That was an important right, she had learned. The scantly-populated Wilderlands had always suffered a large population of squatters who settled any piece of land they could get away with. Sometimes the local lord, seeing a well-managed settlement would grant them freehold status in return for taxes or rents; other times they were evicted and their holds were taken by the legal lords of the lands. In either case the potential for hostilities was strong. There were several small-scale feuds that had erupted over the years due to squatting.
But the Duke could give any man a Writ of Freehold, that allowed settlement on any unclaimed or undefended property in his realm. If a man could maintain a freehold for five years or more, he was entitled to status as a yeoman, under the law of the Wilderlands. Unlike the Riverlands, where communal agriculture encouraged cooperation, the far-flung freeholds of Alshar saw the greatest prosperity when individual families or households focused their efforts to develop an estate.
There were few villeins in the Wilderlands; yeomen were seen as much higher status than the average Wilderlands peasant, serving in lords in all but name in the hinterlands. Freeholders also attracted itinerant warriors as their holdings and families grew. There were some prosperous settlements which could field as many men as a formal domain. Providing writs to the two thousand men of the 3rd Commando would be as good as seeding the Wilderlands with a future army.
“It’s not like we don’t have the land,” he sighed. “And some of the Royalist Gilmoran barons are starting to discuss forming an army to drive them out, anyway. Salgo hand-picked many of them, so they’re good warriors. Too good to become bandits. So if we provide them a place to come, free land, and . . . other things,” he grinned.
“Ah, you heard my plan to offer our surplus whore population as wives?” Pentandra grinned. That would put a dent in Ishi’s aspirations, she knew.
“Whether wives or sport, fair Vorone definitely does offer a man a treasury of femininity,” Anguin sighed, happily.
“Then let us spend that treasury quickly, before it depreciates,” Pentandra said, warily. “If young wives and free land get us an army, then that’s a boon. But that does beg the question what your dear cousin will say about the development.”
“I’m certain it will irritate Duke Tavard to no end,” Anguin said. He wasn’t just unconcerned, Pentandra realized, he seemed genuinely pleased. “For Alshar to go from helpless to having one of the finest corps Salgo has ever trained will be a blow to the honor of Castal, I have no doubt.”
“And a threat to his power. But what will he do about it?”
“What can he do about it?” Anguin chuckled. “He can’t very well get the 3rd to stay – his vassals are angry about them, and they aren’t particularly well disposed to the Castali ducal house right now. But then my royal relatives aren’t going to be happy to have the 3rd under Alshari banners, either.”
“Would Tavard respond, if the 3rd Commando suddenly pulled out of Gilmora?”
“He would have no legal right to do so, though that might not deter him,” Anguin explained. “Just to be safe, I’ve ordered Salgo to suggest that they send their men out a few hundred at a time, to avoid attracting too much notice.”
“Your Grace, my encounter with this Nemovorti convinced me that we need to be prepared for some serious strike in the near future. The gurvani were enough of a threat, but if what I suspect is true, these . . . undead Alka Alon, commanded by the necromancer Korbal, are currently working with the renegade mage known as Mask . . . and we know for a fact that they are working with the gurvani to improve their war against us. All of my intelligence in the matter points toward an attack, soon.”
“That is worrisome,” agreed Anguin. “You think the 3rd Commando will be insufficient?”
“I think Duin the Destroyer would be insufficient,” confessed Pentandra. “From what we learned from the Nemovort and his gurvani ally, Korbal has plans to raise many, many more of these Nemovorti. Possibly other kinds of undead, too. Kinds that have only been seen in legend.”
“I leave that for the warmagi to deal with,” Anguin decided, shaking his head. “I have no real choice in that, I suppose, but the warning is appreciated. The news is not all dire,” he continued, searching for some optimism. “In addition to the 3rd Commando, Salgo told me that over fifteen hundred bows were produced at the festival’s weapontake. Those are fifteen hundred archers we can call upon, at need. He suggested we hold regional weapontakes around Tudry, in the south, and up in the eastern reaches, too.”
