Magic's Promise

'He would, if the ambient magic in Highjorune wasn't going to mask my relatively weak spells. The illusion is only going to be on the Companions, to make them something else. Hardly a whisper on the wind.'

The stud tried to rid himself of the bit. 'You fixed his outside,' Jervis said wistfully. 'If you could only do something about the inside of his ugly head. ...'

Held to the pace of the stud, it took them three days to reach Highjorune. To pass the gates, Kellan and Ghost became donkeys led by an old peasant woman and her son. Vanyel became a Bard on a showy gold palfrey, and Jervis his man-at-arms and general servant. If attention was to be drawn, Vanyel wanted it drawn to him.

And indeed, he drew enough attention coming through the gates to more than distract the guards from the old woman and her offspring behind them. Vanyel and Yfandes pranced and preened, sidled and danced - and in general made a thoroughgoing nuisance of themselves. Jervis grunted, looked long-suffering, and earned the sympathy of the gate guards. The stud tried to take off someone's hand and got a fist in his teeth for his trouble.

No Row taverns for Vanyel, not this time. He lodged in the best inn in Highjorune, right across from the residency of the Master of the Weaver's Guild. Not so incidentally, that put the palace and all its mage-energies and shield-spells between him and the house where Lord Vedric was staying. Hopefully, any disturbances the illusions were creating would be lost in the greater wash of the shields and the node beneath the shields.

'Somebody's tried to break the shields,' Vanyel observed, staring fixedly put the window.

'You can tell that from here?' Jervis asked, surprised, looking up from sharpening his dagger.

'Uhm - hmm.' Vanyel probed deeper, and let his eyes unfocus. 'I can even tell what spells he used. And that it was a he and not a her. Nobody I recognize, but I'd bet it was Vedric.'

'Couldn't you - I don't know - get a look at Vedric so you'd know for certain?'

Vanyel turned restlessly away from the window and shook his head. 'No. Probing him to get his signature would tell him I was here. Having the palace between us wouldn't hide me long if he started looking for another mage. I don't like it, though. I wish I knew for certain. And I wish I knew why whoever it was tried to breach the shields. It can't be pure curiosity, not with spells that powerful being used. Oh, I can guess that it's Vedric, and that he wants to get in there to destroy some kind of evidence, but I'd much rather know for certain if my guess is wrong or right.'

'Well, I wish Savil and the boy would get here,' Jervis growled. 'I don't like the notion of us bein’ split up like this.'

'I agree,' Vanyel began, when a tap at the door interrupted him.

He whirled, but it was Jervis who answered it and with a grimace of relief let in Savil and Tashir.

'Where in Havens have you been?' he demanded. 'You were s'pposed to be here long before sundown!'

'Detained,' she replied, smugly. 'And what I got was worth the delay! What would you two say to a motive for the Mavelans to destroy the entire Remoerdis Royal House?'

“What? “ Jervis and Vanyel exclaimed simultaneously.

'We were playing peasants seeing the sights,' Tashir said tiredly. 'One of the sights is the Great Hall of Justice. They keep important documents in there, under glass, so that anybody who can read can see them. I remembered one of them was the treaty between Baires and Lineas and told Savil, so that's why we went there.'

“It took a fair amount of Tashir playing gawker to give me time to read it; by then it was dinnertime, and they shooed us all out.' Savil threw herself down in a chair beside the table, picked up the knife Jervis had been sharpening, and examined it critically. 'What it all comes down to is this: if one of the two Royal Houses dies out - and there are provisions about it being 'through misadventure, pestilence, or acts of the gods,' in other words, it can't be because of proven assassination by the other House - the surviving House gets the thrones of both. And that's all in ink and parchment under the signature and seal of Elspeth. Remember? Valdemar oversaw the treaty in the first place, and Valdemar is responsible for administering the provisions of it.'

'If I ever knew that, I'd forgotten it,' Tashir confessed into the silence.

'In other words, if Tashir is declared guilty of murder, the Linean throne gets handed over to the Mavelans - and Valdemar has to enforce this?' Vanyel said, incredulously.

'In a nutshell.' Savil replied. 'Great good gods -'

'That ain't real likely to make Valdemar popular around here,' Jervis observed. 'Not that they're real popular