Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  To be fair, there were plenty of Sunpriests who encouraged all comers to take the water freely. But—well, it seemed to him there were fewer of the generous ones from year to year, and more who at the least, if they did not exact a tithe of work, cash, or goods for the water, insisted on daily attendance at one of the services before you got your water. That might not sound like much, but in the day of a busy woman, there were not many marks to spare, and in order to fetch her water, she might face a choice between leaving some task undone or walking farther to fetch water from another source. "One wishes," he said slowly, "that all leaders like-minded were."

  Selenay beamed; Mirilin grunted, but at least he didn't seem displeased.

  The Court of Justice was held in a building over the Corn Market—literally over it, for it stood on four pillars above the valuable stall space. If the courtroom was filled, this covered space below—used on market days for the most valuable of merchandise, and food vendors—enabled people who were waiting their turn to wait out of the weather or sun.

  Herald Mirilin was the sole arbiter here; those who brought grievances to him either had tried the regular courts and were unsatisfied, or felt that a regular court would not be as responsive to their grievances as a single Herald would. The Herald sat at a table at the back of the room, within a sort of partition that took up the back fifth or so, divided from the rest of room by a low balustrade. Those whose cases were being heard stood before him, while those still waiting, and interested parties, sat on rows of backless benches on the other side of the railing. Selenay sat beside Mirilin, industriously taking notes, while Alberich stood behind them both and attempted to look like a superfluous statue.

  As far as Alberich could judge, the people here ranged in income level from well-off to impoverished. In age, they tended to be middle-aged folk, with a sprinkling of elders. The cases were astonishingly petty, which surprised him. Someone had loaned an object, or money, and the person to whom it had been lent now claimed it was a gift. A child had vandalized something, and the parents disclaimed responsibility. A dog was permitted to run loose and had bitten someone. A chicken flew into a yard and ate seeds and young plants; the angry householder caught, killed, and ate it, and the owner claimed compensation.

  None of this was earth shattering, and all of it would have been settled in Karse with some form of personal confrontation among the parties concerned. In a village, it was usually the responsibility of the headman or council of elders to sort it all out—in a city, well, it generally came to blows.

  Alberich wasn't quite sure why anyone "official" was involved in these cases at all. And even if the idea was to keep public fighting at a minimum, there were courts to handle these cases, according to Selenay. Why were Heralds concerned with these ridiculous little domestic problems at all? More importantly, at least as far as this "bodyguard" business was concerned, what was Selenay learning here that was vital enough to put her here, where she was very vulnerable?

  His questions remained unanswered for the moment. But he did, gradually, begin to see the shape of what was called "justice" in Valdemar. When a grievance was between a rich person and a poor one, it was settled in the favor of the poor one as often as not. In the villages of Karse, rich men had influence. No one wanted to get on their bad side, for the most part. They might be cordially loathed, but no one dared to offend them. At least, no one dared except the Sunpriests—but even they tended not to upset the best source of their golden tithes. So justice tended, especially in small matters, to weigh in on the side of the fellow with the most coin. And in the cities of Karse, "justice" was for open sale, as often as not.

  But here, to his bemusement, justice was simply that.

  But the poor man didn't always win. Not when the poor man was in the wrong.

  There was a case of a shabby, shifty-eyed fellow claiming that a merchant's horse had trampled him and broken his leg, and the merchant's coachman had agreed that, yes, that was what had happened—when the shifty fellow had thrown himself deliberately under the horse's hooves.

  That was when Mirilin glanced over at the Princess. "Truth Spell, please, Selenay," he murmured.

  :Watch this, Chosen,: Kantor said instantly. :This is important.:

  Selenay nodded and closed her eyes, a tiny frown of concentration on her face. And slowly, a faint blue glow began to gather over the heads of both parties, growing stronger and stronger, until it stood out clearly even in the well-lit courtroom. Alberich kept his face expressionless, but he felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck. When anyone in Karse used magic—well, the only people who did were Sunpriests, and the very few times they ever did so outside of the inner sanctum of a temple, someone usually died....

  "Now," said Mirilin to the coachman. "Tell me again what happened, precisely."

  The coachman, an earnest old gentleman who kept his gaze fastened on Mirilin the entire time, repeated his story, virtually word-for-word, while the light about him glowed steadily. He didn't even seem aware of it, although those in the courtroom who were paying attention to this case murmured with satisfaction.

  "And now, sir, would you tell me what happened again?" Mirilin continued, with a courteous nod to the shabby fellow.

  "Nah, lookit me leg!" the fellow bleated indignantly, gesturing at the limb in question, which was splinted and bound with clean rags—the only things that were clean about him. "Any'un with 'af an eye kin tell what's what!"

  "Nevertheless, please tell me again," Mirilin replied, with far more patience than Alberich would have shown. The man began his tale with ill grace, but the moment he got to "—an' I stepped inter the street, an' this bastid comes whippin' up 'is 'orses—"

  The light went out.

  Although the man clearly was unaware that anything had happened at all, the onlookers saw what Alberich had. A gasp—not of surprise, but of satisfaction—went up, and Mirilin cut the rest of the man's speech off with a wave of his hand.