“The arms are helpful,” she conceded. “And it would be a good way to pump some money into the economy, and encourage the people to prepare for an attack,” Pentandra reasoned. “Can we afford that much silver, though? To pay for weapons that people already own? I’m certain Count Salgo was uneasy about that. And Viscountess Threanas.”
“It was worth it,” Anguin said, shaking his head. “To see how everyone looked at the archery contests, to see how eager they were to compete . . . better to get them used to a bow in their hands in front of the butts than when the foe is at the wall, as my father used to say.”
As it turned out, the Wildflower Festival had been a financial success as well. Sister Saltia told her how the receipts from the vendors and the admission to the many simple contests had made the entire event profitable, much to her surprise. Though the accounting became ragged, as Ishi’s Night stretched into its third and fourth day, enough coin had changed hands before then to more than pay for the festival. Indeed, Saltia had bragged, the duchy was running ahead by a few hundred ounces of silver this month.
Then she started talking about how Lady Pleasure was an economic savior, and that’s when Pentandra had to excuse herself . . . before she threw up.
Despite the success of their unconventional partnership, Pentandra still could not stand Lady Pleasure . . . and she was having misgivings about Ishi, herself. She made a point of avoiding any occasion where the whoremistress might appear.
Thankfully, the stress of the festival had worn out her entire corps, so the doors to the House of Flowers were closed, and Lady Pleasure was taking some time to rest and recuperate.
That suited Pentandra just fine. She’d had enough sex-goddess fueled excitement for a while. Enough for fodder for four or five academic papers on Sex Magic, if she felt so inclined to study them.
Pentandra did not. She had real work to do. Devoting her time, energy and attention to the phenomenon, however fascinating, to produce a work that would be read by few and understood by even fewer just did not seem like a productive use of her time, anymore. There had been a day when she would have leapt upon the opportunity to demonstrate her professional prowess to the magical world, but now . . . now she just wanted sleep. In better quarters than she had. Without undead or goddesses or troublesome apprentices complicating what was supposed to be a cushy job.
After the furor of Ishi’s Night died down, she found she could turn her attention to the upcoming Arcane Conclave in Castabriel. Once she saw Arborn off on his next mission to the skirts of the Penumbra, she focused on making a good showing at the conference.
At first she was hesitant to even plan to go, but when she mentioned the Solstice meeting in the far winter capital of Castal to the Prime Minister, Angrial all but insisted she attend as a matter of national pride. Not merely attend – Count Angrial wanted to make a point that the wizards of Alshar were thriving as magelords of power when their colleagues in Castal and Remere saw them.
“The easier we make it to recruit magi to Alshar, the more warmagi we have at our disposal,” he explained, against Pentandra’s objections over mounting such a grand retinue for the Conclave. “It is the festival of Midsummer,” he reasoned. “The crops are planted, the walls are mended, and it is a time of repose. There is nothing pressing going on in the middle of the growing season. And if the goblins were going to attack in force, they would have begun preparations at the very beginning of spring – or so says our wise Warlord.”
“But—“
“Go,” the slender man insisted, “and take as many of our magi with you as you think will impress your colleagues. The Duchy will pay for it,” he added, dismissively, forestalling Pentandra’s inevitable question about expenses. She nearly asked how the duchy would pay for it, but she’d gained enough experience in her months as a civil servant to understand the folly at questioning any gift from the bureaucracy.
So it was settled. Pentandra couldn’t argue with the Prime Minister’s reasoning, though she thought the expense was a bit much for the struggling duchy for so small a potential return. She wasn’t even certain if many of her colleagues would be interested in the boring, dry and tedious annual Conclave.
But when she contacted Astyral, Azar, Carmella and Wenek, the four most powerful magi in Alshar after her, they all expressed great enthusiasm in the plan – even Carmella, who Pentandra knew usually hated such social events. She wanted to recruit more warmagi specializing in defensive magics and battlefield construction, she claimed in her mind-to-mind conversation. If she was going to build a keep in Vorone – or anything larger than a pele tower – then she and the Hesian Order needed more competent magi.
