Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8)

by Terry Mancour

  The scope of the operations were impressive, she had to admit to herself. Each gang operated in distinct areas, with specific areas of specialty, preventing their business interests from competing with each other. The captains of each gang were constantly attended by bodyguards and lackeys, whether they were in their lairs or walking the district on business. They wore no distinctive clothing or badge, doing their best to resemble prosperous merchants or petty nobility, though the captain over the Docks district had a love of gold jewelry that he displayed, and the Market ward boss carried an ornate gilded walking stick that was reputed to conceal a blade.

  Day by day the names of the bosses and their associates trickled in from the guardsmen-turned-spies. They had no trouble looking the part of disinterested barflies, Pentandra decided. Though while in their uniforms the men looked the part of guardsmen, once they donned civilian clothes, a layer of grime, and various affectations of character they looked like any of the thousands of vagabonds who filled the wards of Vorone.

  They had respectable names of townsmen: Andolos of Northwood, Carastan the Cooper, Dalls, Fen the Quick, Mastril the Mask, and her two favorites, Hanrei the (ironically) Handsome, an ugly little man with a razor-sharp wit, and Tolgan Falconeye, who was the most observant man Pentandra had ever met.

  They had some unique talents and skills among them. Dalls had been a housebreaker before joining the guards and knew his way around locks and chains. Carastan was powerfully built and physically intimidating, and who used to run with a gang of youth in the southern wards himself. Fen the Quick had skills as a pickpocket, and Ancient Andolos had an amazing talent for picking up gossip from the unlikeliest of places.

  There were others, but those seven seemed the most adept at the task of collecting information, and they were the ones that Vemas used to both spy on the Crew and guard Pentandra.

  She thought the gesture silly. She had proven she could handle herself, and any thug who attacked her would be in for a nasty surprise. But the Constable insisted, Arborn agreed, and Pentandra relented. She soon came to enjoy the informal discussions with the guardsmen more than their reports. She learned an awful lot about the people and the town from their experiences and observations.

  For one thing, she discovered that the guardsmen did not take issue with crime, itself, but saw the invasion of Rats as an unacceptable development in the criminal ecosphere. Indeed several of them had connections of friendship or kinship with the older gangs, and were partly motivated by a desire for retribution for the bloody way their friends were deposed.

  If she wanted to start a fictitious street gang, she decided, she had some of the raw talent here to do it.

  Pentandra found herself becoming more and more distracted by her evening activities, particularly in the absence of Arborn. She rationalized the time and energy (both figurative and literal) she invested in the Woodsmen as careful attention to her duties, but in secret moments she knew she craved the danger and excitement of the clandestine action. Being part of a group dedicated to a cause in such a passionate and bloodthirsty way was addictive. It helped Pentandra keep at bay the feeling that her new marriage was stifling her.

  Arborn didn’t exactly disapprove of her activities with the guardsmen, but he was also concerned for her safety. He never directly confronted Pentandra about his misgivings when he was home for a day or two between ranges, but she could tell from a dozen subtextual clues. On the one hand she found it endearing that he worried so much about her; on the other hand it irritated her that he did not feel she could take care of herself.

  Despite her best intentions she found herself downplaying the increasingly dangerous escapades with the Woodsmen to her husband. And while she told herself that it was to keep from worrying him, there was part of her that knew - and felt guilty about - her growing attraction to Sir Vemas.

  It was confusing. In Arborn’s absence Pentandra found herself constantly flirting with the young constable, enjoying his company and being entertained by him as they plotted the serious business of dismantling the Rat Crew’s activities. She was charmed by his passion for the mission, his acidic wit, his charismatic manner and the way his men were truly devoted to him. Sir Vemas was always well-dressed and groomed, and if he had ever departed a courtly demeanor. Pentandra had yet to see it.

  He was an intelligent, dashing man doing dangerous, important work, and doing it well. Pentandra could tell he was equally attracted to her, and only his duty and his honor kept him from pursuing her . . . and he frequently dropped hints about how versatile his honor might be. It was a flattering temptation to even consider . . .

  But then Arborn would return before she could seriously consider it. The Kasari captain’s presence seemed enough to put to flight any thought Pentandra might have of other men. Compared to Arborn, even the witty, charming Sir Vemas seemed lackluster, a well-made linen of a man when Arborn was made of the finest silk. An hour being crushed under his body or delighted by his boldly masculine form was enough to banish any thought of infidelity. Then he would be gone again, leaving Pentandra with the sympathetic Sir Vemas.

  It was, Pentandra had to admit, a very entertaining and very frustrating relationship.

  It wasn’t as if court dalliances weren’t common. Indeed, the halls of power attracted such clandestine relationships as a matter of course. Sex and power were intimately connected, Pentandra knew. She’d seen it play out on every political stage, from the smallest manor to the court of the King and Queen. To some infidelity was a tactic, to others a game, to others a desperate pursuit of private compulsions.

  Pentandra did not intend on using any of the available rationalizations popular at court for betraying her marriage. She was not unhappy. She desired no one better than her husband. She loved Arborn, and cherished his visits. She pined for a real home, and a real home life, with her new husband.

