Ascendant

by Craig Alanson

  “What kind of girl do you like?” Ariana asked, while twirling a stand of hair around her finger.

  “Oh, I don’t know, that's all too far away to think about now. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m living in a cubbyhole of the wizard’s tower, that doesn’t make me a good catch for girls.”

  “Some girls would think you’re a good catch.” Ariana said in a small voice. She hadn’t thought about the subject of marriage from Koren’s side. He was living in the royal castle, but in truth, he was only a penniless servant.

  Koren shrugged. “Maybe someday, I can rent land for a farm somewhere. My father bought his own land, before he met my mother. My mother says he was the best catch in the whole village.”

  “You like farming?” Ariana asked, surprised. It didn’t sound like fun to her.

  “I know how to do it. You need a skill, if you’re not going to be someone’s servant your whole life. I mean, not you, you’re a princess, and you'll be queen. You’ll never have to worry about earning your keep.”

  The conversation was not going where Ariana wanted. “Would you like another honey cake?”

  That evening, Koren was walking across the castle courtyard with Cully, after helping the other servant boy move furniture from a part of the castle that was going to be renovated. It was hard work, and the tired boys were headed to the kitchens to scrounge up whatever food was available. "Look, it's the princess," Cully whispered as he grabbed Koren's arm. Ariana was standing on a stone platform up against the castle wall, bundled up in fine, heavy clothes, her hair waving gently in the cold breeze. "She's reviewing the evening changing of the guard." Cully explained.

  "I want to see," Koren said, standing on his toes to see above the crowd. "Let's go around the side." They squeezed their way along the wall, until they were in front, close to Ariana's personal guards. A guard held out a hand to prevent them getting closer, then recognized Koren and nodded. The boys stood quietly, waiting for the princess to signal the ceremony to begin. Ariana looked around the assembled crowd, from left to right, and when she saw Koren, she smiled, and winked at him, then gestured the guards to begin.

  Cully at first thought the princess had smiled and winked at him, which froze him in place for a second. When he realized Koren had been the target of her affections, he looked at the other boy, and frowned. They stood silently until the guard had been changed, and the princess escorted back inside the castle. "Brother, you are in trouble," Cully said in a low voice, shaking his head.

  "Huh? What do you mean?"

  "I saw you making goo-goo eyes at the princess. What in the world are you thinking? Not thinking, you must be."

  "I was not making... goo-goo eyes at Ari- at the princess."

  "You should have seen your face, you were all 'Oh, I'm so in lu-uh-uv with her, the princess is my everything'." Cully said mockingly.

  "Was not!" Koren said hotly, his face red from embarrassment.

  "Was too! I know what I saw! Seriously, you must be crazy in the head, or something. She's the crown princess, she's going to be Queen soon. Her mother could have your head chopped off, if she saw you looking at the princess that way. Listen, brother, I know you're more used to being around goats than royalty, but they're up here," Cully stretched his hand up way high over his head, "and we're down there someplace," he pointed down at the muddy ground. "You can't even think about what you're thinking. You know that, right? She's going to marry some duke's son, or a prince from a foreign land. And you may not always be a servant, but you will always be common-born."

  Koren looked down at the ground, miserably. "I know, I know all that. You don't need to tell me, I know who I am." A lowly servant, a boy without a family. "I'm grateful to be where I am, with a roof over my head, and food in my belly. I don't ask for more than that."

  "Speaking of food in my belly, let's get to the kitchens, before all these guards going off duty eat everything."

  Seeing Nestor’s inscription had dampened Koren’s enthusiasm for finding the Cornerstone, but reading the musty old scrolls in Ariana’s library renewed his interest. If the weather had been warmer, he might have put it aside, but as it was still winter, and there wasn’t much else to do, the itch to find the Cornerstone came back quickly. As the winter snows began to melt, and patches of stubbly grass appeared in the muddy fields around the castle, Koren returned to studying ancient scrolls for clues about where the Cornerstone could have gone. Ariana, he became convinced, was right. There was not enough time, during the battle, for the enemy to have carried the massive Cornerstone away. Yet, it was also clearly not hidden anywhere in the castle, which had been thoroughly searched by many generations of kings, queens, princes and princesses, as Nestor's note attested.

