She looked at me steadily as she considered the idea. There was a lot of emotion going on behind those eyes. I wasn’t sure what any of it might be. In many ways, my wife was still a stranger.
“They are your children,” she finally said. “You should protect them.”
“But they aren’t your children, Alya,” I pointed out. “I would understand if it bothers you.”
“Of course, it bothers me,” she replied, evenly. “I know what Isily did.”
“Those children are not to blame for their mother’s actions,” I reminded her. “They are just as much victims of their mother’s ambitions as I am. More,” I emphasized.
“Oh, I know, Minalan,” Alya sighed. “I don’t even know how to feel about it. Or about them,” she confessed, guiltily. “They’re just . . . babies. But they’re her babies,” she emphasized.
“She’s nothing more than a breathing corpse soiling herself in an abbey’s bed,” I assured.
“But they’re still her children!” Alya snapped. “And yours,” she added, softening. “I . . . I don’t bear them ill. But I know I should at least . . . want to dislike them,” she said, struggling with the words. “I know that sort of thing is supposed to be important.”
“What’s more important is what you actually feel, Alya,” I said, as kindly as I could. “I am their father. I have an obligation to protect them and support them, until they are adults – regardless of how I became their father. But I’m also your husband,” I continued. “My first responsibility is to see to your comfort and safety. If you object, I will send them elsewhere. Perhaps Sevendor,” I offered.
“You . . . would prefer they were here,” she observed, studying my face carefully.
“I could protect them better here,” I argued. “Our children would have the comfort of their company. But I leave the matter to you to decide. You are my wife. I would not have you feel humiliated over your husband’s bastards.”
“I would not be humiliated. Nor should you. Honestly, I don’t know how to feel about this. I mean that, Minalan! I took my revenge on Isily, and I am satisfied about that,” she confessed. “I . . . I do not need to bear ill will toward her children. Things are already so different, here, that I don’t think I would be worried about what people would say. And . . . and it might be good if Minalyan and Almina had someone to play with.”
“I would build them a separate hall,” I promised. “They would not have to be under your roof, if you didn’t want them to be.”
“That might be best,” she agreed, reluctantly. “I am barely feeling like a mother to my own children. I don’t know what I might do if I had to mother those two, as well.”
I embraced her warmly and wordlessly, for that was as gracious an admission as I could have asked for. Of course, it also sent me into new realms of guilt over my transgressions. But after going through so much to get Alya back, I was willing to do anything that might be helpful to her recovery. And having the Greenflower children nearby would be the best way for me to protect all of my kids.
It wasn’t just Korbal’s agents that I was concerned with. Since my conversations with Count Moran, I was increasingly wary of a conflict with Prince Tavard and his bloodthirsty mother. With Tavard eager to strike at me and all I held dear, I knew I could not be less than vigilant about my vulnerabilities. My wife and children were safe at Spellgarden, protected by the mightiest magics I knew. It would take more power than Tavard could muster to strike at them in my remote tower.
But they weren’t the only children I had. While it was not common knowledge that I had sired two bastards with Isily of Bronwyn, it was knowledge that Tavard was sure to possess by now, thanks to his mother. I didn’t need to leave hostages lying around, just waiting to be used against me. Greenflower is in southern Castal, in Tavard’s domains. And while the barony was currently being administered by the Arcane Orders, they were just a little too vulnerable to Tavard for my comfort.
I contacted Carmella and had arrangements made. As busy as she was, she understood the importance of the assignment, and pulled a crew from other work to finish the children’s accommodations at Spellgarden. When the Greenflower Hall (as it came to be known) was finished, a few weeks later, it was a small, detached structure designed to house the children and their servants in comfort. I secured the services of two more novate nurses from the Temple of Trygg to care for them and hired a peasant couple to keep the hall.
The youngest boy, Istman, whose birth had sparked the Greenflower Event was officially Dunselen and Isily’s son, and would inherit Greenflower as a barony, one day, if fate didn’t intervene. My older daughter, Ismina, had been conceived and raised in secret. Thus far, that had entailed having them designated wards of the Arcane Orders, under Taren’s protection.
Greenflower Hall had quarters for both children and I’d also included a chamber for Taren for when he was staying in Vanador. Ismina had formed a bit of an attachment to the thaumaturge, and while Taren was hardly a fatherly figure, he’d established a bond with her in his duties I wanted to foster. When he came through the Ways a few days later with each of them, she was visibly upset to hear that he was going to leave . . . enough that she convinced him to spend the night before he left.
The girl was shy and withdrawn around strangers, no doubt marked by her traumatic experience at the castle, but she became more friendly and animated after a few days at Spellgarden. I was impressed with how much she’d grown, as well as pained by how much she favored her mother, Isily – except for my eyes. She was just a bit younger than Minalyan, at six years, but I was pleased with how quickly my son adopted my daughter as a playmate. Within a week he’d drawn her out of her shell enough so that she was sassing with him as much as Almina did. She even started to smile occasionally.
