In Treachery Forged (The Law of Swords) (34 page)

Maelgyn nodded. “Very good. Could you ask him for me? I’ve got to bring this before the Council of Barons. Countering this will require an action only they can take.”

“As you wish, you do,” Wangdu nodded. “But what will you be doing, will you?”

Maelgyn grinned wryly. “I’m fixing the damage.”

Chapter 21

Yergwain stood in front of the council chambers, looking decidedly unhappy. As the head of the Council of Barons, he was the only one of Sopan’s peers who could not avoid this meeting. Maelgyn, waiting for his cue to enter the council chambers, wondered if the man was still upset about their heated discussion the previous day. Regardless, Maelgyn expected that he would be even more upset by what was about to happen. If there was one thing he was starting to learn about Yergwain, it was that he disliked the unexpected. Perhaps, however, Yergwain would be better prepared for his announcement than anyone else. It would definitely test the loyalty of his barons.

“This emergency session of the Council of Barons is called to order,” Yergwain announced. “Sword Prince Maelgyn, Duke of this province, has asked to address the Council.”

The usual muttering and small talk which happens whenever a large enough group of people were gathered together ended with a suddenness that Maelgyn found surprising. Knowing that this first session with the council would make or break his ability to rule the province as Duke, he took a deep breath to collect his composure. As ready as he was going to get, Maelgyn stepped out into the room and looked out among the nobility of his land.

There was curiosity among the gathering, and perhaps a little bit of resentment emanating from some of the Barons over his marriage. There were also a few hopeful expressions, which Maelgyn felt somewhat reassured by – at least there seemed to be some initial support for him. He just hoped his new announcement wouldn’t destroy that.

“My Lords and Ladies,” Maelgyn began. “Something disturbing has come to my attention, and in order to correct this matter I will need to ask hard things of you all. We have two major problems which we have to deal with, and unfortunately we don’t have much time to correct either of them.

“The first is the one you are probably all aware of by now: The nation of Svieda is at war, the king is dead, and Sho’Curlas has sent a massive army into our kingdom. We are holding them off, thanks to the combined efforts of several of our fellow provinces, but just barely. Our navy in Largo was destroyed. And, this you may not know, I have had reports that there are several dozen trained Black Dragons in the Sho’Curlas army which are yet to be deployed. We, as a nation, are in mortal danger, ladies and gentlemen. We must act quickly if we want our nation to survive.”

At the mention of the Black Dragons, murmurs started rising among the barons. “We are not without hope, however,” he continued. “We have begun forging new alliances. So far, we have brought in the Counties of Caseificio and Mar’Tok, as you already know. Their armies are joining ours, and are now assembling in Largo to join the central campaign of this war. I expect Sopan to represent itself well in the coming battles, as we are sworn to do. However, all of this has been complicated by a second major issue I have discovered. I will have to deal with this second issue immediately, in order to remove all possible distractions while we are fighting this war.”

The murmurs had quieted down significantly, but there was still a great deal of stress and apprehension on the faces of almost all of the assembled barons. Dragons were definitely not something anyone wanted to deal with, including Maelgyn. The hopefulness he had been so pleased to see in some of the baron’s faces was gone, but at least there didn’t appear to be any resentment left, either.

“It has come to my attention that Sopan Province has been beset by a ploy traditionally used by the Elves in their wars of conquest. This Elven plot is one of slow, methodical propaganda over the course of several centuries. So far, I have discovered that they have been altering history books, usurping our children’s education, altering our traditions, and introducing a multitude of additional social changes in a slow but steady pace that have gone unnoticed – changes which weaken our defenses and break our will to fight against certain foreign intrusions. Hundreds of years have gone into this plot, whereas we have only been investigating it since late last night, so we are not sure of all of the details, but enough has come to light to provide some hints. We believe a faction of Elves in Poros are behind it, but have yet to see which part of Poros they are from or why they have chosen us as a target. Nevertheless, it must be stopped, and I judge that only drastic action will thwart their plans. We must do something which will destroy all of their work to date, and hopefully restore our province’s true traditions.”

Once again, murmurs broke out among the gathering. This was something his people could never have expected, and his youth and inexperience was bound to make them hesitant about his plans. They were listening, however. That, alone, reassured him. As long as they were willing to trust his word, there was a chance his plans could succeed.

“I have a proposal. One which may inconvenience many of you, or even anger some of you, but it is the only way I can think of to solve this situation. I am creating a new rank of nobility for this province – borrowing from Oregal, I will name this new rank ‘Earl.’ All current Baronies will be reformed as Earldoms, and all Baronets will be promoted to full Barons. The new Baronies will all add an additional ten Baronets under their holdings. That would be disturbing enough to some of you, I suspect, but there is more.”

Maelgyn noticed that most of them actually looked pleased by this news. Something he wasn’t surprised to see – he had hoped that the temptation of a higher rank than comparable nobles in Svieda’s other Duchies would blunt the steel of the rest of his declaration – but wasn’t sure would be enough of a bribe to calm them.

“Now for the difficult part. One goal of this propaganda war was an attempt to diminish the number and prominence of mages in Sopan. When this kingdom was founded, every noble was required by law to have at least one of his line trained to be a mage, in addition to learning some skill in the art of the sword. It was much later decided, when the split between the two disciplines was discovered to be too great for all noble families to master, to allow each noble family the option of choosing one discipline or the other for each successive generation. It was strongly encouraged that, if there were multiple offspring, one child would be trained in magic and the other in the sword. It became tradition that the firstborn son of a noble family would be taught magic, and any further children would be taught the sword, or that training be split between the two disciplines for all children.

