“I was sure we’d get here before you!” Jadie cried. “We couldn’t get here any earlier if we spent the night in the building!”
They all put on pads and began practicing with swords and then the spears that Grange considered to be a staff with a point.
“Do you ever practice throwing the spear?” Casey asked when they finished. “You’re not really using it the way it should be used if you just poke and twirl and trip with it,” she commented.
“Go with us to Jadie’s family’s home in the country, and her brother can give you a challenge with the spear!” she continued.
“Carie is the best on the island – he can hit a target from a hundred paces,” Jadie agreed.
“Can we go tomorrow?” Grange asked, mindful of his need to return to the embassy at that moment.
“We’ll plan on it,” the girls agreed, and they left the armory when he did. Others immediately approached Grange, seeking to spar with him, but he begged off, and returned to the embassy.
From the front hall Grange heard Bartar enter the dining room to sit down to breakfast, and he decided to quickly shower and change so that he’d be presentable for the small conclave that he was about to join. He bounded up the stairs and went to Grace’s room, knocked on the door, then pressed the door open a crack to speak to the occupant.
“Grace? May I take a shower?” he called.
“Come in Grange, I’m dressed,” he heard the girl’s voice reply.
“I’m going downstairs now. I’ll see you there,” she told him as he slipped into the room and she slipped out. She was dressed in a black dress that appeared to be a robe, one that seemed to convey the image of a wizard in some fashion. Grange’s head turned as he walked by, letting him examine her appearance, one that seemed intended to reinforce the decision the two of them had made the night before to designate her as the newly-named court wizard of Kilau.
She left him alone in her room, her clothing scattered indiscriminately upon the furniture, and he noticed it for a moment, the feminine shapes of cloth that appeared designed to tempt him to distraction, until he reached the bath and opened the spigot to allow the water from the roof top tank to stream down upon him and rinse away the morning’s workout of grime and sweat.
Bartar was pleased that the two had come so amiably to an agreement about which would be offered as the one to stay in the court of Kilau when Grange eventually went downstairs.
“I think the arrangement makes sense,” he told them as Astel listened mournfully.
“A female wizard will give the Queen some comfort, I suspect,” he projected. “And young Grange will have time to go back to Brieed’s halls to learn the rest of his trade. Astel and I will work on the treaty language this afternoon, and we can all go to the palace tomorrow to deliver our proposals.”
“Will it be in the evening, tomorrow?” Grange asked.
“Do you have plans during the day?” Grace asked sarcastically.
“I do. I’m going to go practice throwing spears,” he answered.
“You’re not going to work on amulets with me?” the girl asked him.
“You could spend the afternoon with me while Grange is gone,” Astel offered.
“We can work on amulets this afternoon, and the day after tomorrow,” Grange answered, ignoring Astel.
“You’ll need to really start to buckle down and work on amulets if you want to improve and move on,” Grace told Grange, also ignoring Astel. “You may be able to pick up the skills quickly, but I still need time to teach you in the first place.”
“We will go to the palace in the evening tomorrow,” Bartar cut them off from further bickering.
“I’ll send a note to the palace this afternoon, before Astel and I work on the treaty,” he told them. “And of course, I need to send letters to the court in Palmland to seek approval of the proposals we’ll be working on.”
Grange and Grace went out to the garden soon after, and began working on the nuances of creating amulets. Grange listened patiently, as Grace explained the different types of materials used for different purposes, and Grange practiced storing energy in wood, stone, leather, and even a feather, as well as combinations of the materials.
“I want to create a wand,” Grange said after they returned to the garden following a lunch break.
“A wand? Just like that, a wand? Grange the Mighty wants a wand, so let’s make a wand, poof?” Grace said mockingly.
“A wand is the most valuable amulet a wizard can produce; it doesn’t come quickly or easily,” she told him severely. “It will take weeks possibly. We’ll need a full moon, among other things.”
Grange immediately thought about the star-filled skies he had looked at from his roof top nest each night recently – there had been no sign of a full moon. It was likely to be several days before the next full moon arrived.
“Okay,” he meekly accepted her judgment. “Let’s start with whatever we can.”
“We can’t start with anything until you have a stick to use as your wand,” Grace retorted. “We’ll need to go on a search to find the proper stick that will be your foundation.”
“There’s a stick,” Grange said sarcastically, pointing at a leafy branch overhead.
“You don’t want one that’s still living,” Grace seemed to bring her temper under control. “You want a stick that is whole and solid, but no longer alive. You have to recondition it to accept your power, and you don’t want its own power to be in the way, interfering with the wand’s ability to absorb and adapt to your powers.”
“Let’s go find one,” he said, standing up.
Grace stared at him, then stood up as well. “Lead the way,” she told him.
Grange walked out of the embassy and onto the streets, then led the way to a park he had passed every day on his way to the armory. He began scouring the ground, looking for suitable sticks, and showed them all to Grace as he picked them off the ground, or snapped them from dead branches.
“That’s too crooked,” she said to his first candidate.