The boy, on the contrary, was an exuberantly happy and playful toddler. He looked a lot more like me, and his brother Minalyan, and while he was still essentially a baby, he was a very happy baby. Nor had he suffered any effects from the spell he’d been at the center of. I was charmed by how quickly Almina took to caring for him with the nurses, and how pleased she was when she was informed that this was her baby brother. She took a protective attitude over him from that day on.
Ismina and Minalyan became good playmates, once their initial awkwardness wore off. Almina tagged along, always trying to intervene in the older children’s games, but she was still too little to keep up with rambunctious six and seven year olds. That autumn they made their own kingdom of the high meadow beyond Spellgarden, and turned the rows of wicker planters lining the garden outside the castle into their playground. In time, some of the other children of the estate (who were yet few in number) joined them, with my permission, and Ismina and Minalyan became the center of a tiny gang of rambunctious children. In just a few weeks they were even calling each other brother and sister.
That pleased me greatly. I came from a large family, and I loved my children. More importantly, I liked them. Watching them develop their own personalities as they picked up stray ideas or made up their own and played them out was a great joy. Minalyan was decidedly a leader, and expected the other children to listen to him, even the older ones. Ismina was highly imaginative in a way that reminded me of her mother’s scheming, but with a little girl’s innocence, not a courtier’s ambitions.
But it was interesting. When both of the Greenflower children were safely under my roof, I felt a relaxation of tension I didn’t know I was feeling, until it was gone. My family was safe, even the ones that I didn’t really know, yet. At the same time, a new anxiety arose as I watched Alya around Ismina and Istman. It wasn’t as if she bore them any ill will, but she wasn’t exactly maternal toward them, either. She was distant, especially in the first few weeks, distant in a way even Minalyan could tell.
She softened toward them over time, and even enjoyed little Istman – he was a jolly boy. I noticed Ismina always kept a careful distance around my wife, however, even when they were cordial.
I enjoyed those precious few weeks more than I care to admit. For once the prospect of enemies seemed an abstract problem, not an imminent threat. My children were all safe, happy and healthy, and my wife was . . . she was at least there, and trying to understand. She wasn’t a cabbage-minded simpleton.
Istman’s presence had another effect: he caused the desire to have another baby to wax in Alya. She seemed genuinely fascinated by him, in a detached sort of way. She learned how to play with him largely by watching others do so, not as natural maternal inclination. She was especially fascinated by his fingers and toes, which I found odd. But it reaffirmed her desires to get pregnant again, she told me one night, after a particularly lovely day in the meadow with all the children.
“It’s not really the best time,” I reminded her. “There’s going to be a war, likely in just weeks.”
“It takes more than nine months, from what I understand,” she replied, as we were preparing for bed. “The baby is . . . he’s growing on me,” she confessed. “The girl is quite odd, but the baby is a delight. He has your eyes,” she explained. “I think I want one more than ever, now.”
“If that’s what you want,” I sighed, knowing it would be futile to argue with her. “How about a treatment, first?” I proposed.
“You always say that when you think I’m not making sense!” she accused.
“I just like to make sure you’re making decisions you want to be making,” I countered. “The treatments help steady your mind.”
“It feels like you’re doing it just to keep me quiet, sometimes,” she complained.
“I don’t want to keep you quiet, Alya,” I disagreed. “Not at all. Indeed, you talk more now than ever. I think the treatments have been helping.”
“I do, too,” she sighed. “It’s just frustrating. I think I’m all right, and I understand what I’m doing, and then I get these . . . urges. Thoughts. I don’t know how to describe it. The treatments make them fade, but they always come back. And it becomes frustrating, because after each one I feel better . . . but I also know just how much of a mess I was. And how much I’m still missing.”
“If you think a baby will help, we’ll have a baby,” I said, kissing her gently.
“I have no idea if a baby will help,” she confessed. “In fact, I’m scared to even think about it. There’s going to be a war. You must think me truly mad. But it seems to be the right thing to do.”
“If things go well, and we can stop the attack, I’ll feel better about it,” I explained. “I’m not opposed, but you’re right. There’s going to be a war. And more wars after that. That’s not a reason not to have children.”
The security of family life made my other preparations seem hopeful, not grim. The work at Spellgate was proceeding impressively without my assistance. In a few days I would embark on an inspection tour of the lands to the south and west of Spellgarden, visiting villages and fortified manors to see how well their training and defenses were coming as the harvest ended.
Folk had been on guard, since the summer raids, but the army that was preparing to approach was far more menacing than slavers. Seeing to my own family’s safety reinforced how important it was for each of my vassals to have a plan to retreat from danger. And how responsible I was to see that they had the opportunity. After Luin’s Day I would see to many of those personally, as much to encourage my people as to ensure their security.
But before then, I had another duty that seemed at odds with frantic preparations for war: the assembly of my college of thaumaturgy’s staff. The halls and workshops were ready, or ready enough, and the invitations to study I’d extended to the principals were coming due. It was time to fill my tiny academy.
