The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (22 page)

That class of spell was fairly obscure, being useful for a very limited number of applications.  But one of them was to interfere in the spellcasting of “deviant magi” by the Censorate.  Indeed, the Censorate was reputed to have sophisticated magical devices to accomplish just that sort of thing.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered.  Pentandra looked terrified.  Tyndal and Rondal were just confused, not really understanding what was going on.  For, despite my best efforts, the Censorate had managed to crash my wedding.

They proved the point a moment later, when two of the “servants” revealed themselves . . . one by displaying a four-foot rod topped with a sphere of thaumaturgic glass four inches wide and glowing a pale yellow, and the other by holding a dagger. 
At my bride’s throat.

“HOLD, IN THE NAME OF THE KING!” bellowed the fellow with the magic rod.  A long dagger appeared in his other hand.

“Anyone moves, and the bride is sacrificed!” assured the other, nastily.  He was a small man, dressed in a drudge’s gray tunic and wearing the simple tabard of the
Eel’s Elbow
inn.  But he moved with a dancer’s grace, and there was no mistaking the serious look in his eye as he held a nine-inch blade against Alya’s terrified throat. 

“We are sworn men of the Royal Censorate of Magic, and in the name of the King, we place these renegade magi under arrest!”

Nobody moved.  I felt in vain for some kind of magic –
any
scrap of power I could – but for naught.  Pentandra was similarly hampered, I saw, and she looked distressed.  But not nearly as distressed as my bride.  Alya’s eyes were open wide in terror.

“What is the meaning of this?” my father asked, in his loudest patriarchal voice.  “This is a wedding!”

“This is an
arrest,
” said the Censor with the rod.  I suddenly recognized him as the one I had been standing behind, up-river, when he inadvertently revealed his plans.  Apparently he hadn’t let the rumor of peasant rebellion stop him from his pursuit.  That would have been an admirable display of duty, if it hadn’t been putting the lives of my wife and unborn child at risk.  “By order of Ducal Censor Captain Rosando of the Remeran Censorate, this . . . spellmonger, his apprentices, and all those bearing proscribed items or powers are to be placed under arrest, secured, and taken back to the commandery . . . dead or alive!”

Still, no one moved.  Few of us were armed at all – I didn’t have so much as a warwand, although that would have been just a glorified stick with the annulment enchantment working.  The only ones who had weapons at all were those carving meat and the Bovali knights, who didn’t go into a garderobe without a sword.

“Just how do you plan on getting us all out of here,” I asked, after the tension became taut in the air.  “These are my family.  My
entire
family.  They’re unlikely to permit that,” I added, mildly.

“Then they can hang along with you,” sneered the man with the knife at Alya’s throat.  “Aiding a renegade mage is a capital penalty, under the King’s Law—”

“There is no king!” someone from the crowd – one of my nephews, I thought – pointed out in protest. 

“This is Castal,” my father reminded them, “not Remere.  You have no jurisdiction—”

“The Censorate has jurisdiction everywhere,” sneered the Censor with the annulment device.  “Just because the warrant was made in Remere does not limit its power there.  We know this man has somehow convinced the Censor General to betray our order – that does not mean the rest of us have forgotten our duty!”

“Still,” I continued, conversationally, my blood running cold as I saw that blade glint against my bride’s pretty throat, “getting us to Remere might prove . . . tricky.  There are two of you.  How many magi are there, here?” I asked.

The smaller man looked around.  “You, that slut,” he said, nodding toward Pentandra – who immediately got an expression in her eye that anyone with any experience with her would avoid.  “And your apprentices.  Four renegade magi with witchstones.  All under arrest,” he added, triumphantly.

Sir Olve, of all people, stood and tried to be reasonable.  The older knight looked distinguished in his Wilderlands-style surcoat and silver hair.  “Gentlemen, while I would never try to deter any man from his sworn and honorable duty, surely the middle of a wedding is not the proper place for an arrest!  These are holy rites!”

“The rites are over,” said the taller Censor, turning to face the knight.  “We waited until he was wed; now if he is cautious, he will merely make his wife a widow.  Or she can predecease him,” he added, menacingly, “if anything . . . untoward happens.”

