Good enough.

  He then put his sword and the wand Garram into the chest at the foot of the bed. He locked the chest, first with the key — which he then put into his pouch — and then with magic.

  It wasn’t likely anyone would try to steal from him here. But he wasn’t willing to chance being wrong.

  Finally, feeling ready, he took up the Brightstaff and went into his sitting room. He opened the hallway door to tell his guards to call for a page, but found a servant already waiting with them.

  The servant was a young man who couldn’t have seen more than fourteen summers, this one included. He was dressed in a simple brown linen tunic and hose that had been dyed a dull golden color.

  “Your grace,” the servant said with a bow.

  “Are you here to escort me to dinner?” Aefric asked.

  “Yes, your grace.” Poor kid sounded half-scared to death.

  “Have I kept you waiting long?”

  “Of course not, your grace,” the servant said, though when Aefric glanced at Ser Arras, she wiggled her hand to indicate yes, but not too long.

  “I can assure your grace that they will hold dinner for him as long as he likes.”

  Wow. This kid was good. He knew the formal forms of address better than Aefric would have expected from a servant in the house of a commoner.

  “What is your name?” Aefric asked.

  “Edric, your grace,” the servant said. “Edric Ol’Nia. Son of Ler Osvalt Ol’Nia.”

  “Osvalt… Osvalt,” Aefric said. “I don’t remember your father. Where are his lands?”

  “Forgive me, your grace,” Edric said. “My father died during the Godswalk Wars. Our land was at the foot of the Threepeaks, on the east side of Lake Deepwater.”

  “Was?”

  “Our lands were destroyed, along with my family, around the Battle of Deepwater, your grace. When I come of age, with your grace’s permission, I am to inherit what remains of them.”

  “Of course you would,” Aefric said. “Who suggests you might not? For that matter, who stands regent for those lands right now?”

  “No formal regent was assigned, your grace. Duchess Arinda was already dead, and so far as I know the matter was never broached with Prince Killian, when he sat in ducal regency at Water’s End.”

  “No formal regent,” Aefric said. “So who watches over your family’s lands informally?”

  “Mayor Brangton took on that duty when he took me in.”

  “And made you a servant,” Ser Temat growled.

  Aefric forgot sometimes how intimidating Ser Temat could be. First because of his size, for the man was certainly big and strong. And then again because he’d survived that blow that had left a wicked scar across the dark skin of his neck.

  Aefric also suspected that his habit of keeping his head shaved contributed as well. Added a hint of scoundrel to his aspect.

  Edric paled under Ser Temat’s growl, and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

  “Ser Temat,” Aefric said softly.

  Ser Temat nodded an apology to Aefric, then crouched down to look Edric in the eye.

  “I’m angry on your behalf, boy,” Ser Temat said. “You should be a page in a noble household, learning what it means to be an Armyrian noble. You shouldn’t be dressed as a common servant, and you shouldn’t be working here.”

  “Mayor Brangton has been training me as a page,” Edric said, showing a fair amount of spine on behalf of his master.

  “Mayor Brangton has never had that training himself,” Ser Arras said. “So how could he train you properly?”

  “That’s enough for now,” Aefric said, as the poor lad looked too caught between loyalties for further discussion. “Take me down to dinner.”

  It might just turn out that Aefric had more to discuss with Mayor Brangton than he’d thought.

  The dining room — room, not hall, Aefric noted — sat at the back of the Mayor’s house, on the first floor.

  One wall of that room consisted entirely of large, bay windows, and gave a marvelous view of the docks and the lake beyond.

  Of course, it also gave a view of the mayor’s guards, because there was no wall surrounding the house. So, it seemed, he set a wall of guards outside those windows, because this would be the easiest possible room to break into.

  At least, that was the reason Aefric assumed. He didn’t intend to ask.

  Either way, they were positioned at the bottom of the steps down from the patio outside those windows. Likely so they didn’t obscure the view.