It might seem a mistake in my priorities to launch such a lofty enterprise on the eve of war, but I felt compelled to get started after my agreement with Moudrost the Seamage. There was no telling when the Vundel would come seeking more snowstone, and I had to have something to tell them. Nor could I allow the danger of war to distract me from that task. Either I could protect Vanador, or I couldn’t, I reasoned. Having a dozen additional magical scholars to protect would not increase the burden on me, and they might even prove useful.
In truth, we were getting many more magi coming up the road from Vorone since word went out at the Convocation that all magi were welcome here. Some tarried to winter in Vorone, when it was learned that Vanador was threatened, but they were coming, nonetheless. Some we could use as simple warmagi, some could be hired by the bouleuterion, and some would find employment elsewhere – but all were welcome.
Those who were most determined to get to Vanador, I discovered, were often talented in ways other than their rajira. Gareth, Thinradel, and even Rael were quick to discover the most clever and useful new arrivals and snatch them for their own organizations. Those with warmagic credentials were sent first to Terleman, to be evaluated for usefulness to the Magical Corps, or perhaps worth advanced training as warmagi. If they were not needed there, they were often hired in support roles. Some I recruited for the thaumaturgy project.
I caught a lot of guff from both Terleman and Sandoval about my attention to the thaumaturgical academy, and while Mavone didn’t say anything, his silence on the matter was criticism enough. Thankfully all three had duties that kept them too busy to grouse much about it. Like most Imperially-trained magi, they appreciated the central importance of thaumaturgy and magical theory to just about everything we did. But Sandy was the only one who’d gone beyond the practical applications and into theory, and he’d gotten intellectually lazy since he’d gotten a witchstone.
Taren was supportive, however; as much time as he’d spent in Sevendor’s bouleuterion, he was as much theorist as he was enchanter. His recent forays into Dunselen’s work could only have been done by a thaumaturge. The notes he’d given me, including his own extensive commentaries, now filled one of the chambers in the college that would become the library of the thaumaturgic institute. Taren made a point of bringing much of Dunselen’s impressive collection of thaumaturgical works to the place when he was relieved by Khedron. He was a frequent visitor of the place, as it contained a number of basic reference works that were difficult to come by.
Pentandra, too, had made a contribution. Though some of the Tower of Sorcery’s extensive library had been looted by the Censors when they’d departed, many of the local magi had quietly stolen, borrowed, or otherwise protected the rarest works. By the time I was ready to start work at the college, she’d sent another three hundred assorted manuscripts, some originals, some copies. It was an impressive start to the library I wanted the institution to have.
As impressive as it was, books and scrolls would not solve this problem. It would take the brightest thaumaturgical minds available, working together, with every possible resource at their disposal to do that, I knew. At least, that’s what I was going to throw at the problem and hope it worked.
Alas, despite my declarations to my father on the road to Vanador to eschew improvisation, the fact of the matter was that there was still far too much out of my control, still too many things that were unknown, for me to predict if we’d even be successful at the enterprise. I could not plan my way into inspiration and discovery.
The best I could do was to prepare the soil, piss on it thoroughly and hope that something interesting sprouted.
“Even as Minalan assembled his thaumaturges, the clouds of war gathered on the western horizon. The
harvest was well underway when it was learned that the foe had committed to his course, and was set to march on Vanador. Yet Minalan did not devote himself to warfare so much that he neglected the greater mission he had set for himself. A count is primarily responsible for his people’s safety, and none could say that the Spellmonger skimped the attention he spared in preparation for war; yet while his militiamen were called in from the fields to change their scythes for spears, and the entire province turned to the prospect of battle, neither did Minalan spare his attention to mundane matters, such as thaumaturgy and the rites of Luin. For a good man does one or another; a great man has the capacity to see to it all.”
From the Scrolls of Lawbrother Bryte the Wiser
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Law of the Magelaw
Master Theronial was not accustomed to travel by Waypoint, so when I brought him through from the Waystone we’d established in Inarion Academy that afternoon, he offered his appreciation for the wonder and majesty of the spell with the traditional fountain of vomit. I had warned him not to eat too much breakfast.
“Is it always that . . . jarring?” the old wizard asked, wiping his lips with his sleeve after we arrived.
“Master, you’ve just traveled over a thousand miles in the space of three heartbeats,” I reminded him. “A little discomfort isn’t too high a price for such convenience.”
“I suppose not,” he agreed. “But it’s not particularly dignified. So this is Vanador?” he asked, looking around – particularly at the jutting Overhang above us. It was still late afternoon, here, and the sun was hanging in a perfect position to gift the town’s shadier corners with a bit of sunlight.
“The town,” I agreed. “The rest of the province extends to include most of the northern plateau.”
“It’s . . . rustic,” he said, diplomatically, as he looked around at the newly-constructed buildings. Compared to the centuries-old cobbled lanes and stately brick halls he’d been in charge of for the last twenty years, no doubt it seemed so. “You say you have an actual campus?”
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