Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8)

by Terry Mancour

  Their initial operation was simple. Every business they’d identified as being beholden to the Crew was marked with a glyph of Pentandra’s own design. She’d spent an entire day wandering through the Market ward in the garb of a burgher’s wife shopping, with her baculus disguised as a common staff to ward off dogs or betters. The glyphs she quietly cast with her rod were invisible . . . until activated.

  Meanwhile, her rough-looking guardsmen made themselves look even less reputable than normal. Instead of returning to the inns and taverns they were used to haunting in an effort to gain information, she had them switch to places where their faces were not so familiar. There they each told a tale, after buying the hall a round in gratitude for their fortunes. Though the details differed greatly, by design, the bones of the story was the same:

  Deep in the backcountry of the Wilderlands, in some remote vale untouched by the hated gurvani, was a peaceful hamlet, six -- or eight -- or four -- or nine -- families of woodcutters, freeholders who farmed and hunted and dwelt in blissful ignorance of events beyond the horizon.

  They were protected from harm by a reclusive hermit, an old woodland sorcerer who - it was said - had some teaching from the gurvani. Or the Alka Alon. Or still stranger powers. He used his magic to protect the folk and considered them like family.

  The story ran that the old man was away from the settlement, deep in the wilds, when a pair of brigands came to the village. The folk were unused to strangers, but friendly. In accordance with the laws of hospitality they took them in and treated them as travelers. But in the night the two brigands conspired to steal what little wealth the woodsmen had, and then despoil the place where there was no lawful lord to hold them to account.

  Then (the dramatic pause, she’d instructed the guardsmen, that was essential) the two clubbed their hosts in their sleep, and bound them in their beds. They made sport with the prettiest of the maids, and cruelly tortured the noblest of the men in front of their families. Pentandra left the details to the tellers, but emphasized to the guardsmen that the lurid character of the tale was what was important. She did not doubt that the seasoned watchmen knew just how to inflate the tale to the tastes of their audience.

  When the brigands were done with their sport, they set fire to the homes and stole away over the horizon . . . south, toward their home. They’d left behind few survivors, but in their brutish delight they’d buried one of their blades in the belly of a maid (or a boy . . . or an old woman . . .) and left it there to torment the poor soul until she (he) died.

  When the Master of the Wild returned to his folk, he was too late to save all but a few. He saw the knife - of simple iron manufacture, with a sharp point and little blade - the sorcerer became so enraged he’d vowed revenge against the evil men who did the crime. As there was no lord over the place to seek justice, as the gods prefer, the Master of the Wild took matters into his own hands.

  Using his great powers, he took the beaten and tattered survivors of the massacre and mixed them with the animals of the forest, using their strength and the natural powers so abundant in the backcountry to transform them. The Woodsmen, some with their limbs replaced by claw or hoof, rose at the call of their master, and were marching south toward Vorone.

  Indeed, the clandestine guardsmen assured them, they were already here.

  With enough coin to buy enough drink - and therefore attention -- in the public houses of the quarter, the tale spread like a dose of pox through a whorehouse.

  A few days later Sir Vemas arranged, through his long and surprising acquaintance with the minstrels who worked the inns, to have a song in verse made of the episode. Within days, everyone in the Market quarter was singing the tune: The Rise Of the Woodsmen.

  That’s when the first sighting of the mysterious animal-headed figures were reported, as the guardsmen began to venture forth in the very latest hours of night.

  The effect on the Crew had been gratifying. At first they scoffed at the tale, and then boasted of the deeds they’d done that were far worse. But as the dire prediction Sir Vemas had tagged at the end of the song promised, the Master of the Wild was coming to kill all the rats in Vorone, the gangsters began to get resentful. Then surly. Then aggressive, as they shouted down or threatened anyone in a tavern who dared so much as whistle the tune in their presence.

  For the townsfolk of the quarter, the little ditty offered at least a hint of hope. They’d suffered with the arrogant Rats for long enough to want to believe that they would, someday, be free of their yoke. An avenging wild mage from the sticks sounded like a gods-sent answer to their oppression.

  And that’s exactly how Pentandra and Vemas designed the story, over a bottle of Wenshari spirits, one evening in Spellmonger’s Hall.

  When the Market ward was properly prepared, and the interest in the tale began to wane, that was when Pentandra activated her spell. In one night, every business she’d enchanted with the glyph sprouted a dark but unmistakable sign on its door: a rat, next to its head, its feet in the air.

  The stir the spell caused was instantaneous. Neighbors were suddenly revealed, it seemed, as agents of the Crew. The signs could not be scrubbed off, being magic, and while some folk attempted to cover the disturbing symbol, it became all too apparent to the entire ward who was involved with the Rats. A small riot broke out, but thanks to Sir Vemas’ foresight the town guardsmen were ready to break it up almost as soon as it began.

  The Rat Crew, on the other hand, responded by quietly threatening every “client” of theirs in the ward in an attempt to uncover the mysterious vandal. The first real signs of uncertainty began to set into the gang, at that point.

