Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) (14 page)

The situation was fluid.  Vorone was a Ducal city, technically, but unlike Roen, Falas, Castabriel, or even Wilderhall it had little purpose other than entertaining nobles and providing the ducal family with relief from the south’s heat and bad weather.  Vorone was the summer capital of the Duchy of Alshar, but it had lain dormant in function since the assassination of Duchess Enora here, just days after her husband had died of wounds sustained at the Battle of Timberwatch, four years earlier. 

That had been an important battle.  Pentandra had been there.  Two dukes had joined their armies together to fight the common foe, and had stopped – mostly - the gurvani invasion from the Mindens from entering the populous Riverlands.  A victory.

That Lenguin, the Duke of Alshar, had some assistance in claiming his final reward from Duin in the afterlife for his puissance was not widely known.  In fact, it was a closely-held secret of the Arcane Orders that Duchess Grendine of Castal (now
Queen
Grendine I) had ordered her magical assassin, Isily of Bronwyn, to give the indecisive Duke Lenguin a push into the afterlife.

It was also strongly suspected that the Queen’s agents were likely behind the subsequent assassination of Duchess Enora, but there was no definite proof – nor did the Orders want to upset the new regime with accusations.  The Duke of Castal had used the resulting power vacuum in Alshar and the subsequent possession of the heir to elevate himself to kingship.  He’d used his military position to take wardenship of Duke Lenguin’s minor heirs, especially the only son, Anguin, and forced him to support the new Kingdom of Castalshar.

Not everyone had been eager to see the union of Remere, Castal, and Alshar under one crown.  There was a historical distrust of the realm from both of the other duchies, as was to be expected after centuries of intermittent feudal warfare.  Remere was willing to be bribed.  But the anti-Castali parties in Alshar had largely fled south to the rich coastal valleys and vibrant seaports where a coven of rebels denied King Rard his position . . . and taken control of the wealthiest portion of the Duchy and the deadly Alshari Navy in the process.

What was left under royal control (and therefore under Duke Anguin’s control, as the king’s sworn vassal) was a slice of land between the nearly-impassable Land of Scars to the south and the unremitting danger of the Penumbra in the north.  Hardly a third of the original duchy remained.  But that fragment was enough for King Rard and Queen Grendine to have enough of a pretext to build a throne upon.  They had the Orphan Duke, they had the Duke of Remere, and they had the Duchy of Castal.  Whether or not they could build an actual functioning kingdom was another matter.

It was a deft piece of political maneuvering, Pentandra had to admit – it had all the style of the traditional Remeran politics she’d grown up with.  But the fact that she and her profession had directly benefitted from the double assassination left a bad taste in her mouth. 

The Orphan Duke was an orphan because his indecisive father and idiot mother had gotten in the way of his vicious aunt’s ambitions.  To that end Rard and Grendine had supported the banishment of the Censorate of Magic and appointed Minalan the Spellmonger and his cronies to oversee matters arcane in the new kingdom of Castalshar. 

Both she and Minalan felt an obligation to the boy to try to make up for that.  That was part of the reason she was here.

But Pentandra was also here to represent the substantial interests of the Order and her profession in the Alshari Wilderlands, she knew.  She’d taken the post partly as a way to safeguard the political truce that the Magi and the nobility had come to in the last few years, a truce that had greatly liberalized the practice of magic – including allowing magi to hold lands and titles. 

But she and Minalan had agreed that depending on one political alliance for the Order’s survival was foolhardy.  Rebuilding the Duchy of Alshar – what was left of it – and restoring the Orphan Duke to power here in fact, and not just in name, was her
actual
mission.

That would require magic.  And luck.  And the help of the gods.

Despite his title, the actual holdings the Duke would have left under his control were pitiful, war-torn, and fractured.  Nothing had been the same in the Alshari Wilderlands since the goblin invasion.  Much of the nobility had been wiped out when the Wilderlords, the knights and landed gentry of the region, had taken up arms to try to drive the gurvani back to the mountains. 