  “Paedris,” Koren asked one night, as he cleaned up the wizard’s dinner plates, “do you know about the Cornerstone of Acedor?”

  “Oh, ho! Is that where you have been sneaking off to, my curious little friend?” The wizard asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “You don’t know?” Koren asked, surprised. Didn’t wizards know everything?

  “Er, well, yes, of course I did,” Paedris lied. “I was waiting for you to speak to me. I suppose every young person in the castle gets pulled into that fool’s errand eventually. Don’t worry, it’s harmless fun, and you can learn a lot in the process.”

  “Did you ever search for the Cornerstone?”

  “Me? Goodness, no. I haven’t been that young in many years.” The wizard was lost in thought for a moment. “Many, many years. No, I have never searched for it. Never even been to the old Cornerstone chamber, although I suppose I should someday.”

  “The scrolls say the enemy was not in the castle long enough, before Aldus Trehayme drove them away, for the Cornerstone to have been hauled away.”

  “That, young Koren, is why it is such a famous mystery!”

  Melting of the winter snow couldn't come fast enough for Ariana, and the cold, gray weather wasn't the only issue weighing on her mind. She was running out of money, keeping her personal guard stationed in the Thrallren woods. The men, although they were helping themselves to game and fish in that dense forest, with Duke Yarron's permission, still needed an enormous amount of supplies for themselves and their horses; most of the money for those supplies came out of Ariana's personal account, which had almost run dry. Yarron had sent a private note offering to pay part of the cost out of his own pocket, so much he valued royal troops patrolling his borders, but Ariana had stubbornly insisted that supplies for royal troops be paid for with royal funds, so she had summoned the royal chancellor.

  The chancellor was an old man, ancient to Ariana's young eyes; he became chancellor back when her grandfather was king of Tarador, and to Ariana's memory, always had white hair and a long white mustache. He had been Tarador's chancellor for twenty three years, serving two kings and now, one Regent. The years since Ariana's father died had aged him, perhaps more than all the other years combined, yet he had the energy of a younger man, and he was determined to remain in his job at least until Ariana sat on the throne. If that ever happened.

  "Chancellor Kallron," Ariana bowed slightly in deference to the man's age, and he bowed lower in deference to her royalty, "please come in, sit down. Would you like a glass of wine?"

  "Wine? No, your Highness, I am afraid that at my age, it goes to my head far too easily." In truth, the chancellor rarely drank wine, or alcohol of any kind. He preferred to keep a clear head, while wine loosened other people's tongues, and he could listen to things that perhaps should not be said. He pointed to the teapot on the table. "If the tea is hot, I would appreciate a cup." Tea, for the chancellor, was far more than a beverage. The time spent placing a cup in front of him, carefully pouring tea from the pot, selecting a lump of sugar, adding a spoonful of cream, stirring the sweetened tea, setting the spoon down on a napkin, and finally raising the cup to his lips and sipping, all gave him time, time to observe. He needed time to observe the princess, for she had given no hint of w
hat she wanted, when she sent the note inviting, or summoning, the chancellor. He preferred to know the purpose of a meeting before he walked into the room. To know the purpose, so he could plan, and assure that he walked out of the meeting with what he wanted, or at least to limit the damage.

  What he observed gave him no clue as to what the princess wanted, although her clothes, casual by the standards expected of a crown princess, made it clear to him this was no formal matter of state. He also observed several open books on the table, pushed to the side, one book with a plate of cookies on top, and a half-nibbled cookie on a napkin in front of the princess. There was also a scroll on which the princess had been practicing her penmanship, indeed tiny smeared dots of ink stained her fingers, which she hadn't washed away before the chancellor arrived. So, she was relaxed, going about her day, and this particular meeting was not something she had prepared overmuch for. Unless, that is what she wanted the chancellor to think, to throw him off balance, although he did not think she had learned such guile yet. "You wished to speak with me, your Highness?" He said as he carefully set down the teacup in its saucer.

