Another reason a duke had to travel so slowly. All those soldiers marched. They didn’t ride. Or at least, they weren’t riding that day. And since perhaps a quarter of them preceded the group’s nucleus, the horses — even walking — couldn’t go faster than the slowest foot soldier.

  And then there was the entourage trailing along behind.

  No servants, for this trip. Not coming down for work, anyway. Herewyn kept a small keep at Asarchai, which she said held more than enough staff.

  But there were still hundreds of people following in Aefric’s wake.

  Petty nobles and landed knights, with their own entourages, coming down from the area around Norrtarr for the celebration.

  Farmers, traders, merchants and crafters, all with goods to sell, for the feast would also provide one of the five grandest markets Norra would see all year, and the last before the great harvest festival in the coming season.

  And others, who could take time away from their work to simply come enjoy the festivities.

  Yes, no one traveling with a company as large as this one could do so quickly.

  Still, the road was wide, and smooth. So though the pace may have been slow, progress was steady.

  And the company was good. As they rode through the late morning and into the early afternoon, Herewyn told stories of various sites they passed. Sighild sang old Norran songs. Aefric told of more recent events down in Kivash — mostly about the efforts involved in subduing his new castle — and Beornric told of gossip from Armyr’s capital, Armityr, that had been passed to him by various relatives.

  In all, it was a pleasant ride until Aefric asked the wrong question.

  “Are you expecting any other members of the ranking nobility?”

  “Alas,” Herewyn said in her smoky contralto. “Baroness Blaewyn won’t be coming over from Felspark this year.” Herewyn shook her head sadly. “A pity. The Feast is one of our few chances to get together without worrying at each other over trade and border issues.”

  “Border issues?” Aefric asked. “Anything I should be aware of?”

  “Nothing worth bothering your grace,” Herewyn said with a dismissive gesture. “Small details that our families have squabbled over for generations. Not exactly a cause to take up arms.”

  That phrasing wasn’t very reassuring, but he decided not to push.

  “What keeps her away?” Aefric asked. “Recovery matters?”

  “Just so,” Herewyn said. “Though those clerics of the Green Lord you sent did wonders, she still has a great deal to organize before the rains return in earnest.”

  “Countess Faenella won’t be able to attend either,” Sighild said. “She’s enmeshed in trade matters.”

  Faenella was Fyretti’s countess, and Sighild’s direct liege lord.

  “That’s too bad,” Aefric said. “I haven’t seen either of them in too long. And I know Osmaer is too busy along the coast to attend. Any word from Goldenfall or Riverbreak?”

  “Goldenfall is busier than Felspark,” Beornric said. “And Count Cyneric’s health is failing, putting that much more burden on his son, Taeric.”

  “I understand that Taeric’s sister, Riverbreak’s Baroness Regent, Byrhta Ol’Caran, won’t be attending for the same reason,” Herewyn said. “I believe she’s returning to Goldenfall to see to her father.”

  Odd. Byrhta had said nothing of this in her most recent letter to Aefric, which he’d received not three days past. And Byrhta wouldn’t withhold something like that. She’d been looking forward to seeing Aefric as much as he’d been looking forward to seeing her.

  She was, after all, one of the leading contenders for Aefric’s hand.

  “There will be at least one other titled noble arriving, though,” Herewyn said, sounding not altogether pleased. “Count Ferrin of Motte has sent word that he’ll attend.”

  Of course. The only one of Aefric’s titled vassals who’d be traveling in for the feast was also the only one he didn’t want to see.

  Count Ferrin. The obnoxious fop who’d conspired against Aefric, threatened him with force, and then had the gall to complain when Aefric punished him for these things.

  So much for Aefric’s hope that the feast would be a bit of a vacation…

  2

  Asarchai was a type of town that Aefric had never seen before, even in all his travels. Here in Qorunn, there might not even be a term for it.

  But it was a type of town that the part of him that had grown up on Earth recognized immediately.

  Asarchai was a tourist town.

  It sprawled lazily on both sides of the wide, slow Fyrsa River, but without interfering with the main road, which continued on south. Likely to Norra’s quarries, the source of the granite slats on that road.

  A town surrounded by no more than a handful of farms. With broad fields dedicated to camping. Those fields closer to town already had dozens of pavilions in place. While further afield, those without pavilions pitched tents, or gathered sleeping rolls around fires, or even slept in their carts, in some cases.

  Inns and taverns outnumbered every other business in Asarchai by a fair stretch.

  Stranger still, especially for a fairly small town, there had to be at least three or four large, stone theaters. Enclosed buildings, as opposed to the additional half-dozen open-air theaters.

  Already Aefric could smell dozens of cook fires, roasting meats and baking breads. Not to mention the distinctive smell of a large number of horses. Many more even than rode with Aefric’s long train of travelers.

  He could hear a great many hammers — driving stakes, working steel, and erecting stands and booths out among the fields. He could hear waves of conversation cresting and breaking against one another, with occasional shouts and laughter and crashes of one kind or another.

  And past it all, near the far edge of town, stood a coliseum. A rarity even among cities, much less a small town like this one. Water’s End and Ajenmoor were both several times as large as Asarchai, but neither of those cities boasted a coliseum.

