Enchanter (Book 7) (39 page)

“But Magelord – your witchsphere?” he asked, nodding to where the thing hung over my shoulder.  “Surely you don’t want to interfere with the power you already possess.”

“Like I said, I’m just theorizing, at this point,” I promised.  “But I have far more irionite than I ever suspected existed, and a foe who has more.  If I can distract Onranion’s pecker with some challenging work in his field for a few weeks . . . well, maybe that will give those girls a chance to get married off before they become troublesome, themselves.”

Chapter Eighteen

Inspection Tour

“Really, Minalan, that was an unpleasant surprise,” Baron Arathanial said, his voice tinny and watery through the Mirror.  “I go to declare war on Sashtalia to find you’ve bought a third of it!”

“Not more than a fifth, actually,” I soothed.  “And the most wretched, ragged fifth.  My immediate neighbors,” I pointed out.  “Mountain fiefs with marginal mines, growing corn and beans and barley just to survive.  But I’ve taken about fifty to seventy lances off of the field,” I reminded him.  “Those are lands you won’t have to conquer, now.”

“But those were Lensely lands!” he fumed. 

“Not for nearly a hundred years.  Most of the lords had ancestors who were on the wrong side of the dynastic dispute, so they don’t see themselves as Lenselys.  Really, Arathanial, I’m doing you a
favor
.”

“You take away six domains from my patrimony and you’re doing me a
favor?”
he demanded.

“Look at it this way,” I reasoned.  “Suddenly Trefalan’s frontiers have shifted, and a third of his eastern army is gone.  His battle plan will have to be changed in a hurry, now.”

“Assuming he doesn’t turn his army on Sevendor!” Arathanial challenged.

“With your army but a few miles north, waiting to descend on their undefended castles?  Arathanial, what would you do in such a situation?  Honestly?” I challenged in return.

“I . . . I would fight the greater foe first,” he admitted, “then turn to face the lesser when the greater threat was abated.”

“Exactly,” I nodded, “that’s basic strategy.  Sevendor is safe as long as you want to invade Sashtalia.  And if, gods forbid, Sashtalia is victorious on the field, you are dead and your forces routed, then I will pledge myself to invade Shastalia on my own, re-conquer both it and Sendaria, and place your heir in the baronial seat.”

The old baron looked at me skeptically, then snorted.  “Damn you, Minalan!  I know you jest, but by Duin’s Axe, you’ve managed to complicate things for me!  I was going to promise those estates to my vassals as rewards for their service!”

“And limit their ambitions?” I asked.  “A man might fight hard for you, knowing he’s to win a table-sized domain in the mountains if he lives and wins the day.  A man might fight much harder imagining possibility of much greater, unknown rewards for his valor.  Trust me, Arathanial, no one will be routing the foe on the field because his bloodlust will only be satisfied by the promise of . . . .Uwaridor.”

Arathanial snorted.  “I take your point, Minalan.  I don’t mean to be discourteous, and I see why you made such a bold – and expensive – maneuver, but . . . damn it, man, could you not have let me know?”

“Negotiations were delicate,” I said, apologetically.  “And Sashtalia has spies in Sendaria.  I told few in my own lands of them.  And while it was expensive, it was still cheaper than going to war.”

“You must watch those mountain vassals, Minalan,” he warned me, with a sigh.  “You’re right, I had not been looking forward to taking the bones of the feast along with the fat.  And the mountain vassals are good fighters, when motivated.  But they are a contentious lot, always looking for an excuse to rebel.  They were the first to rise to my ancestors’ rivals’ banners, when the succession crisis took hold.”

“Then best they are allies, and not foes,” I agreed.  “How go your preparations, otherwise?” I asked. 

Asking a baron in the middle of a war of conquest about his troops is a bit like asking a veteran Tal gardener about onions.  You’re just being polite, but they take it as an invitation to expound upon their wisdom and experience.  For the next ten minutes I heard every vagary of military command Arathanial had experienced as he gathered his troops. 