“Too thin,” she dismissed the second stick.
“Not long enough. Too weak. Still green,” she forced each candidate to drop from Grange’s hand to the ground.
“That one is a candidate,” she surprised Grange by saying after twenty minutes, as he held a dark, barkless, cylinder of wood. “Bring it along, and see what else you can find,” she instructed. Several minutes after that, Grange grasped a second stick, and they walked back towards the embassy to examine the two wand candidates closely.
“Treat each one as if it were going to be an amulet,” she instructed him when they sat back down at the garden table again.
Grange set the first stick in front of him, and laid the second stick off to the side. He called upon the energy to congregate and form a layer around the stick, then studied how the energy layer reacted with the wood. “There are a lot of places where the surface is ruffled,” he noted.
“Ideally, you want the length of the stick to have as few imperfections as possible, and you want the ends, especially one end in particular, to be very open to absorbing energy,” Grace told him. “You want to limit where the energy emerges from, so that you can focus it and retain it.”
“This one’s no good,” Grange dismissed the energy he had called, and tossed the stick aside, then grabbed the second stick, and conducted his study on its energy properties as well. “The other one has too many leaks as well,” he said in disappointment.
“We’re not going to go out now to look for more sticks,” Grace told him. “We’ve done enough for today. You can look for more good sticks tomorrow, and we can pick up with examining them,” she said.
Grange was disappointed with the end of the session, but bit his tongue, pleased that Grace was willing to work with him at all. He went back to the armory and spent the last hour of the afternoon practicing there, then returned to his search for new sticks on the way back to the embassy in the early evening.
He
walked up to his room with a handful of sticks, and laid them out on his table. Afterwards, he entered Grace’s unoccupied room and showered once again, went down to the kitchen to grab a plateful of food, and returned to his spot on the roof with food, sticks, and the sheet that he laid on for the rest of the night as he examined the properties of each stick, and sorted them by the ways in which they were open to the energy.
When he fell asleep, he knew that none of the sticks were good enough to be a wand. Each had openings along their lengths that allowed the energy to enter and exit as the flows dictated.
The next morning Grange was up early and at the armory early. He practiced archery, then fencing with Jadie and Casey.
“You’ve ruined us for parties now,” Casey complained. “We want to go to bed early enough to come practice with you.”
“We better win the tournament,” Jadie said in a mock ominous tone.
“What tournament?” Grange asked.
“Let’s go meet Casey’s brother and we’ll tell you on the way,” Jadie suggested.
The three companions left the armory and walked to Casey’s home, then surprised Grange by continuing to the stables in the back.
“Carie’s out at the country house,” Casey explained about her brother, who was to start training Grange in tossing the spear. “You wouldn’t really want to try to throw a spear around in a city, would you?” she joked.
They rode horses for half an hour, out into a countryside of both small farms and garden plots, as well as middle-sized estates. They reached the country home of Casey’s family, and Grange was introduced to Carie, who had the same striking light green eyes that his sister had, with a more muscular build than any of the visitors, including Grange.
“Spears are made for throwing, and the javelin is the best to throw if you’re just trying to throw far,” Carie told Grange as the two of them stood at the edge of an empty pasture. They had carried an armful of spears with them and piled them on the ground at the spot they were going to begin the new practice.
“This,” he uncoiled a leather strap from around his waist, one that Grange had assumed was just a belt, “is an amentum, a throwing strap. We’ll practice throwing the javelin, then you’ll learn how to do it with a strap.”
“When I’m in battle, will I throw a javelin or a regular spear?” Grange wanted to know.
“Well, you won’t really ever be in battle, so there’s no worry there,” Carie said breezily, “but if you were throwing in battle, the javelin could go farther, but the spear would probably do more damage, and would be more accurate at short range than the javelin at long range.”
They threw the entire stack of spears they had carried, then went to the area where the projectiles had landed, and threw them all from there, Carie offering advice and suggestions as they stood in the hot sun. They carried out a third round of throws, and a fourth, with the introduction of the throwing strap, which Grange found awkward at first.
By mid-afternoon they were hot and tired when Casey and Jadie joined them.
“Where have you been, in the pool?” Carie asked.
“We have a spring-fed pond where the water is absolutely cold and wonderful!” Jadie explained to Grange. “You should come try it!”
And so they all went to the pool, the boys following their spear throws as a game they played on the way to the cool spring. The water was cool and refreshing, so much so that Grange was willing to float peacefully until he knew it was time to return to the city.
“I have to go to the palace tonight,” he told the others as he climbed out of the water.
“Is there a dinner, or ball?” Casey asked.
“We are going to go to the Queen to talk about the treaty that Bartar wants for trade,” Grange told them. He didn’t mention the arrangements for the queen to have a wizard in her court, a topic that he thought the queen would handle as she chose.
The three visitors left Carie at the country estate, and rode back into town. After saying good bye to his friends and thanking them for the full day of activity, Grange returned to the embassy, where he found that his absence was a topic of considerable discussion.