  "Sir, you are lying, and this man is telling the truth. He owes you nothing." Mirilin glanced meaningfully at the constables that waited just beyond the barrier. "Now, the penalties for perjury are substantial in a regular court, but since this is a Heraldic hearing, and I have discretion, I shall allow you to leave in peace—providing you do leave quietly. I suggest that you find a more honest means of employing yourself from here on, because you are now in the official records as a perjurer, and the next court you bring yourself before will take that into account."

  The man followed Mirilin's glance and set his jaw angrily, but didn't even try to dispute the judgment. Instead, he shuffled off, quickly getting himself out of the door (or at least, as quickly as a splinted and wrapped leg would allow) while the coachman thanked Mirilin effusively.

  But Mirilin waved him off with a slight sign of irritation. "Do not thank me for simple justice," he said. "Now, please, we have a heavy docket to see—"

  The coachman took the hint and followed in the path of his accuser.

  :That was the Truth Spell, Chosen,: Kantor said with satisfaction, :And it is nearly the only sort of magic that you will ever see a Herald using. There's mind-magic, of course, which is things like Mindspeech, Foreseeing and FarSeeing, but unless you are the Herald doing the mind-magic, well, you aren't going to actually see anything. Mirilin is better at the Truth Spell than Selenay, but he wants her to have the practice in setting it, because when she needs to use it, she'll be doing so with many more eyes on her,:

  :Is that all it does?: he asked, :just show which person is telling the truth?:

  :There is a more powerful version that can compel the truth, but it's not likely to be used here,: Kantor replied, as an old woman with a cat came hobbling up to the table. :That's saved for things that are a great deal more serious, and not all Heralds can invoke it. You have to have a very strong Gift, and it usually has to be one like Mindspeech.:

  :Will I—: he began, and stopped.

  :You will. You'll probably be very good at it.: But Ka
ntor was evidently sensitive to feelings as well as actual thoughts, for he quickly added, :But given that you're going to be the Weaponsmaster, I doubt you'll be called upon to do it much. If at all.:

  The afternoon trundled on, under its own momentum of petty grievances, minor misunderstandings, rancor, greed, selfishness—and bewilderment, hurt feelings, a certain amount of genuine grief, and the genuine trust that a Herald would put things right. As the afternoon went on, there were several inheritance cases that came up, and in one, Mirilin worked something like a miracle, not only getting compromise, but in getting all of the aggrieved parties to apologize to each other and reconcile.

  Sometimes both parties were equally right and wrong, and it was then that Mirilin truly showed his worth. Somehow he always managed to get both sides to see the rights as well as the wrongs of the case, and for the most part, managed to get them to work out a solution without having to have him decree one for them. That was sheer genius, and Alberich did not see how he managed it. Astonishing.

  No wonder he's assigned to this! Alberich thought more than once, as Mirilin played near-invisible midwife to yet another compromise.

  :In many ways, Selenay will have to do exactly this when she is Queen,: Kantor pointed out. :A court is a little like a village or a neighborhood; everyone knows everyone else, everyone has his own particular agenda to pursue, there is an entire pecking order within the group that outsiders would never be aware of, and above all, you can never forget that someone has to be aware of all of the undercurrents and keep conflicts from breaking out into actual feuding. The actual complaints here will be different from those within the Court, but the dynamics of personality are fundamentally the same.:

  So that was what Selenay was learning here. Perhaps these people weren't as daft as he thought.

  The court was closed around dinnertime, with a backlog of people still waiting. But no one complained overmuch, perhaps because Mirilin had kept things moving fairly briskly.

  On the way back, Selenay and her mentor discussed the intricacies of case and personality with great animation; Alberich achieved his goal of becoming unnoticeable, as he rode behind them. This was good; he actually learned far more than he had expected as Mirilin offered the fruits of his hard-earned experience to Selenay.

  And when Selenay took her leave of Alberich, he found that he was looking forward to the next session down in Haven. If Mirilin hadn't exactly warmed to Alberich, at least he hadn't rejected Alberich out of hand.

  He returned to the salle and headed for his shared living quarters with the feeling, on the whole, that he was rather pleased than otherwise with the way that the day had gone. But Dethor's first words, spoken as he walked into the midst of a conversation that had certainly been going on for at least a mark before he arrived, put a chill on his good humor.

  "There you are," Dethor said, as the other two Heralds in the room looked up at his entrance. "What do you know about a group that calls themselves the 'Tedrel Mercenaries'?"

  7

  "WHAT of the Tedrels do I know? Huh. Nothing good," Alberich replied, but only after standing there for a moment, blinking stupidly; such a completely unexpected question left him feeling slightly stunned. The Tedrels? What on earth could that sinister group have to do with Valdemar? And why ask him about them?

  "Why?" he asked, as the others sat there looking at him, waiting for him to say something more.

  "Because there's word Karse is hiring them." Dethor's eyes could have pierced a hole in steel, but evidently Alberich's reaction of further shock pleased him, for his expression softened immediately.

