‘But, this is where it gets interesting. Kaspar seems to have earned the Maharajah’s trust, and has come up with diplomatic solutions for two conflicts, set up a very difficult relationship with some of the clans ruling the City of the Serpent River, and has annexed two city states to the north without bloodshed. After a long war, he’s also achieved an alliance with Okanala through a couple of well-crafted royal marriages, effectively ensuring that his and the King of Okanala’s grandchildren will eventually rule a combined empire. He helped Okanala put down two rebellions, and now Okanala and Muboya will combine to move against those murderous little dwarves who live in the grasslands to the west.’
‘A prodigious list of accomplishments for so short a period of employment.’ Amirantha tapped his chin with his right index finger, a nervous gesture that Brandos had seen since childhood. ‘Now, what else?’
‘Speculation and rumour. Kaspar is an outlander, from far across the sea to the northwest, a nation called Olasko, so I have been told. He was a ruler there, before being deposed, and has been absent for some years. Somehow he became close to General Alenburga, but little is known of that. It is also rumoured that he often vanishes from Muboya’s new capital city of Maharta for a week or so, simply to show up again as if he had always been there.’
‘Magic,’ said Amirantha. ‘He goes somewhere, but no one sees him leave or return.’
‘Or he enjoys very long naps in the privacy of his quarters,’ quipped the old fighter. ‘Perhaps with friends; he’s reputed to have quite an eye for the ladies.’
Tapping his chin as he weighed his options, Amirantha was silent for a long time. Brandos knew his foster father preferred silence when he was reflecting, so the old fighter got up and left the study, trudging down the stairs.
The tower was a simple cylindrical keep with three levels, the middle held two large rooms, one for the Warlock and one for Brandos and his wife, Samantha. Brandos crossed the tiny hallway separating the two sleeping rooms and moved down the stairs to the bottom floor, where the kitchen, storage room, and guarderobe were housed. The kitchen smelled of freshly baked bread and something bubbling in a cauldron above the fire, Samantha’s well-regarded chicken stew if Brandos guessed correctly.
Brandos paused for a moment to observe his wife. A stout woman, she could still spark a fire in her husband with just a whisper in his ear, though the years had taken their toll on the former tavern girl from the Eastlands. She wore a simple green dress with a blue cloth head covering, arranged in her native style. Brandos had met her in the huge tavern at Shingazi’s Landing, on the Serpent River where it bends near the Eastern Coast, less than a mile west of the Great Cliffs, overlooking the Blue Sea. With the aid of a lot of flirtation, and a lot of good wine, she had eventually agreed to come to his bed.
But rather than forget her, as he had so many before her, his mind kept returning to the pleasant-looking, plump young woman from the Eastlands. After months of incessant mooning over her, Amirantha had given his foster son leave to visit her.
He had returned a month later with his new wife. Despite Amirantha’s original reservations, he had come to understand that Brandos had found something very rare with his tavern wench from the Eastlands. Brandos knew the Warlock envied them, even though he had never spoken a word.
Brandos knew his foster father better than any man alive, and knew that only once in his life had the old magic user succumbed to a woman’s guiles. Remembering the encounter still made him smile; if it weren’t for Amirantha’s genuine pain over how that liaison had ended, it would have been worthy of a bard’s most ribald tale.
Samantha looked up at her husband and smiled. ‘Ready to eat?’
‘Yes,’ he said returning the smile.
As he sat at the table, her smile turned to a frown. ‘Very well, when are you two leaving?’
Brandos shook his head and smiled ruefully. She could read him like a proclamation posted on a wall in the city square. ‘Soon, I think. Amirantha is very troubled by what happened up in Lanada.’
She only nodded. One of her talents was ignoring how her husband and his foster father made their living, by summoning demons in distant lands, then banishing them for a fee. They did occasionally do real work, dangerous work, for those willing to pay, but those were rare callings, the rest of the time the pair behaved little better than a pair of confidence tricksters.
Still, there were some matters that she and Brandos were willing to argue about, and some things best left unspoken; it was why their marriage had lasted for twenty-three years.
‘Is there any point to me asking why?’ she said coolly. ‘It’s not like it was when the children lived here.’ She stopped and looked at her husband accusingly. ‘Bethan is at sea, sailing who knows where. Meg lives with her husband up in Khaipur.’
‘Donal is down in the village with the grandchildren. You can walk down to visit them any time you wish,’ he quickly countered. He knew where this was heading.
‘And his wife just loves having me around,’ she said.
‘What is it about two women under the same roof?’ asked Brandos rhetorically.
‘She’ll come around when the new baby is born and she needs another pair of hands, but until then, she sees me as an intruder.’ He was about to speak, but she cut him off, her vivid blue eyes fixed on him as she absently pushed back a strand of grey hair trying to escape from under her head covering. ‘It’s lonely here, Brandos, with you gone for weeks, even months at a time …’ She let out a theatrical sigh. ‘When you returned early, I can’t tell you how happy that made me.
‘When are you going to stop all this travelling? I know how wealthy we are. You don’t need to do this any more.’
‘That would be true if Amirantha wasn’t always worried about what he might have to spend on one of his … devices, or an old libram of spells, or whatever else takes his fancy,’ countered her husband. ‘Besides, it is his wealth, isn’t it?’
‘Yours, too,’ she shot back. ‘It’s not as if you sat around doing nothing.’
He knew there was no avoiding the subject. ‘Look, most times I would argue with him on your behalf, I would agree with what you’re saying: We just got home, we’ve been gone over a month; but this time, well, we have to go.’
Samantha put her hands on her hips and said, ‘Why?’ Her tone was defiant and bordering on anger, and Brandos knew he must tell her.
‘It’s Amirantha’s brother.’
She looked stunned. She blinked and then asked, ‘Belasco?’
He nodded once.
She said, ‘I’ll prepare a travel bag. Enough food to take you to the city. You can buy the rest as you go.’
Her sudden change in mood and manner were entirely understandable. Over the many years they had been together, she had listened to the same stories as Brandos while Amirantha chatted over supper. She knew that Belasco was a magician of mighty arts, easily Amirantha’s equal, and that he had been trying to kill Amirantha since before Brandos or Samantha had been alive.
SANDREENA