October 9 / Hagalsan 17

  Pygmy hippogriffs were one of the rarer, and more animal-like constructed beings. A fine specimen, black fur fading into smoke-gray feathers around a kestrel’s face, landed in the highest tower in Castle Brantle just before dawn. It screeched, a loud noise somewhere between a hawk’s cry and a cat’s roar to announce its arrival, and folded its fifteen-foot-wide wings. Hurriedly, a slave came to administer to it.

  The bird bore a silver collar, and a tube with the crest of the House of Shedou on its leg. Hurriedly, the slave tossed it a freshly killed rabbit carcass, and removed the letter from the king of Barugala and dashed down to wake Dobsen. The Countess would have to see this immediately.

  Dobsen knocked on the door to Elspith’s rooms, and entered without pausing for an answer. She was awake, but not yet out of bed. “My lady, The king has answered.” The letter was terse and to the point. It read:

  Countess Elspith of Brantle.

  It has come to my attention that you harbor in your midst the scion of traitors and those deemed enemies of Barugaland and, indeed, all of humanity. I would know your reasoning in treating this Alboim, son of Arnulf and Brigid, so warmly instead of locking him in a dungeon.

  You are ordered to secure Alboim immediately and present both him and yourself to my judgment immediately in all haste. I will expect your arrival in the capital by the fifteenth of Diaschan.

  Elaboim I,

  King of Barugala and lord protector of humanity

  “Well,” Elspith muttered to herself. “His Majesty is certainly worked up about something! He’s only giving us a month to travel to Rolnburg!”

  “I see, my lady. What are you going to do?” the butler asked.

  “I cannot ignore the summons, though I would have wished for more time. Alboim is not ready to face the court, I fear. He is too rash and needs to learn to look before he jumps. But, I will not lock my nephew in a dungeon just because the king is still miffed that Brigid turned him down.”

  “If I recall, she did more than turn him down, my lady.”

  “I was being polite, Dobsen. He couldn’t walk or sit for a week after he tried to force himself on her. Elaboim was lucky that Drax and Arnulf were around to drag her off him.” Elspith smiled wanly at the memory.

  “Is he ordering Young Lord Alboim’s arrest?”

  The countess rubbed her face with her hands. “Reading between the lines, knowing that old man, probably. But someone has softened the letter a bit, so it is unnecessary. Merely asking for his parole should be enough.”

  The older butler shook his head, worry lines etched into his forehead. “Are you sure? You know how the king reacts these days when he does not get his way. A collar…” His voice trailed off at Elestrin’s look.

  “That was tried on Brigid. The only thing the collars do to word-casters is make them unhappy.” And that’s an understatement if I’ve ever said one. There was hardly enough of the slavers left to bury, from what I heard. “The best we can do is ask for his parole, and hope for the best. I will send a reply to the king with his pigmy hippogriff, one to the Queen with mine. In the meantime, order the preparations, and have Alboim, Oswalt, Harralt, and Bennit to my study after breakfast.

  “As my lady wishes. Will you take your breakfast here, or down in the study?”

  “Here, but a light one.” Dobsen nodded, then retreated. Her maids entered, and Elspith got out of bed to prepare for the day. As they stripped her night clothes and dressed her, Elspith practiced light breathing exercises. They were enough to calm her heart, at least a little.

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  ~*** *** ***~

  “We have a problem.” Elspith addressed the group. “The king requires our presence. Reading between the lines, he wants you, Alboim, arrested and put on trial for being the son of traitors. Fortunately, his orders are vague enough, we do not need to force the issue. Instead, will you give your parole? You will be left to your own devices within my castle, and manor when we reach Rolnburg, but outside my own property, you will have to be accompanied by either Harralt or Oswalt as well as a guard.”

  Alboim stiffened in shock and confusion. “What? I didn’t even do anything! How can he charge me with stuff that happened ten years before I was born?”