  Aefric hadn’t even seen one since … Sartis? No. Goldenmoon. Perhaps three or four years past.

  This coliseum loomed out at the eastern edge of town, near the river. It stood even taller than Herewyn’s keep, which sat in the center of town.

  Hard to judge exactly how large it was, that coliseum. At least, from where Aefric approached Asarchai, along the road. But it looked like a giant made of granite, squatting down for a closer look at the small town.

  “Ah,” Herewyn said with a smile. “I see you’ve spotted the Teryrnon Grand Theater. Named for the ancestor who commissioned it, some … four centuries ago, I believe.”

  “Four centuries?” Aefric asked, surprised. Such a feat would have been beyond most builders, unless…

  “Ah,” he said, understanding. “Your family has been employing vohlcairns a long time.”

  “Very good, your grace,” Herewyn said, smiling, while Sighild beamed beside her. “We find vohlcairns to be the most practical choice for court wizards. Little help with intrigue, of course, but excellent at so many other things.”

  “She must come down here to maintain it…”

  “About every fourth or fifth aett,” Herewyn said, “depending on the season. Though I believe one of her apprentices is finally competent enough to handle the maintenance.”

  “How many apprentices does she have?”

  “Three, this time,” Herewyn said, frowning. “Her fourth crop, and none of the rest have been satisfactory. But I don’t need to tell your grace how difficult it is to train a wizard. Let alone a specialist.”

  It was true. Magic was the most powerful force in Qorunn, but it was also the hardest to tame.

  Some were born to it, such as the dweomerblades. And Aefric, of course.

  Some gained it through prayer and divine guidance, such as clerics, shamans, and the Order of Blessed Knights. Though prayer and devotion were not enough. The gods had to take a liking to the petitioner, or all the prayer in the world wouldn’t garner more than silence in return.

  And the gods bestowed such favor on few.

  Others, such as warlocks … made deals with lesser powers. Though that did not diminish their potency in this world.

  In theory, their numbers could be legion. Certainly the lesser powers stood always ready to deal.

  But few were those desperate enough, or driven enough, to take those deals.

  Finally, there were the wizards.

  The common view was that all a wizard needed was a good mind, and enough devotion to study.

  But that wasn’t the case. One needed the right kind of mind to become a wizard. Intellectual enough to handle the complexity of arcane study, yes, but artistic enough to see beyond the logic to the beauty inherent in spellwork.

  Still, one could have both those qualities and fail to complete apprenticeship. Because one had to have the will to channel those immense arcane forces and submit them to one’s needs.

  Yes, it was the nature of magical work that kept Qorunn’s magic-users few in number, no matter how many aspirants tried each year to join their ranks.

  But doubtless among the throngs at the Feast would be some of those failed magic-users, performing such small tricks and “miracles” as they could, to earn their living.

  Those failures called themselves “magicians.” Among the magic-using community, though, they were known as “sparkers.” Because if magic was fire, they could do nothing more than spark.

  “Sparkers” was a fairly recent term though, and much more polite than the older term — “hacks.”

  As his cavalcade turned down Asarchai’s main street, Aefric could see one such sparker. A bent old graybeard in fraying robes, who nonetheless held a small crowd’s rapt attention by punctuating a scary story he told with ghostly wolf howls, and distant-sounding cries.

  Those sounds were the sort of simple illusion work Aefric had learned in the earliest days of his apprenticeship. But they were still more magic than most common folk would encounter.

  This street here was cobbled — likely stones from the nearby river — but even wider than the granite road. Likely built that way to accommodate the sort of crowds that the Feast would draw.

  More mouth-watering smells filled the air. Juicy meats, roasting or frying. Cinnamon sugared treats. At least four kinds of berry pies that Aefric could pick out. And the smells of beer and ale were already making themselves known.

  Strangely, there were no vendors set up along the street though. He turned to ask Herewyn, but she must’ve seen the question in his eyes.

  “They’re not allowed to set up stalls until the morning of the first day of the Feast, and merchants, traders and peddlers only. Never food stalls along this street. A little law to help the permanent establishments. After all, who’d go all the way into a tavern to eat, if fifteen different food stalls were closer?”

  “Fair enough,” Aefric said.

  “Believe me, though,” Herewyn said with a smile. “It’s a law that gets argued before the town council every year. But the mayor manages to keep it in place all the same.”

  “It’s the farmers versus the townsfolk,” Sighild said, “and the townsfolk have them outnumbered.”

  Aefric frowned. “So during the feast, the farmers want to sell directly to the travelers, rather than selling to the inns and taverns?”

  “The farmers tried raising their prices during the Feast,” Herewyn said, “but it didn’t work. The farms around Norrtarr are too close. The inns and taverns threatened to import all their food.”

  “Bet that went over well,” Aefric said.

  Just looking around he could already see over a dozen different inns and taverns on this street alone. Many of them two-story. A couple of them even three-story.

  And they were all finely tooled. Freshly scrubbed stone and wood fronts. Clear, recently refurbished signs. And even though it was only mid-afternoon, every one of them was already raucous with business.

