The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One (3 page)

“Aye, I read ’em,” said Asher. “Your wife and your sons sing the same tune, Meister Tarne. But that ain’t proof.”

“Sir, why are you so quick to disbelieve me?” said the Olken. “I’m no idle troublemaker! It’s an expense, coming here. An expense I can’t easily bear, but I’m bearing it because I’m on the right side of this dispute. I’ve lost two crops to Lady Freidin’s selfishness and spite. And since she won’t admit her fault and mend her ways, what choice do I have but to lay the matter before you?”

Asher frowned at the man’s tone. “Never said you weren’t within your rights, Meister Tarne. Law’s plain on that. You are.”

“I know full well I’m not counted the strongest in earth magic,” said the Olken, still defiant. “I’m the first to admit it. But I do well enough. Now I’ve twice got good potatoes rotted to slime in the ground and the market price of them lost. That’s my proof. And how do I feed and clothe my family when my purse is half empty thanks to her?”

The watching Olken stirred and muttered their support. Displeased, Asher raised a hand. “You lot keep your traps shut or go home. I don’t much care which. But if you
don’t
keep your traps shut I’ll take the choice away from you, got that?”

Rodyn smiled. If he’d been wearing a dagger he could have stabbed the offended silence through its heart.

“Meister Tarne,” said Asher, his gaze still sharp. “I ain’t no farmer, but even I’ve heard of spud rot.”

“Well, sir, I
am
a farmer and I tell you plain, I’ve lost no crops to rot or any other natural pestilence,” said the Olken. “It’s Doranen magic doing the mischief here.”

“So you keep sayin’,” said Asher. “But it don’t seem to me you got a shred of evidence.”

“Sir, there’s no other explanation! My farm marches beside Lady Freidin’s estate. She’s got outbuildings near the fence dividing my potatoes from her fields. She spends a goodly time in those outbuildings, sir. What she does there I can’t tell you, not from seeing it with my own eyes. But my ruined potato crops tell the story. There’s something unwholesome going on, and that’s the plain truth of it.”

“Unwholesome?” said Asher, eyebrows raised, as the Olken onlookers risked banishment to whisper. “Now, there’s a word.”

Rodyn looked away from him, to Ain Freidin, but still all he could see was the back of her head. Silent and straight-spined, she sat without giving even a hint of what she thought about these accusations. Or if they carried any merit. For himself… he wasn’t sure. Ain Freidin was an acquaintance, nothing more. He wasn’t privy to her thoughts on the changes thrust so hard upon their people, or what magic she got up to behind closed doors.

“Before it was a Doranen estate, the land next door to mine was a farm belonging to Eby Nye, and when it was a farm my potatoes were the best in the district,” said the Olken, fists planted on his broad hips. “Not a speck of slime in the crop, season after season. Two seasons ago Eby sold up and she moved in, and both seasons since, my crops are lost. You can’t tell me there’s no binding those facts.” He pointed at Ain Freidin. “That woman’s up to no good. She’s—”

“That woman?”
said Ain, leaping to her expensively shod feet. “You dare refer to me in such a manner? I am Lady Freidin to you, and to
any
Olken.”

“You can sit down, Lady Freidin,” said Asher. “Don’t recall askin’ you to add your piece just yet.”

Young and headstrong, her patience apparently at an end, Ain Freidin was yet to learn the value of useful timing. She neither sat nor restrained herself. “You expect me to ignore this clod’s disrespect?”

“Last time I looked there weren’t a law on the books as said Meister Tarne can’t call you
that woman,
” said Asher. “I’m tolerable sure there ain’t even a law as says he can’t call you a
slumskumbledy wench
if that be what takes his fancy. What I
am
tolerable sure of is in here, when I tell a body to sit down and shut up, they do it.”

“You
dare
say so?” said Ain Freidin, her golden hair bright in the Hall’s window-filtered sunlight and caged glimfire. “To
me?
”

“Aye, Lady Freidin, to you,” Asher retorted, all his Olken arrogance on bright display. “To you and to any fool as walks in here thinkin’ they’ve got weight to throw around greater than mine. Out there?” He jerked a thumb at the nearest window, and the square beyond it with its scattering of warmly dressed City dwellers. “Out there, you and me, we be ezackly the same. But in Justice Hall
I
speak for the law—and in this kingdom there ain’t a spriggin as stands above it. Barl herself made that plain as pie. What’s more, there’s a way we go about things when it comes to the rules and how we follow ’em and you ain’t the one to say no, we’ll do this your way.”

