nor with so large a crowd in attendance.

As it happened, Anrel knew beyond question that there really were hired magicians at court; a season or so back he had been introduced to
one, a fellow from Azuria by the name of Garzan tel-Barragun, during a meeting with one of his professors, and had exchanged a few polite words with the man. He knew that at least eight magicians of various schools, from various nations in the Cousins, had been brought in at the request of the Empress Annineia, who was of Ermetian birth and did not trust Walasian sorcerers. All the same, he said nothing. He did not care to become involved in the conversation to that extent.

A few of the discussions involved outright lies. In Lume the students would have picked these apart and, if no authority could be named, dismissed them as nonsense, but here many absurdities were accepted almost without question.

The story of the empress driving her carriage over starving children, crushing them, Anrel knew to be a fabrication; had such a thing happened the news would have been all over Lume in hours, and there would have been riots. No such event had occurred. The closest anything had come, and perhaps the origin of the tale, had been when a magistrate's coachman had whipped an urchin hard enough to crack bone, and that had triggered a small disturbance, if not quite a riot.

The empress had not been involved, and the magistrate, Lord Orvaz Pol, had eventually appeased the mob by paying a physician to attend the boy and make sure that the injury would not cripple him. As told in Naith, though, the empress had merely laughed and driven on, leaving dead and dying children in the road.

Anrel had avoided commenting on the foreign sorcerers, but the blithe acceptance of this account was too much; he spoke up, saying the tale was nonsense, only to be told by Amanir, “I suppose they hushed it up somehow.”

Others were more realistic, and agreed that Anrel was probably right, and that particular story was at best an exaggeration.

Anrel did not consider it a mere exaggeration, but he had no interest in arguing with these people. He said no more, allowing the arguments to continue without his interference.

The entire experience amazed him. He had always assumed that the debates in the student-haunted taverns of Lume were a manifestation of the sophistication and perversity of the capital's educated elite; to
hear the people of Naith spouting the same seditious talk astonished him. While he had known that times were hard, and that some honest peasants had been driven to begging and thievery, the discontent of the empire's people obviously ran much deeper than Anrel had thought.

That was a troubling realization, and Anrel was uneasy as he drank tea and listened.

Most troubling of all, though, was the realization that Valin was the ringleader of this treasonous gathering.

At last Derhin glanced up at the position of the sun and said, “I must get back to work. The afternoon session will be starting.” He rose, then turned to Anrel. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Master Murau.”

Anrel shook his hand, and watched him go.

Several members of the crowd took note of his departure, and scattered as well. Many of them headed for the courthouse, as Derhin had.

“Fine men, all of them,” Amanir remarked.

“They are the future of the empire,” Valin said.

Somehow, Anrel thought that unlikely. However clever and impassioned these people might be, they were mere commoners in a provincial capital, and he thought it far more likely that the future of the empire would be shaped by the sorcerers of Lume.