Once you filtered through all of the hyperbole, he was experiencing, more or less, the same issues of discipline, supply, administration and organization as every military commander did.  He had about sixty lances gathered (about three thousand men) from his vassals, and more coming in all the time.  The thousand-strong company of mercenary archers he’d hired had arrived, and were preparing for march.  In another two weeks he’d have six thousand or more troops to lead south to Sashtalia.  A week after that, they’d depart.

Morale, at least, was high, he reported, largely thanks to my castellan.

“Sire Cei wields that hammer like a scalpel,” Arathanial assured me.  “And he’s as adept with lance and sword as any knight in my service.  He’s been crushing rocks and trees with his hammer and everyone cheers.  It isn’t hard to predict victory with such stalwarts on our side!”  That was good to hear.  Sire Cei valued his reputation as a warrior.  And it couldn’t help my good relations with Arathanial to have him as our mutual vassal.

Having repaired my relationship with Arathanial, I turned my attention back to the wonders of enchantment that my colleagues were continuing to construct.

With war in mind, Taren took a break from building his impressive spear and assisted me and a few others with building some basic warstaves.

Well, basic might be understating it.

These were tools of defense, mid-grade weirwood staves with a few dozen spells that a man defending a wall or a castle tower might find handy.  They weren’t nearly as lethal as, say, Blizzard, but in the hands of even a half-competent warmage they would work magnificently for defense.  Basic combat spells, basic deflection spells, some camouflage, some offensive magic – a lot of offensive magic – as well as some non-lethal enchantments that might come in handy the next time someone threw a riot.

We had Gareth test the prototype.  It was designed to be non-lethal, because actually killing a man in a siege isn’t nearly as effective as incapacitating him and making him a medical burden for your foes so under Taren’s advice we kept almost all of the offensive enchantments non-lethal – but really nasty.  Gareth has had some training in warmagic, but he was a thaumaturge first and foremost . . . largely because his frame and stature was just not adequate for combat.

But when he had one of our staves in hand, even without his witchstone, he was able to defend the top of our unfinished new gatehouse with one from four attackers simultaneously.  We spent four days that rainy spring honing the weapons. 

Gareth would be given a point to defend, and then we’d run a bunch of the castle squires at him with wooden swords.  Sire Cei and the other knights had been collecting them – every baronial castle had a cadre of eager young men desperately wishing to prove their valor, and it seemed like a waste not to give them the opportunity.  By the second day they weren’t so eager.  Gareth might not have been a functional warmage, but he was able to use the guard staves as adeptly as a baculus.  The squires would charge, he would use the staff, they’d fall down moaning and clutching.  Then he, Taren, me, and whomever else was wandering by would discuss refinements and then build another one. 

Our fourth iteration seemed the best for our purpose, it turned out, and it became the pattern for what became known as the Sevendor Standard Sentry Staff. When we were done, the enchantment included simple detection and augmentation spells, several enchantments for stunning, blinding, deafening, distracting, and the like, and a couple of straight-forward lethal spells for dire emergencies.

We didn’t test the lethal spells, of course.  By the fourth day of being stunned, blinded, scoured, scourged, vomiting and soiling their armor, our poor squires had had enough.  But as irritated as they were, none were so discouraged as to volunteer to test one of the lethal spells.

The Sentry Staff would have been one of the most powerful enchantments created since the Magocracy . . . five years ago.  Now it was a minor afterthought, a fulfillment of a desire for security that was necessary, but hardly pressing. 

Thanks to what I had accomplished in Sevendor, such enchantments were more toys than weapons, compared to the powerful weapons we were creating now.  Once we were done refining the enchantment I turned the prototype over to the Manufactory and ordered a hundred to distribute to various strongholds around the barony. 

That was becoming a more pressing issues, as the days after Duin’s Day came and the vales went from muddy and barren to muddy and green.  Despite the rain, field reports told of Sashtalia gathering its armed might as Sendaria did likewise. 

