A Young Man Without Magic Page 5

  “He needed to speak with Lord Allutar,” Anrel said.

  “About what?” Dorias demanded. “Valin, what business did you have with the landgrave?”

  “I sought to save a man’s life,” Valin said. “I hope I may yet manage it.”

  “What man?”

  “Urunar Kazien,” Anrel said.

  “The baker’s boy?” Dorias asked. “What’s he done now?”

  “He is accused of stealing herbs from the landgrave’s garden,” Valin replied.

  Dorias snorted. “I’m sure he did, the little fool. And Allutar means to put him to death?”

  “He does,” Valin said.

  “More specifically, Uncle, he proposes to sacrifice the lad on the autumnal equinox, in hopes of working a spell of some sort,” Anrel explained.

  “Does he?” Dorias shook his head. “Well, then, I suppose the poor boy is doomed. His parents must be miserable.”

  “Magister, I have—” Valin began.

  “Oh, dear Mother,” Dorias interrupted.

  Disconcerted, Valin said, “What?”

  “Any time you call me Magister, I know you’re about to ask something dreadful. You are well past the age of apprenticeship, after all, even if I don’t think you ever really properly completed your studies.”

  Valin frowned. “And what else should I call you?”

  “Unless you want something, you generally don’t bother to call me anything. Should you choose to do so, you know the proper forms of address, or at least you ought to. ‘My lord’ would serve, or ‘Lord Dorias,’ or ‘Burgrave’—but go on, then, what were you going to ask?”

  “I was going to suggest, Magis—my lord, that you might perhaps intercede on the boy’s behalf. After all, you are burgrave of Alzur; as a resident of Alzur, is he not one of your own dependents?”

  “Of course he is, and now that you mention it, I can require that Lord Allutar compensate his parents, if he has not already arranged to do so—I believe the appropriate amount under the law would be four hundred guilders. But if the boy stole from the landgrave, or was apprehended outside the pale, then I’m afraid I have no claim on his life.”

  “But cannot you ask Lord Allutar to reconsider?”

  Dorias snorted. “I can, and Lord Allutar can then tell me to mind my own business. As I have no doubt he will.”

  “But can’t you make a case somehow, Magister? Perhaps say that you suspect the boy of having a talent for magic—a sorcerer cannot be put to death without the emperor’s consent, you know that.”

  “But I do not suspect the boy of having a talent for magic. Mischief, yes—this is hardly the first time he’s embarrassed himself—but not magic.”

  “But then why did he want the herbs in the first place?”

  “I would assume he intended to bake something with them. Herbs have a great many uses other than sorcery. In fact, if he was using them for magic, since he has passed no trial he would not be a sorcerer but a witch, and witchcraft is punishable by death just as certainly as any theft.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean he’s performing magic, just that he has a natural talent that led him to the herbs.”

  “That’s nonsense, Valin. You must know that.”

  “But isn’t it enough to suggest the possibility of magical ability?”

  “Valin, if I go to the landgrave and say the boy may have the talent to be a sorcerer, he will simply administer a few tests, and the matter will be settled. You are raising false hope. People like you, sorcerers born to commoners, are very rare, my lad, and I assure you, I have heard not the slightest rumor, nor seen the least sign, that Urunar Kazien might be one of those exotic individuals.”

  “But Magis—my lord, Lord Allutar said that he would listen to arguments for the six days left to the boy. Can’t you at least speak to him, and urge him to reconsider, on grounds of simple humanity? Or suggest that putting the boy to death will stir up unrest?”

  Dorias sighed. He looked at his daughter and nephew. Saria was obviously not interested; Anrel, as he so often was, was unreadable. Still, neither seemed disposed to argue against Valin’s position.

  “The day after tomorrow,” the burgrave said. “If the weather isn’t too unpleasant, and my stomach isn’t troubling me, I will speak with Lord Allutar the day after tomorrow.”

  “Not tomorrow?” Valin asked.

  “Not tomorrow,” Dorias replied firmly. “I intend to spend much of tomorrow becoming reacquainted with our returned scholar, since he is here, and hearing all the latest gossip from the emperor’s court.”