  That’s when Sir Vemas chose to act, while the Rats were still confused. Instead of merely raiding the two sites in the ward, the secret crew of animal-masked guardsmen tracked the comings and goings to the two urban strongholds and discovered several members of the clandestine organization who they might never have suspected.

  Just before dusk, five nondescript men made their way through the Market ward, stopping regularly to collect the week’s take from the Crew’s clients. At each stop the merchant dutifully handed over their hard-earn silver to the grim faced courier, because they had learned the value of cooperation with the corrupt organization. In fact, the merchants’ cooperation led to a decidedly complacent attitude among the Rats. So easily went the evening’s collections that none of them noticed the shadowy figures who trailed them until it was too late.

  Pentandra had surprisingly little feeling as she oversaw the assassinations. Sir Vemas and the men had objectified the Rats so much that it barely felt like condemning a man to death – more like having the servants butcher a chicken. She understood, intellectually, that each of those men was a human being with a mother and father, and possible with daughters and sons. But when the time came, and she oversaw the killings by magically tracking them, their deaths barely registered to her mind. She had to remind herself that they weren’t playing a game that first night as the Woodsmen reported back, each team with a bag of silver in hand.

  All five gangsters were murdered by the mysterious figures, all had tried to fight off their surprise attacker, and all had died. All were attacked within five hundred feet of their destination. In each case large bag of money was lifted from their bodies. The night guards had spoken to two eyewitnesses, but they had little to offer save that neither attacker had looked quite . . . human.

  That didn’t deter Opilio the Knife one bit, of course. The scandal of having his men attacked, killed, and robbed of his money – his money! – in the middle of normal business weighed heavily on the gangster. Jokes at his expense began to be made, undermining his credibility. The rumors the guardsmen picked up in their vagabond disguises were a glorious tale of a gang in a state of chaos.

  They always prepared carefully, striking at the Rats when they were alone. In two nights the surprise assassinations dwindled the ranks of Opilio’s thugs, with no clear foe in sight. More importantly, the store
of silver each of them carried on behalf of their master was taken. Disappearing after an attack was easy - the Woodsmen, as the guardsmen on Vemas’ secret force called themselves in homage to the myth, merely had to remove their masks and robes to fade into the ward.

  More, the Woodsmen had proven their existence to the merchants owed money to the Crew. That brought some hope, as well as some fear, to the folk of the Market ward.

  “Surprisingly well, Excellency,” Pentandra said, optimistically. “In the last few weeks we have shattered the calm of our foes, and in the last few days we have dispatched at least nine.”

  “Nine?” gasped coinsister Saltia. “Really? Nine?”

  “Nine who we know are affiliated with the organization,” Pentandra said, evenly. “Three more who were in their favor.”

  “Luin’s staff! How are you doing it?” Angrial asked, surprised.

  “My company has adopted disguises,” explained Pentandra. “Masks, designed to conceal and inspire dismay among our foe. For the first few days, they were but shadows who haunted the Market ward, gathering intelligence. A week ago we revealed ourselves – well, our disguised selves – and took action by robbing the robbers. Five large bags of silver were taken.

  “But instead of returning them to the Treasury, or keeping them for ourselves,” Pentandra said, proudly – for it had been her idea— “we redistributed the monies to the merchants, allowing them to pay off their debts to the Crew—“

  “You gave the money away?” Threanas asked, dismayed.

  “They paid their debts with the Crew’s own money!” Saltia gasped. “That’s brilliant!”

  “If there is no debt, there is no reason for the Crew to harass and murder the townsfolk,” agreed Salgo. “That’s a wise strategy.”

  “We chose the merchants who owed the very least amounts to Opilio and his lackeys. A hundred ounces of silver or less. This morning they dutifully paid off the criminals at our behest, leaving only a few of their largest debtors for them to focus on. And this evening,” she said with a satisfied smile, “all of that silver that they have collected and applied against their clients’ debts shall mysteriously disappear from their coffers . . . the result of a spell that I cast upon one of the silver coins. Their books will be balanced, but their cash in their coffers will decidedly not be.”

  “And whence the coin?” asked Angrial, amused.

  “To our purse – again,” smiled Pentandra. “All but the enchanted coin. I shall summon it tomorrow, and for the second time we will have robbed the robbers. And this time the other half of Opilio’s major clients will be able to pay the Crew what they owe, courtesy of the crew’s own treasury. Of course they will be screaming and hollering about the robbery, for the only ones capable of stealing from the Market quarter Crew are one of the other crews, according to their doctrine. That should sow plenty of dissention in the groups.

  “But the biggest victory lies in crippling the Crew’s income. The Market is their single largest earner, we believe. and deprived of those funds for even two weeks will strain the Crew’s capabilities just as they are forced to consider a war against their fellow Rats. I expect plenty of accusations to fly. Perhaps even some inter-agency fighting. In which we will intervene, as opportunity presents, to pour salt in their wounds.”

  “Won’t they begin to suspect something is amiss?” asked Sire Lonsel, the new ducal reeve. One of the loyalists that Anguin had imported from Gilmora, he was now officially in charge of enforcing the Duke’s legal commands – even the commands no one else knew about. It was known he was not pleased by being shut out of an operation that, traditionally, should have been his to command.

