The Queen of Mages (4 page)

Lord Dardan Tarian reined to a stop on the
crest of a stony ridge, gazing southwest toward the pale walls of
Callaston. The morning haze had lifted and Dardan could see acres
of farms and cottages laid out between him and the city. The little
homes, smoke wafting from their chimneys, looked pleasant and
inviting, but Dardan had to go into the city itself. Callaston was
crowded, and it stank. He’d spent more than enough time here as a
boy.

His
valo
, Liam Howard, rode up beside
him, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. “Looking for
something, m’lord?”

“An excuse to avoid visiting this foul
city.”

“Surely your lady mother isn’t such
unbearable company,” Liam deadpanned.

Dardan snorted. He kicked his horse to a
safe walk down the hill, toward their one-wagon caravan below. He
thought about the sheaf of parchment in his satchel, a pile of
contracts and documents from his father, destined for the Tarians’
trade agent in Callaston. As usual, he would have to spend tedious
hours overseeing the details.

They still had to reach the city first. A
handful of guards bracketed the wagon, keeping a watchful eye,
though there was little risk of banditry this close to Callaston.
Dardan came up alongside their captain, a young, chiseled man with
flinty eyes.

“M’lord.” Captain Reed bowed slightly. “Will
we be accompanying you in the city once we arrive?”

Dardan shook his head. “Escort the wagon to
the warehouse, then return to the manse. You can quarter there for
the night. Mother may have letters to send back with you. Then I
think you can return to Hedenham. I’ll be in the city a few days,
and we’re taking nothing back but ourselves.”

“Your mother the countess will insist on an
escort,” Liam interjected.

Of course she will.
Countess Besiana
fretted for Dardan’s safety every time he left the city, though
he’d made the trip back to Hedenham a dozen times with no escort
save his
valo
. This time would be no different: she’d
insist, he’d decline. All part of the routine. He shrugged at Liam,
ending the conversation.

Dardan eyed the wagon once again. All the
cargo looked undisturbed, the wax seals still intact on the crates
of raw iron and copper, smithed tools, and bales of wool and flax.
Dardan’s father the count always insisted he take some goods with
him on his trips to the city, if for no other reason than to keep
up appearances. Arriving in the capital with freight in tow
reinforced the image of Hedenham’s prosperity.

The ashstone walls of Callaston loomed ever
closer. The Festival Gate stood wide open, and a steady stream of
wagons, horses, and travellers issued forth, but a long line waited
to enter. Royal inspectors examined all cargo entering the city, to
extract import duties on the relevant goods. Dardan’s wares had
already been inspected, taxed, and sealed at a royal trading house
in Hedenham. Still, it was a long line.
I hate waiting.

When they reached the end of the queue, he
nodded at Liam. The
valo
rode ahead, looking through the
line. He returned shortly. “Men with Duke Visail’s colors guard a
wagon near the front. All else are commoners.”

“Is Visail with the wagon?”

“No, nor his kin, that I could tell. Just
guards and servants.”

Dardan considered. It was a noble’s
privilege to skip to the head of the queue, but a duke far
outranked the son of a count. “We’ll wait,” he said, irritated at
the further delay.

Finally, Visail’s wagon made it through the
gate, and Dardan motioned to his own driver. They pulled out of the
line and cantered to the front, bypassing all the commoners. Dardan
empathized with their envious looks, but he wanted to get this over
with. The men at the gate made a cursory inspection of the seals
and the manifest, and waved Dardan and his men into the city.

Captain Reed bowed to Dardan and led his men
after the wagon, which had turned down toward the river and the
warehouses there. Dardan trotted away toward the north of the city,
Liam at his side.

Callaston reeked, and it would only get
worse as summer approached. Dardan was used to the open fields and
heath of Hedenham; here all the people and buildings and waste were
packed too tightly together. Not to mention the tendency of
Callaston’s nobles to embroil him in their tiresome intrigues. He
especially did not relish the memory of Countess Rambul’s last
dinner party, and its aftermath. Nonetheless, his duty brought him
here, and he would see it discharged. Quickly.