But her friends weren’t merely magi anymore – they were magelords, too. They all had responsibilities and lands of their own, and they were starting to see past their personal careers and toward a larger picture of regional stability and prosperity. In some ways they were actually starting to think of themselves as Alshari, regardless of their national origins. Or at least loyal vassals of the Duke. All four pledged to gather as many magi as they could and make the journey to Vorone, before the larger journey to Castabriel.
Arborn recovered quickly, thankfully, after a few days rest in their chamber. Mostly he just slept. The palace physician tended his bruises and Pentandra monitored him regularly. Jerics, his lieutenant, stayed steadfast by his side and acted as nurse, which produced a few tense moments.
Jerics had never been in favor of Arborn’s marriage to her, despite his enormous respect for the man and a reverence for his decisions. Nor was it that he disliked Pentandra – they had a fairly congenial and even friendly relationship. But Jerics – and many other Kasari rangers under Arborn’s command – felt that by committing to her he had betrayed his commitment – at least I spirit – to their corps. The rangers were the elite of Kasari society, respected above all others, and Arborn was the greatest ranger of his day. To marry a woman outside of the Kasari, much less a full mage from a distant land, was a challenge to their sensibilities. Indeed, to marry at all seemed an aberration.
Such excellence as the Kasari rangers demonstrated relied on devotion and commitment to the mission, not to a woman. Romantic entanglements bred complications in a ranger’s life, they felt. Ordinarily a ranger postponed matrimony until he grew old enough that he was a liability in the field, if he considered it at all. Few ranger Captains ever took a wife. It was a testament to his men’s great loyalty to Arborn that they tolerated his unusual decision.
That had led to some conflicts between Jerics and Pentandra. She had tried to gently impress on the stern-looking Kasar, over and over again, that she was his wife now. That gave her certain duties, responsibilities and privileges that had previously fallen to Jerics, and took some getting used to. Despite the friction, Pentandra tried to be understanding. When you’ve known your captain since you were both boys, it was hard to give up the duty of caring for him.
Once Arborn was able to stand under his own power again, a lot of the tension evaporated. While far from hale, he was out of danger and that was a relief to them both. He seemed to bear no lasting damage from his brush with the Nemovorti. Or witnessing untold acts of carnal debauchery. Pentandra found herself equally relieved at both.
Pentandra was relieved about more than that, she was afraid to admit. She had steadfastly not informed Minalan about the undead incursion, on Alurra’s insistence, and if Arborn had been seriously injured or killed she would have been forced to. As it was, she could safely tuck the episode away until some future day when it no longer mattered.
If there was one other benefit to Ishi’s Night, it was the disposition of Countess Shirlin. She had virtually disappeared from court life after the festival, and at least one report had her stumbling back to her rooms in the palace five days after the festival, looking and smelling like the most popular girl at the brothel – which was not far from the truth.
While few in the court besides Pentandra and Arborn knew the lurid truth of the matter, the noble matron was mortified , at least of the parts of the experience that she could remember. She was even more frightful of the parts she couldn’t, Alurra confided in Pentandra, once she’d spied on the woman using one of the palace cats as her agent.
Pentandra almost felt sorry for the matron and her lost dignity. But as that mortification kept her clear of the court as Lady Pleasure seemed to be making herself, these days, and Pentandra relished the peace. Shirlin did not show up for three consecutive Ladies’ Teas, and the old guard of the institution were delighted. In fact, it seemed as if most of the older ladies of the court were in good spirits these days, despite the horrific impropriety of the divine visitation.
The fact that some of the old bats had gotten more male attention than they’d had in years during Ishi’s Night might have helped their disposition, but Pentandra was too gracious to mention it.
*
*
*
Carmella arrived early for the Conclave expedition, and she’d brought a friend. The Karshak builder Rumel.
