Paul Thompson - The Wizard_s Fate

“These came from no battle,” Egrin said. Lifting his other hand, he revealed his right ear was identically scarred.

“Then what-?”

“I was born in the forest. When I was very young, my mother was killed. My father, unable or unwilling to care for a small child, left me with a couple in a nearby village. They were kind enough, in their own fashion. They told me this”-Egrin brushed an ear-“was for my own good, to protect me from the kind of people who had attacked our settlement and murdered my mother. It was necessary, they said. A necessary lie.”

Tol sat frozen. Egrin rarely mentioned his past, and Tol was keen to learn whatever he might share. However, the implication of his words suddenly struck like cold water on a chill morning. When Tol spoke, his voice was hoarse with shock.

“You’re a half-elf?”

Egrin’s hazel eyes were direct. “My mother was human; my father Silvanesti.”

Tol’s mind reeled. He had met only two or three half-elves over the years. Shunned and reviled by Silvanesti society, viewed with suspicion by their human families, they lived on society’s margins like the former pirate Wandervere, captain of Quarrel, who’d brought Tol to Daltigoth. For Egrin, a Rider of the Great Horde, discovery of his true roots would mean exile from the Empire, perhaps even death.

Tol had never suspected a thing.

Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, his fists coming up to rest on his hips.

“I knew you didn’t look that much older!” Half-elves aged more slowly than humans, though they were not quite as long-lived as full-blooded Silvanesti.

Egrin blinked in surprise, and Tol grinned suddenly. “Did you honestly think it would matter to me?” he demanded.

Relief coursed through the marshal. He sat heavily on a low table. Tol gripped his shoulder, and Egrin rested his hand briefly on Tol’s.

As they walked back to the banquet room, Tol leaned close. “So,” he whispered, “exactly how old are you, old friend?”

From time to time Tol was summoned to the imperial palace to give advice to the emperor and his councilors. He greatly valued these visits, not only for the access it granted him, but for the chance to glimpse Valaran.

Valaran’s prestige had suffered since Amaltar ascended to the throne. As long she was married to a crown prince, her status depended only on her husband’s interest and goodwill. Now that she was an emperor’s wife what mattered most was child bearing-bringing forth sons and daughters to ensure the continuation of the imperial line. Amaltar had no special love of children, nor was he an especially ardent lover, but all his wives except Valaran had borne him children. She was ostracized by the household, now run with total authority by the emperor’s first wife, Thura. Likewise, Valaran found herself belittled in the Consorts’ Circle; her bookishness as a girl had made her the subject of gossip, but this situation was far more serious: the dire word “barren” was even being whispered.

Tol had thought this would be unimportant to Valaran. He learned the true state of her feelings during a brief conversation in an anteroom of the audience hall.

Seated in an ornately carved chair, she was splendidly attired in a midnight blue gown trimmed at neck and shoulders with lapis lazuli. She’d discarded her fashionable headdress and her chestnut hair was tied back from her face with a simple length of ribbon.

She looked up suddenly from the scroll she was reading to find him standing there, staring. A smile curved her lips, and Tol’s throat went dry at the sight. He crossed the room to her and bowed.

They exchanged bland public greetings. “What brings you here this day, Lord Tolandruth?” she said, letting the scroll she was reading coil shut.

“A consultation with your imperial husband, lady,” he replied. “There’s some dispute about how best to employ Admiral Darpo’s squadron of warships.”

The flare of interest on her face faded. “Sounds deathly dull. Like everything else around here.”

When he politely inquired what she meant, he got an earful of her long-held rancor over her treatment by the other consorts.

“And all because I haven’t given Amaltar a child,” she fumed. “Doesn’t he have enough brats as it is?”

“It’s only an excuse,” Tol said. “An easy stick to beat you with because you’re an outsider.”

“Me? Outsider? I’ve lived my whole life in the Inner City! Not one of those other nags can say as much!”

He reminded her to keep her voice down, then added, “That’s not what I meant. You’re not like them, Val. You never have been. You’re a thinker and scholar, not a flighty court decoration.” He smiled. “How many books have you written?”

Her eyes flashed. “No one’s supposed to know that!”

“How many?”

“Four, counting the critique of Silvanesti poetry I finished last spring.”

Her pride was evident and he nodded. “That was a good one,” he said. “I liked it better than the history of the gnomes, or your biography of Ergothas II.”

“You read my books?”

He shrugged. “I needed to hear your voice, even written on a roll of foolscap.”

Valaran looked away, blinking. She muttered something about deceitful men.

Before he could ask what she meant, a herald arrived, telling Tol the emperor would see him now.

Reluctantly Tol started to take his leave of her, but Valaran caught his hand. The unexpected contact startled him.

“Thank you, Lord Tolandruth.”

The urge to sweep her into his arms was frighteningly strong. He had to settle for a brief caress of her hand.

The emperor’s council was contentious. The former Blood Fleet, now reconstituted under Admiral Darpo as the first squadron of the Ergothian Navy, had chased most of its former piratical comrades out of the Gulf of Ergoth. Trade was flowing across the bay in startling strength, and bulging coffers of tax money arrived daily from Lord Tremond in Thorngoth. Excited by the flow of gold, Ackal IV’s advisors wanted to send the fleet west to suppress the pirates prowling the seas between Sancrist Isle and Hylo.

“If I may speak, my lords!” Tol all but shouted over the wrangling warlords. It was poor manners, and a bad sign that he should have to shout at all. Ackal IV could not control these sessions. He sat in his father’s chair saying little, face gray, eyes squinted against his constant pain. Although propped up by his stiff court robes, he still leaned slightly to one side.

Tol repeated his request. Rymont, Valdid, and the rest slowly fell silent. “My thanks,” Tol said ironically. “I feel it would be a grave mistake to send the fleet out of the gulf.”

“Why?” Lord Rymont demanded.

Tol gestured to a heap of scrolls on the table. “From Tremond’s reports, it seems the pirates in the gulf have been suppressed, not wiped out. Send Admiral Darpo away, and they’ll fall upon the merchant shipping like a pack of starving wolves.”

“This fleet costs the imperial treasury 3,000 gold pieces a month,” Valdid complained.

“And how much in taxes did Lord Tremond send this last time?”

They knew the figure as well as he did. Twenty thousand crowns of gold and silver had just arrived in Daltigoth under heavy guard/Eight days earlier another twelve thousand had come, and before that, eight thousand. Tol admonished them not to endanger the stream of money by sending the fleet away.

Some were in favor of doing just that. The arguments went on until the light of the setting sun slanted into the council chamber at a sharp angle. Rymont, stubbornly insisting the fleet would secure even more money by making sea trade safe in the north and west, was arguing with Valdid, who’d come around to Tol’s point of view. The chamberlain noticed Ackal IV was nodding and broke off in mid-sentence. Rapping on the polished tabletop, he announced the council session was over.