The winds out here kept the worst of the morning heat at bay, as the Calming Influence built up speed, moving past the local fishing boats, as well as trading vessels, pleasure cruisers and others.

  Sers Beornric and Yrsa joined Aefric here at the bow, where the captain had assured him that they would not be in the way, and could speak without being overheard.

  Of course, given the number of knights, soldiers and horses traveling on this ship, Aefric sincerely doubted that at least some of them weren’t in the way.

  Oh, well. Couldn’t be helped. At least the sailors would be too busy to care about their duke’s secrets anyway.

  “I’ve left young Edric in Ser Vria’s care,” Ser Beornric said.

  Ser Yrsa chuckled. “Should have seen the boy staring at her. Like he’d never seen a half-eldrani woman before.”

  Likely true. There weren’t very many eldrani men or women in Deepwater. So likely the lad had never seen such beauty before in his life.

  “Ought to be careful with that,” Aefric said with a smile. “Might start him into puberty early.”

  “Might,” Ser Beornric said. “But she’s good with people. She’ll get him talking. Give him something to think about other than walking away from everything he knows, for the second time in his life.”

  “You think I made a mistake?”

  “Not at all, your grace,” Ser Beornric said. “It’s a good thing you’re doing.”

  “Doesn’t make it any easier on the boy though,” Ser Yrsa said. “Hope you can find him a gentle household.”

  “I’ll see what can be done,” Aefric said, then sighed. “Assuming we can confirm that he is the son of Ler Osvalt.”

  “I saw his patents,” Ser Yrsa said. “He showed them to me this morning like they were the most precious thing in the world. Told me he used to carry them in his shirt, tied to his belly. Before he came to live with the mayor.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Look authentic to me.”

  “Good,” Aefric said. “The historian will have to confirm them, of course, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “What about the mayor?” Ser Beornric said. “Do you think he’ll be a problem?”

  “Maybe,” Aefric said. “I can’t help thinking that he wanted to keep the boy there.”

  “You think he’d try to steal the Ol’Nia lands?” Ser Yrsa asked. “Maybe not kill the lad for them — well, maybe kill the lad for them, I’ve seen worse the gods know — but just force his stewardship and become a ler in fact, if not in title?”

  “I don’t buy it,” Ser Beornric said. “That man practically found release when you kissed his hand. He wants a title.”

  “I don’t think he wanted to steal Edric’s lands,” Aefric said. “I think he wanted to marry the boy to one of his daughters, and leave his grandchildren a noble legacy.”

  “Never happen,” Ser Beornric said. “A ler, marrying some mayor’s daughter?”

  “Might,” Ser Yrsa said. “If that ler was raised to think like a commoner. Marry for love, not advantage.”

  “Moot point now,” Aefric said. “At least in Edric’s case.”

  “You think there are others,” Ser Yrsa said. “Lost children of petty nobles.”

  “I know there are at least two. Leca, and her brother Morgard. She told me last night that they’re the children of Ler Boury Ol’Nara.”

  “That’s why she looked so familiar,” Ser Yrsa said, thumping a fist on the rail. “It was driving me mad.”

  “You knew Ler Boury?” Aefric asked.

  “Haven’t thought about her in years. Didn’t know she was dead. But yeah. She used to come to Arinda’s court every midwinter. And she brought the best mussels I’ve ever tasted. And don’t get me started on the sharabi.”

  She sighed at the memory, then shook herself and nodded.

  “And sure enough,” she continued. “Ler Boury had the same hair, same eyes, and same cheekbones as the mayor’s wife.”

  Ser Beornric swore softly. Aefric frowned puzzlement at him.

  “Excuse me, your grace,” Ser Beornric said, somewhat chagrined. “Just making the connection that she told you that last night. Which means she did come to your room last night.” He shook his head. “Means I owe Wardius dinner.”

  Ser Yrsa chuckled. “I can’t believe you took that bet.”

  “Not that I doubted your grace’s charms,” Ser Beornric said quickly. “I just … didn’t think her husband would be too keen on the prospect.”

