The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (21 page)

My father, my brothers-in-law, and my nephews had all stayed behind to help me, not that I needed much help.  Tyndal had spent all morning grooming Traveler until he shone, including bows and ribbons that assaulted his male dignity, and after I carefully put on the white bridegroom’s mantle and took a quick nip of something sharp for courage, I settled into the saddle.

My father, to my surprise, also took to saddle.  I had only seen him ride a horse maybe thrice in my life, but he seemed knowledgeable enough.  One of his neighbors who ran the livery stable had loaned him his best for the occasion, and once my apprentices were likewise mounted, we began a slow walk toward the well, the other menfolk following.

One of them started a chorus of the “Bridegroom’s Brother”, which is bawdy and sweet at the same time, and I felt my spirits lift.

“Son,” my dad said, quietly, as we rode just slightly ahead, “this is your last chance to gallop away.” 

I made a face at him, and he laughed.  “Just thought I’d mention it,” he sighed.  “Alya’s a fine girl.  We’ve gotten to know her very well in the last few months.  She’s a smart one, a good worker, and comely as well.  I think you chose well,” he said.  Somehow, that relieved a lot of the anxiety I was feeling.

“You really think so?  She’s not as . . . fiery as Mama—”

“Your Mama was as sweet as a cucumber, when I met her,” my dad interrupted, shaking his head in fond memory.  “Oh, she had spirit, but the woman you see today raised six healthy children, and five girls that would have made Trygg weep, had she raised them.  No, your Alya has all the makings of a good wife.  Most importantly, she makes you happy.”

“She does,” I agreed, sighing.  “We’ve been through a lot, and she’s been stalwart, despite everything.”

“Just remember,” my dad said, after a moment’s thought, “you have to think of your marriage like a barge.”

I just looked at him.  I expected a baking metaphor.

“There’s only one boat, even if you only sit on one side of it,” he explained.  “But if there’s a hole in the boat, it doesn’t matter if it’s on her side or your side . . .
there’s still a hole in the boat.”

“I see,” I lied.  He kept giving little bits of advice like that the whole way there, interspersed with memories of his own wedding day, until we finally turned left at the end of the High Street and came within sight of the Old Well.  There my bride awaited, resplendent in a long white hooded wedding mantle.  The bridesister was dressed in her clerical robes, white, gold and red, and she had all the accoutrements of the rite in a small chest nearby.

I dismounted Traveler, hugged my father, shook the hands of all of my escort, kissed my mother and sisters, then bowed low, first to the crowd of Bovali representing Alya’s family, then to the priestess, then to my own crowd.

Then I got married. 

I don’t remember much about that part, just some words, some kissing, a cup of mead, the tying of the hands, we were pronounced Goodman and Goodwife, cheers, more kissing, some songs and flower petals.  We walked slowly back to the bakery afterward, in deference to my bride’s pregnant condition and sore feet, and I was pleased to see neighbors of my father’s I hadn’t seen since I was a boy line the streets. 

Then the party began.

Dad had married off five daughters, and it had been expensive.  Technically the bride’s family was supposed to handle the marriage feast in the Riverlands, but since Alya was from the Wilderlands, where it’s more casual, and her family was essentially destitute, he had been ready to pay for his son’s wedding, as well.  But apparently Pentandra (I found out later) insisted on funding the entire thing as her gift to us.

It was a magnificent feast.  The weather held warm and clear all day, and my family had spared no expense to show off their successful son to the entire village. 

The fare was amazing.  There were a dozen large trestles set up in the courtyard between the residence and the ovens, and each of them was covered with food of all sorts.  When you come from a family of bakers, you can imagine just how impressive that was. 

It became a competition: each of my dad’s apprentices had tried to out-do the others in creating more and more magnificent confections.  Alya, being seven months pregnant, devoured them all with unseemly eagerness, but her reactions permanently endeared her to my kin.  No one enjoys baked goods like a very pregnant woman.

The women in the household hadn’t skimped, either; the roasting ovens and spits in the kitchen had been going since before dawn, and there was a wealth of meat dishes: spiced roasted pork, mint-roasted lamb, river eels seasoned with herbs, and an entire oxen, which had been prepared at the inn and brought in with great ceremony. 

There was a huge kettle of boiled sausage, a catfish as long as my arm cooked whole, and more varieties of pickles and preserves than I thought possible.  There were mashed carrots with raisins and honey, turnips and parsnips cooked in butter, stuffed river cabbage, andratha root cooked in sheep’s milk, rabbit pie with onions and flosins, a huge vat of potatoes, and four wheels of different kinds of cheese.  No Bovali, of course, but that was to be expected.

And there was wine.  Good gods above, there was wine.  The Bovali refugees were nearly destitute, but they had scraped together enough to procure a barrel of delightfully drinkable red from some Castali coastal plantation that was quite potent.  I was touched – they were disposed, homeless, and at the edge of poverty, but they wanted to thank me somehow for my help.  In addition to the wine, there were three kegs of mead, several bottles of spirits, and a sea of ale to wash everything down. 

My father had hired six musicians to entertain while we ate, and that of course led to dancing.  I don’t really know how to dance, but by that time I was drunk enough not to care.  I made one wobbly trip around the circle with my rotund bride before turning the space over to better and more sober practitioners of the art.  He’d also hired over a dozen servants from the inn to help with the feast, so that his wife and daughters could enjoy the celebration without worrying who needed a refill.