  “Elaboim is a near-absolute monarch.” Harralt answered for the group. “He does have to account for the opposing power of the dukes and take care to not offend them too greatly. Not that that matters to him regarding his personal vendetta against Arnulf.”

  “We had hoped that learning of Brigid’s and Arnulf’s deaths would be enough to placate him, but it appears that is not the case.” Elspith added. “I am sorry it came to this.”

  “And what will happen to me?” he asked, worry tinging his voice. Aunt Elspith seemed too calm, like her serene face was a mask she’d put on.

  “Is this wise, Lady Elspith? The parole, that is.” Harralt asked. “King Elaboim could choose to see this as disloyalty to him.”

  “His letter did not explicitly say to arrest him. Secure, not arrest. I suspect Tasia softened the wording a bit.” She was adamant.

  “The queen, or Thiago?” Oswalt mused. “May I read the letter?” Elspith handed it to the duke’s son, and he scanned it quickly. “The wording reminds me of that scheming prick. What the King sees in him is beyond me. He never does anything without an angle to benefit him; if the wording is Thiago’s you will be walking into a trap.”

  Elspith laughed without mirth. “I have my own friends at court, not least the queen. As Elaboim becomes more unstable, her role in government is nearly unmatched.”

  “True,” Harralt conceded. “But His Majesty is becoming more and more volatile. He’s starting to see things how he wants to see them, and not how they are; the queen may be helpless against his delusions.”

  “What do you mean, the king is unstable?

  “He is losing his mind. The last time I was in the palace,” Oswalt chimed in, “he called me by my grandfather’s name. And regaled me with memories of when they were children. My grandfather,” he added for Alboim’s sake, “died twelve years ago.”

  “Are you saying my fate is in the hands of a dementia patient?” Alboim asked. Shit! He thought to himself. This could be more dangerous than I’d first thought. There was no telling what a mad king could order. Did they have the safeguards in place to prevent them? Where was the Prince George to play regent for Elaboim’s Mad King George III?

  “Unfortunately yes. Fortunately, I am on good terms with Queen Tasia. She and Thiago are both former students of mine. Back in the day, before I was Countess Brantle, I was highly regarded as a mage tutor. But we will deal with that when we have to.” Elspith responded. “For the moment, we have to go to Rolnburg for an audience before the king. It will be simplest if you give me your parole, Alboim. Will you promise to come and meet with the king?”

  “Isn’t that what the plan was the entire time? To train me as quickly as possible, then present me and ask him to let me go back?” He pushed back.

  “Yes. While the circumstances are less than ideal, it is still our basic plan. I had hoped for a few more weeks, but this cannot be helped.” Elspith remained visibly calm, but Alboim thought her eyes shifted about a little too much. She was trying to shield him, he decided, from the worst aspects of this monkey wrench.

  “Maybe fate will do us a favor,” Oswalt muttered to himself, “and Elaboim will die before we reach Rolnburg.”

  Al ignored the aside, and responded to Elspith. “Do I have a choice?” he asked bitterly. There had been enough hints that this Elaboim guy could be bad news, starting from Dad’s books, and running through the others' opinions of him. “Yes, Aunt Elspith. I swear I will not attempt to escape before I meet the king.” The boy shrugged. “Where would I go, anyway?”

  Maybe that was not true. He knew Mom’s transport spell now, though it was accompanied by warnings and marked ‘advanced’ in the files. He would practice it, work on the modifications he’d need to get back to Earth—hopefully in the US—but not use it unless the situation was desperate. Suzsise was proof enough that Barugala’s slave collars could not hold him back.

  “But you’re hiding something. What is it?”

  Elspith sighed, and Dobsen turned to her. “I told you he would see something amiss.”

  “You will have to look every bit the lord. I have humored your anti-slavery views, but the king and nobles will not. You will have to take more slaves into your household.”

  Yeah, working on Mon’s transport spell just became my top priority.