  The fact that the idea also filled her with dread was part of her confusion. She tried her best to bury her growing attraction to the charming Sir Vemas and refocus her efforts on the task at hand.

  After two weeks of steady work she had the beginnings of an idea of just who she was facing. As the information from the guardsmen’s nightly forays was recorded, it began to give shape to the problem. Pentandra had nearly a sheaf of parchment full of notes detailing the names and habits of the Crew.

  Each captain, their lieutenants, their bodyguards, and their enforcers now had a name and a position on her list. There was a definite division between the upper levels of the organization, which was exclusively from southern Alshar, and the strong arms they employed were local Wilderlands men, either from rival gangs or recruited from refugee camps, the river docks, or the gutter. There was tension between the two groups, but the southerners had a firm grip on the situation.

  They decided to focus their initial efforts on the Market ward and its captain, Opilio. The Market ward was closest to the palace and one of the most lucrative territories for the Crew. It made sense to assess it first.

  Within a few days she knew Opilio’s lieutenant, Gorne, and his three bodyguards by their faces and had a much better idea of what the Market ward captain did when he wasn’t shaking down honest merchants or making illegal loans. She knew he liked to eat at a tavern for luncheon every day where he met with his various business interests. He spent the afternoons either dealing with specific issues, collecting funds, or simply walking through the slushy streets like a duke, surrounded by his men, intimidating the entire ward.

  More important still was the growing list of business interests and customers the Crew had, everything from smuggling to high-stakes gambling and high-interest lending to legitimate enterprises taken from their owners in a hostile manner. That was key, she knew. Criminal organizations tended to exist only to make money. Discovering the sources of their revenue would be essential.

  She began to ask specific questions to her spies. How often does someone from the Crew stop by a business to collect funds and oversee operations? What h
appened if someone didn’t pay their protection? Who showed up if there was a problem? Quietly the guardsmen shambled back into the house in the Northside ward and dutifully returned an answer.

  Day after day the chronicle of observed behavior grew on Pentandra’s table. She began to see just how extensive the Crew’s operations were in the ward. Much of the business involved protection money from merchants and even guilds. One in seven of the businesses along the High Street, from what they could tell, were paying a portion of their profits to Opilio’s thugs every week, and the pressure on all the rest to conform was growing.

  Ancient Andolos, one of the more thoughtful guardsmen, explained the process to Pentandra one morning over tea.

  “The Rats look for businesses or merchants who are in financial distress, but who cannot secure funds from a patron, a moneylender, or a temple. They send in a very reasonable fellow first, one who dresses like a noble and throws coin around like drops of piss. He casually proposes a loan just in time to save the day, at reasonable terms. Then he extends a line of credit. Then the terms change, and another fellow comes around, if payments aren’t made to the Crew’s satisfaction. He’s less reasonable.

  “That’s when things get ugly. Threats and intimidation, beatings, even worse. Eventually, if the poor bastards can’t pay on terms – very unreasonable terms at this point – then the Crew takes over the business. Sometimes they let it run undisturbed, just taking a larger cut of the profit. Sometimes they use it as a cover for some other, more sinister enterprise, or loot it at their leisure. With local conditions as bad as they’ve been, there have been a lot of unfortunate souls who have fallen prey to them.”

  “But that’s just the beginning,” Andolos continued. He had been in the town watch for years before joining the palace guards, and he had seen the rise of the Crew with a watchman’s eye. “Once they get into your business, they own you. Not just the business, but your entire family. That’s when the Crew starts asking for ‘favors’. Not much, at first, and folk are happy to help, just to keep the thugs at bay. But then the requests start getting more serious.”

  “How serious?”

  “The Crew is efficient,” Andolos sighed. “If they have a problem with a customer, sometimes instead of sending in their own thugs, they recruit an unwilling gang of other customers in the ward and force them to beat the man and menace his family . . . or face the same fate themselves the next night. Being forced to participate in such brutality reinforces just how easily their turn could come, and the guilt keeps them cowed.

  “Last summer one man, a carter over on the east side, reneged on a pledge to repay a debt to the Crew. Instead of beating him, they bound him in his chamber . . . and then compelled all of his neighbors who were in debt to them to have at his wife while he watched for two silver pennies a turn, until the interest was paid. The poor woman drowned herself in the river in shame. The carter joined the Iron Band, died on patrol. Pity. Nice couple.”

  “That’s ghastly!” Pentandra said, shocked. “That’s not merely crime, that’s terrorism!”

  “That’s how the Rat Crew operates. It’s worse in the docks – Bloodfinger is a right bastard, and thinks everyone is out to cheat him – and far worse in the camps. The things they do to the poor souls there . . .” he said, shaking his head. “We’ll deal with them in their turn,” he promised. “Back in my day they’d rough a man up, or cut off his pinkie, but they wouldn’t destroy him, or his relationship with his neighbors. Nothing like this, my lady. Those Rats are evil. They’re milking Vorone of everything they can, milking it dry.”

  Pentandra couldn’t argue with that. She consulted with Coinsister Saltia, one afternoon at the palace, and had her postulate some figures for her. From the estimates she was making based on how much from each business under the shadow of the rats was paying, the Market ward was losing more than twice as much in protection payments every week than it was paying in taxes.