  "Yes, I need to borrow money, to cover the expenses of stationing my personal guard in the Thrallren woods. You can arrange a loan from the royal treasury?"

  The chancellor found the princess to be refreshingly direct, she did not waste time with pleasantries or talking around the issue; she just said what she wanted. Sometimes the chancellor forgot that the crown princess used to be the little girl he bounced on his knee when she was barely able to walk, and she likely still thought of him more as kindly Uncle Kallron, rather than as Chancellor Kallron. He had an answer ready, for Ariana's mother had already discussed the issue with him, and the princess was not going to like the answer. "Ah, yes, unfortunately, your Highness, your mother has directed me not to release any funds from the royal treasury to you. Her words to me were that if you wish to defy her by keeping your guard in the Thrallren, you can figure out how to pay for them yourself." Seeing the crestfallen look on the princess' face, he hastened to add "Perhaps your mother simply wishes you to ask her directly. I think that she was rather hurt by your actions." Having the Regent of the land be the mother of the crown princess made Kallron's position between them terribly difficult, with affairs of state getting confused by personal feelings and family business.

  The princess' face scrunched up with stubborn determination. "I am not going to go ask my mommy for money. I don't want the money to buy something silly like a new dress, I need the money to protect our borders, since my mother hasn't see fit to do it properly herself."

  Kallron couldn't completely suppress a wry smile. "Yes, your mother told me you would say that. Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to develop your diplomatic skills? When you are queen, there will be many times when you will need to persuade others to do as you wish, rather than merely issuing others."

  "I know, I know, you keep telling me that." She shook her head, and brushed aside the curls of hair that cascaded over her face. "And I will, but not now. I just can't think straight when it's my mother I'm talking to."

  Nor can she, when she is talking to you, the chancellor thought, but kept silent.

  "Then, I shall have to borrow money from one of the merchant banking houses. You can arrange that?"

  The chancellor nodded. This too, he had anticipated, when Carlana told him her daughter could not borrow from the royal treasury. "I can, however, I must warn you, it will be expensive, particularly as you will be borrowing the money for several years."

  "Expensive? Why? They know I'll pay them back once I become queen." Who would hesitate to loan money to the monarch of the realm?

  "Forgive an old man for rambling on a bit, your Highness, but I think this is a good opportunity to instruct you about banking and finance. Just a bit, I promise." He added, but instead of the frown he expected when he mentioned 'instruction', the princess leaned forward attentively. The prospect of becoming queen in just a few years had made her interested in subjects that had tended to bore her when she was younger. "The banking houses in Tarador get most of their money from foreign lands-"

  "Why? We don't have enough money here in Tarador?"

  "Certainly there are enough coins going around, your Highness, but the war with Acedor, particularly recently, our needs for grain, war materials and, well, almost everything, exceeds the amounts available within our borders. To make up the difference, we have needed to buy from foreigners. Even the royal treasury borrows temporarily from the merchant banking houses, to tide us over during the year, until harvest time when taxes are collected. The amount we have had to pay to borrow money has been increasing every year since your father died. And those are short-term loans, backed by the full credit of the state."

  "The cost to borrow is going up, because foreigners are afraid my mother will lose the war?"

  "The fear that Tarador will lose the war does drive up the cost of borrowing." The chancellor was uncomfortable with Ariana criticizing the Regent he owed his loyalty to. "But mostly the fear is that the costs of the war, of defending our borders," he looked the princess in the eye at that remark, "will stretch our resources so much, that we will not be able to repay the loans. Or at least not repay them on time, which is almost as bad, as far as the banking houses are concerned. It is uncertainty, you see, that drives fear, and fear drives the cost of borrowing."