The main avenues of Callaston formed a rough
grid, though even the widest streets curved around ancient inns,
trading houses, shops, malthouses, and manses. The city was more
than four hundred years old, having grown from a small riverside
trading post in Garova’s early days, and it showed. Some past kings
had tried to impose more order on the city, but Callastonites had
more than once rioted against attempts to demolish their favorite
malthouses for the sake of straighter streets.

Dardan wended his way through that haphazard
plan, eventually reaching the Grainway, and then Willbury Street.
Many of the city’s streets lacked trees, but Willbury was
well-shaded. He was almost able to forget he was in crowded
Callaston at all.

The Tarians’ manse sat at the bottom of the
curving road, sheltered from the bustle of the city, though alas
not entirely from the smell. Dardan saw the house major, the prissy
and gray-fuzzed Bertram, waiting impatiently out in front with a
pair of stableboys. Dardan dismounted and gave the old man a
friendly nod which was returned precisely. Liam greeted the major
with a jocular bellow and a clap on the shoulder. Bertram’s face
turned a soft shade of purple.

“Mother, I’ve arrived,” Dardan called out in
the foyer. He tossed his hat onto the demilune table by the door.
He was sweaty from the ride, and the countess would no doubt insist
he clean himself up at once.

“Dardan, my dear boy!” came his mother’s
squeak from the top of the stairs. She glided down, trailed by her
vala
, the perpetually nervous Rose. Spending a lot of time
around Besiana could do that to a person. “It’s so good to see
you.” She pecked him on the cheek, then sniffed. “Mister Howard,
have you been letting my son sleep in barns the whole way
here?”

“No, m’lady, that’s how he always smells,”
Liam said. Dardan fought down a grin.

“Off to a bath, I won’t have your foul
stench permeating the house. BERTRAM!”

“Yes, m’lady?” The major nearly leapt
forward, hands clasped expectantly.

“My son will be hungry, of course. Prepare a
snack for us at once.”

“It’s good to see you as well, mother,”
Dardan said, not waiting for her to pause, as that could mean quite
a long wait.

“Off with you. I shall be in the sitting
room.” Besiana strode away. Rose followed, although not before
giving Liam a besotted grin. The
valo
winked at her.

Dardan snorted once she was gone. “I thought
I told you to stop tumbling the maids.”

“Perhaps I remind them of your father,
m’lord,” Liam said. He was more handsome than Dardan, they were
both well aware. Dardan had lost count of the times someone had
assumed that
he
was the
valo
, and Liam the lord.

A small suite of rooms had been made ready
for him. He washed from a painted porcelain vase, ignoring the bar
of lavender-scented soap that sat beside it.
A man should not
smell like flowers.
Liam helped him dress in garments that had
already been laid out for him: linen shirt, waistcoat, breeches,
hose, and velvet slippers. Besiana insisted he dress like a city
dandy whenever he was here. Whether he matched the furniture seemed
more important than his own desires. Would she never realize he was
a grown man, almost twenty years of age?

Dardan found his mother in the sitting room,
chatting with the family’s trade agent, Mister Dobbs. The room was
as absurdly ornate as everything else in the house, with golden
sconces along the walls, plush chairs for lounging and reading, a
high plaster ceiling carved with children and flowers and painted
in garish colors, and a narrow cherrywood table that had once
belonged to his great-great-grandfather.

Bertram brought in plates of fruit and
cheese while they went over the trade contracts. Goods in, money
out, the endless wheels of commerce. Dardan paid close attention
the whole time, but wished he were somewhere else.

By early evening, the trade agent had gone.
Captain Reed returned with his men, and Besiana insisted they stay
in the city several days, overriding their objections. It seemed
Dardan would have an escort back to Hedenham regardless. He caught
his mother fluttering her eyelashes at the handsome Captain Reed,
though, and his stomach turned.
No wonder.

Once the guards had gone off into the
servants’ hall, Dardan settled down to a simple dinner with his
mother: robin’s-egg soup and roast lamb and garden greens, cold
crab bisque, warm soft nut bread with honey and butter. He’d given
Liam an evening at liberty, deciding that at least one of them
should get a bit of entertainment while they were in the city.
Dardan let the envy wash over him as he thought about Liam having a
drink with the lads in a malthouse somewhere.