  The stone floor of the room was entirely carpeted in rugs woven from rushes. And from their sweet smell, they must’ve been freshly woven.

  The long wall facing the windows featured large portraits. Half of that space was dedicated to portraits of the mayor throughout his life, and one more recent portrait, life-size, of the mayor himself and his family.

  The other half of the wall featured portraits of past dukes and duchesses of Deepwater, with a space conspicuously left unfilled.

  The short walls featured flags. On one side was the Deepwater banner, and on the other, the brown and gold checks of Lachedran.

  A pair of large oil lamps hung from the ceiling, providing a warm, yellow light.

  The dining table, in the center of the room, was a vague rectangle that looked to have been carved out of a single beech trunk. Though Aefric had never seen a beech tree grow four feet wide.

  There was enough room at the table to seat at least twelve, but only half that many chairs and place settings were arranged, leaving the long, middle part of the table empty of seating. It did have a low, fragrant display of colorful zinnias.

  Odd, that Mayor Brangton wouldn’t invite prominent merchants or others of local importance, to share a meal with their duke. Suggested he had business he wanted to discuss…

  Sers Yrsa and Beornric were already present and waiting when Aefric arrived, both dressed casually in tunics of Deepwater gray and hose of navy blue.

  The mayor was waiting as well, and smiled broadly as Aefric entered, flanked by Sers Temat and Arras, in their plate armor.

  Brangton was dressed as Aefric had seen him before, but this time, on his arm, was a very pretty woman who couldn’t have been older than Aefric himself.

  She had the pale skin so favored by nobility in Armyr, which went well with her gown, the color of marigolds. She wore her pale blonde hair up in a complicated arrangement, with exactly two strands dangling down to tickle her bare shoulders. Around her long neck she wore a gold necklace studded with diamonds.

  Given the gold wedding ring on the middle finger of her right hand, this woman could only be the mayor’s most recent wife.

  “Most recent” because Aefric knew from the family portrait that the mayor had two adult children — a man and a woman — who looked to be a good ten years older than this blonde woman.

  Of course, she was in that portrait too. Seated in the position of the spouse, while the children all stood.

  All told, by Aefric’s guess, this woman was at least the mayor’s third wife, because she was too young to have given birth to the other three children present in the room.

  The oldest of these children was a black-haired boy of maybe fourteen summers, and the younger two might’ve been twins. Both girls, both blonde, and both had seen about as many summers as Edric...

  Oh. Of course. Mayor Brangton no doubt intended one of those girls to fall in love with Edric and marry him, gaining nobility in his family line at last.

  One other person was present in the room, who was clearly not part of Mayor Brangton’s family. Or at least, she wasn’t in the portrait.

  She looked to be about as old as the mayor, though her long hair was more of a steely gray, and his more storm cloud gray. She had the thinness that comes with age sometimes, and age spots visible where her arms extended beyond the sleeves of her black silk gown.

  Many would mistake her for being about the mayor’s age, but Aefric knew better. This woman was a wizard. Competent, to judge by the feel of the magic that hung about her, but not particularly impressive.

  Still, competent enough that she probably knew the spells that slowed aging. Which meant either she was much older than she looked, or she eschewed those spells. Something few wizards would do, less out of vanity — though that certainly motivated some — but because the additional years would lead to deeper understanding of the arcane arts.

  And though the woman, herself, might not have been too impressive a wizard, she did wear a necklace tucked under her gown that had some sort of noteworthy enchantments laid on it.

  “Your grace,” the mayor said with a smile, bringing Aefric’s attention back to him. “May I present my wife Leca.”

  Aefric noticed that Leca almost raised her hand to be kissed, but instead curled that hand into the skirts of her dress.

  He made no move to kiss her hand, of course. Instead, he smiled and paid the appropriate, expected compliments.

  “It is always a pleasure to meet a woman of such beauty and grace.”