“This is an outrage!” Sir Cei said, standing suddenly.  The big man’s mantle was thrown back.  “This is not proper, Sir!” he insisted.

The smaller censor appraised him.  “You are a belted knight, Sir?” he asked, after a moment.

Sir Cei nodded, sternly.  “I am.”

“Then I call upon you and your fellows to cooperate, aid, and assist us in this arrest, on your honor as a knight.  We have a lawfully-written and executed warrant for Minalan the Spellmonger and Associates, and I deputize you to assist us in taking them into custody.  Do you dispute the propriety of that, Sir Knight?”

Sir Cei looked troubled.  “No, Censor.  Although I have seen no warrant.  Produce it, and I will study the matter.  For all I know, you are two ruffians intent on robbing the bridegroom and bride.”

The smaller Censor looked irritated, but withdrew a tightly-bound scroll from behind his belt and tossed it on the table, next to Alya’s new silver plate.  “Can you read, Sir Knight?”

Sir Cei nodded.  “I have my letters.”

“Then read the warrant, and if it is in order to your satisfaction, then I call upon you to fulfill your oath to uphold the laws of the King.”

Sir Cei still looked troubled, but giving meaningful looks to Sir Roncil and Sir Olve, he walked stiffly over to the table where Alya was shaking in fear.  He looked at the Censor carefully, then slowly unfurled the scroll on the table, using the new silver cup to hold it open.

It took him a while to read the scribbled warrant, and he moved his lips when he read.  The Censor was growing more and more impatient.  When Sir Cei finally got to the end, asked how to pronounce the Ducal Censor of Remere’s name, and inquired about the nature of the heraldry on the seal, the man’s impatience was palpable.

“So, Sir Knight, what is your verdict?” he asked, sarcastically.

“It does, indeed, appear to be in order,” Sir Cei conceded, regretfully.  “It is properly signed, properly worded, and properly sealed.  There is just one small technicality,” he said, pointing to the parchment.

The Censor’s eyes crinkled.  “Where?”

“Here,” Sir Cei said – and without reaching for a weapon he punched his big hairy fist so hard into the Censor’s face that it knocked the man off of his feet – and the knife that had been so menacing clattered to the ground.

Before the other Censor could react, Sir Roncil’s sword was drawn and laying on his neck.

“Tend to your wisdom,” he muttered sinisterly to the remaining Censor, while his fellow struggled with a broken, bloodied nose.  “I need no magic to slay you.”

I was gratified to see Sir Olve was likewise undeterred by talk of law or duty.  He deftly took the knife out of the Censor’s hand, then took the rod from the other, before unceremoniously smashing the thaumaturgic glass against the side of the trestle table with a sneer of disgust on his face.  Almost instantly I felt the power of the witchsphere surge back into my mind.

I didn’t waste any time myself – nor did my colleagues or family.  Both men were quickly grabbed, both magically and by the crowd, and brought before me.  Tyndal and Rondal searched them at my direction and removed other enchanted items, their purses, and their credentials. 

“Now,” I said, when things had once-again come to order, “we have a few things to discuss, gentlemen.”  I took out the Witchsphere, which was gaining potency again by the moment, and their eyes bulged in wonder and terror.  “I suppose you could say I’ve got bigger balls than you – at least one of them – so I’m not going to slay you out of hand.  But you did threaten my pregnant wife with death on her wedding day.  You upset my guests, in violation of the sacred laws of hospitality, and you violated the edict of His Grace, Rard II of Castal.”

“That matters not!” the larger Censor said, angrily, his arms held behind him tightly by Tyndal’s spell.  “The laws of the King supersede the laws of the Duke, and—”

“The laws of the gods supersede either Duke or King,” the bridesister pointed out angrily.  “To violate them so flagrantly, on such a holy occasion, is to invite calamity!”

“I think they have a gracious plenty of calamity due them,” Pentandra said, her voice icy.  She had her own witchstone out, a smooth torus-shaped disk of the green amber that had some unique capabilities.  It doesn’t pay to insult that woman.