Besiana nattered on about the usual noble
trivialities. Upcoming marriages, who was cuckolding whom, news
from points west and south. Casually, she mentioned the young
widowed lady who lived next door. Besiana brought her up every time
Dardan visited, and he was growing tired of hearing about her.
Tonight, Besiana lamented that the lady had gone on a sudden trip
that very morning.

Dardan sighed as he tucked into his second
helping of lamb. “Yes, mother, I’m sure she’s quite lovely. Should
we ever chance to occupy the same city at the same time, I would be
glad to meet her.”
If only to shut you up.

“Oh, but you must remain here until the
royal summer ball,” she replied. “I’m certain Lady Amira will be
attending. Perhaps you could accompany her.”

He hesitated. “I had only planned to be here
long enough to handle our business affairs.”

“My dear boy, you have missed the summer
ball the last two years. Your absence is spoken of.”

His last nerve frayed. “By whom? Anyone
whose opinion I care about?” he snapped.

Besiana recoiled a little and slowly put
down her fork. “I am only thinking of your future happiness, my
dear boy.”

“You’re only thinking of the family legacy.
You couldn’t give two coppers about my happiness.” He felt
righteous saying it, but regret crept in as soon as he saw his
mother’s hurt expression.

“Dardan! I care about nothing more than the
happiness of my children. But that happiness is tied intimately to
this family’s legacy.” She leaned forward slightly, her voice
lowering. “You are almost four years a man, and it is past time you
married.”

“I will consider it in my own time,” he
replied, stabbing at a morsel of lamb on his plate. “Besides, this
girl is no maid. You’ve told me about her late husband, and her
wealth. I don’t care how amazingly beautiful you claim she is, it’s
obvious you only want her for her money.”

Besiana narrowed her eyes. “Money is what
keeps us in robin’s-egg soup and two houses full of servants. It
may be enchanting to pretend that our lifestyle is by the divine
grace of the Caretaker, but you are old enough to know better.” She
picked up her fork again. “And so what if she is not a maid?
Neither are you, unless I miss my guess.”

Dardan choked on his wine, spraying droplets
onto the table. He coughed, dabbing his napkin at the purple spots
soaking into the silk tablecloth. “Mother!”

“Well? You are almost twenty. Your father
had bedded his first girl by the time he was fourteen.” She
shrugged.

Dardan was shocked. He would not discuss
bedroom affairs with his
mother
. It was perverse!

Besiana went on, unruffled. “Petulance does
not become you, Dardan. Lady Amira is young, beautiful, childless,
wealthy, and was married barely half a year before her noble
husband passed on. She is of common birth, true, but she is a
commoner no longer.”

Dardan’s jaw set. “I will not be forced into
a marriage.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, dear. Unlike your
sister, you have shown no congenital hostility to the idea of
marriage, merely the reluctance common to young men. But you are
also your father’s eldest son. You have a duty to this house
to—”

“I know my duty!”

“
You have a duty,
” she rode over him.
“Strong unions between nobles are strands in the web that keeps us
safe. Things are simpler in Hedenham, I know, but here you can
barely go a day without the dogs nipping at your heels. Think, for
once, what might happen to this family if you were to eschew your
duty for a year, or a month, or even a day too long.”

She would not be content until he gave in.
The woman was indefatigable, and he did not want to simply walk out
of the room. “I have said I would be happy to meet the lady,” he
bit out. “When will she return?”

“Most likely a few days hence. She did not
see fit to inform me of her plans in detail.”

“Father expects me back within a week.”

“I will send a message that you are staying
for the summer ball. He can argue with me if he likes.”

Count Asmus Tarian did not like arguing with
his wife. They’d had some barn-burning screaming matches when
Dardan was young, with the eventual result that Besiana spent all
her time in Callaston, while Asmus stayed in the country. Asmus
came to the city a few times a year to do his marital duty, and
spent the rest of it chasing girls all over Hedenham County.