The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (23 page)

“Why look for a job when there’s one right here?” I asked.  “Look, despite our differences I know you are an outstanding Castellan.  Boval Vale was among the best-run domains I’ve ever seen, and I know that wasn’t because of Sire Koucey’s witty rhetoric.  You don’t go out of your way to be liked, but you don’t cheat.  People know what they get with you.  And you know how to get things done.”

“Aye,” he conceded.  “But then that would involve abandoning the Bovali to the whims of fate,” he concluded.  “Right now they are encamped and living on the charity of the Duchy, such as it is.  Some families are drifting away to find work, but most are just . . . waiting.  It would be ignoble of me to abandon them now.”

“That’s the other thing,” I nodded.  I got to my feet, took another swig of spirits for courage, then climbed on to the rickety trestle table to address the crowd.

“Thank you all for coming!” I announced.  “I want to thank you all for your patience while we got this unpleasantness sorted out,” I began, “and I want to thank you all for your kindhearted and generous gifts.  You have truly made this day memorable . . . for a lot of reasons.”  That brought some laughter and a few nervous cheers.

“But while we celebrate, my wife’s people sit in a draughty old Ducal castle in the Coastlands, surrounded by strangers and with no land or purpose.  Today, in gratitude of what these gallant knights did by breaking with thoughtless tradition and displaying their chivalrous natures, I want to invite the Bovali –
all
of the Bovali – to join me in my new domain.”  There was a gasp and sudden surge of chatter, particularly among the Bovali delegation.  And, I was moved to note, not a few tears.

“It won’t be easy,” I continued.  “It won’t be . . . inexpensive,” I sighed.  I dug out my recent gift.  “But I am going to give this draft on the Ducal treasury to Sir Cei, who has agreed to join me as my new Castellan, for the purpose of transporting everyone upriver to our new home.  Everyone.  A thousand ounces of gold should be enough to pay the passage and feed every refugee,” I explained.  “And once they arrive, together we will rebuild our lives in safer, if less-familiar, surroundings.  Now everyone drink to the health of my wife!” I said, as the liquor started affecting me.

There were more cheers at that, and when I got down from the table I ceremoniously handed Sir Cei the valuable slip of parchment.

“But Sir Minalan,” he protested.  “I have not given you my answer!”

“So think about it,” I coaxed.  “But you’d have your old post back.  Probably more pay, too.  You are already familiar with the Bovali, they trust you, even if they aren’t thrilled with your personality some times.”

“I . . . I will consider it, Sir Minalan,” he agreed, his thoughts swirling.
  Pentandra came back a few moments after that, looking very pleased with herself.  The two Censors were now following her around docilely, not a trace of defiance (or even much intelligence) evident on their faces.

“What did you do to them?” I asked, my heart leaping in my chest.  “You didn’t . . . ?” I began, about to ask if she had permanently burned out their brains, or at least the parts that control magic.

“No, no,” she chuckled.  “They’ll snap out of it . . . eventually.  I didn’t burn out their brains.  Or even destroy their capacity to manifest Talent.  I just . . . messed with their minds a bit.  They don’t remember who they are, now.  Just a harmless little Blue Magic spell, Yrentria’s Enchantment of Forgetfulness.”

“I’m not familiar with that one,” I admitted, taking another drink.

“It’s an old family recipe,” she dismissed, casually . . . her code words for
‘secret spell hidden in the Order of the Secret Tower’s private library of clandestine magic’
.  “I have only used it a few times, but it works.  For at least the next three weeks these gentlemen will only answer to the names of ‘Pud’ and ‘Dud’; further, they won’t be able to speak more than the simplest phrases, they will be put into service aboard my new barge, and when I return downriver to a certain . . . disreputable merchant I know, they will soon be learning new tricks for the sailors, when the fleets come into port.  By the time their proper memories return, there’s no telling what condition they’ll be in.” 

I made a mental note
never
to seriously piss off Penny. 

Sir Cei continued to be astonished by my offer.  “Sir Minalan, I feel honored at the invitation and the trust you have bestowed in me . . . but to then hand me a fortune and trust me to carry out your assignment?  Surely no man is that trustful of another,” he said, cradling the draught like it was made of spider
webs.  “This is a thousand ounces of gold.  You could buy a comfortable estate with this. Yet you trust me to take it and not mis-use it?”

“More than anyone but my wife,” I agreed, as Alya and her sister returned from the privy.  “Perhaps more – you don’t seem the type to spend it on pretty dresses.  Have a drink.  Relax.  If it makes you feel better, I’m sending both of my apprentices to help.  I figure if we break them down into small groups, we can bring them up in convoys, keep them all together, those who wish to come.  But you only have a week or so to prepare – just long enough for my honeymoon.  Then I want you, Sagal, and an advanced party that you pick to re-join me here.  From there we’ll head for the Bontal Riverlands, where my new fief is.”

