Enchanter (Book 7) (47 page)

The cloaked figure clutched at his stomach, where a crossbow bolt was lodge just to the left of his spine, wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth.  Festaran pushed him to his knees where he gasped, painfully.

“Careful,” warned Lorcus.  “Don’t kill him yet.  We need to know who sent him, and who he is.”

“As for who sent him, that will likely be difficult to discover,” Festaran said, angrily, “but as for who he is, that I can answer for you!”  With that he pulled the man’s hood from his head, revealing a wide, pale face . . . except for the magemark on his face.

Sir Ganulan.  Disgraced son of Sire Gimbal, and currently outlaw of Sevendor.

“The only problem will be convincing him to talk before he dies,” Rondal observed, as he squatted to examine the wound in his belly from a safe distance.

“Nay, my friend,” Sir Festaran said, his jaw clenched, “the only problem will be getting him to remember who he is!”

Ganulan stared at us all, blankly, no gleam of recognition in his eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked, weakly, the magemark on his face in dark contrast to his underlying pallor.  “My lords, I beg of you by all the gods to help me!  I have been wounded and . . . and I do not know how!  Worse, I do not even know how I came to be here, or mine own name!  I beseech you, my lords, aid a fellow knight, if knight I am!” he begged.

“Ishi’s tits,” Tyndal swore.  “He’s been bewitched.”

*

*

I set up my canopy to offer shelter and food to the survivors, which they remembered from my last visit.  I had Festaran and his men set a guard, and told off Lanse and Taren to establish firm wards and set a hard perimeter.  I didn’t expect another raid.  The damage had been done.  But it made both me and the survivors feel better, once they reported it done.

I made a quick trip back to Sevendor and recruited Sister Bemia and a couple of castle servants to help with the relief, as well as inform Alya of the news and assure her of my safety.  I also grabbed my old campaign tent and tucked some supplies away in a pocket of my staff before we returned.  Soon we were back in Amel Wood, tending to the living and the dead.

By that time a party of nuns from the abbey had also arrived, bringing food and medicine.  They reported that more than a dozen Ameli had made it out of the slaughter and to the sanctuary of the temple.  I had the men pitch my old tent to house the folk, and conjured a score of blankets I’d taken from stores and settled in the weeping survivors for the night.  It was getting dark, so I convened a quick war council in my tent, once the peasants had been fed, calmed, and assured of protection.  I was angrier than I’d been in a long time. 

“Gentlemen, I have been maneuvered into a difficult position,” I informed them, as they sat around the tent pole I leaned against.  “If Rolone proves the author of this raid – and no one else has cause – then it’s a clear challenge to get me to declare my intentions in the war.  Yet to do so is against my better judgment, and puts me in a difficult position, politically.”

“If the Baron of Sevendor can’t protect his folk,” Sir Festaran pointed out, “that does not bode well for his other estates.  You must respond, Excellency.  Honor demands it!”

“Bugger honor on a biscuit!” Lorcus said with a guffaw.  “Lad, this raid was designed to force Minalan to act.  If he acts, then they have achieved their goal.  It’s usually considered poor strategy to do precisely what your opponent wishes you to.”

“I really have better things to do than call my banners this summer,” I agreed. “And it vexes me to be manipulated.”

“Actually,” Rondal pointed out, “this raid was designed to force the Baron of Sevendor to act, was it not?”

“Isn’t that me?” I asked, a little confused.

“It is,” he agreed, his mind churning behind those brown eyes, “but that’s not
precisely
who you are, in this instance.”

“I . . . I don’t understand,” I confessed.

“Well, Master,” he continued, an idea growing in his head, “the raid wasn’t actually on the Barony of Sevendor, was it?”

“Wasn’t it?”

“It was on the domain of Amel Wood.  Technically.  From Rolone.  Probably.  Even though it wasn’t a declared act of war, legally speaking – if the soldiers proved to be acting under Rolone’s authority – it was merely a raid on one domain from another.  An act of
undeclared
war.”