  Leca beamed under Aefric’s praise, and bowed at the compliments, though the mayor almost frowned. He got his smile back in place, though, quickly enough that Aefric could pretend to have missed the shift.

  “My children, Somfort, Ula and Lila.”

  “Such fine children,” Aefric said, giving them smiles and saying something quick and pleasant about each of them in turn, before gesturing to the adult children in the picture. “Where are the other two?”

  “Scilla,” Mayor Brangton said with a sigh as he pointed to his eldest daughter’s image, “has chosen the life of a merchant sea captain. And she’s quite good at it, I fear, so there’s no way of telling when I’ll see her next.”

  He pointed at the image of his son.

  “Brangford, though, is in Ajenmoor, handling some trade matters for me. He’s due back around the end of summer.”

  Trade matters. A simple phrase to cover a multitude of possibilities…

  “Last,” Mayor Brangton said with a smile, “but certainly never least, may I present our town wizard, Sufidia.”

  “Your grace,” she said with a weak voice but a deep bow. “I have heard tell of the spells you wove to defeat Malimfar’s armies at Frozen Ridge. Your work is a credit to our profession.”

  “You are too kind,” Aefric said, and at last the children were escorted away, and the adults were seated. Aefric at the head of the table, with Ser Yrsa at his right hand and Ser Beornric at his left.

  Mayor Brangton sat at the foot of the table, with his wife at his right hand, and Sufidia at his left.

  This looked more like the arrangement of a business meeting, than a dinner, to Aefric’s way of thinking. Or perhaps a war council.

  Aefric wondered which it would be.

  The six of them were only just seated at opposite ends of Mayor Brangton’s dinner table when a lute player came in, and set up in the corner.

  She began softly strumming out sweet tunes, while servants brought in the meal.

  And Mayor Brangton did not skimp on the meal.

  The dinner was a full five courses, six if Aefric counted dessert, which he did. And each course allowed Mayor Brangton to say something about his town.

  The salad was a mixture of tossed greens that had been crossbred locally with certain peppers to lend them a little crunch, and a touch of spiciness.

  The salad was followed by a light soup featuring three varieties of lake fish that swam close to Lachedran.

  Next came a second salad, of mixed citrus fruits, of which Aefric only recognized oranges. Or maybe they were all oranges, merely different varieties. Aefric was more interested in the palate cleansing sweet tastes than Mayor Brangton’s story about their local origins.

  The citrus salad was followed by a spiced sausage filled with both beef and pork, spiced with a variety of peppers, and a touch of a creamy cheese that lent a delightful surprise to the occasional bite.

  The sausage, the mayor explained, was from a local recipe even older than Lachedran itself, going back to the days when this whole region north of the lake was pasture land for peoples who were said to have made their city inside the nearest of the Threepeaks Mountains.

  The main course was a rack of lamb, prepared with rosemary and mint, in addition to more local peppers. Delightful.

  Finally, the dessert course was a blackberry pie so good Aefric was actually interested when the mayor was talking about the blackberry brambles that grew wild among some of the nearby hills.

  Beyond the food, Aefric tried to focus the conversation on Lachedran, its history, its current state, and any issues Mayor Brangton wanted to raise.

  Aefric kept thinking that this arrangement at the table was much too formal for a dinner of this sort. There was too much empty space between the mayor’s side and his.

  It made the center of the table feel like a demilitarized zone. That the two parties were set up like opposing sides, either in a negotiation or a confrontation.

  He kept waiting to find out which. And he expected that continuing to ask questions about Lachedran would bring out the answer.

  But if Mayor Brangton had any problems, he pretended otherwise over the course of that dinner. To hear him tell it, everything around Lachedran was wonderful. The people were all happy and well-fed. There were no disputes worth mentioning, and hadn’t been in over a hundred years.

  Aefric hadn’t been a duke very long, but he’d been one long enough to know that no place was that free of problems.