  Ser Yrsa snorted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he opened the door and shoved her in there. Anything to get his grace thinking of the mayor as a noble.”

  “In any event,” Aefric said. “Her brother Morgard is the elder, and should already have assumed his lands. He should have come to me by now for confirmation.”

  “So the question is, why hasn’t he?” Ser Yrsa said, frowning.

  “The answer I was given,” Aefric said, “was that he’s needed to amass money to rebuild.”

  “And asking his duke for aid was a foreign concept?” Ser Beornric said drolly. “How refreshing.”

  “He’s been working closely with Brangford, the mayor’s son. And right now they’re both in Ajenmoor.”

  “Where the mayor is having problems with a trade deal,” Ser Beornric said.

  “Where the mayor says he’s having problems with a trade deal,” Ser Yrsa corrected.

  “Morgard is unmarried,” Aefric said. “Which means that if anything happens to him in Ajenmoor…”

  “Leca inherits,” Ser Beornric finished.

  “And the mayor has no doubt set aside money to rebuild,” Ser Yrsa said.

  “Some of my major points of concern,” Aefric said. “I’ll want to summon Morgard from Ajenmoor as soon as we dock.”

  “And you gave the task of finding more lost nobles to Leca, not the mayor,” Ser Yrsa said.

  “Nobles and commoners,” Aefric said. “I meant that. I know that there are people out there in bad shape, and I want them found and helped.”

  “I think Yrsa’s point stands,” Ser Beornric said. “You trust Leca to handle this, but not the mayor.”

  Aefric frowned. “Was I that obvious?”

  “You gave a good excuse for public ears,” Ser Yrsa said, “but you didn’t fool anyone on the stage. I think the only question in the mayor’s mind is, did you give Leca the job because you don’t trust him, or out of … a surge of generosity after last night?”

  “The only thing Leca did last night that got her this job was prove that first, she has a brain in her head, and second, she cares about people.”

  “I’m not sure your grace is entertaining women correctly,” Ser Beornric teased.

  “She was happy to tell me of Edric’s lineage, and honestly thrilled when I offered to see him fostered properly. She said herself that she’d wanted Edric assigned to her brother, for page training, but the mayor overruled her.”

  Ser Yrsa snapped her fingers. “Of course he did. The mayor does want Edric thinking like a commoner. Wants his wife thinking like one too. That’s why he didn’t introduce her as Mistress Karaleca, as he should have, but only by a nickname. Leca.”

  “More reason to think he didn’t want her going to your grace last night,” Ser Beornric said.

  “What would he say?” Ser Yrsa said with a sneer. “You think he’d try to forbid her? She’s not like Edric. She was raised knowing who and what she is, and what it means to be who she is. If he tried to deny her the noble privilege, she might just leave him. Try to convince the dashing young duke with the good heart to give her a place at his court.”

  “It’s a wonder she married a mayor in the first place,” Ser Beornric said. “Beauty like her, and a noble to boot, and he an old man and a commoner.”

  “Beauty,” Ser Yrsa scoffed. “If beauty were enough for nobles, every king and prince across the face of Qorunn would be throwing themselves at the feet of Byrhta Ol’Caran and begging for her hand. And every queen and princess would be doing the same with her brother Taeric.”

  “And they have a younger sister, too, don’t they?” Ser Beornric said, grimacing. “Poor Count Cyneric, trying to find them all marriages, after what the wars did to Goldenfall.”

  “The same thing the wars did to the Ol’Nara lands,” Aefric said. “So it wasn’t as though Leca had a dowry to offer. Might have married Mayor Brangton just to build a life for herself and her brother.”

  “But once her brother is ler,” Ser Beornric said, “with lands again—”

  “Then she’d still be the former wife of a commoner,” Ser Yrsa said. “Mayor or not, the man’s still a commoner. And this Morgard would have to offer one impressive dowry to get anyone to forget that. If Karaleca was willing to leave her husband in the first place.”

  “I can’t help thinking about the mayor’s Ajenmoor connection,” Aefric said, trying to get them onto more important topics. “And those slavers and smugglers.”