  The Tedrels? Why would Karse hire them? Who could have learned of them to hire them in the first place? Most people in Karse had never heard of them, let alone anyone this far north. The only reason he knew anything about them was because of Aksel.

  And the only reason that Aksel knew anything about them was because he still had contacts within the Mercenary Guild, friendly contacts, which was not within the norm for anyone in the Sunsguard. One evening Aksel had told him that the Mercenary Guild was issuing warnings about the Tedrel Companies; since that was just before Alberich was commissioned out of the cadets, Aksel had seen fit to warn his protege in case he came up against any Tedrels in the course of his duties. He'd shown Alberich the broadside carrying the message, in fact.

  Don't trust them, said those warnings. Don't fight with them, and don't take a fight against them. And the reasons for these flat edicts had been chilling....

  Now Karse was not in good odor with the Mercenary Guild. The Sunpriests expected men to fight for the glory of the Sunlord, and not for such venial considerations as money and booty. They had, on two separate occasions, hired Guild Companies and then reneged on the contract. They had paid for those mistakes; with full Guild backing, enough caravans led by Karsite merchants crossing the southern Border of Karse had been confiscated to pay for the arrears—and since it had been high-ranking Sunpriests who had backed those caravans with their personal fortunes, the bird of ill luck had come home to roost in the right nest. But the Guild Companies now refused any and all overtures from the Sunpriests, and of all of the military leaders in Karse, only Aksel—who was not a "leader" as such—still had friends in the Guild.

  That had all fallen out while Alberich was still sweeping out the stables to earn extra coppers for his mother. By the time he was in the cadet academy, Karse was learning that not even non-Guild mercenaries would take their coin. Being cut off from the Guild left Karse without a reliable source for extra troops; being refused by nearly everyone left them forced to supply their needs from within.

  And therein lay the rub. The regular troops were few. Standing armies were expensive beasts to maintain. Men had to be recruited or conscripted—and if you took too many men off the land, who would till and plant and harvest the fields or tend the herds? Once you had the men, you had to train them, and house and feed them while you were training them. Then, when they weren't actually fighting (which was most of the time) you still had to feed and house them. The Sunpriests might be able to induce religious fervor enough to get their men to fight without pay (or at least, with minimal pay), but they still couldn't get by without food and shelter, no matter how fanatic or pious or even desirous of paradise they were.

  And besides that, there was a limit to how many troops you could recruit in the first place. Many places in Karse had poor soil; poor soil meant that a great deal of work had to be put into a farm to make it prosper. The boys might get dreams of glory in the Sunsguard, but their fathers would see to it that they didn't run off when they were needed at home. No matter how hungry for the land and riches of other realms the Sunpriests were, they were not mad enough to deplete their own land of the very people needed to keep the farms going. By the time Alberich was about to get his first commission, they had conscripted so many of the poor in the cities that there was an actual labor shortage, and women were taking jobs that once only men had filled. That had been the reasoning behind permitting bandits to use Karse as a base to raid into Valdemar; bandits didn't require the support of the state, and they kept up the ongoing feud with Valdemar without—in theory, at least—costing Karse anything. Except that, of course, bandits didn't keep their bargains, which had required the Sunpriests use all of their Sunsguard to quell them, leaving no fighters for any other little projects they might have in mind.

  Which left hiring troops as the only viable option, if troops were needed for a campaign against anyone. That meant either Mercenary Guild companies, which were trustworthy, would not loot or otherwise molest your people, and in general were welcome in the lands of those who hired them—or non-Guild troops, which were unpredictable at best, and a hazard to those who hired them at worst. By betraying the Mercenary Guild, the Sunpriests had shaved those options to a narrow little rind, because not even the non-Guild Companies operating anywhere near Karse would touch a contract.

  Of course, the only reason why you would need more troops
was if you were going to start a war. The last time when the rulers Karse had reneged on a Guild contract—the war had been internal. Some madman out of the hills had decided that Vkandis spoke through him without any evidence or real miracles to back up his assertions. But his cause was convenient for some of the nobles, moneyed merchants, and even a few priests, so they backed him and began a civil war. Both sides of the conflict had been decimated, which was, in part, how a bastard-born peasant like Alberich had managed to get into cadet training. And if it came to more than Border skirmishing, frankly, in Alberich's opinion Karse couldn't possibly raise the troops needed from among its own people.

  If Karse was planning a real war again, non-Guild mercenaries were the only way in which an army could be raised in a hurry. But—the Tedrels? Could they possibly be mad enough to use the Tedrels?

  A war? With whom? Rethwellan, perhaps. In the last conflict, Rethwellan had seized the opportunity to increase its borders, and the Sunpriests badly wanted the province of Menmellith. Not Valdemar, surely not—surely the lessons learned in the past were enough by now! No matter how fanatically the Sunpriests hated Valdemar and the Demon-Riders, surely they knew better than to engage in open warfare. Now Rethwellan—that made more sense, and there was some justification for warfare with that land. Menmellith had once been Karsite. Very, very long ago, of course, but the Sunpriests had long memories.