“Sir Minalan, this is generosity beyond all bounds,” he said, solemnly.  “I not only take the position, I swear I shall serve you as faithfully as I did Sire Koucey.”

“If I had any doubt about that, I wouldn’t have asked you,” I assured him.  “We might butt heads from time to time, but I have a hell of a lot of respect for you, Sir Cei.  And I’m going to need that hard head, when it comes to whipping my new domain into shape.”

We were interrupted when Alya –sorry,
Lady
Alya – finally made it back to my table.  Apparently the gossip about my announcement had reached her before she had reached me.  She nearly leapt at me, weeping, when she finally found me.

“Is it true?” she asked.  “Did you really just invite . . . well, pretty much everyone I know to come and settle your new domain?”

“
Our
new domain,” I corrected.  “And yes, yes I did.  We’re going to need the help, they need the work and the home, and maybe together we can show the world what magic in the service of the people can do for a land.  I don’t think—”

I wasn’t able to continue explaining, because Lady Alya’s kisses were keeping me nearly from breathing, much less from speaking.  She looked so grateful and so beautiful that the rest of the world just kind of stopped for a while.

“So,” she said, when she finally broke the kiss.  “If I’m Lady Alya, now, shouldn’t I be Lady Alya of . . . . somewhere?”

“
Sevendor
,” I supplied.  “The name of our new home is Sevendor.  It’s a small domain in the northeast, up the Bontal and to the right.  Near the Remeran border, in the northern foothills of the Uwarri range.”

“I have no idea where that is,” she confessed.  “It sounds
wonderful!
”

“It will be,” I sighed, “now that you’re going to be there.”

“
We’re
going to be there,” she corrected me, kissing me again while she put her hand on her big belly.  “All of us.  Our whole family.”

“Sir Cei,” I said, “as your first official act as my Castellan, could you persuade the musicians to play ‘A Heart Made For Glory’ please?  I feel like dancing badly with my bride.”

“Do you not mean ‘I badly feel like dancing with my wife’?” Sir Cei asked.

Pentandra snorted.  “Have you
seen
him dance?  He chose his words wisely.”

“My pleasure, Sir Minalan,” the knight said, a smug look on his face as he started to rise.  Then he stopped.  “Pardon.  I mean, ‘My pleasure,
Magelord.
’”

Lady Alya grinned.  “You know, I like the sound of that!” and kissed me more.

You know, I kind of did, too.

“The Wizard of Birchroot Bridge”

A Spellmonger Short Story

By Terry Mancour

Copyright © Terry Mancour 2013

The wagon rumbled down the dirt track that passed for a road with far more noise than it should have – the wooden axel was complaining bitterly with every revolution of the great wooden wheels, far more than even the team of horses that pulled the load did.  They had been at this for three days, now, and they were resigned to their fate, knowing that at the end of the day they could rest.  The axel, Rondal considered thoughtfully, lacked the capacity for such consideration.  He wished there was a spell to give it one – and then realized he could silence the squeal from his ears, even if he could not impart consciousness to the thing. 

He closed his eyes, drew power from his stone, visualized the axel and wheels, formed the appropriate symbols in his mind, added his intent and backed it with his will, and released . . . and the noise stopped.

Joppo looked at him, astonished, from the seat next to him on the wagon, when the tortured whine had stopped.

“Why in three hells did you wait three days to do that?  Milord?” the wide-faced peasant added, belatedly.

Rondal sighed.  “Because I’m an
idiot,
okay?” he pleaded.  “Just because I have incredible power doesn’t always mean I’ve got the wit to use it.”

Joppo looked at the boy, not yet seventeen, with an expression that said he wasn’t sure if the young knight mage
was teasing him or being serious.  “Aye, milord,” he said, quietly, and turned his attention back to the road.  There was still a few miles to go before they got to their destination, broken bridge.

Joppo wasn’t the best traveling companion, but then he wasn’t the worst.  He had spent the first day getting to know his temporary master, and telling him all about his life in the village of Gurisham.  As such a life is hardly complicated, Joppo ran out of things to say before lunch.  Rondal had responded in kind, in his way, but as he had but seventeen years to Joppo’s thirty-five, his conversation was similarly limited, and the two men had little to say to each other when they had pulled into the manor house in Ferrendor and paid three silver pennies for the privilege of parking their wain and resting their team for the night.  It cost another two for supper, but as the reve who ran the place was away at another estate, the servants were generous with the portions.