  “You think the mayor’s involved?” Ser Yrsa asked.

  “Don’t know one way or the other. I doubt, at the moment, that he’s involved with … the other thing we found. But he did seem awfully interested in ferreting out details about the smugglers and slavers we fought in the Dragonscar.”

  “If he’s involved with slavers…” Ser Yrsa let those words hang.

  “If he is,” Aefric said, “Leca will be a widow, and Lachedran will need a new mayor.”

  “Any word from Karbin?” Ser Beornric asked.

  “None,” Aefric said. “I hate to reach for him by message spell when I don’t know what he’s up to. If I distract him in the middle of something important…”

  Aefric shook his head.

  “No. The man’s known what he was about since before I was a street rat in Sartis. He’ll contact me when he’s ready.”

  “I’ll check for a Dragonscar report from the scouts as soon as we dock,” Ser Yrsa said. “First report should have reached us by now.”

  “Good,” Aefric said. “There’s too much going on, all at once.” He shook his head. “Makes me think it’s all tied together, somehow.”

  Ser Beornric chuckled.

  Aefric frowned at him.

  “Your grace has asked me to tell him when he’s thinking like an adventurer.” Ser Beornric clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s just what you’re doing.”

  “He’s right,” Ser Yrsa said, giving Aefric a lopsided grin that made her major scar look sinister. “Perhaps when you were adventuring, the matters you dealt with were small enough that they could all be tied together. But politics is a massive knot, your grace. And though the strands of that knot might look as though they all come from the same rope, untie them, and you’ll find scores and scores of ropes.”

  Aefric sighed, and nodded, and hoped devoutly that his knight-advisers were right.

  Water’s End. The second largest city in Armyr, behind only the royal capital at Armityr. It sprawled up and down the western shore of reputedly bottomless Lake Deepwater, and extended outward farther every year, from what Aefric had been told.

  And the anchor point of the city, the jewel atop the crown, was the namesake castle. From what Aefric had been able to figure out, somewhere beneath the gleaming, shimmering surface of those walls — as perfect a navy blue as the center of the lake itself — was actual good, solid granite.

  But four generations of dukes and duchesses Soulfist had cast and expanded on the spells that had overlain that granite with what seemed to be perfect, pure, elemental water, stilled within a single moment.

  If that were true — and Aefric felt he would know for certain once he managed to puzzle through Duchess Arinda’s old family notes and grimoires — it was one of the most amazing feats of wizardry Aefric had ever encountered.

  And he’d traveled with the great mage Kainemorton for close to five years.

  With such a magnificent surface, Water’s End would have been a wonder, even had it stood only a few stories tall.

  But no. The tremendous main keep itself stood more than a dozen stories tall, and featured a huge, stained glass dome over the main hall.

  And up above the keep itself rose many spires and towers, including the Seven Great Spires of Water’s End, which reached hundreds of feet into the air. Six of the seven great spires, the outermost, were connected together by a web of arching bridges. Like jets of water, connected by sprays.

  The seventh, that central tower called the Spike, stood tallest, and alone.

  The view from atop the Spike was dizzying, but glorious.

  And every inch of that castle, including the hundred-plus-foot walls surrounding the keep and environs, was covered in that wondrous, shimmering substance.

  The castle moat was cut from the lake, of course, but Water’s End didn’t sit on a preexisting island, the way the ducal keep at Behal did. Which was just as well. Water’s End was too much a part of the life and business of the city for that.

  Just seeing that grand castle — Aefric’s castle — always gave him a lift. And sailing toward it that late morning, at speed, was no exception.

  Home. His beautiful, glistening home.

  Oh, if only he could take the day to himself to enjoy coming home. Rest. Walk in the gardens. Perhaps enjoy a pleasure cruise, or explore yet more of the castle — he hadn’t seen more than … perhaps a third, at this point. If that.

  But no. Once more, his feet would have to be moving when they hit the docks.

  Ah, the docks. They completed the image of Water’s End as part of the lake itself. The docks looked to have been shaped from smoothed coral, in dark shades of greens and browns and reds.

