Even with a third of the mercenaries leaving for their cantonments, there were still plenty of tough veterans around to keep attendance at the tournament high, despite the lack of a princess (or perhaps because of the lack). While the highly stylized contest was far from the brutal and gritty reality of war, even the mercenaries had favorite jousters, and plenty had grown up learning the listfield themselves.
Without Rardine attending, of course, the event went off without much friction. Anguin arrived from the field in time for the second bout, and went directly to his box to watch a few passes before retiring to the palace, a Maiden on each arm.
Pentandra caught up with him just as he was leaving, in the company of Count Salgo and a few of his gentlemen. She was even more gratified to see Lady Pleasure, beaming at the world in a bright yellow gown that made her blonde hair seem even more sparkly than usual.
The madame had an entourage of four Maidens, plus her long-suffering bucktoothed assistant, Elspeth; the Maidens were, of course, smiling sweetly at everyone, though the clerk seemed as if she were headed for the dungeons, the sour way she acted. Lady Pleasure - Ishi - was speaking in an animated fashion with the Duke and Salgo about the grandeur of the joust when Pentandra caught up with them.
That was Pentandra’s cue. She used her link to Terleman to summon him to her, mind-to-mind. Ten minutes later he appeared out of the crowd, black mantle trailing behind him, black hair combed neatly to one side. He was leading someone else - a knight in his early twenties Pentandra had never seen before. Of course, he did bear a striking resemblance to someone else.
“How are you enjoying the entertainments, Your Grace?” she asked, ignoring Lady Pleasure’s presence for the moment. The goddess hidden in the body of an aging madame glared at her, but let her proceed while she fanned her face in the summer heat.
“I . . . well, ‘tis better than the goblins’ entertainments,” he conceded. “We came upon one of their . . . displays on our way to the raid. Over twenty people, flayed alive and then posed in death as if they were all dining at an inn. It was horrific,” he grunted softly.
“How ghastly!” Lady Pleasure said, hiding her face behind her fan with false modesty. “How are you enjoying the joust, my lady?”
“Oh, I don’t follow it, the same way some do,” she agreed. “Indeed, some of my friends are devoted to the sport and know every major jouster on the circuit,” she bragged. “I thought you might meet one of them, Your Grace,” she added. “He has a particular desire to meet you.”
“Meet me? Why?” the teenaged duke asked, puzzled. He watched the knight – in his early 20s, with a shock of shaggy golden hair that was starting to fade as his hairline retreated, and wearing the battered armor of a professional jouster.
“Because he’s . . . he’s family,” Pentandra blurted out, as the tall man in the battered steel mail approached. “Your Grace, may I present Sir Gydion of Astafon,” she announced, standing out of the way so that the tall knight could make a properly gracious bow to a man of such rank. “He is a professional jouster from the south, of late on the circuit in southern Castal,” she explained. “When you took your place here, I felt it might be helpful if you could have someone you could rely upon personally, besides Father Amus. Sir Gydion, may I present His Grace, Anguin II, Duke of Alshar. Oh, and Baroness Amandice, late of court,” she added, casually.
Both Lady Pleasure and Sir Gydion started at the same time. Both sets of eyes opened wide, and Lady Pleasure’s mouth fell open, she was so stunned.
“Mother?” Sir Gydion demanded, pulling the madame by her shoulders to face him. “Is that you?”
“I . . . yes,” she finally admitted, defeated. “Yes, my boy . . . my very big boy . . . it is me.”
“You?” Anguin asked. It was his turn for his eyes to go wide. “You are his mother? Why, he’s older than I am!” he chortled.
Lady Pleasure whirled around and shot an evil glance in Pentandra’s direction. If that was the only thanks she would receive for the evening’s work, she reflected, she counted herself satisfied. When the hidden goddess turned back to the duke . . . her face was aged.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir Gydion,” Anguin said, formally.
“Likewise, Your Grace,” the confused professional jouster replied.
Pentandra felt sorry about that – she had gotten Planus to extend a mysterious invitation to the man to come to Alshar for Anguin’s inaugural tournament, along with a large enough purse to get him here. From what she understood, Sir Gydion was a competent but uninspired jouster. He had turned his big frame and his hereditary skills into a decent living, but he was far from one of the favored contestants in the tournaments he participated in.
“While I am of course honored to meet you – in the company of my mother, no less – I confess I have not the slightest idea why I am here,” he declared.
“Why, it is simple, Sir Gydion,” Pentandra said to the knight, pleasantly. “I did some research when I arrived, and discovered a record of a long-lost bastard Duke Lenguin produced in his youth,” she explained. “The ducal house naturally covered it up – it isn’t as if hadn’t happened before – and buried all record of the birth in order to shore up His Grace’s new son’s claim to the coronet. But I managed to track him down – track you down,” she explained.
“My . . . my father was a duke?” asked the knight, astonished.
“I have a brother?” Anguin asked, even more astonished.
“Indeed,” Pentandra said, smoothly answering both questions. “Sir Gydion was sent into exile to keep him from being used as a tool of your family’s enemies, and remained all but forgotten. Luckily,” she said, looking at Ishi, “not every record of your birth and disposition was destroyed. So I thought that, in the absence of other reliable family, perhaps His Grace could come to count on you as a loyal retainer,” she suggested.