They had largely failed, leaving their people leaderless and without protection – and those were the lucky ones.  Much of the Wilderlands population had been slain or enslaved or both.  The already loose social and cultural institutions of the feudal system that bound together the far-flung settlements of this robust and undeveloped land had been ripped away by the invasion.  What was left was struggling just to survive the aftermath.

There was Tudry, in the north – once a rustic walled town depending on mining and forestry for its survival, Tudry was now an army town on the edge of the Penumbra, ruled by her friend Astyral, a Gilmoran magelord of some repute.  A few independent lords had managed to hang on to their holdings, and there were even a few barony-sized institutions in places.  And there were a few smaller but fully functioning baronial towns south of here, in the last bit of the Alshari Riverlands not taken over by Castal.  But Vorone was the last actual city of any size in the Wilderlands worth ruling.  Its relatively central location, large population, and traditional seat as a ducal city made it the natural site of the restoration.

And it was
a bloody mess
.

The summer capital was poorly situated for defense, and the flood of refugees from the Penumbralands swelled its population far beyond its meager capacities.  There was a ring of camps around the town, now, where nobles once hunted, hawked, and fished.  After four years the common folk within the camps had built them into near-suburbs of the town.  They survived on alms, a meager relief from the new Crown, day labor at the few honest manors in the area, and whatever else they could find to keep from starving.  That mostly meant the most unsavory of economies. 

There was a garrison here established by King Rard, but it was poorly maintained, shoddily equipped and abysmally led, by all accounts.  The soldiers were suitable for little more than quelling the frequent food riots and protecting the palace.  King Rard had installed a local pro-Castali baron, Edmarin, as Steward of the Realm in Vorone.  He was ostensibly in charge of both the summer capital and the lands beyond, but his actual power was as weak as his ambition to do more than collect his own royal stipend and live like a Duke.

But without a Duke in that palace, there wasn’t really any
real
reason for the town to exist at all. 

The snow-covered shops and homes that surrounded them on this sacred first night of winter had no reason to exist without the government institutions in the palace and the nobility visiting it in Vorone.  Without a Duke, the town was irrelevant, an abandoned capital without purpose. 

But without a capital and at least a fragment of his legacy to stand upon, Anguin was a Duke in name only.  The Orphan Duke and Vorone
needed
each other, Pentandra knew . . . they just didn’t realize it yet.

It was her job to help push the young man into power, and then help him keep it – and then help him make something worthwhile with that power.   Pentandra had to admit she found the prospect challenging.  And frightening.  And exciting.  She found the challenge was a welcome distraction from the growing anxiety she felt over her new marriage. 

Every step her horse took toward the palace was a step toward settling down into a permanent household with Arborn . . . and despite all of her education, training, and mastery of obscure arcane subjects, that was a lore that eluded her.

Luckily, they reached the gates of the palace before she completely lost her mind dwelling on that fact.

The main gate to the palace looked formidable, but Pentandra could tell that, while stout, the impressive portal was more decorative than functional.  Two burly-looking guards bundled up against the cold stopped leaning on their spears long enough to challenge the vanguard of the party.  When twenty men behind the duke drew steel, and several others drew bows or arbalests, they dropped their weapons and opened the gate to the palace.  No alarm was raised.

“That was a lot easier than I expected,” Arborn murmured to her, as he helped her down from her saddle in the courtyard in front of the beautiful palace, a moment later. 

“So far,” she agreed, allowing her husband to catch her as the knights in the vanguard dismounted around her.  She lingered a moment to appreciate his strong arms before she felt the toes of her riding boots touch the snowy cobbles.  “But then that’s the point of the element of surprise, isn’t it?”

“I think we’ve accomplished that,” he murmured, nodding to the great door of the palace, which was already thrown open by the Duke’s men.  No one rushed to meet the intruders.  A single old man roused himself from the outer hall.  He proved to be the steward on watch.  The night steward started to complain about the interruption until he saw the visitors. 