Pentandra remembered the Karshak (who was actually a member of a cadet tribe or ethnic minority of the race – the facts were confusing) from the Great March, where he assisted in the six major construction projects in the form of the pele towers. Unlike the stonemasons that were turning Minalan’s magic mountain into the most secure castle in the world, Rumel’s folk were actually closer in spirit to the woodsmen of Alshar than any stonemasons. Hailing from a tribe of Karshak woodsmen, essentially, Rumel was much different in attitude and manner than the often-arrogant stonecutters Pentandra had met back in Sevendor.
“You said you were interested in building a keep here in Vorone,” she reminded Pentandra, when they’d adjourned to her office for wine, late in the day. “I’d like to take a shot at it. With Rumel’s help.”
“Pardon me,” Pentandra said, diplomatically, “but I thought your folk preferred to work in wood?”
“Oh, aye, as a rule,” Rumel said, in accented Narasi, grinning with far more teeth than a human could manage. “But I’ve learned a fair bit of stone from Guri and his crew, and to be honest, I think there’ll be as much woodwork as stonework involved.”
“This will be a keep belonging to a palace, after all,” Carmella pointed out. She wore a dark gray smock that was unadorned, save for a sash that bore her arms as the master of the Hesian Order. “It needs to impress as much as protect. I’ve brought some initial designs and drawings for you and His Grace to look over, but I think you’ll be pleased.”
“And I can get a cadre of my clan to come and work on it, quietly,” Rumel added. “I’ve got a bunch of cousins who would be interested in that work, and who like the area. They aren’t part of an official lodge, so we’ll have to do the work under-the-table, but if you don’t tell the Karshak, I won’t.”
“Your folk can’t work outside of a lodge?” Pentandra asked, surprised.
“It’s a . . . cultural thing,” Carmella tried to explain. “The Karshak lodges are very picky, and have long codes about that sort of thing. Rumel’s people are not very high status – wood isn’t as glamorous as stone, or something like that – and the Karshak frequently discriminate against them. That’s why they’re known as Yglakarshak, which means ‘petty Karshak’, a derisive term, to the four main clans. They prefer the humani term ‘wood dwarf’ to that.”
“Are there enough of you around to form a lodge?” Pentandra asked, curiously. She’d only rarely
heard of the Karshak themselves, much less their poorer relations.
“There are three or four little families of them in little settlements in the Wilderlands, all kin of Rumel and part of his clan,” Carmella answered. “Mostly they’ve kept to themselves, like the Alka Alon and the wild River Folk tribes, but that’s mostly because they fear the wrath of the Karshak, if they engage overmuch in commerce.”
“That’s terrible!” Pentandra said, imagining that kind of existence. The fact that her own family’s Remeran estates kept serfs in bondage in much worse conditions didn’t occur to her. The thought of good craftsmen denied the right to ply their trade was what troubling. “By all means, let’s use them. Trygg knows the place could use a little sophistication, and something that didn’t look like it was imported from some Sealord’s sanctuary. We can get Anguin to set up a charter for a construction crew – open to all races – and keep you out of Karshak jurisdiction.”
The idea seemed to please Rumel. “It will be fun – your woodwork here is vibrant but . . . crude. I’m not even worried about the money. The Sevendor job was the first time in a century any of the lodges has employed us in two centuries, and sitting in the woods rebuilding our own homes over and over gets boring.
“Besides, your folk do know their way around a brewery,” he added, respectfully. “Seems a shame to let that noble art go without proper appreciation.”
“Why don’t you survey the site while we are at the Conclave?” Pentandra suggested to the Karshak. “See what is feasible, work up your ideas, and I’ll sell them to Anguin when we return. And then we can use that as a stepping stone toward getting him to approve that other project.”
“The Anvil?” Carmella asked, excitedly, naming the mountain site deep in the northeastern Wilderlands she favored for building a truly strong fortress upon. “You think he’s considering it?”
“Minalan is pushing it, quietly, I’m pushing it, and once the court is firmly established, they will want it. But money, political issues and a firm commitment are still lacking, even if the desire for a stout refuge is rising. There have been some . . . incidents in Vorone that have made everyone uneasy.”
Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) Page 71