Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) (42 page)

In the days before the holiday there was little break in the peace apart from the usual tavern brawls and civil disagreements, save for the bloody nocturnal struggle in the margins of the Market ward.  The weather remained warm, teasing the distant spring, and people began to look beyond merely surviving the winter and toward the warm, fertile days ahead.  Thankfully, as the snows melted and the rivers rose, most of the poor in Vorone were too busy taking stock and thanking the gods they had made it halfway through another winter to notice the dour mercenaries were gone.  Those who didn’t buried their dead.

But there were also those in the town who were very carefully watching what happened once the Orphans were gone.  The Rat Crew was certainly paying attention – their criminal activity had virtually ceased in the few days before their withdrawal.  While that was a blessing for the common folk, it did slow down the Woodsmen’s continuing operations against the syndicate.  It also indicated that the Rats were preparing something nasty.  Pentandra wasn’t fooled by the relative peace, nor was Sir Vemas.  The Crew was plotting
something
to celebrate the departure, something designed to challenge Duke Anguin’s hold over the city.  Enough rumors were overheard to assure them of that much.

In the days before the holiday Pentandra watched Count Salgo pace the Trophy Room and receive reports from his men before and after meetings, ordering pickets and patrols around the city.  He did not have near enough men, now, to cover everything thoroughly, but he did his best to ensure that where there was trouble, there would be soldiers.  He, too, expected trouble. 

The garrison had been uselessly but deliberately patrolling the surrounding territory and avoiding Vorone.  Sir Baskei, the garrison commander, was unwilling to risk his troops in a fight that was not, practically speaking, a matter of
kingdom
security.  There was quite a bit of anti-Anguin sentiment in the garrison, as most of the men were recruited in Castal or Gilmora, or they had found their lives more fruitful under the corruption of Edmarin.  Either way, Salgo reported that they could not be relied upon to support Anguin’s rule.

The City Guard was more helpful.  Sir Sundail, the newly-appointed captain of the guard, was eager to impress the new Duke.  The proud Wilderlord, returned after years in exile, was determined to demonstrate his loyalty, and scheduled additional patrols to keep the peace.  The guard itself was transformed from how it stood at Yule.  The corrupt and lazy had been purged from its ranks by Sir Sundail and the constable, Sir Vemas, with Count Salgo’s approval.  The few weeks spent patrolling with the Orphan’s Band mercenaries had given them some professional training, but they had yet to be tested on the street.

The Woodsmen heard tales of troubles planned for after the holiday, of course, though the activity seemed to be concentrated on the camps, not the city, proper.  Pentandra had heard the reports from her rough lads for days as the guardsmen made their rounds in the Market ward in disguise and quietly spoke to their informants.  The word from the street was troubling.  Someone important in the Crew wanted a couple of riots to erupt, it was said, the first to distract, the second to destroy. 

It was noteworthy that none of the activity was focused on the Docks quarter.  Bloodfinger’s experience with the Woodsmen apparently made an impression, and his men seemed to be keeping close to his headquarters.

It was clear that
someone
within the Rat Crew was starting to figure out that their recent downturn in fortunes had begun with the arrival of the Duke and his mercenaries; and someone was starting to take steps. 

While they had yet to associate anyone in particular with the effort against them,
someone
within the Crew had determined that forcing the Duke to grapple for his capital might at least reduce the attention the Rats were getting – or at least keep the growing power of the palace in check. 

One by one they had seen their confederates and informants among the Watch, the palace guard, or the garrison get punished or demoted, and their contacts within the palace all but dried up as the new court took power.  Compared to the days of Jenerard, when a Rat could get an audience with anyone, at need, this was unbearable.  Coupled with the bloody onslaught against them from the mysterious Woodsmen and, the crippling of their most lucrative ward, the Rats were starting to feel hard pressed.  A demonstration was apparently needed.