  Which made him wonder all the more what the real story was here. The mayor was clearly hiding something. The problem was, there was no way to tell if what he was hiding had anything to do with what was going on in the Dragonscar.

  Frustrating. And to alleviate his frustration, Aefric continued to ask questions that would give Brangton the opportunity to discuss any issues he had that might need assistance.

  The man was having an extended, private audience with his duke. Surely he wanted to use it to seek some kind of aid. Everyone else always did.

  Unfortunately, Brangton kept trying to steer the conversation to Aefric’s journey into the Dragonscar. He seemed quite curious about those smugglers and slavers, and the battles that had taken so sharp a toll on Aefric’s party.

  And whenever he asked about those things, Leca would shiver as though such topics might make her faint.

  That behavior tested Aefric’s patience. It seemed too much like pretense, as though claiming so delicate a constitution should make her more appealing.

  Perhaps that appealed to the mayor, but Aefric preferred his women strong.

  He did use her reaction, though, as an excuse to stay away from details. Instead, every time the mayor turned the subject towards Aefric’s skirmishes, he replied in the same way.

  “The matter has been handled, for now. And Ajenmoor will see to it that neither smugglers nor slavers return anytime soon.”

  “But they must’ve been well-fortified with magic,” Sufidia said, the third time Aefric gave that response. And she did so before Aefric could turn the topic back to fish, or shipping, or anything else local.

  “Not fortified with magic,” Ser Yrsa said, “but with surprise. They’d dug in, in a way I hadn’t thought they’d have time to prepare. We dug them out well enough though, thanks in no small part to his grace.”

  “There are more than enough accolades to go around, for the way we survived that battle,” Aefric said. “Every one of my soldiers and knights fought fiercely. I may have turned the tide, but they bought me the chance to do so, and their efforts won the day.”

  “No doubt your grace is too generous,” Leca said. “His puissance in battle is well known.”

  “No battle is won alone,” Aefric said, though gently, so she wouldn’t feel that he’d taken her words wrong. “Even the most decisive single maneuver is only possible because everyone else did their job and created the opportunity.”

  “What magic did you face?” Sufidia asked.

  “The threat was physical,” Aefric said, staying just on the proper side of the line of truth there. Because though the stone simulacra had been created through magic, the blows they struck were purely physical. “As my general observed, the primary advantage our adversaries had was surprise.”

  “I have never stood to battle, myself,” Sufidia said, sounding regretful. “My spells are all those that aid us here in town. Assisting construction, shipping, little twists to the weather here and there. Hardly anything worth noticing.”

  She shook her head and gestured to the Brightstaff where it stood beside Aefric’s chair. “I doubt I could call so much as a puff out of a weapon like that.”

  “You aren’t without your resources,” Aefric said, then tapped his collarbone to indicate her necklace.

  Her cheeks colored with embarrassment.

  “Forgive me, your grace,” she said, bowing her head. “I wouldn’t have carried an item of magic into your presence, save that I forgot I was wearing it.”

  “That’s fine,” Aefric said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “So long as you don’t intend to use it against me or my knights.”

  “I … wouldn’t know how, your grace.” Her cheeks were almost as dark now as the rich wine they drank. “It’s … it provides me with Moleund’s Gift. I … doubt I could even remove it safely, at this stage of my life.”

  Moleund’s Gift, the formal name for the spells that extended youth. Aefric had never heard of those spells being placed on a necklace. But accusing her of lying would take this meal in the wrong direction.

  He could try to sense the magics of the necklace more clearly, but not without her noticing…

  No. There was no need to accuse her of lying here and now. And anyway, he could tell she wasn’t the wizard behind the simulacra. He would have known in an instant if she were.

  Instead he turned the conversation back to Lachedran, and asked to hear more about the trade deals Brangford was negotiating.

  The more he could get Mayor Brangton talking about what he was doing for Lachedran, the more likely he’d slip up. If he turned out to have been behind those stone simulacra.