The second day had passed in relative silence.  Rondal had little interest in either Joppo’s sexual conquests, which were exaggerated tremendously, nor was Joppo at all interested in magic, though he was now a villein in a mageland.  Instead Rondal spent the time running through drills and practicing glyphs with his witchstone, or reading one of the two books his master had bid him read on his journey, or just sat there and watched the world go by him, staring at two horses asses and sitting beside a third, one noisy revolution of the wheel at a time.

It wasn’t Joppo’s fault.   He had been assigned to the fortress complex at the Diketower in Sevendor as a carter, charged with taking the team and wain wherever he was ordered.  A simple job for a simple man. 

But since it was high summer, not yet haying season and long passed plowing season, there was little for him to do.  So when Master Minalan had charged Rondal with repairing the stone bridge in a distant fief as part of some elaborate deal he’d concocted, he’d accepted the portly peasant as part of the mission.  At least it wasn’t Tyndal, his master’s younger, but technically senior apprentice.  Rondal had a hard time with the boy’s brash behavior, rude commentary, and generally un-magelike demeanor. 

Rondal was dedicated to magic as a profession, and sought to master it.  Tyndal was dedicated to Tyndal as a profession, and sought to master the world with his magic.  The arrogance of the younger apprentice irritated Rondal to no end, and he saw the opportunity to escape from Sevendor – and Tyndal – for a week or so, he gladly accepted Joppo as a substitute irritant.  Even with the squeaky wheel, he felt he’d gotten a bargain.

The wain was packed with tools, wooden beams for support, and three hundred pounds of stone – including six fist-size rocks of snowstone.  If he was going to be tasked with magically fixing an old, broken stone bridge, he was going to do it right.  He had a special affinity for working with stone, and he’d gotten plenty of practice with it in the last six months.  At this point it only took him moments to fuse to pieces together as if they were one, and less than that to break one apart.  He liked working with stone. 

“Toll ahead, milord,” Joppo said, nudging the boy gently with his elbow.  “Ah, at least I think it is.”

This stretch of road heading toward the broken bridge was in a remote part of the Barony of Sendaria, and as the bridge led nowhere at the moment, there was little reason that he could see for there to be a toll.  But there was, indeed, a figure in a distance, standing next to the road, leaning on a staff, waiting for their approach.  Rondal used his magesight to magnify the vision, and saw that the man was clearly common, and likely a villein from the rough homespun tunic and leggings he wore.  He had a threadbare cotton mantle thrown back over his shoulders, he wore no shoes or boots, and he had not made the acquaintance of a barber in years: his beard and hair were shaggy and unkempt.

That disturbed Rondal.  Even the lowliest villein who held a post taking tolls along the road made enough for better clothes than this, and no self-respecting peasant on such an important duty would so poorly represent his master with such shabbiness, at least not in a well-run domain. 

And then there was his posture.  The man did not have the characteristic servile stoop of most peasants.  He stood there with his shoulders thrown back, both hands on his staff, a determined look in his eye.  A little more close inspection with magesight allowed him to see the sword concealed behind his leg, under his mantle.  Rondal’s heart raced.

“I don’t believe that’s a tollman, Joppo,” he said, quietly.  “I think he’s a
highwayman.”

“A bandit, milord?”  Joppo asked, his eyes suddenly wide with fear.  “I don’t want no part o’ that!”

“I’ll handle it,” Rondal soothed.  Master Minalan had made certain he’d taken his mageblade with him for just this sort of occasion.  It was stowed just behind his back, the plain, unadorned hilt near to his left buttock, out of sight.  The blade was only thirty-two inches long, but it was sturdy and serviceable and he had used it before.  He was hoping he wouldn’t have to now, but he had to be prepared to.

Joppo reigned in the team when the man’s staff fell across the road, symbolically denying them passage.  When the wagon halted, the scruffy-looking man approached them casually and confidently.

“What can I do for you, Goodman?” Rondal asked, calmly.  He had a dozen spells hung and ready to cast at the whisper of a mnemonic, and plenty of others he could call upon at need. 

“I wish to offer you travelers an opportunity,” the man said, his speech indicating at least a bit of education and intelligence. 

“And what would that be?” Rondal asked carefully.

“I’d like to sell you and your father security, young master,” the man said, reasonably enough.  “There are tales that bandits haunt these regions, and I would hate to see such a lovely family such as yours troubled by such rumors.”

“I find myself strangely untroubled,” Rondal replied.  He had to admit, it was the most polite demand for money he’d ever heard.  “But should I consider it, how much would such security cost?  And in what could we expect for our money?” 

“Why, a pittance, to two such worldly travelers such as yourself,” he said, smiling.  “And as for what your money purchases, that would be the peace of mind of knowing that such a vigilant watchman as myself will be on guard to protect you from all manner of trouble.”  It was clear from his manner that he would be the only real trouble around to be protected from.

“One might consider such an offer an attempt at extortion . . . or outright robbery,” Rondal observed.