It was inevitable that an argument in one of the northern camps turned heated and came to blows - such scuffles happened several times a day.  Blowing an insult into riotous proportions was likewise no difficult matter.  Three or four thugs, a few pints of raw corn spirits, and a riot was born. 

Vorone was no stranger to riots, even in the dead of winter.  As many desperate and near-starving folk as there were in the town it didn’t take much to see a minor disagreement quickly turn into an exercise in mob violence.  The spontaneous sort were bad enough.  Those planned and executed with purpose were even worse. Late in the afternoon of the day before Briga’s holiday, word arrived at the palace that one such altercation had turned into a brawl that quickly spread to affect the entire camp. 

The Rat Crew leapt on the opportunity (if they hadn’t actually caused it) and fanned the flames of discord with long practice and a cynical understanding of the pressures of desperate poverty.  Within an hour there was a full-scale riot underway, people were being hurt and even killed, and calls for troops from the town Watch went out to pacify the encampment. 

The palace had precious little in the way of troops to send – dismissing the Watch from their posts was foolish, as experience had demonstrated, as it invited lawlessness inside the walls that the Crew was looking to take advantage of.  While the garrison was ostensibly in Vorone to protect the town, the soldiers therein did not see herding unruly peasants as a legitimate threat to the kingdom and, therefore, not part of their job.  Salgo knew they would stay in the westernmost regions of the river vale, far from the mob.

But he sent what he could to quell the riot.  That was a tense day.  A scant score of knights and men-at-arms was dispatched, the rest held in reserve.  Pentandra was called into the Trophy Room and asked to monitor the situation by magic, which was hard enough that she had to use her new baculus to keep track of all of the spellwork.  That proved far easier with the device, which helpfully initiated spells at her command and compiled the results for her review far more quickly and efficiently than if she had been forced to do each casting herself.  Pentandra scryed the camps and the wards of the town for them and  kept Salgo informed.  Her baculus kept track of the movements and brought some things to her attention she might have missed.  It was like having the most helpful servant – but one which understood arcane matters as well as she did. 

Pentandra was impressed – she rarely put much stock in enchantment, but she had to admit that the paracletic spell Minalan had placed on the rod was an amazing improvement.

The riot in the northern camps turned out to be a feint – as the Woodsmen had predicted.  No sooner had the small force departed the city gate toward the rioters in the north camp, two other incidents broke out in the camps below the river, and quickly spread to the docks, A smaller riot broke out near the busy Temple ward, within the city walls.  That was the one Pentandra focused on.  There was nothing of value outside of the walls, but the Temple quarter was filled with people with full purses and votive offerings.  Count Salgo sagely sent his best troops, the two-score personal guard that had once been the Royal Second Commando, to intervene.

“Outstanding intelligence, Pentandra,” Salgo conceded when word had come of the much more dangerous conflict in the temple quarter.  “Had I deployed my forces entirely to the north, the entire south side would burn.  And the cultural center of Vorone.  I’m going to send three more squads to the docks, another each to the camps, in support.”

“That would be prudent, Warlord,” Pentandra agreed as her baculus informed her of the situation to the south.  “If the docks are shut down more than a day or so, we’ll be hard pressed to keep the market full.”  Over half of the town’s supplies came in from estates upriver, or immediately downriver, where shallow-draughted barges could deliver produce and grain more cheaply than by land.  “And I think that will be a sufficiency . . . the duke’s guests will be arriving by nightfall, if my spells are correct, and can lend their aid.”

That had been part of the plan.  Prime Minister Angrial’s plan, to be precise.  Calling a council of local lords near a feast day was common, and usually meant a small party of emissaries, at best.  But these barons had been invited with their entire guards, and were arriving just as the violence was getting ugly.  Few in town outside the palace paid attention to the announcement of the council a week before.  If the Rat Crew had planned the violence, it had not counted on the duke’s vassals arriving in strength.