Enthralled, the watching Olken held their breaths to see what Ain Freidin would say next. So did Arlin. Glancing down at his rapt son, Rodyn saw in the boy’s face a pleasing and uncompromising contempt. So he was learning this lesson, at least. Good.

Asher picked up the summons bell’s small hammer. “If I use this, Lady Freidin,” he said, mild as a spring day now, and as changeable, “the hearing’ll be over without you get to say a word in your defence. D’you want that? Did you come all this way from Marling Vale to go home again a good deal lighter in your purse, without me knowin’ from your own lips how Meister Tarne lost his spuds to rot?”

“I cannot be deprived of my right to speak,” said Ain Freidin, her voice thin with rage. “You are
not
the law here, Asher of Restharven. One act of magical serendipity hardly grants you the right to silence me.”

“I don’t want to silence you, Lady Freidin,” said Asher. “I want you to answer Meister Tarne’s complaint. What are you up to in them outbuildings of yours?”

“That’s none of your business,” Ain Freidin snapped.

“Reckon it is, if what you’re up to means Meister Tarne keeps losing his spuds,” said Asher. Still mild, but with a glint in his eye. “Folks be partial to their spuds, Lady Freidin. Boiled, mashed or fried, folks don’t like to be without. Last thing we need in Lur is a spud shortage.”

“So
I’m
to be blamed for the man’s incompetence? Is that your idea of Barl’s Justice?”

Asher idled with the bell’s hammer. “Answer the question, Lady Freidin.”

“The question is impertinent! I am not answerable to you, Asher of Restharven!”

As the watching Olken burst into shocked muttering, and Ain Freidin’s family plucked at her sleeve and whispered urgent entreaties, Arlin wriggled on the bench.

“Is she right, Father?” he said. “Does she not have to say?”

Rodyn hesitated. He’d told the boy to be quiet, so this was a disobedience. But the question was a fair one. “By the laws established after the Wall fell, Lady Freidin is wrong. We Doranen must account for our use of magic.”

“To the
Olken?
”

He nodded. “For now.”

“But—”

Rodyn pinched his son to silence.

Ain Freidin’s family was still remonstrating with her, their voices an undertone, their alarm unmistakable. They seemed to think she could be brought to see reason. But Asher, clearly irritated, not inclined to give her any more leeway, smacked the flat of his hand on the table before him.

“Reckon you be tryin’ my patience, Lady Freidin,” he announced. “Impertinent or not, it’s a question as needs your answer.”

“I am a mage,” said Ain Freidin, her voice still thin. “My mage work is complex, and important.”

“There!” said the Olken farmer. “You admit it! You’re up to no good!”

Ain Freidin eyed him with cold contempt. “I admit you’ve no hope of comprehending what I do. I suggest you keep your fingers in the dirt, man, and out of my affairs.”

“You hear that, sir?” said the farmer, turning to Asher. “She says it herself. She’s doing magic in those outbuildings.”

“That ain’t breaking the law, Meister Tarne,” said Asher. “Not if the magic’s in bounds.”

“And how can it be in bounds if my potato crops are
dying?
” cried the Olken. “Meister Asher—”

With his hand raised to silence the farmer, Asher looked again to Ain Freidin. “Aye, well, that’s the nub of this dispute, ain’t it? Lady Freidin, Barl made it plain to you Doranen what magic was right and what magic weren’t. So… what mischief are you gettin’ up to, eh?”