  But then the reeve was bound by Luin’s Laws, and the Woodsmen were acting under Kulin’s Law. It would be inappropriate for the reeve to take part in such activities.

  “I should hope so!” Pentandra agreed. “If they don’t at least suspect magic by then, I’ll be very disappointed. We will allow them to keep their gains that third week, as they will likely employ some magical counter-measures by then, but they will have ‘collected’ the majority of the debt they had issued without the opportunity to issue more.

  “The following week, however, we plan to strike again, as the last of their large clients repays in coin we – that is, the Woodsmen – provide. If they are not at war with their fellows by that time, then we will goad them into it with spells and deception to make them suspicious and paranoid beyond all reason. Which will lead us right to the door of the next most powerful crew.”

  “How is this superior than just arranging for none of their . . . clients to pay?” asked Sir Lonsel, whose honor was clearly disturbed by the scheme.

  “Because if the Crew thinks that it is owed a debt, they will stop at nothing to collect it,” offered Pentandra. “This way they are getting paid, and will spare the artisans and merchants their ire. It was a pragmatic solution,” she shrugged.

  “So what happens the next time a merchant needs a loan?” asked Count Sagal, clearly amused by the scheme.

  “The Woodsmen have instructed the debtors that a condition of their generous grant is that they no longer borrow from the Crew,” answered Pentandra, smiling. This was another of her ideas. “By the time we are done looting the Crew’s treasuries we should have enough of a stake to have such loans made through a more responsible – and less violent — party. Sister Saltia, here, will serve as our record keeper. One of the masked guardsmen will serve as paymaster. Collections will be vigorous, but not deadly. And at a lower rate of interest than the Crew charges.”

  “You plan to fight bandits and thieves through lending money?” scoffed Sire Lonsel.

  “My lord,” Pentandra said, carefully, unwilling to alienate the man, “one of the things that puts Vorone into jeopardy to thugs like these is the lack of capital available to artisans and merchants. The Temple of Ifnia and the regular moneylenders are reluctant to loan to the townsmen without traditionally rigid requirements for repayment - which are even more strict in these uncertain times. They prefer to make large loans to nobles who have the property to secure them. By providing an alternative, at a small scale, to the merchant class, we provide competition for the Crew.”

  “And if they cannot repay those loans?” asked Viscountess Threanas, skeptically.

  “Then what of it?” shrugged Pentandra. “None of them are for great amounts. The greatest of them cost far less than the costs incurred in even a small riot.”

  “It just seems like a subsidy for the artisans,” sneered the Minister of the Treasury.

  “Were we not just discussing subsidizing the nobility?” challenged Sister Saltia.

  “To restore the manors and estates required for the functioning of the duchy!” the old woman shot back.

  “The artisan class is just as important for the functioning of the duchy as the estates,” declared Pentandra. “You should understand that more than anyone, Threanas! Without the specialized crafts they provide for the estates, it will be much harder to restore them.”

  “So we pay the artisans to work, and replace one band of criminals with another,” Lonsel pointed out, sourly.

  “Criminals the palace controls,” Pentandra reminded him. “The Woodsmen shall be far more lenient in their lending, and use the fear the mysterious new ‘criminals’ generate to ensure repayment. Most of the loans outstanding were relatively paltry sums, but for the artisans they often mean the difference between success and failure. With a more adequate money supply things won’t be as desperate. A few hundred silver spent thus is therefore worth a few hundred gold spent on additional guardsmen, gaolers, and lawbrothers,” she concluded.

  “And your men have no objection to such deceitful practices?” Sire Lonsel asked, skeptically. He was a loyalist who had followed Anguin from Gilmora, Pentandra reminded herself, an aristocratic culture which placed a premium on the ideals of the nobility. He was just the kind of chivalric idealist the duchy needed overseeing the execution of justice to prop up
its legitimacy. But not the kind of man who saw descent into criminal behavior in the name of political pragmatism as a good thing.

  “They are passing eager to do it,” Pentandra assured him. “I remind you that driving the Crew out of business is their mission, my lord, not upholding justice. Twice they have attacked the vicious enforcers the Crew has sent to investigate the original attacks. Now the story of demons in human form has infected the Crew, causing the price of their enforcement to go up just as their income declines. Opilio is struggling to survive and ready to lash out at anyone he suspects of aiding the Woodsmen.”

  “Which will lead him to incite his fellows in other parts of the town,” Lonsel grumbled. “And put them on their guard.”

  “As we expand our operations to the other crews, they will have to alter their methods, but I think with some planning and some bold action we may eliminate the Crew from the city, proper, by midsummer,” Pentandra proposed, boldly, before nodding her head at the Prime Minister in closure.

  Pentandra reflected that at her next meeting of the council she would add a great deal more spirits to her tea.

  *

  *

  *

  That evening as Pentandra was making her way back to the Northside, she received a summons mind-to-mind. She had not made use of the enchantment with near the frequency she had when she was responsible for the Arcane Orders, so the conversation was something of a novelty – as was the caller.

  I see they picked a peach for my old job, Master Thinradel of Vladenar began, once contact was established between them. I just caught up with the news here at Megelin. And congratulations on your wedding!