My father had built perhaps the most magnificent wedding cake of his long career, a towering confection of winterberries and sugar and candied this and that, each of the five layers a different essay in his art.  My dad is a master baker, and while that usually meant overseeing hundreds of racks of journeybread or trenchers or small loaves, he had used every morsel of knowledge to put together that magnificent cake.  To be honest, I hated to eat it, it looked so beautiful.

But by the Flame That Burneth Bright, I’m glad I did.

Then it was time for the gifts.  Most were clearly practical – like the bedding my sisters gave us, hand-stitched blankets and quilts, and some baby clothes.  My father gave us a magnificent oaken chest with his baker’s craft crest, entwined with Briga’s sacred flame, wood-burned into its lid
“to remind you which oven you sprang out of,”
as he informed me drunkenly before he danced with my mother and pinched her on the ass.  My mother presented Alya her trousseau, which she had overseen my nieces laboring upon in secret to complete when she wasn’t around. 

Baron Lithar and his wife, I was surprised to see, had sent us a lovely matched set of silver plates, cups, and spoons as a token of his esteem, and old Master Tilo, the baronial court wizard who had sent me to Inarion Academy in the first place, sent me a beautifully illuminated copy of Fenylus’
Grimoire of the Roses
, a book of love spells (some clearly tongue-in-cheek) and love poetry. 

The Bovali knights – Sirs Cei, Roncil and Olve – gave me a beautiful riding saddle, much better than the worn-out one I’d taken to Timberwatch and back.  There were gifts from afar, too: Captain Rogo Redshaft, of the Nirodi Free Mounted Archers, sent me a handsome new weapons’ harness in black, and the mercenary captain Sir Rindolo sent me a set of silver-plated spurs.  The Orphan’s Band, a mercenary unit I’d led over the summer, generously sent a bag of silver and a cunningly-fitted embossed leather gorget with their sigil upon the throat.

There were others, from the simple gifts my younger nieces and nephews made me by themselves, to the surprise lump of yellow knot coral that Tyndal and Rondal had pooled their resources to purchase. 

But the most impressive had to be the gift from His Grace, Duke Rard II, Duke of Castal.

When my brother-in-law Sagal, who had decided to act as master of ceremonies, came across the note, a hush fell over the crowd.  It wasn’t often one got a gift from the Duke . . . personally.  It turned out to be a draft on the Ducal treasury for a thousand ounces of gold.  That was on top of the five thousand he’d already given me, along with my domain, for service in Timberwatch. 

The fact that I knew that his wife and daughter were complicit with (if not directly responsible for) the assassination of his rival and brother-duke, Lenguin of Alshar, I’m sure had
nothing
to do with his generosity.

But one doesn’t get a thousand ounces of gold without your family exploding into a cacophony.  That was wealth beyond what most of them could even imagine, much less count.  I hadn’t mentioned my other riches yet, or really flaunted my title, but when Sagal had haltingly read aloud  “
To: Sir Minalan called the Spellmonger, Mage Knight of Castal
and Alshar”,
that pretty much broke the news to all.

“There must be some mistake,” Sagal said, scratching his head.  “You’re just—”

“A Knight Mage, by the hands of two Dukes,” finished Pentandra, deep in her cups.  “So are
those
two,” she added, nodding toward my apprentices, one of whom was in a tangle with some girl – was that the innkeeper’s daughter? – while the other was doing his best to avoid offending two of my nieces who had taken a fancy to him.  “Hells, so am I, I guess.  A Magelady.  But Minalan is no longer the common peasant he was when he met me.  He’s a
magelord
, now.”

That just made the cacophony worse.  My father stared at me, wide-eyed.  My mother looked like she was going to faint.  My bride looked at me dully.

“What does that mean?” she whispered, too loudly.

“It means that when you became my wife, you also were ennobled,” I explained. 

“Oh,” she said, a little drunkenly – the bridesister, in light of her delicate condition, had restricted her to one glass of wine before making her switch over to mead.  “That means . . .”

“You’re a Lady,” I supplied.  “As in
‘Lady Alya.’
”

“Oh,” she said, trying to comprehend the implications.  I could tell she was starting to get it when she squeezed her eyes shut and whispered
“shit!”

The most curious reaction, to my mind, was that of the Bovali knights, particularly Sir Cei.  As the only other nobility present, they had all been a little uncomfortable . . . but as soon as Sir Cei learned of my transformation, his entire attitude about me seemed to change. 

He respectfully asked to see the patent of my ennoblement, and I dug out the scrap of parchment that had risen me to be his social peer.  Suddenly I wasn’t just a spellmonger.  Indeed he and the other two knights insisted on embracing me and my apprentices as “brother knights”, and there was a bit more respect in their eyes after that.

Exactly how much that meant to them I didn’t realize until a few moments later.

We were still all feasting and dancing and discussing my new-found fortunes when the simple magelight Pentandra had cast to help light our table suddenly went out – and a wave of nothingness washed over us.

That’s a little dramatic, actually, since the wave only affected those of us with Talent.  But suddenly the constant contact I enjoyed with my new and improved Witchsphere was just . . . gone.  As I looked around in a panic, Penny, Tyndal, and Rondal were all equally confused and alarmed.

It took a few seconds for some reason to apply itself to the situation through the fog of reverie and good wine, but you can’t study thaumaturgic magic for a few years without some things sticking.  Someone had obviously cast an annulment enchantment.

An annulment is a way to temporarily-disrupt the flow of magical power in an area, or in a person.  If you imagine magic as a calm, clear pool in which you can usefully see your reflection, then an annulment enchantment is like tossing a handful of sand into the water.  Magic doesn’t exactly go away, just the ability to usefully channel it.