“
You
can no more comprehend the complexities of my work than can this—this—
clodhopper
beside me,” snapped Ain Freidin. “Olken magic, if one can even
call
it magic, is not—”

“I’ll tell you what it ain’t,” said Asher. “It ain’t why we’re here. And I reckon I’ve heard more than enough.” He struck the bell with the hammer, three times. “I declare for Meister Tarne. Lady Ain Freidin is fined twice the cost of his lost potato crops to cover Justice Hall expenses, five times their cost in damages plus one more for disrespecting Lur’s rule of law, payable to him direct.
And
she’s to pay a hundred trins to the City Chapel, seein’ how Barl never was one for proud and haughty folk of any stripe. Also she’ll be frontin’ up to the Mage Council on account of there being a question raised of unwholesome magic. Unless—” Leaning forward, Asher favoured Ain Freidin with a bared-teeth smile. “She cares to have a friendly chat in private once the business of payin’ fines and charitable donations is sorted?”

For a moment Rodyn thought the foolish woman was going to create an unfortunate scene. He found himself holding his breath, willing her to retain both dignity and self-control. Ain Freidin intrigued him. There was something about her, he could feel it. She had power. Potential. She was someone he’d do well to watch. But if she forced Asher’s hand…

As though she could hear his thoughts, Ain’s braced shoulders slumped. “A private discussion is agreeable,” she said, her voice dull.

“Then we’re done,” said Asher. He sounded disgusted. “Lady Marnagh will see to the details, and bring you to me once you’ve arranged payment of your fines.”

Rodyn stood. “Come, Arlin.”

Leaving Ain Freidin to her fate, and the Olken rabble to cavort as they felt like, he led his son out of Justice Hall. Standing on its broad steps he took a deep breath, striving to banish his anger. A Doranen mage answerable to Asher of Restharven? The notion was repellent. Repugnant. An affront to every Doranen in Lur. But as things stood, there was nothing he could do about it.

As things stood.

It was past noon, but still enough of the late winter day remained to send messengers to discreet friends, call a meeting, discuss what had happened here.

And it must be discussed. The situation grows less tolerable by the day. I know how I would like to address it. The question is, am I alone?

He didn’t know. But the time was ripe to find out.

“Come, Arlin,” he said again, and started down the steps.

“We’re walking back to the townhouse?” said Arlin, staying put. “But—”

He turned. “Are you
defying
me, Arlin?”

“No, Father,” Arlin whispered, his eyes wide. “Of course not, Father.”

“Good,” he said, turning away. “That’s wise of you, boy.”

“Yes, Father,” said Arlin, and followed him, obedient.

Sat at the desk in the corner of the townhouse library, tasked to an exercise he found so simple now it bored him to tears, Arlin listened to his father wrangle back and forth with his vistors over Lady Ain Freidin and her hearing in Justice Hall.

“There’s no use in protesting her being called to account by an Olken, Rodyn,” said Lord Baden, one of Father’s closest friends. “The time to protest is ten years behind us. When Lur came crashing down around our ears,
then
we had the chance to mould the kingdom more to our liking. We didn’t. And now we’re forced to live with the consequences.”

“Forever?” said Father. “Is that your contention, Sarle? That we meekly accept our portion without question until the last star in the firmament winks out?”

Arlin flinched, tumbling his exercise blocks to the carpet.

“What are you doing, boy?” Father demanded. “Must I interrupt my business to school you?”

On his hands and knees, scrabbling under the desk to retrieve the scattered blocks, he fought to keep his voice from trembling. “No, Father.”

“Get off the floor, then. Do your exercises. And don’t interrupt again or you’ll be the sorrier for it.”

“Yes, Father.”

The training blocks cradled awkward to his chest, he caught a swift glimpse of sympathy in Sarle Baden’s pale, narrow face. Father’s other visitor, Lord Vail, eyed him with a vague, impatient dislike. Cheeks flushed with embarrassed heat he got his feet under himself and stood. In the library fireplace, the flames leaped and crackled.

Lord Baden cleared his throat. “Rodyn, my friend, I think you need to be a trifle less circumspect. Are you suggesting we foment social unrest? For I must be honest with you, I doubt the idea will be met with anything but distaste.”

“I agree,” said Lord Vail. “Life is comfortable, Rodyn. What Morg broke is long since mended. The royal family’s not missed. We’ve suffered no hardship with the fall of Barl’s Wall. I strongly doubt you’ll get anyone to agree with stirring trouble.”

Arlin held his breath. Father
hated
to be contradicted. The blocks he held in his hands hummed with power, fighting against their proximity to each other. He subdued them, distracted, and waited to see what Father would do.