“Where have you been? It doesn’t matter – get dressed,” Bartar said hurriedly as soon as Grange entered the front hall.
He obediently ran up the stairs to his room, and was in the middle of putting on one of the new outfits Regan had prepared for him when Grace barged into his room.
“Where have you been?” she demanded to know.
Grange stared at her. She was wearing a gown unlike any he had ever seen before. It had fabric up to her neck, but numerous parts of the dress were missing around her torso, displaying swaths of skin he had never seen revealed by a dress before.
“Do you like it? I wanted something different to make them all think of me as a wizard,” she smiled as she noticed his attention to her dress.
“I waited down there in the garden for you to arrive for your training today,” her voice changed, and she resumed scolding him, as she had intended to. “Is it not important enough for you to have a wand that you won’t come to lessons?” she asked.
“Sorry,” Grange said contritely, holding his clothes in front of himself. “Turn around,” he insisted.
As she did, he explained while getting dressed. “I went to a different lesson today, in how to throw a spear the way they do here. I didn’t have any training in spears in Palmland,” he told her.
“Swords, spears, knives – all you to is train to fight. You’re becoming a wizard! You don’t need to fight the way regular people do,” she dismissed activities.
“I have something in my future, something that will require me to be able to fight in any way possible,” he answered.
Grace turned to look at him. “In your future? Do you see the future?”
“No,” he answered, regretting the slip he had made. “It’s just a feeling.”
“Well, I’m feeling you better come to lessons with me while I’m still here. I may move into the palace one of these days, you know,” she told him as he pulled his shirt down over his head. “Now let’s go.”
The Palmland contingent traveled to the palace, and had a pleasant and elaborate dinner with the Queen and a number of nobles, then retired to a large sitting room for discussions.
“Here is our proposal for the treaty, your majesty,” Bartar handed the thick, bound bundle of papers to a palace functionary. “We trust you’ll find it offers great rewards for your people.
“And here,” he motioned towards Grace, who stood and theatrically removed the light cape she had worn, to reveal the gown she had chosen for her presentation, “is the wizard who we believe can serve in your court, bringing her powers to serve your needs.”
There was a wave of murmurs around the room as Grace stepped forward for inspection.
A man who looked familiar to Grange stood near the Queen. As she inspected Grace, the man stepped over towards his ruler and whispered in her ear.
“Our friend Asloe suggested that we request an additional, slight favor from you,” the queen said.
“This young one is very welcome to join us in the court, and we welcome her to Kilau,” the Queen began.
“Subject to the receipt of approval from her master and our sovereign in from Palmland,” Bartar politely interjected.
The Queen nodded her acceptance of the condition.
“We have seen her here with you frequently, and she seems to acquit herself well. However,” the Queen opened a new topic.
“Asloe has a voyage coming up,” the leader said.
Grange suddenly remembered who Asloe was, and why he looked familiar. He was the trader who controlled Kilau’s current, profitable trade with the outside world. Grange remembered dancing with the man’s daughter, Asper, at a ball in the palace during his first night in Kilau.
“Oh oh,” Bartar said under his breath. “Here it comes.”
Grange wanted to ask the ambassador what he thought was coming.
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“Asloe has heard that your other young wizard is most proficient in not only the ways of power, but also practices well as a warrior. He would like to ask that you lend your wizard to Asloe’s sailing ships as they go on a hazardous journey next month.”
Bartar looked at Grange speculatively, as Grange looked in confusion from the queen and the trader to the ambassador to Grace, who still stood on display, no longer the center of attention.
“I would be most favorably disposed towards your treaty if Asloe found that you would extend this token of friendly assistance to him.,” Queen Shajo explained.
Bartar poked an elbow in Grange’s ribs. “Tell her ‘yes’,” the nobleman breathed the barely audible order to Grange.
Grange wasn’t sure what to think. He didn’t look forward to the notion of another sailing journey, especially not one that was deemed hazardous. But there seemed no way to refuse.
He sighed, then rose from his seat and stepped forward, next to Grace.
“I would be happy to help by joining the voyage,” he said simply.
“Capital!” the queen said. “Asloe will make arrangements with you for the journey.
“And we’ll make arrangements for you to move into the palace with the things you’ll need,” she spoke to Grace.
“Bartar, we are pleased with today’s meeting. My advisors will examine your proposal. Shall we get together again in a week to discuss this, and in the meantime, I welcome your young lady wizard to return to the palace to look into the rooms she’ll need for her duties here,” the Queen said. She stood, and everyone else in the room stood as well, then the leader of the court turned and left the room. The Palmland contingent left moments later, Bartar pleased with the conversation, and they returned to their embassy.
Over the course of the next week, Grange enjoyed three notable events, while falling into a slightly altered new routine.
He began to accompany Grace to the palace so that she could oversee the establishment of her wizardry enclave, and on the first trip there, he was able to see Shaylee. He had not seen his friend during the formal treaty negotiation visit with Bartar, so the chance to see Shaylee was highly welcome.
Perilous Travels (The Southern Continent Series Book 2) Page 17