  "You're saying it would be expensive me to borrow money, because people fear the royal treasury will be empty by the time I become queen, and I won't be able to pay them?" She had seen the gold and silver in the royal treasury vault beneath the palace, and couldn't imagine it ever going empty. And that was only one vault, which she had been told was rather small, as vaults go.

  "Yes, and there are other fears, when the borrower is yourself. This would be a personal loan to you, but paid back with future state funds. That is an unusual arrangement, and the banking houses won't like it."

  Ariana's cheeks flushed red. "They think I may decide not to pay them once I am on the throne? They question my honor?"

  "Your honor, no. May I speak frankly, your Highness?"

  "Always, chancellor." Now she was being formal.

  "In addition to the risk that Tarador may lose the war, or that the war may deplete our finances, with loaning money to you, there are two other risks. First, there is the risk that if the war begins to go badly against us, your mother may be replaced as Regent, and that would present the risk of the Trehayme family losing the throne. In which case, you will not become queen."

  Hearing this, Ariana's face became pale, as if she'd just fallen ill. "And the second reason?" She asked, fearing she knew the answer.

  "Forgive me for saying this, your Highness, but the second reason is-"

  "If I am killed before my sixteenth birthday."

  "Unpleasant though it is to think about, yes, your Highness. That is a risk that must be considered, by any banking house. If you do not become queen, whoever sits on the throne would be under no obligation to repay your personal debts."

  Ariana looked out the window and bit her fingernails for a moment while she thought. "Wait here please, chancellor." She rose from the chair and walked across the room, through the doorway to her bedchamber, where her maid Nurelka was discretely waiting. It only took her a minute to come back, with a thick red folded cloth in her hands. She sat back down, and unfolded the cloth to reveal a gold ring with a large rectangular emerald, surrounded by six diamonds. "Would a banking house be happy if they could hold onto this, until I repay them?"

  The chancellor's eyebrows flew up in surprise. "Your Highness, royal jewels can't be used for-"

  "Oh, hush, chancellor, my father's mother gave this to me on my fourth birthday, so it's my personal property. It belonged to her mother. I rarely wear it, because it's rather an old style, with that chunky emerald and the scrollwork on the gold."

  The chancellor reflected that the 'chunkiness' of the emerald came from its substantial size, wh
ich made the gem very valuable. "Your Highness, at the risk of sounding like Charl Fusting, this is indeed most irregular." The thought of royal jewels ending up in a pawn shop horrified him. Sometimes he needed to remind himself that he worked for people who owned palaces and had their own armies. Fabulous jewels were nothing but baubles to such people.

  "Like I said, I rarely wear it, I don't think it would be recognized by anyone outside the palace. It's not doing me any good by sitting at the bottom of a drawer. How much do you think I could borrow against this ring?"

  Kallron's mind was racing to think of how he could discretely, with the utmost discretion, have someone approach a merchant banker with the large and distinctive ring. "Your Highness, you could easily borrow enough funds to keep your guard in the Thrallren for years. This ring is, in fact, far too valuable to-"

  "No, use this one. I may need additional money in the future, and I don't want to keep going back to the banking houses. You can arrange it?"

  "If you insist, your Highness, certainly I can handle this discretely."

  "Thank you. As part of your discretion, you will not mention this to my mother."

  "I will have to tell your mother the truth if she asks, your Highness."

  Ariana laughed. "Oh, she will, she will. Don't mention it until then, I rather like the idea of my mother waiting a while, thinking I'll come crawling to her for money."

  Walking slowly so as not to spill anything, Koren climbed the steps of the tower, up to Paedris’ study. It had taken him most of the day to prepare a special dinner for Paedris. The cooks in the royal kitchens had looked skeptically at the strange foreign spices Martel had given to Koren, and had turned up their noses at the scents as Koren was cooking, but he thought it smelled and tasted delicious. The wizard looked away from the scroll he was studying, and sniffed the air, his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “It can’t be! Is that tordalla soup?”

  Koren set the tray down, and lifted the covers to show the food. “Tordalla soup, and chicken in-fi-er-no, I think that’s how you say the word, with corn cakes and rice.”