“Here in Sopan, that tradition has been abandoned. Centuries of propaganda have succeeded in attaching some stigma to noble families raising mages, and that must change. While it is too late for many of the current generation to learn the art of magecraft, I am hereby reinstating the requirement that at least one member of every future generation in a noble family learn magic. All of the new Baronets must be ranked a Third Rate mage or better, and for good or ill, that will almost certainly mean promoting from among the common folk.
Back when the nobility was established, our ancestors wrote these laws to provide for at least one combat mage in a reasonable acreage of land – the very reason Greyholden I the feudal system for Sviedan government. Here in Sopan, that principle has been forgotten... and so it must be restored. Milords and ladies,
we need those mages
if we are to survive.”

What had begun as more muttering was starting to reach the status of an uproar. Most of the nobles looked fiercely angry at the pronouncement, though not – Maelgyn was a bit surprised to see – Yergwain. The shouting nearly drowned out the last of his words, which were both the most important and least surprising of the speech.

“And, finally, I will send to the other provinces of Svieda, requesting their printing presses print enough books to replace the forgeries currently in the libraries of this duchy. Typically, I am against the destruction of books or any other source of knowledge, but in this case we are destroying lies, not knowledge. Libel and propaganda, perpetuated by a foreign power with the intent of destroying us as an independent power.”

Even more shouts responded, but Maelgyn had reached the end of his speech so that no longer mattered. Now, it was just time to get out of there as gracefully as possible. He had intended on a long closing, but the way things were looking now he figured it would be best to just leave and let the barons cool down. As a newly invested Duke, he had the power to reorganize the nobility, but enforcing his decision required their active support.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Maelgyn finished, “Thank you. As I said, this will likely be a bit painful for some of you, but it is necessary.”

With those final words – words he doubted many heard, if anyone did – he turned and swept himself out of the room. With a sureness that surprised even him in this strange castle which he knew was to be his home, he made his way back to the bedchamber he shared with Euleilla. His magic told him she wasn’t there, but that was fine with him for the moment.

The nobles weren’t the only ones who needed time to think things over, after all.

Euleilla sighed, using her slightly better-than-average hearing to discern all that was being said. The Barons were not taking Maelgyn’s announcement well, as she feared, but most appeared willing to go along with it. Their acceptance confirmed just how badly they were shaken by the news on the war, if nothing else. It looked like the new reorganization of the nobility, and the laws requiring mages to be trained in noble families, were likely to be applied by
most
of the Barons, at least in regards to the creation of new magically-trained Baronets. None of them were particularly happy with her husband, however, and she more than once heard her own name cursed alongside his as the source of all their misery.

Well, it was as she had expected. She had talked with Maelgyn about it for quite some time that previous night. She had known they would react this way, and Maelgyn had agreed with her completely. However, despite raising the peerage’s ire, Sopan Province would be all the better for it.

Deciding she had heard enough, Euleilla headed for her quarters – not the large bedroom she shared with her husband, but a private office suite he had given her for when she needed time alone. She was in the process of redesigning her office so that she could better make use of it. She already knew she’d have to place a few subtle iron ‘markers’ to help find her way around the room easier, but beyond that she wasn’t sure what changes she wanted. A chair, perhaps, or couch. Something she could relax in, at any rate. Perhaps a small desk with special metallic inks, though most paperwork that needed doing could be done in Maelgyn’s office. Most decorations that some ladies would distribute around the room would be lost on her, and really, she didn’t need anywhere to store extra clothes save perhaps some extra pieces of armor not fit to be stored in a boudoir. Currently, she only owned a single set of brand new nightclothes, a number of cheap vests, a few sets of her specially-made leather bustiers, and the only pair of armored pants that had not been worn out or damaged during their journey across Mar’Tok. Oh, and the silk gown she had worn the previous night.

She wanted to get some more armored pants in the near future. She would probably also need some sort of court dress that was more fitting of her own style and personality than that silk gown. Come to think of it, being the “Princess Consort” would require that she expand her wardrobe significantly. Or being a Princess: As Maelgyn had explained to her the previous night, only the Sword King who had the right to invest a Princess Consort with the full rank of Princess, allowing her to take her husband’s place should he desire to leave her in charge of his province or should he pass away. She had recently learned that, as Princess Consort, she was due all the respect of a Princess, but she nonetheless held no real authority that did not go through her husband. Getting invested as a full Princess was now something she wanted, but she knew it would have to wait until there was a Sword King in Svieda once more.

Actually, what she wanted, more than a new wardrobe, more than a desk, more than a new pair of her armored pants, even more than the “authority” of being a full Princess, was a bath like the ones she had seen and used in the Dwarven village. Those “Fu’Ro” baths were exquisite. Perhaps she could get one installed in that private room of hers. She wasn’t sure such a thing was possible without significant renovations to the castle, but since the new treaty would allow easier employment of Dwarven engineers—

Euleilla paused, having reached her private room. There was someone else already there, just behind the door, apparently waiting for her arrival. Four someones, actually. Maelgyn was the only person allowed in her suite without her authorization, and he wasn’t any of them.

They all had a peculiar magical “signature,” one she felt was vaguely familiar but she couldn’t quite place. She tried to think of where she’d felt it before, but to no avail. She considered calling the guards, but it would be pretty difficult to explain if her intruders were little more than castle servants cleaning her room. They didn’t seem particularly strong, or magically trained, so she had no fears for her own safety... but she did want privacy. One of the advantages of using her magic in place of sight was that she always knew whether a room would be private or not, so finding a room to rest in shouldn’t be too difficult a job.