  “I was hardly an intimate to the court,” Anrel protested.

  “But you were in the capital, and I’m sure you heard a few tales, didn’t you? The empress, for example—is she truly the mad, bad Ermetian ogre some of the stories would have her?”

  Anrel smothered a sigh. “I haven’t met her, Uncle.”

  “But you’ve heard stories?”

  “A few,” Anrel reluctantly admitted.

  “There! You’ll tell me all of them, then. And the day after tomorrow, I shall speak to Lord Allutar about various matters, and I will make certain to inquire after the Kazien boy, and to urge leniency.”

  “And suggest he might be a magician?” Valin said.

  “I hardly . . . oh, very well. I’ll suggest it.”

  “Shall I come with you, to add my voice?”

  “I think Lord Allutar has heard all he wants of your voice,” Anrel said, before Lord Dorias could respond.

  Valin opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. Saria laughed.

  “It’s no laughing matter,” Valin reproached her. “A man’s life is at stake.”

  “Then if you are determined to save him, I would listen to Anrel,” Saria said. “He may be the only one here who is not a sorcerer, but I think he may have the most sense of us all.”

  “Perhaps that was how the Mother compensated me for my lack of arcane skill,” Anrel said, bowing an acknowledgment to his cousin.

  “Quite possibly,” Dorias said. “We can include the question in our prayers at the next change of the seasons; perhaps the spirits will give us a sign.”

  “I would not trouble any spirits with such questions,” Anrel said. “I am content to know that I am thought sensible by those I love, and need no explanation of how I came to be so fortunate.”

  “If it is good sense to leave the baker’s son to die, then I thank the Father and Mother I was not so blessed!” Valin said, raising his nose.

  “Oh, will you please be silent about that accursed boy?” Dorias snapped. “I have said I will plead for him two days hence, and the equinox is yet six days away; there’s no need for his fate to so dominate our conversation! I would much rather hear what Anrel has to say about his time in Lume. Is it true that the emperor’s palace is lit so brightly these days the very walls seem to glow?”

  “Not that I noticed when I happened by it,” Anrel said. “It is still very much as you saw it four years ago.”

  “Did you ever see the emperor?” Saria asked.

  “Only from a great distance,” Anrel told her. “During a procession.”

  “But you saw him!”

  “Yes,” Anrel admitted.

  “Then tell us about it!” Saria insisted.

  “Yes, do,” Dorias said. He took a final glance at his biscuits, then swept them aside. “Let us sit in the parlor and hear all about it!”

  With that, the four of them left the kitchen, and the subject of the impending execution was not mentioned again that night.

  5

  In Which Anrel Finds Himself at Home

  Fitting back into the routine in his uncle’s home was more difficult than Anrel had expected. Now that Lord Valin had completed his studies in sorcery, or at any rate ended them, and Lady Saria was old enough to make her own arrangements, Lord Dorias no longer had a schedule to maintain, and had allowed his habits to become somewhat eccentric. He did not arise until midmorning, while Anrel, accustomed to the
strictures of the court schools, was up and dressed by sunrise.

  Anrel was therefore able to spend some time reacquainting himself with his uncle’s staff and looking over the burgrave’s estate before joining the family for a late breakfast and extended conversation.

  At the table he gave them an impassioned account of the hardships of a student’s lot, as well as the glories of the libraries and museums in Lume. He described several of his professors and tutors, and something of the capital’s architecture and fashionable inhabitants. He mentioned the forbidding aspect of the city’s extensive walls and defenses, and the air of mystery that still clung to some of the standing ruins, where traces of the strange magic of the Old Empire’s long-vanished wizards still lingered.

