Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) (12 page)

Pentandra didn’t like the way the Duke’s dark eyes looked, when he turned his gaze back to his court. 

The night steward cleared his throat with practiced volume. 

“My liege, might I remind you that it is the eve of Yule, and that the baron has retired after sinking deep in his cups?  The feast tonight was no rival to those in your father’s day, but His Excellency made the most of the limited resources at his disposal to properly honor the holiday.”

“I really don’t care if he’s vomiting drunk and up to the balls in the backside of his valet, have him awakened and brought to the Stone Hall,” he ordered, flatly. 

“The Stone Hall has not been opened since your mother’s funeral, Your Grace,” the steward said, apologetically.  “No real reason to.  It’s a frightful mess, I’m afraid, not fit for a proper duke.”

“It will do,” Anguin insisted. “Make sure it is ready. Lay a fire, too – it’s cold as goblin balls in here.”  Two of the palace servants scurried off to prepare the hall, one of the monks in the duke’s party following to see it done.    “Your name?” he asked the steward.

“
Pram
, Sire,” the man said, surprised.  “Like the god of distillation.”

“Pram, see Baron Edmarin is brought to me immediately, regardless of whatever vice he fell asleep enjoying, nor should he bother to dress for the occasion, if it delays his arrival.”

The old steward tried to hide his pleasure at the thought.  “I trust Your Grace will not be disappointed, then,” he said, smoothly.  “And what shall I tell Baron Edmarin is the reason his repose is being interrupted at this late hour, on the eve of Yule?  I am certain he will demand an answer, Your Grace.”

Anguin’s face was harsh.  “Tell him that the bells of midnight are near tolling, and he is summoned by his lord for the first court of Yule.  And if he argues . . .” the young duke said, his eyes narrowing, “take a few of my gentlemen with you to persuade him.  Forcefully.

“The rest of you, please refresh yourselves as you need for a moment, and then join me in the Stone Hall.  Tomorrow we can speak to the rest of the palace.  Tonight, I take what is mine from those who would steal it from under me.”

Chapter Two

Husband And Wife

Ordinarily, apart from their regular duties, a court wizard was often called upon to deal with discreet requests for aphrodisiacs or remedies for cramps or spells against disease from her employer, but most courts were headed by older men and married couples.  There were plenty of professional jokes about that and Pentandra had heard every one.  She tried to remember them as she made her way through the quiet streets of snowy Vorone, her horse’s hooves echoing off the cobbles and buildings.  She wondered when she would be called upon for such aid, considering the slap-dash state of the court.

“Do you think we’ll be attacked?” she asked Arborn, who now rode beside her on his big brown courser.

“No,” he answered, simply and thoughtfully.  She waited for him to elaborate.  He didn’t.

“Why not?” she prompted.  Arborn was maddeningly laconic.

“Because everyone is dead drunk and asleep, as they should be on Yule,” he replied, softly.  “No one knows our plan, we were quite careful of that.  And from what Count Salgo has informed me, there are few in this town who would raise a sword against anyone who vowed to replace Baron Edmarin.”

That satisfied her, for the moment, and confirmed her own assessment.  She trusted Arborn’s judgment, though he was not – technically – a military man.  He was a ranger of the Kasari people, strange barbarian tribes who lived in enclaves across the Wilderlands.  Arborn could smell an ambush the way she could tell if someone was preparing to do magic.

“In fact, it is quite possible that you will be installed and at work in a day or so,” he added, hopefully.  “We really won’t know until we see what kind of resistance the palace is ready to put up.”  He smiled at her.  He knew what this posting meant for her, and though it meant he would be consigned to town life for the foreseeable future, he was genuinely pleased with her new position.

Pentandra had always dreamt of being a ducal Court Wizard, ever since she had come into her Talent and begun learning the family’s Art.  Ducal Court Wizard was the highest position a mage could attain, in her youth, before Minalan upset the Bans on Magic, and it was still seen as a coveted and lucrative position with few pressing duties.  Clearly her tenure with Anguin’s court would differ in a number of ways from her predecessors, now that the rules had changed.  In this new age court wizards would be doing more than handing out aphrodisiacs to aging courtiers.

This was the era of the High Mage.  And Pentandra was among their elite.

Taking full advantage of Minalan’s bold and foolhardy maneuverings against the Dead God, Pentandra not only acquired her own stone of the ultra-precious magical mineral,
irionite,
she’d attained nobility, power and position beyond her ambitious girlhood dreams once Minalan upset the Bans on Magic and took over its administration in the new kingdom. 

Much of that work he delegated to her.  As the Steward of the Arcane Orders for the last three years Pentandra took a personal hand in restructuring how magic was done in the new kingdom, gaining a small fortune and immeasurable professional respect in the process.  Her family even suggested that accepting a post as a mere Ducal Court Wizard seemed like a demotion, compared to her previous position.

But it wasn’t.  If the assumption of the position belied her girlhood fantasies of power, it was because, ultimately, she found the entire exercise of court politics underwhelming and unfulfilling.  She had grown restless in Castabriel, the royal capital, in between periods of maddening activity.  Being Steward of the Arcane Orders gave her unanticipated power, but Pentandra had quickly grown weary of responsibilities that always seemed more burdensome than the perquisites they accompanied. 

When it became clear to her that a future as Steward meant being locked in a room with thousands of sheaves of parchment for all of eternity, she started to question her goals.

Then she’d met Arborn. 

As a student of the arcane and obscure (not to mention lurid) magic of sex, Pentandra had a highly discerning eye when it came to evaluating people, sexually.  A casual glance at a man or woman told her volumes about that person’s sexuality, once you understood the arcane rules of human sexual attraction and interaction.  It was far more than good looks and base attraction. 