  That didn’t account for the other effects the Crew were having on the district. Petty crime was rampant, housebreaking was a nightly occurrence, and the streets were dangerous at night. Footpads and pickpockets roamed freely, some working for the Crew, others just desperate and violent.

  And this was one of the better wards in Vorone.

  The more she studied the matter, the more Pentandra realized that the Rat Crew really was a danger to the Duke. They were eroding the economic infrastructure of the ward, the commercial heart of the capital city, like predators, not mere parasites. If Vorone was to be a functioning capital, then their influence had to be destroyed.

  The Constable and his men were growing impatient, too. A week after she’d begun the effort she’d cast no spells, just asked questions and taken notes. The guardsmen wanted action, and Sir Vemas was eager to begin his war against the Crew.

  But Pentandra knew that they were not ready for that, yet. Their investigations had revealed just how extensive and ruthless a foe they faced. As talented as they were, the idea of the guardsmen pretending to be a new gang in town without the ability to match the Rat Crew’s power, somehow, seemed a recipe for a lot of dead guardsmen.

  Supposedly that’s what her magic was supposed to do for them. She just didn’t know how to do that. Yet.

  “You know, Sir Vemas,” she finally announced at one of their evening meetings, “with all of these professional thugs and killers around, it seems an absolute shame not to take advantage of that talent,” she began, and then told them of her nascent plan.

  Chapter Nine

  The Tumultuous State Of The Duchy

  The Trophy Room was half-filled with ministers when Pentandra arrived for the first regularly scheduled weekly meeting Count Angrial had established as routine for the day after every Temple Day. Ostensibly it was designed as an opportunity for the Duke (and the Prime Minister) to oversee their various duties and coordinate their efforts. The inaugural meeting had been largely ceremonial, with Anguin delivering a passionate and well-delivered speech about their great mission, and Angrial presenting them with their official warrants.

  This time, the meeting of the ministers of the court was to be more focused on the business of the realm. That would, in her experience, lead to yet more meetings, which would then begat more meetings. She was quickly discovering that the life of a Court Wizard - barring her Rat-catching duties - was largely comprised of meetings. There were far, far more to attend than she had ever proposed at the Arcane Orders, and most of them seemed to devolve quickly into assigning blame for failures or attempting to take credit for other’s success. Pentandra found the entire ordeal an exercise in patience.

  She had stopped on the way to the meeting in the main hall to fill her tea cup with hot water from the kettle . . . and had added a small dash of strong honey spirits from a flask to make the tea – and the meeting – more palatable.

  There, she thought, as she sipped her doctored tea and took her seat. Patience.

  This morning she found, the palace was buzzing with the Duke’s impressive attempt to tackle the accumulated cases set for his justice and held in abeyance since his father died. Prisoners who had languished for months or years in the palace dungeon, cases between nobles regarding inheritance, and contracts between estates had virtually halted with the gurvani invasion. That meant that much serious business in the remnant of the duchy was as frozen as a goblin’s chamberpot without ducal justice.

  But unlike many high nobles faced with the task, Duke Anguin attacked the backlog tenaciously. During a marathon three-day session in the Stone Room he heard case after case of minor criminal issues, listened to evidence, was advised by lawbrothers, and seemed determined to dispense justice. While his rulings were rarely greeted with cheers, they brought considerable resolution to the realm. It was a sincere, tangible sign of Ducal authority, one it would be hard for opponents of the regime to undermine.

  Of course, it wasn’t just his dedication to justice that inspired the lad. Years of legal logjams had suddenly been freed
. . . and had led to dozens of fines and a few generous confiscations to add to the treasury.

  Anguin even ordered two executions (though he had to find a temporary ducal executioner when it was realized that he had none) and sentenced nearly a hundred men from the garrison, the town watch, and the palace guard accused of corruption and cowardice to serve anywhere from one year to five in the grim Iron Band.

  It was a most satisfying indulgence in justice.

  Lawfather Jodas nearly preened as he gave his report of the affair at the start of the meeting. Not every decision had been a pristine judgment of godlike wisdom, as was Luin’s ideal, but eliminating four years worth of accumulated work in three days was a professional accomplishment anyone would be proud to relate.

  The state of the treasury was less triumphant. Coinsister Saltia reported that she was depending on the loans to keep the mercenaries paid, the horses fed, and food in the palace kitchen, but the draw on the treasury was significant. Feeding two thousand infantry soldiers alone was costing a small fortune, and while a price could not be put on the peace that they enforced, the price of feeding that peace was tremendous.

  But then Viscountess Threanas presented her summary of ducal expenses, as well as income, and things got really dire. Actually paying the wages of the Orphan’s Band was costing more than two hundred ounces of silver a day, on top of their board. The burghers of the town were reluctant to pay more than a token of the cost, despite the persuasive arguments of Father Jodas.

  But there was, she admitted, at least a trickle of funds into the treasury. The storehouses were filled, she added with dark humor, with a tremendous amount of iron ore and timber collected in tribute . . . and completely worthless to the duchy.