“That’s . . . amazing!” Anguin said, beaming. “I have a brother!”
“Half-brother,” Lady Pleasure reminded him, wincing and trying to smile at the same time.
“That’s more brother than I had this morning,” Anguin dismissed. “Come! Have a cup with me and my gentlemen, Sir Gydion, and let us get to know each other!” He pulled the awkward-looking knight into the center of his knot of courtiers, and soon they were headed to the reviewing stands to oversee the next bout.
Lady Pleasure stayed behind, as Pentandra thought she might. She was not as cheery as Pentandra had thought.
“You manipulative bitch!” snarled the goddess through the baroness’ lips. “How dare you interfere with my plans!”
“It’s my job to interfere with your plans!” she riposted. “I’m the duchy’s Court Wizard. I’m supposed to protect and support the duke. I’ve given him an absolutely loyal bodyguard and a confidant he has always wanted but never had.”
“Effectively taking him out of my sway!” barked the madame.
“That was, indeed, the intention,” Pentandra said, coolly. “I got the idea from my castellan, of all people. Bircei once told me that nothing can embarrass a woman like her own child. It seemed unfair for you not to enjoy that particular bit of motherhood.”
The word seemed to drive Ishi into rage. “You wish to embarrass me? I’ve done things so wicked—”
“Oh, yes, I know,” Pentandra said, stopping her before the woman could get too graphic in a public place. “I could never hope to dislodge you from court by spreading scandal. That would merely feed your agenda. And your ego. A rumor that you were had by six guardsmen in the garden and got buggered in the buttery would only add to your sordid reputation . . . and win the admiration of the men of the court,” she added. “I admit, I was perplexed for weeks: how does one embarrass a goddess so badly that she leaves someplace she’s comfortable in? Someplace where she’s planned and plotted to control?
“That’s when Bircei’s advice struck me,” she continued. “If you are too wicked to be shamed into propriety, then the only thing left for me
to do was to take away your power.”
“You cannot take away the power of a goddess, mageling!” Ishi spat.
“I didn’t need to, I realized,” she explained. “I took away your power as a woman. Your power in court is predicated on your beauty, which is based on the appearance of youth . . . and no woman can pretend to be nineteen again, no matter how many glamours she uses, when her twenty-two year old balding son is standing next to her.”
“You are such a bitch!” Ishi shouted.
“But I’m not wrong,” Pentandra continued, sweetly. “You had Anguin enchanted because he saw you as a beautiful, sexually available older woman who facilitated his erotic dreams. But then he sees almost every woman as an older woman. All I had to do was give him some reason to eschew his desires for you, and reminding him that he’s old enough to be your own child seemed an oddly ironic way to strike back, don’t you think? Few men, no matter how old, prefer the maturity of a mother to the vitality of a maiden. It challenges their sense of romantic idealism,” she pointed out.
“You think I don’t know that?” Ishi asked, angrily. “I embody it!”
“Exactly!” Pentandra agreed. “So I had to give Anguin - and the rest of the court - a constant reminder that you are not, in fact, young yourself any longer. Having Sir Gydion around Anguin will do that. No matter how attractive a man thinks you are, as soon as he recalls that your son is man enough to ride a charger against him, he’s going to find eyes for someone younger and prettier. Your glamours will not survive, now that everyone knows that you are, in fact, old enough to be—”
“Don’t you fucking dare say it!” screeched the goddess.
“— a grandmother,” Pentandra finished. With the pronouncement, Ishi seemed to lose something . . . her confidence, her presence, Pentandra wasn’t exactly certain what it was, but the goddess’ avatar was clearly diminished.
“I still have my girls,” Lady Pleasure said, sullenly, gesturing to the Maidens who followed her everywhere. There were a dozen or so in the crowd, seducing men in the stands and inviting them to the Street of Perfume for the evening. “As long as I have them, I still have power!”
“Then you won’t have them long,” predicted Pentandra. “You see what is happening? Look at the stands. Look closely!” she insisted, directing her attention. I
Ishi glared, but turned to survey the rickety wooden bleachers and other choice spots to watch the thundering hooves of the jousters. As the goddess’ vision lighted on one of her Maidens, she saw her seductively teasing a couple of men dressed in the garb of the 3rd Alshari Commando. The two were gaily bantering with her, but there was clearly something between the larger man and the young girl.
Shifting perspective did little for Ishi’s mood. The next Maiden was likewise smitten with one of the Commandos, sitting in his lap and asking him about his campaigns . . . but not as a whore might. She seemed genuinely interested in how the big man acquired his scars.
Another shift in perspective saw a waifish young blonde whore in a tight embrace with a dashing young Commando. Their hands were not employed under each others’ clothes, as she expected, but were wrapped tightly around each other as they just sat and enjoyed the joust.
“No . . . no . . . no . . . no, no, no, NO!” Ishi said, as she looked from one of her girls to the next.