Pentandra’s professional eye evaluated social context, age, bearing, charisma, and nuances of musculature that escaped everyone else.  It was amazing what a casual glance could tell you about a person’s inner soul, if you knew how to read it.  And that was
before
she added her magical perceptions into the equation.

When she’d met Arborn, her assessment of the big Kasari ranger was perplexing.  She’d never met a more perfect man –
literally
.  He was physically appealing, of course – the traditional Tall, Dark, and Handsome, Strong and Silent, all in generous portion – but he was no mere muscular slab of man. 

He possessed a marvelous intelligence, had keen insights, and was surprisingly educated for a barbarian – far more than the average nobleman.  His bravery was legendary, and his skill as a warrior was at least as great as any knight of the south.  But he was far more than a mere warrior.  He was literate, well-read, and had a sense of purpose and confidence that made him as much a scholar and a diplomat as a fighter.  There was little she had found that he could not do, save for magic.  

She had
finally
found a man worthy of her. 

Pentandra had encountered plenty of men in her life who would have made adequate, even exceptional mates . . .
objectively
.  But Arborn was the first man she’d met who approached her masculine
ideal
.  The first to truly win her heart.

Their courtship had been odd.  She’d accompanied Minalan on his mad dash across the Wilderlands in the company of a few thousand Kasari children, and Arborn had been there every step of the great journey.  The children were from the great Kasari settlements in the northern hills, and Arborn looked after his folk like a devoted sheepdog. 

He was constantly on watch for dangers, from goblin attack to poison ivy, and had commanded the other rangers escorting the children like a seasoned general.  He enjoyed the universal respect of everyone in the march, using his quiet presence to quell quarrels or his booming voice to call the marchers to action.  He never, ever made a mis-step.

Pentandra got to know him slowly, in passing, at first, merely admiring him from afar.  But she could not help herself in her attraction to the big, handsome ranger.  Every time the great column had halted to encamp she had found some reason to seek him out, or at least be in his proximity, until he knew her face and voice as well as he knew the sun in the sky. 

But it was a frustrating endeavor.  Despite her deep knowledge of feminine wiles and attraction, he hadn’t
once
tried to take advantage of her acquaintance, unlike so many other men she’d flirted with.   Not so much as a stolen kiss, though she’d given him every opportunity.

She had been subtle – she wasn’t prone to the kind of overt displays that a priestess of Ishi or some of her more flamboyant sisters would have indulged in.  Yet he always responded to her subtlety with quiet amusement and a congenial acceptance that she found endearing.  He was never cross with the children, nor unkind to an animal, and everyone he met seemed to strive to their utmost to aspire to be more like him.

That alone would have reached her heart.  Judging a man on what he said was foolish, on what he did was wise.  But judging him on how others reacted to him gave her an insight to his character that convinced her that Arborn was perhaps the kind of man she could love. 

Once she’d given voice to her interest and received the faintest hint that it was returned, she had pursued the handsome Captain of Rangers diligently and with a single purpose: to wed him according to the rules of his own tribe.

To that end she’d taken the Kasari Rites of Marriage in his homeland, Kasar, and undertook to learn what the odd barbarians considered essential for a Kasari wife to know.  She had expected the lessons to revolve around the marriage bed, and on the peculiar Kasari customs and dress.  They had a rich culture of song and story, one which her native competitors had grown up with. 

She found instead that the training and rites focused more on the domestic “arts”, chores and skills Pentandra had avoided her entire life.  She had grown up in an estate with a multitude of servants who had cooked every meal and sewn every stitch she wore. 

Though she understood the principles of thread and needle, pot and kettle, when it came to practicing them in front of the judgmental Kasari matrons she had felt all thumbs.  Worse, there was really no guarantee that the Council would approve her match to Arborn and that they would instead both be married off to those they decided would better compliment them.

And still that wasn’t the worst of it.  The Kasari’s idea of a marital sex life was largely concerned with bearing children, not sexual pleasure.  That had been both professionally and personally disappointing, though she’d learned a remarkable amount about their customs in the process.  As interesting as that had been academically it had soured her fantasies of unending nights of sensual pleasure. 

The Kasari ideal concerned quantity over quality, procreation above recreation, and both partners’ duties to the other in terms of provision and comfort.  It was a supremely practical arrangement but barely made room for passion.  Qualities like attractiveness, arousal, and pleasure were barely hinted at.  Discussions of the Kasari approach to the ancient arts of love were less frequent and detailed than the art of making a one-kettle meal or decorative embroidery. 

Hence her fearfulness at the Council’s decision.  They could have – quite easily – given Arborn over to some young lass with a face like a mud puddle with masterful culinary and crafting skills.  There was much resistance to marrying off the cream of the Kasari crop to a foreign stranger, and she dreaded them doing just that, just to spite her.

Thankfully, they had taken their mutual desire into consideration, and blessed the union once Pentandra had proven herself at least nominally proficient at being a Kasari wife.  There had been plenty if discussion and doubt about her suitability among her fellow initiates in the rites.  Particularly the younger, more nubile maidens who didn’t believe she didn’t deserve even a chance at a high-status mate like Arborn. 

When the Council’s approval had finally been granted, her elation at the news was accompanied by a feeling of triumph over the hopeful Kasari girls she’d beaten out.  She suspected that Arborn’s high rank and her service to the Kasari on the march had more to do with it than the judgment of the Matron of Maidens, but she would never have admitted such a thing – not to
them.

That triumph had lasted only as long as their time in the beautiful forests of Kasar.  The reality of what she had done – what they had done together – set in as soon as they had returned to more civilized lands.