Salgo’s men managed to contain the riots until nightfall, with only the usual injuries.  Then Baroness Burshara and Baron Dasion entered the outer precincts of the townlands together with their guards, just before dark, when the call came by messenger from the palace for their aid.  The squadrons of loyalists Salgo dispatched to contain the fighting had been cautioned not to inflame it further, and they had done well enough to keep it from spreading to the smaller camps, but there was little else the men from the palace could do.  They were just too few, and the order they brought was confined to the swing of their swords. 

Count Salgo did not have to ask the barons twice.  Rioting peasants are but a step away from rebellious peasants, every lord’s worst nightmare.  Baron Dasion eagerly took command of both households and rode to the aid of his fellow Wilderlords at the nearest camp.  Four score of their men, armored and mounted, waded into the fight at once.  With the sound of horns and warcries, as well as threats of punishment should the rioters not relent, they set upon them with the flats of their swords or used their broad shields to bash the unruly to their knees.  If they got up, they got bashed again until they stayed down.  It was a respectable threat. 

The chaos quickly retreated and the riot was quelled, particularly when two men, likely instigators hired by the Crew, were hanged outright by Baroness Burshara in front of all.  By the time the moon rose all of the camps were in order and the barons were once again on their way to the palace, feeling victorious, leaving the field to their marshals.

It was not the grand place they remembered it being, back in Lenguin’s day.  In the midst of winter the slush and grime clung to the walls, and there were few banners fluttering above the gateway in the cold breeze – save the large banner of the Anchor and Antlers that hovered over the front gate of the palace. 

That was the only important heraldry for this gathering.  The rest of the palace probably looked as derelict and decrepit as an old ruin, a shadow of its former glory, Pentandra reflected as she watched the faces of the barons as they assembled for the council at dinner that evening.  

Pentandra was included in Duke Anguin’s staff for this event because of her reputation and – so Count Angrial said – because of her diplomatic skills.  While she was certain Arborn would disagree about the latter, she was more than willing to be Anguin’s show-of-arcane-power.  She wasn’t as impressive as a company of mounted knights, she knew, but Pentandra did her best to dress for the part. 

By the time she entered the Pinewood Chamber, one of the smaller rooms in the palace designed for such intimate meetings, she was clad head to toe in golden Remeran satin, and was carrying her silver baculus like a scepter. She cut a striking enough figure to earn a double-take from the peers assembled.  But unfortunately the magic in her appearance wasn’t quite enough to siphon away the worry and anxiety each peer displayed.

To her surprise, there were more than the four mundane barons waiting within the chamber when she arrived.  The former Warden of the North had responded to her and Salgo’s persuasion and attended the event, though he had arrived at night and with but a small retinue.  More to her surprise than the somber Count Marcadine was the sight of old friends and colleagues, Astyral, Thinradel, and Azar.  She ignored court protocol and embraced them warmly.

“We were
dreadfully
bored,” Astyral explained.  “No more sophisticated reason for our presence than that.  We’ve been sitting on the battlements, staring at the snow for weeks, now, without so much as a skirmish, slowly going castle-crazy.  So we thought we’d take a small force south, while the roads were reasonably clear, and look up our new overlord – and our old friend the new Court Wizard.”

“So
you’re
the one they convinced to nurse this wounded pup back to health?” Azar sighed, shaking his head sadly.  “I was wondering who would be gullible enough to accept the impossible post.  Honestly, Pentandra, I thought you had more sense.”

“I like a challenge,” Pentandra shrugged, casually.  “And it was at Minalan’s suggestion.  Besides, I was getting bored in Castabriel.  Urban sophistication and endless luxury can only entrance a girl for so long.  And I did meet Arborn,” she reminded them.  “Once I got married, it seemed like a change was in order.”  Of course, this wasn’t the change she’d had in mind, she reminded herself, but this was the change the gods had arranged.

“You certainly do have a challenge cut out for you,” Azar agreed, sipping wine and staring at the mundane Wilderlords gathered at the other end of the hall.  “And not one that I envy.  But I suppose it’s nice to know someone at the palace”