“It won’t happen all at once,” promised Pentandra. “But it will happen. Most of your Maidens will be wed before Luin’s Day. Indeed, I’ve proposed to Count Angrial that the coronet pay five ounces of silver to every man in the Commando who weds . . . and a married man is a far worse client for a brothel than a single one,” she pointed out. “Why overpay for a meal at a tavern when you have a pot on the fire at home for free?”
“You sicken me!” Ishi moaned, still watching the crowd. There was no mistaking what her Maidens were doing, now. They weren’t looking for clients. They were strolling arm in arm with soldiers, or kissing artisans without cash being involved, or abandoning perfectly good opportunities to increase their purse with the wealthy and powerful for the simple pleasures of a cup of ale and a bite of fruit with a handsome young guardsman in the square.
They were not pursuing the clear opportunities for advancement and riches the first tournament in five years provided.
They were falling in love. That was readily apparent to the Goddess of Love.
“Why the hells would you, of all people, do this, Pentandra? How the hells did you do this?” she demanded, turning back toward the wizard.
“The same way you tried to punish me,” Pentandra said with a sneer. “I got your mother involved. The All-Mother, actually. I happened to encounter Trygg on my travels. She told me what I needed to do, and what she planned on doing, to drive you away from Vorone.”
“But . . . but why?”
“While you have been helpful here, my lady, your work is done. You may have sparked the desires of the people here, but mere desire alone is insufficient to run a society. It takes commitment,” she declared, nodding toward an older couple in the stands. Likely tradesman, from their dress, they were reclined against each other on their bench as cozily if they were a lad and a lass. “Not commitment to pleasure, or the mere fulfillment of your loins, or even to your purse. It takes commitment between man and woman to build our society together. It takes marriage,” she said, firmly. “Not infatuation.”
“And what of those women who despise that institution?” the goddess ventured, her voice thick with contempt as she watched the field. “Would my mother consign them to a hopeless fate against their will? To be owned by a man?”
Pentandra giggled. “Any more than I own Arborn? You try to present a false choice, Goddess,” Pentandra lectured. “Those who wish to take a trade or sacred orders are free to do so. Those women who continue to desire being whores shall, of course, also be free to do so. They will not lack for clients any time soon. Let them earn their living that way, if they desire.
“But I warn you, for all the laudable work you’ve put into your Maidens’ education, one thing they have learned above all others: youth is fleeting. Beauty fades. Desire as a commodity spoils quickly, compared to the stalwart security of a single man.”
“Enslaved to a single man, you mean!” she said with disgust. “Really, Pentandra, you disappoint me. All the world was at your disposal, opportunity lay around every corner, and you give it all up for . . . him?” she asked. “And Minalan, for that matter? You were committed to him before you even met Arborn! You could have been the most powerful mage in the Kingdom, had you but taken the initiative and seized what you could!”
“Perhaps,” Pentandra conceded, with all seriousness. “Do you not think I know what I have given up, to be with my husband? To live this life in this far-off place? I thought never to wed, and counted myself fortunate because of it. I understood the opportunistic nature of my own soul, my own desires for love and support, and I cynically thought that I would be content with the bits and pieces I contrived to gain along the way . . . striving alone in this world.
“But when I look around and see all of the accomplishments that I have made, and all the good I have done, and all the success I have garnered by luck or skill,” she said with a contented sigh, “I realize that being anything, even Archmage, means nothing to me. It doesn’t bring me happiness. I have slept in palaces and slept in hovels, in dungeons and in beautiful castles and exquisite villas . . . but never was I happier than the night I lay next to Arborn as his wife,” she said, with a mixture of pride and shame.
“Disappointing,” muttered the goddess, starring at the wizard. “You had every chance! You are the most intelligent, most vital of my protégés, and you waste it all on tradition and servitude! Every opportunity to conquer . . . and you chose a life of domesticity, instead?”
“Will titles and riches bring me solace on my deathbed?” Pentandra suddenly asked, irritated with the divinity. “Will the number of cocks I’ve had inside me mean anything to me? Or will I be more fulfi
lled by holding Arborn’s hand one last time, kissing my children tearfully good-bye, secure in the knowledge that the world I’ve bequeathed them is the finest one I could craft?”
Pentandra looked at Ishi as if she were a stupid slattern. “I saw the look of longing in Old Antimei’s eyes. A woman who followed her head, and not her heart. Bereft of love and consigned to a lonely death. I am worth more than that, Goddess!” she challenged.
“Fine!” Ishi declared, her eyes dark with menace. “If you reject my gifts and turn your back on what I offer you . . . in favor of what that conservative old cunt can give . . . on your head be it! But why must you condemn my sweet maidens to such a fate?” she pleaded. “Without me to guide them, they’ll . . . they’ll end up like you! Or worse! How many will be beaten? Raped? Even killed by their spouses? What unkind word will turn into a tempest that leaves both lives miserable?” she pleaded.
“That all depends upon the gods. Or one goddess in particular. If she should take an interest,” Pentandra said, wisely, “perhaps the proper matches will be made, sparing the conflicts that could lead to more disappointing results.”
Court Wizard: Book Eight Of The Spellmonger Series Page 98