  Mixed in among the inns, taverns, and shop fronts, the occasional theater. Though those were not yet open and doing business.

  “The two factions almost came to blows,” Herewyn said. “Weapons were drawn. The town watch had to separate them.”

  “There were arrests, weren’t there?” Sighild asked.

  “A few, but only overnight,” Herewyn said. “Mostly giving certain people a chance to cool their heads.”

  “How did they resolve it?” Aefric asked.

  “The mayor finally met with the leaders of both factions,” Herewyn said. “Acted as an intermediary, negotiating terms. They agreed that the farmers couldn’t raise prices during festival seasons, but they could set up their own stalls to sell food directly to travelers.”

  Aefric chuckled, as they passed groups of people — humans mostly, but a few eldrani and kindaren — with quantities of lumber, who looked to be staking out locations for the stalls they couldn’t set up yet.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “They made this agreement, and it lasted exactly one festival before the owners of those inns and taverns complained about the food stalls on this street cutting down their custom?”

  “Didn’t take that long,” Herewyn said. “They came to terms before the Midsummer Festival … perhaps a decade ago. And by the end of the first day, the owners of the inns and taverns were screaming about lost business, and the town council had to take immediate action.”

  “You’d go mad,” Beornric said, “trying to keep everyone happy.”

  Herewyn shrugged, and somehow made it look like a dance move.

  “Asarchai makes more money during any one festival than it does during all the non-festival parts of the year combined,” she said. “And right now, all of its people are prospering. The farmers might complain about wanting to make more money, but it’s a tough sell while everyone’s doing well.”

  There were no trees along the main street, which struck Aefric as strange, until he decided that they must want every available yard of space for either tourists, or stalls.

  They reached the spacious town square then, which was anchored at the corners by four huge structures.

  Two of them were large stonework theaters. Big enough to seat more than a hundred patrons, easily. One was an even larger open-air theater, where workers were buzzing around, getting everything ready for tomorrow.

  The fourth, sitting behind a ten-foot tall, smooth granite wall, stood Herewyn’s keep.

  Herewyn’s keep at Asarchai was a wide tower, four stories tall. It was made entirely of smooth, pale granite, flecked with darker colors, with a crenellated top.

  Even over the ten-foot wall — made from that same, seamlessly smooth, pale granite — Aefric could see that each of the floors had wide, arched windows, providing an excellent view in all directions.

  Herewyn gave Aefric a coquettish smile as they approached the broad granite gates.

  “No need to ask, your grace,” she said. “It was my father who commissioned this keep, and paid Vohlcairna Burrew to build it as one of her first official acts as a full wizard, after graduating her apprenticeship.”

  “She built that as a new wizard?” Aefric asked, as his eyebrows tried to knock off his hat. “But it would have taken…”

  “Building that keep took her all spring and summer, and partway into autumn,” Herewyn said. “Our previous court wizard, Vohlcairn Karkasso, had been more than ready to retire, but hung on long enough to let her finish. He didn’t want to leave us without a wizard at court.”

  Aefric nodded, looking over the towering keep again. No strong sense of magic to it, which meant that it had been designed according to sound architectural principals, rather than relying on magic to make up the difference.

  Of course, from here, it looked like a simple enough structure. Solid. Wide. Round. Not even a hint of damage from the wars…

  “She’s always been thorough,” Herewyn said. “Even among vohlcairns. She designed the structure herself. Its so solid it doesn’t even require maintenance.”

  “You can’t tell me that’s true about a granite gate,” Aefric said, as the cavalcade came to a halt just outside the gates. And even without trying he could feel a hint of magic about them.

  Herewyn’s smile stretched into a grin. “It’s a thin layer of granite over oak, actually. But spell-hardened stronger than steel.” She nodded once, to Aefric. “And yes, your grace, it requires refreshing about once a season.”

  “That’s still not much.” Aefric shook his head. “Why haven’t you implemented such things at your Norrtarr castle?”

  “I was going to, but then the gods came down and ruined most of my long-term plans.”

  She frowned towards the front, where one of the soldiers who’d come down from Norrtarr with them was talking to one of the two chainmail-clad pikemen outside the gate.

  “What’s the holdup?” she asked. She didn’t raise her voice, but her words still carried on the warm afternoon air.

  The conversation at the gate wrapped up, and her soldier came trotting back with a grim look on his face. He bowed deeply to Herewyn and Aefric, but spoke only to her.

  “We have … unexpected guests at the keep, your lordship. The guards wanted you informed before entering the grounds, in case your lordship wanted to issue any orders.”

  “What unexpected guests?” Aefric asked. Hope flickered in his chest that Maev had returned from her mission to Varondam, and had come here to surprise him with good news.

  Certainly the arrival of Armyr’s princess would be enough to cause a stir…

  Such thoughts distracted him, though, and he missed the soft reply from the soldier.

  “Well,” Herewyn said with a sigh, “consider me warned. I’ll deal with him myself.”

  The official call came to open the gates, and though their hinges creaked a bit in protest, Aefric was impressed at how smoothly they opened. Considering their granite coating.

  The grounds inside the wall were already more than half-full. People and horses and carts. Knights and soldiers, servants and more.