When Sashtali heralds trying to summon the mountain lords to their banners were turned back at the frontier by soldiers wearing the Snowflake, it wasn’t just the Lord of Rolone who was complaining. There were plenty of smallholding knights and minor vassals of Sashtalia who were going to bear the brunt of Sendaria’s violence, now that their hill lord colleagues weren’t going to be there, and they didn’t like that at all.

I was concerned, of course; but as long as Sendaria had an army in the field, I was reasonably certain Sashtalia would not violate my dictate.  Just to be certain, I had small parties of reinforcements encamp in the new domains, under my banner, to lend a visible sign of support and defense to my new vassals. 

Twice they stopped anemic frontier raids against my people, thanks to the warmagi I sent along.  But after the first few weeks of spring, the raids stopped as Sashtalia focused on the impending threat to the north.  We were an irritant, not a threat.  Sire Trefalan may not have liked what I had done, but he was not in a position to contest it.

It would be weeks, yet, before actual hostilities got underway.  Back in my mercenary days these kinds of private wars had been my bread and butter, and I had a pretty good professional opinion of how it would play out.  Both parties would gather their forces for the next few weeks, as the roads dried enough for large wains to transport the gear of war without getting mired, then another few weeks of organization and “training” – essentially drilling peasant conscripts in basic warfare while the nobility sat around and drank and compared their armor and horses.

It would be nearly summer before the first raids went forth and the columns marched.  That’s a long time to keep an army in the field – which makes these wars expensive – but Arathanial had enough resources to do it.

The lengthy preparation did give me time to take a break from enchantment and politics and conduct a much-needed traditional tour of my eastern domains.

According to Sir Festaran, my acting castellan, that was something I needed to do a lot more of, now that I was a baron.  Lords who let their vassals go without oversight risked rebellion and disloyalty, the young Riverlord lectured me politely.  The unexpected arrival of a liege lord was essentially a surprise inspection of the readiness of the keep, for hospitality or war.  An adept lord would be ready to feast or defend his liege, should he suddenly appear, and sustain the maintenance of his traveling household for at least a few weeks.

“That is, confidentially, a common means of keeping the ambitions of vassals in check,” the knight informed me at the High Table over breakfast one spring morning.  “By forcing them to expend their capital on sustaining your presence, it keeps them from accumulating wealth that can be used to extend their own ambitions – possibly in rebellion,” he offered, almost apologetically.

He didn’t have to tell me how that could happen.  I was aware of the reputations of several lords who kept relations with their vassals under control by literally eating them into poverty.  A large retinue consumed a lot of victuals, and a hosting lord was obligated by feudal oath to pay for it all.  A few weeks of such “hospitality” could impoverish a vassal out of any thoughts of rebellion.

“Do you feel any of my domains are at risk for that?”

He looked scandalized, his freckled face shocked at the idea.

“Excellency, none of your vassals would dream of it!  They all saw how you dealt with Railan the Steady and his traitors, after the Warbird’s fall.  Execution by magic without even the expediency of a headsman?  That was a powerful statement,” he assured me.  “And he was a villain.  What more spectacular death would you grant a noble in rebellion?”

I really hadn’t thought of it that way.  “If they are loyal, then, what is the purpose of the inspection?”

“To demonstrate your power, for one thing,” he pointed out.  “Knowing you have a powerful liege who has avoided tyrancy is a blessing from the gods – but more so a powerful liege who arrives bearing gifts and arms to sustain you.  Especially in a time of war, when loyalties are uncertain, such a visit adds tremendous spiritual security to your vassal.”

“I suppose it would keep them honest,” I considered.  “And it’s not like I haven’t been sitting around enchanting chamberpots and kettles all winter for nothing.  Besides, that would give me an opportunity to oversee the magical infrastructure Dranus has been building.  And distribute some of the Sentry Staves, as well as install some warmagi in strategic places,” I decided.