The old man recognized young Duke Anguin at once, and fell to his knees in front of his liege. 

Anguin seemed gratified by the recognition, and bid the man to rise.  He assured the old servant that he was, indeed, returned to Vorone to set things right.  That pleased the steward who praised the gods until he had tears in his eyes.

After that, the securing of the palace was simple.  The night steward supplied the keys and led the Duke’s knights to the strategically important posts around the palace.  The guard rooms, the armory, the main entrances between wards of the palace were all manned by sober, clear-eyed Alshari knights bearing the ducal badge on their baldrics . . . and naked swords in their hands.  Count Salgo directed them, and they moved quickly and quietly.

“Where shall you sleep this evening, Your Grace?” asked Count Angrial, as more men filed into the entrance hall.

“Sleep?  Luin’s staff, Angrial, I’ve just come home!” complained the young nobleman with a snort.  “I cannot think of sleep!”

“My lord,” the minister said, reprovingly, “you did ride more than ten hours today!  In the cold!  You must be exhausted!”

“I feel more awake and alive than I have in years, Angrial,” assured Anguin.  “Indeed, it is close to midnight.  I feel like a brief court session,” he announced.

“Sire?” Angrial asked, dully.  It was clear to Pentandra that the old man was far more tired than his liege.

“I want to address the man who has let my home fall into such disrepair,” Anguin decided.  “As my very first act as sovereign duke. I want to meet Baron Edmarin, the vassal appointed to safeguard my realm in my absence,” he said, his voice grave.  He studied a threadbare tapestry that Pentandra would have been ashamed for the servants to display back at her quaint little estate of Fairoaks.  It was a hunting scene depicting wild dogs surrounding a wounded stag, a hunter – no doubt some illustrious ancestor – being forced to defend a kill he had yet to make. 

Pentandra didn’t have to wonder what the boy thought of the image.  Especially when a wood roach the size of his thumb raced across the scene.  It looked like a good time for a distraction.

“Where would you like to hold your audience, Your Grace?” Pentandra asked, emphasizing the title.  Anguin looked as angry as she’d ever seen him about the disrepair around him.

“The Stone Hall,” he repeated.  “The throne room my father favored.”

“The Stone Hall, Your Grace?” Count Angrial asked, curious. “That was used more for summer occasions, due to the placement of the windows.  Would not the Rose Hall be better suited?”

“I am not partial to roses,” Anguin said, sternly.  Pentandra controlled a self-conscious grin.  The yellow rose was the personal badge of Queen Grendine, Anguin’s aunt and the woman he – rightly – suspected of ordering his parents’ assassinations.  “I will see Baron Edmarin in the Stone Hall.  Make it as ready as it needs to be.  I will sit in court first there, I think, and ask this man what he has done here in my absence.”

Pentandra didn’t like the way the Duke’s dark eyes looked, when he turned his gaze back to his court. 

The night steward cleared his throat with practiced volume. 

“My liege, might I remind you that it is the eve of Yule, and that the baron has retired after sinking deep in his cups?  The feast tonight was no rival to those in your father’s day, but His Excellency made the most of the limited resources at his disposal to properly honor the holiday.”

“I really don’t care if he’s vomiting drunk and up to the balls in the backside of his valet, have him awakened and brought to the Stone Hall,” he ordered, flatly. 

“The Stone Hall has not been opened since your mother’s funeral, Your Grace,” the steward said, apologetically.  “No real reason to.  It’s a frightful mess, I’m afraid, not fit for a proper duke.”

“It will do,” Anguin insisted. “Make sure it is ready. Lay a fire, too – it’s cold as goblin balls in here.”  Two of the palace servants scurried off to prepare the hall, one of the monks in the duke’s party following to see it done.    “Your name?” he asked the steward.

“Pram
, Sire,” the man said, surprised.  “Like the god of distillation.”