“And an invitation to respond,” Sir Festaran said, starting to catch on to what Rondal was saying.  “Of course, in the absence of a seated lord, the invitation rises to the liege, all the way to the rank of count – though few counts would sully themselves in such a petty thing as a border raid.  But the insult is delivered to the domain lord.”

“Does that look like an ‘insult’ out there?” I demanded.

“Master, what he means is the
legal
insult,” explained Rondal, patiently.  “A raid like this is a challenge to the domain lord’s authority.  There is no seated domain lord, so that authority is the holder of the deed.  You can elect, therefore, to respond in the guise of overlord of the barony—”

“Or he can respond in the guise of his title as
Lord of Amel Wood!
” Dranus nodded, pleased.  “Well done, Gentlemen!”

“I
still don’t understand,” I sighed.

“Excellency, consider it thus,” my Court Wizard explained, using his pipe to punctuate his sentences.  “You are, in addition to being Baron of Sevenor, legally the titled Lord of Amel Wood.  They are separate titles, legally making you two different lords.  You are, essentially, your own vassal.”

“I don’t see how that changes the situation.”

“Ah, but it does,” Dranus continued, a little smugly.  “In your person as the Baron, you declared a course of action if certain conditions were met: namely, if your new domains were attacked, you would go to war against Sashtalia, allied with Sendaria.  You dared Rolone and Sashtalia to do something, and they did something you didn’t forbid.  But something that, on its own, is legally and militarily actionable . . . in your role as Lord of Amel Wood.”

“You mean, I don’t wage war on the entire Sashtali confederacy,” I realized, “but just on Rolone?”

“Exactly, Excellency,” he agreed, happily.  “Sevendor need not involve itself I a private dispute between two sovereign domains.  Just because you happen to be titular lord of one of them does not obligate you to use Sevendori forces at all.  Indeed, proceeding under the Snowflake banner would give the Sire Trefalan every justification for seeing your action as a projection of Sevendori power, and require his intervention under the terms of his vassal agreements. 

“But if you proceed under the arms of
Amel Wood
, as a simple domain lord, then Sashtalia cannot, technically, interfere in a private war between two domains.  Not unless you spread the conflict beyond Rolone’s frontiers.”

“That’s actually not a bad plan,” Lorcus admitted, after everyone considered it in silence.  “It’s not like you don’t have the men to run it for you,” he pointed out.  “Send a few raiders into Rolone, make sure it’s understood that this is a private war, and then start taking the place apart from top to bottom,” he said, dreamily.  “There are what, five castles in Rolone?”

“Three keeps, two fortified towers, and Rolone Castle.  That’s nearly the size of Chepstan, and at the top of a great hill,” Sir Festaran offered.  “About one thousand two hundred sixty-two men at arms, and three hundred knights, when fully garrisoned.”

“And most of that garrison is going to be pledged to the upcoming war,” reminded Dranus. 

“Gods!” howled Lorcus.  “If you can’t have fun with six near-empty castles, lads, you just aren’t trying hard enough!”

“Honestly, you’d only have to take a few,” Tyndal considered.  “A long as one of them was Rolone Castle.”

“That’s a
lot
of castle,” Sir Festaran warned.  “Even lightly manned, the defenses are formidable.”

“So were my first love’s,” boasted Lorcus, “but she bled all the same!  Come, my friends, this will be
fun!
  A bunch of sparks terrorizing the countryside, stealing folk blind and knocking things over?  While all the knights are off serving their duty?”

“What, you think we can fight a war with just warmagi?” asked Master Cormoran, surprised.

“I don’t see why not,” Lorcus shrugged.  “Warfare is a matter of power, not force.  We need not cover the land in horseshit from our many glittering lances of knights, just because that’s how everyone else does it.  A couple of sparks, some classy enchantment, some classic misdirection and a whole empty domain to conquer in a sanctioned conflict?  It will be like legal banditry!”

“I really don’t want to commit any of my regular troops to this,” I conceded. 