  He did not mention the beggars in the streets, or the countless whores desperate enough to pursue even poverty-stricken students. He made no mention of the watch patrolling atop their arches and rooftop catwalks, nor the seething unrest in the Pensioners’ Quarter and the angry mood of the general populace. He described the emperor’s palace, with its glittering spires and magnificent carvings, for Lady Saria, but said nothing of the red-painted cannon on its ramparts, manned and aimed at the crowds in the surrounding streets whenever the people of the capital gathered to protest the high taxes, food shortages, and other misfortunes they laid at the government’s feet. All of those unhappy details could be introduced when he had had more time to settle in, and had reacquainted himself with the political leanings of his uncle, his cousin, and his friend.

  Prior to his stay in Lume Anrel had taken no interest in politics, and had therefore noticed little of the politics of those around him. He would have preferred to continue in that fashion. Four years in the capital, though, especially four years such as those just ending, would force anyone to acquire a basic knowledge of the issues confronting the empire, and to form opinions about them.

  The dominant opinion Anrel had formed was that however unjust and miserable the present situation might be, none of the proposed changes would be any better, no matter what faction might be making the proposals. Every utopian scheme Anrel heard propounded seemed to him to depend on people ceasing to act like people, which is to say, every plan assumed that ordinary men and women would henceforth be free of stupidity, greed, venality, and other widespread human characteristics. Since he could not bring himself to believe that such traits were going to miraculously vanish, Anrel concluded that every such solution to the empire’s problems was doomed to failure, and that the best anyone could hope for was that the present system would somehow muddle through, since at least the problems inherent in it were known and familiar.

  This was not an opinion that a student could safely voice in the court schools, so Anrel had developed the habit of saying nothing that might trigger a political debate of any sort. That habit had survived the journey back to Alzur.

  So he neglected to mention the sick, starving masses he had seen in the streets of Lume, or the petty bullying of the Emperor’s Watch, or any number of other things he had encountered, and he said nothing when Lord Dorias complained about the demands the emperor placed on the administrators of his realm, the landgraves and burgraves and margraves. He did not argue with Lord Valin’s speeches about the nobility of the common man. He ignored Lady Saria’s snide rejoinders suggesting that Valin only loved the common man because he wasn’t one, and that if Valin had not escaped his own common background he would be less enthusiastic about his fellows.

  Valin, however, looked uncomfortably at Anrel after one of Saria’s remarks.

  “Pay no attention to her, Anrel,” he said.

  Anrel smiled wryly. “Oh, I’m sure my dear cousin did not mean to include me in her dismissal of most of our species as little more than beasts,” he said.

  “But you aren’t common at all, Anrel!” Saria protested. “You’re a scholar, and born of sorcerers, even if you haven’t any magical skill of your own.”

  “Walasian law recognizes only two categories of citizens,” Anrel pointed out. “One is a sorcerer, or one is not. Sorcerers are entitled to own land and administer the empire, and commoners are not.”

  “The emperor isn’t a sorcerer,” Saria retorted. “Are you calling him and his family commoners?”

  “Indeed, our ancestors determined to avoid competition for the throne by saying no sorcerer could have it,” Anrel agreed. “I concede that the imperial family is in a third category. I am not, however, a member of that illustrious clan.”

  “You’re a member of our clan,” Saria insisted. “The House of Adirane. We are not commoners.”

  “I am a Murau,” Anrel corrected her. “My mother was an Adirane, but I took my father’s name.”

  “Adirane or Murau, both are noble families—and do you really mean to disclaim our kinship, Cousin? After my father took you in and raised you, as if you were my own brother?”

  “Of course he’s an Adirane, whatever his name may be,” Dorias proclaimed. “But he’s no sorcerer, you know that, so he’s quite right in saying he’s a commoner.”

  “But he’s my own cousin!”

  “There’s no shame in being a commoner, Saria,” Dorias said. “The Mother and Father made him as he is, and it’s not for us to question it.”

  “Indeed, if there is shame to be found on either side of the divide, I would look among sorcerers,” Valin said. “What use have we made of our gifts? Many of us have aggrandized ourselves at the expense of the unfortunates we are supposed to be protecting. Look at Lord Allutar, preparing to slaughter a young man in pursuit of some spell!”

  “Do you even know what spell, Valin?” Saria demanded. “For all we know, it may be an accomplishment well worth the expenditure of a human life—if you can in fact call Urunar Kazien human, which I consider open to debate.”