“Only one with the basest of suspicions at heart,” the highwayman countered. 

“And what if we do not pay for this security?” Rondal asked.

The raggedy man shook his head sadly.  “Then I cannot guarantee your safety and security, masters.”

Rondal considered.  He decided he needed more information.  “You do not speak like a peasant,” he noted.

“Ah, the young master has an educated ear!  No, I have been many things, in my life, but I have yet to till the land or bring in a crop.  My talents are better suited to the persuasive arts.  Indeed, I have been a jongleur, in the past, or at least apprenticed to the trade.  As the young master can see, I am currently fallen in my estate by fortune’s hand,” he said, spreading his arms expressively.  “Circumstance forced me to pick up the swordsman’s trade, and as I find engagements as a jongleur difficult to come by without an instrument . . . or proper attire . . . I must earn my bread the best way I can.”

“This seems an odd place to set up business as a . . . provider of security,” Rondal pointed out. “The road is rarely traveled,” he said, gesturing to the volume of weeds along the track.

“And as such,” the man countered, amiably, “the few who do can usually afford my services, for I ask but a little.”

“And just how far does this protection extend?” Rondal asked, liking the bandit in spite of the attempt at robbery.

“Why, all the way to the frontier of the domain,” the man said, persuasively.  “If you encounter any difficulties, I can assure you that Baston the Brave will be at your side, defending your life and property.”

“With that?” Joppo asked, gesturing to the staff in his hand.  “That’s no proper cudgel!” he guffawed.

“Ah, this is but a property,” the bandit – Baston, apparently – demurred.  “I use it to get attention.  If I am pressed,” he said, pushing back his mantle and showing the rusty hilt of his sword, “I have more serious arguments at hand.”

“And your debating skills?” Rondal asked.

“I fare tolerably well,” Baston said.  “Shall I show you the scars?  Some are older, gained in Farise, while others are more recent – but none, as you can see, were fatal.  I am well-versed in all manner of argument.” 

Rondal chuckled.  “But you’ve yet to name a price, Baston,” he pointed out.  “What fee would allow us to rest the night unmolested?”

“I like to tailor the fee to the client,” he said, smoothly.  “I never ask for more than a man can pay.  For a nice family like yours . . . sixpence, and I’ll ensure your security for a week.”

“What if we aren’t staying that long?”

“Then next time you pass,” he said, “remind me, and I shall credit your account.”

Six copper pennies was not much – about two days’ labor for a villein, or a day and a half for a free man.  Rondal had considerably more in his pouch.  As he weighed the prospect of dueling this man – who, despite his speech and appearance carried himself like a real swordsman – against just paying the fee, which was more than reasonable for not being bothered further.  Rondal decided.  He took out a single silver penny, worth twice as much as the fee, and flipped it to the man.

“We’re staying at least two weeks,” he said, calmly.  “To work on the bridge.  I will hold you to your word, Baston: we are not to be disturbed.  Do we have an agreement?”

Baston was looking at the tiny silver coin with delight.  “My word to Herus!  My masters, Baston is ever at your service!  By all means, pass, and may Herus bless your journey!”  The blessing carried a double meaning.  Herus was the god of travelers – and thieves.  Rondal smiled and nudged Joppo to continue, and the wagon rumbled – far more quietly – down the road.

“Why did you not just strike him with a lightning bolt or turn him into a goat or somethin’, milord?” Joppo asked, curious. 

“Because the Magelord did not send us here to fight bandits, Joppo.  He sent us here to fix a bridge.  Besides, that was the most polite hold-up I’ve ever heard of.”  He turned around just long enough to see the enterprising bandit wave, and then walk back into the forest behind him.  “Besides,” Rondal reasoned, “I was given a budget for this project, and I’ve barely spent any.  If two weeks of not being harassed by a bandit can be billed to the Magelord, I see it as a bargain.  And he did offer us a blessing.”

“Aye, it’s always a pleasure, spendin’ other people’s money,” the peasant said, philosophically.

They came to the broken bridge that afternoon, not long after being so pleasantly robbed.  Rondal could see at once that he had his work cut out for him.

The bridge had been built a century before, by utterly mundane means.  The river here was deep, but the steep banks closed within twenty feet of each other – close enough to support a span, if it was well-anchored and decently constructed.  That had been the original design.

But age, decay, and malice had taken its toll on the bridge, and now it was reduced to two rocky stumps on either side of the river.  The remains of the stonework had fallen into the river, enough to provide a bit of a dam that backed up and slowed down the water.  But the debris was almost twenty feet below, and would not be easy to get to.

“Let’s go ahead and set up camp for the night,” Rondal said, as he stood from his examination.  “I’ll want to study the matter a bit, before supper and then we can begin in the morning in earnest.”