“Sire, is that really wise?” countered Dranus, suddenly.  “A few punitive raids are in order, certainly, but to raise the level of conflict with magic and seeking to contend against the strongest fortifications in the land?  That seems somewhat bold for the occasion.  And unlikely to be successful,” he said, his eyes landing on Lorcus for an amused moment.

“Oh, would you like to wager I can’t do it, Dranus?” he asked, rising.  “Rolone Castle might be big, but it isn’t invulnerable.  Not to a good warmage.  And I’m more than just a good warmage,” he challenged.  “Name your stakes!”

“
I’ll
name them,” I said, suddenly.  “Lorcus, I hereby appoint you provisional tenant Lord of Amel Wood.  If you make good on your promise, I’ll make that appointment permanent.”

“
What?
  Ishi’s sloppy twat, Min, I’m
not
a lord!” he scoffed.  “I
work
for a living!”

“You are
now
,” I snickered, pleased at his sudden discomfort over what I was going to do.  “Master Dranus, I believe you carry parchment, ink, and wax?  I have my seal right here,” I said, patting my pouch.  “Lord Lorcus of Amel Wood, your domain has been attacked and your honor challenged. 
What are you going to do about it?”
I demanded.

I give Lorcus a lot of credit.  While I half-expected him to crack an obscene joke, he vindicated my trust in him by closing his mouth, swallowing, and allowing a new aspect to come over him. 

“You’re serious?” he asked in a near-whisper.

“I’ll have copies of the ennoblement and the writ of vassalage filed at Wilderhall tomorrow, back dated a week,” I decided. 

“Oh, you are
such
a bastard!” he snarled at me. 

“Lord Lorcus, your domain has been attacked,” I repeated. 
“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to teach the bastards a lesson!” he said, with a bellicose glare.  “Starting with that lad, there,” he said, pointing to Sir Ganulan.  I had the disgraced knight brought into the tent where a nun from the abbey removed the quarrel from his gut.  Master Cormoran oversaw the procedure, casting spells to aid healing and slow blood loss from the seeping wound. 

“You aren’t planning on killing him in revenge, are you?” I asked, surprised.

“Oh, no,” Lord Lorcas assured me.  “He’s going to be my guide.  If he recovers.”

He’d recover, we were fairly certain, but Ganulan’s memory had been scrambled.  Tyndal examined him, using some spells I’d never heard of, and eventually shook his head.

“He’s been addled, really, really well-addled,” he determined.  “It’s not that has mind has been erased – there’s no physical damage – but he can’t string two memories together in a cohesive form.  It’s not particularly subtle.  The kind of thing you would do if, say, you had to leave someone behind, but didn’t want to kill them.  Just keep them from talking.  And it has a gurvani signature, too.  At least I think so.”

“So he can’t confess who hired him,” frowned Lorcus. 

“That doesn’t mean we can’t tell where he’s been,” Tyndal said.  “I know a tracking spell . . .”

It took a little while, but Tyndal’s spell allowed him to determine just where Ganulan had been for the last month.  The outlaw knight proved to have spent the majority of his time in southern Rolone, before suddenly making his way directly to Amel Wood.  While that wasn’t quite as good as a confession, it was more than enough evidence to convince Lorcus – particularly when Taren reported from the road that he’d tracked the party back across the frontier with Rolone.

“What resources can I use?”

“Any mage who wants to help,” I promised.  “Except Dara – she’s a Lady of Sevendor, and I don’t want her or the hawks involved.  But anyone else you can convince.  You pay them out of any loot you take.”

“And I can legally take any loot I can carry off in a time of war,” he nodded.  “Oh, do I have to declare war, first, to make it legal?”

“It is customary to inform an opponent of your intention to go to war with him within two weeks of the start of hostilities,” Sir Festaran instructed.  “Any longer than that is seen as dishonorable.”

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?  And I suppose I’ll need banners and such.  A device.  Maybe a bloody hall or something.  And we’ll need to make a few plans . . .”