  Anrel was startled by her vehemence. “You seem to have a low opinion of the lad.”

  “I had a few encounters with Master Kazien while you were in Lume, and while Lord Valin was carousing in Naith,” Saria said. “My opinion is low, yes—indeed, it’s subterranean.”

  Anrel smiled.

  “I was hardly carousing!” Valin protested. “I was seeking a position for myself. Since I have been blessed with sorcerous ability, I would prefer to employ it for the benefit of others, and there’s no need for more sorcerers in so small a town as Alzur. Your father and Lord Allutar, whatever differences I may have with them, are beyond question competent in their roles.”

  “Did you find a position?” Anrel asked with sudden interest. “You hadn’t mentioned any of this yesterday.”

  “It’s not settled, as yet,” Valin said sullenly. “The First Lord Magistrate is looking into some possibilities.”

  “For half a season now,” Saria said.

  “I’m sure Lord Neriam will find you something,” Dorias said.

  “Indeed,” Anrel said, “where administrators are involved, a delay of a season or two is scarcely worthy of mention.”

  “Especially when one has so little to offer,” Saria said.

  Valin opened his mouth to protest, but the master of the house cut him off. “Enough of this!” Dorias said. “I want to hear more about Anrel’s education in Lume, not about politics or executions or you two squabbling.”

  With that, the conversation returned to safer subjects.

  As the day wore on, Anrel began to suspect that there were things the two other young members of the household were not telling him; Valin seemed reluctant to say much about his prospects in Naith, and Saria’s attitude seemed to be somehow odd, in a way Anrel could not quite grasp. Her bickering with Valin seemed less playful and more serious than he recalled.

  Lord Dorias, however, was much as he had always been, and gave no sign of any secrets.

  Even his uncle, though, could be disconcerting. At one point Anrel mused briefly about his own future, and Dorias cut him off sharply with, “There will be time to speak of that later.”

  There had been several hints
that Anrel would have been well-advised to find a position in Lume, rather than returning to Alzur at all, and in truth, Anrel did not know what was to become of him. There was no place for a scholar in a village like Alzur, but he had no connections anywhere else. He knew he should have tried to make some influential friends during his time in Lume, but he had not managed it; he had spent his time in the company of impecunious scholars like himself. He had a first-rate education that would fit him for clerking or even the practice of law in any city large enough to house a magistrate’s court, but he had no patron to aid him in establishing himself in such a position. His uncle’s support might prove sufficient, but he was by no means certain of that—and Dorias’s dismissal of the subject did not bode well.

  He had thought that perhaps he might follow Valin into service somewhere, but Valin did not seem to have found a place for himself as yet, either.

  On the other hand, Lord Dorias had given no sign that he intended to stop supporting Anrel anytime soon. Anrel’s self-respect would not permit him to remain a parasite on his uncle’s goodwill indefinitely, but another season or two would be tolerable.

  At midafternoon Anrel felt he needed a respite from his family’s attentions, and took a walk, saying he was in the mood for fresh air. He waved to Ziral the butler as he ambled out the front door and down the granite steps to the graveled path.

  He paused at the edge of the lawn to look back at the house. It was far less grand than Lord Allutar’s; the walls were rough gray stone rather than white and polished, and the roof slates were all a plain dark gray rather than patterned in three colors. There were no turrets, and ivy obscured the few carved figures. Still, Anrel loved the old manor, and it was certainly far finer than his rented room on the Court of the Red Serpent in Lume.

  It was, in fact, finer than he deserved. He had done nothing to earn a place here.

  He frowned, and turned his gaze north, toward the village.

  He had originally intended to walk into the square and perhaps drink wine or tea, but now he suddenly did not want to face any of the villagers. Although he hated to admit it, even to himself, he was afraid Alzur would, upon closer inspection, turn out to have changed in his absence. He did not want to see beggars in the square, or people who fell silent whenever a stranger passed for fear that stranger was an informant for the watch. He could not imagine how such things could have come here, but he did not want to risk it.