  The port was busy that day. The harbor had a reef, and local pilots had to guide ships in to the dock. As the Calming Influence approached, Aefric could see that dock traffic was backed up with dozens of one- and two-mast ships waiting out in the harbor, beyond the reef.

  Traders and the like, all coming into Water’s End to do their business.

  One advantage to being the duke, though. Aefric didn’t have to wait in line. Didn’t even need to wait for a pilot. The moment the Calming Influence approached the port, the local pilots saw the duke’s banner and made room.

  The Calming Influence glided safely through the reef, and docked at the duke’s personal pier.

  Aefric’s seneschal, Kentigern Ol’Klimath, stood waiting down on the docks. He was wearing a padded doublet of royal blue, trimmed in silver, with hose the color of dark mustard, and those low, soft leather boots he favored, because they had silver thread among the black, turned-down cuffs.

  Kentigern was the fourth Ol’Klimath to serve as seneschal at Water’s End, and even though he’d seen only perhaps a dozen more summers than Aefric, the man was a veritable sapphire mine of knowledge about the duchy and its people.

  But right now, his tanned face was frowning into his heavy, dark brown beard, and he wore that black velvet cap over his thick, dark brown hair. Never a good sign. Aefric would have sworn the man only wore that cap when he had bad news.

  Of course, Aefric’s conclusion here might’ve had something to do with the two dozen soldiers — the remainder of his personal guard — standing at hand, in formation.

  “All right,” Aefric said to Sers Yrsa and Beornric, while the ship put in and made ready for him to disembark. “Looks as though I’m going to need to walk in. Possibly while getting harangued. No reason for you both to put up with this. Beornric, organize the knights and the boy.”

  “Of course, your grace.”

  Aefric turned to Ser Yrsa. “Bring the horses with you, and see to getting the troops squared away and the dead prepared for their rites. And I think it’s better if the living don’t talk about their trip yet.”

  “I agree, your grace,” she said. “And I’ll bring you a report from the scouts as soon as I’m able.”

  “Excellent. Thank you both.”

  Then it was time, and Aefric hefted his backpack. Though he left the rest of his gear and clothes in Windsong’s saddle bags, for the servants to handle.

  That wasn’t easy for him, but it had to be done.

  Even so, he was only halfway down the gangplank to the apparently green coral of the pier when Kentigern started in.

  “Your grace!” He said, in that dramatic, skald’s voice of his. “Thank every god that you’re alive. When I’d heard reports about you fighting smugglers and slavers and worse, well, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “You knew full well that I was alive,” Aefric said, walking straight past him to address his personal guard next. “Some of you argued that I should have brought you with me on this trip. I’d thought you could use the time off instead.”

  “Your grace…” Kentigern started, but Aefric ignored him.

  Kentigern was an excellent seneschal. However, he seemed to consider it his duty to try to run his duke’s life for him, and Aefric wouldn’t have that. So he was forced to use little displays of power to remind the man of his place.

  As he was doing right now.

  “Instead, I faced a deadlier threat than I expected,” Aefric said, still addressing the soldiers of his personal guard. “I cannot deny that. Still. If more of you had come, some of you might not have come back.”

  Aefric drew a deep breath. “But I must admit that the risk to me would have been lessened by your strength of arms. And I know you all well enough to know that only makes you more eager to come along next time.”

  Nods and grumbles of agreement from those soldiers.

  “Your grace…” Kentigern started again.

  Aefric gave his seneschal a forestalling hand, and his personal guard a nod.

  “Next time I do something like this,” he said, “I shall allow you all to come along. And know that I thank you for your diligence.”

  “Your grace,” Kentigern insisted.

  “Yes, Kentigern,” Aefric said, moving the Brightstaff between himself and his seneschal, to maintain a little distance. “I know. I worried you. That was never my intention. Please do excuse me.”

  “I don’t like to hear about these things through rika birds from a mayor,” Kentigern said, and Aefric began to wonder if some of his seneschal’s irritation might not be with his duke. “Such a grasping man, that Brangton Couglas. Ought to be retired, and a new mayor installed.”