“You have no right to deter us in our lawful—” the taller man began to demand angrily, when Sagal punched him almost as hard as Sir Cei had his partner. 

“That man saved my entire family – my entire people,” he said angrily to the Censor’s bloodied face.  “He risked his life to do it, when no one else would.  You dare raise a hand to him again, and I won’t care if I hang for it, I’ll rip out our entrails from the spot you used to keep your balls!”  Sagal is a big man – not as big as Cei, but he had a cowhand’s build.  He could be almost as intimidating as a knight in armor, when he was angry.

“When word of this betrayal reaches the command
ery,” began the other man, the font of blood from his nose starting to abate, “this whole village will be burned to the ground!”

“I don’t think Baron Lithar would like that,” I pointed out.  “Nor would these good folk, whose celebration you’ve tried to ruin.  But you’re right, if word of this does get back to the command
ery . . .”

“Oh,
that
won’t be a problem,” Pentandra said, coolly.

“I cannot allow a murder at a wedding!”  the bridesister insisted.

“I would never dream of offending the gods like that,” Penny agreed.  “That would make me as improper as these scum.  But I have an idea . . . if you gentlemen will escort them behind that big red breast-shaped thing over there,” she said, indicating one of my dad’s two great ovens, “I think I can find a satisfactory solution.”

So, kicking and shouting (until Rondal silenced them magically), Sagal and some other volunteers dragged the two Censors away, while my father and mother watched, grimly determined.

“Son, I don’t want to interfere in what you and your friends need to do, but . . .”

“Don’t worry,” I assured him, “Pentandra won’t let anything happen that could come back to harm you.”

“I trust you,” he said, after a moment’s consideration.  “But perhaps you should go soothe your bride – she’s still trembling.  You’re her husband, now.  Her trembling is your problem now.”

I realized he was right, and I went to try to comfort her.  Her husband.  I was her husband, now. 

Twenty minutes later we were all still murmuring about the events, and once Ela, Alya’s sister, had escorted her to the privy, someone put a glass of spirits in my hand and I drank them without notice.  I realized it was Sir Cei.

“I owe you a debt,” I said, when I had regained my composure.

“I’ve watched that girl since she was a child of twelve,” he said, slowly, as he watched my wife waddle off.  “I’ve seen so many of her folk suffer and die, and today, for the first time in a year, I saw her happy.  And then that churl held a knife to her throat.”

I nodded, but couldn’t help but ask.  “But wasn’t the legal and proper thing to do cooperating with the Censors?”

“It may have been the legal thing to do,” he conceded, “but it was far from proper.  I would not have a brother knight’s nuptials defiled,” he stated authoritatively.  “It was an unworthy and un-chivalrous tactic, attacking a man at his own wedding.  And holding a pregnant woman hostage is . . .
cowardly
,” he said, his lip curling into a sneer.

“I still owe you a debt,” I pointed out.  “How would you like to be my new Castellan?”

That really took the knight by surprise.  “Excuse me?”

“I just took title to a domain, a reward for my service to the Coronet,” I explained.  “It was part of the ennoblement.  I got to choose my own fief.  So I did – only it’s not going to be easy.  The land is marginal, the place is depopulated, and there hasn’t been a resident lord there in at least two generations.  I have it on the highest authority,” I said, remembering my conversations with Lady Arnet, “that the ability of a noble to hold his lands properly is often dependent on his choice of Castellan.”

“Surely, Sir Minalan, there are other men you trust better,” he said, after pausing.  “I am not certain I am the best choice for you.”  I could tell he was being diplomatic.  Sir Cei and I had rarely gotten along, back when he was working for Sire Koucey, and was in charge of imprisoning Pentandra, among other things.

“Why, do you have another engagement?”  I asked.

“Well, no,” he admitted.  “But I . . . well, there is the matter of the Bovali folk, still encamped in the south.  I was considering joining one of the Free Companies, once they are settled, or perhaps taking service somewhere in the Riverlands or northern Wilderlands.”