The Mages of Bennamore Read online

  I stumbled through the tale. The words were surprisingly hard to say, but I held back nothing. It was how the ports dealt with their tragedies, by telling and retelling the tale to each other in glorious minuteness.

  When even her vast curiosity was sated, it was my turn. “So what else is going on in the world?”

  “Well, deary, let me see… Mistress Tranna had her baby, although…” She lowered her voice and shielded her mouth with her hand, even though we were alone. “They say the little one isn’t a bit like her husband. Quite different colouring.”

  I smiled dutifully, but Mistress Tranna’s adventurings held no interest for me.

  She chuckled, setting the chins awobble again. “You heard about the trouble at the wharves? The new taxes…” A heavy sigh. “Nobody likes paying more, do they? But the Holder was there yesterday talking to the packers, and it’s all settled down again.”

  The Holder was a mild-mannered man of learning, clever enough to argue his case with armed Defenders at his back; I wasn’t surprised the packers had gone back to work.

  “Oh, yes,” she went on, “and Mistress Sella’s two youngest have been asked to help out at the Holder’s guest house again.”

  That was more interesting. “Someone special coming?”

  Jast shrugged. “Some people from our new masters, it seems, come to inspect their possession. But Sella’s properly upset about it, because there will be wizards or some such in the party, and she doesn’t want her little ones fried or turned into toads or such like.”

  It was an effort not to laugh. “Wizards? You mean mages?” Now that would be interesting.

  “Mages? I don’t know… they can do spells and such like. That’s a wizard, isn’t it?”

  “In Bennamore they call them mages, and they say they can do spells, but who knows? I suppose it’s some kind of trick, but it would be fun to watch, wouldn’t it?”

  She looked at me in horror. “Fun?”

  “Of course! But I don’t suppose ordinary people like us will get to see them perform. I wonder why they’re sending them here?”

  She shrugged, uninterested, and went on to talk of something else, but I was lost in thought. Bennamore was so protective of its mages, yet some had been sent to each of the three Greater Holdings. Now we, the smallest and least significant of Holdings, were to have our share of magic, too.

  It was puzzling. I couldn’t think of a good reason for it.

  2: The Mages

  When I went back to Tylk’s office the next day to formally register my desire for employment, I found him in a lather of excitement.

  “My dear girl, have you heard? Mages! Mages from Bennamore! So astounding, don’t you think?”

  “I agree.” We were sitting in Tylk’s private office, so that I could complete my application in private. I scratched away with my pen, while he strode up and down, arms waving. His booming voice rattled the ink pots on the shelf.

  “What did we ever do to qualify for such attention, eh?”

  “Who knows?” I answered absently, trying to remember dates and addresses. “Tylk, don’t you have all my earlier papers?”

  “Of course, dear girl, but you have to start anew, you know.”

  “But if you have the old ones, I could copy the details. I can’t remember all the people I’ve worked for over the years. I don’t even remember how many there have been.”

  “Fourteen altogether, I believe, and it will be twenty years come the autumn equinox since you arrived here.”

  It was flattering to find his memory so exact. He was an irritant, of course, but I could never be cross with him.

  He opened drawers, apparently at random, until he found my file. “There you are, dear girl.”

  The box was embarrassingly full. Three and a bit years was the longest I’d ever stayed with anyone, and the shortest was two days. Some recorders stayed a lifetime with one employer, whereas I returned time after time to Master Tylk. If I were superstitious, I might think that the Goddess didn’t want me to be a recorder at all.

  ~~~~~

  I settled into my new home with Mistress Jast, as I had so many times before. I paid the girl a half bar each quarter moon to bring me a jug of hot water every morning and deal with my linen, and the same amount to the boy to clean and lay the fire. I came to an arrangement with a brother and sister at the nearest laundry rooms to wash my clothes. Each evening, I went to a cheap soup house for my supper, and in the mornings I could usually pick up brinies to eat, unsold from the day before. Twice each quarter moon, I went to the public bathhouse, grieving for the loss of the indoor bathing room I’d enjoyed at Master Krend’s house.

  I spent my days at Master Tylk’s office, interviewing those looking for employment, and matching them with suitable openings. It was copyist’s work, and paid accordingly. It wouldn’t cover my expenses, but I would be the first to know if anything suitable became available. Nothing did.

  The mages arrived. Although all sorts of rumours flew about them, reality turned out to be rather more mundane. There were two of them, a father and son, looking just like normal people, so it was said, apart from garish tattoos on their foreheads.

  But they were not alone. Tylk leaned down to whisper in my ear one day as I sat at my desk. “You will never guess what I’ve heard!” His voice was loud enough to rattle my teeth. “They are looking for a house to rent, and they have brought a whole household of servants with them!”

  I burst out laughing, then whispered back, “Oh dear! But why do they need a house? They could stay in the Holder’s guest house indefinitely. I daresay they could move into the Hold itself, if they felt the desire.”

  “They are starting a business, it seems. Although I can’t see what. Do you think they will buy a ship and go whaling?” He chuckled.

  “Oh, they’ll be selling love potions, I expect. Or telling fortunes.” I lowered the tone of my voice portentously. “ ‘You will undertake a long journey across water…’ ”

  He spluttered with laughter and walked away shaking his head at the ways of our foreign masters.

  There was much speculation on which house the mages would take. The popular theory was a small place in the merchant quarter, so they could conduct their business on the ground floor, and live upstairs. After all, there were only two of them. If they wanted something more substantial, there was Master Krend’s house in the ship-owners’ quarter.

  The mages astonished the population by taking the Red Hold. It was by far the largest private house in Carrinshar, a vast echoing pile halfway up the western cliff, with a fine view over the town and harbour. It also had a high wall all around, which apparently clinched the deal. The mages had a desire for privacy, it seemed. They had even brought their own guards with them from Bennamore.

  ~~~~~

  For a few days all was quiet, but one morning when I arrived at the office, Tylk was waiting for me with barely suppressed glee. “At last! Work for you, my dear girl!” He rubbed his huge hands together, and the long tails of his moustache shivered in sympathetic delight.

  “Oh? Something decent?” I hung my coat on a peg and went to get my first hot mug of brew for the day, hugging it to my chest as if it could warm my bones. I was always cold these days.

  Tylk followed, bending over to grin into my face. “Very decent. You’ll never guess!” But he didn’t pause long enough for me to try. “It’s the mages. There! What do you think of that?”

  The mug of brew stopped half-way to my lips. I stared at him in disbelief. “What do they need a recorder for? Don’t tell me they’re selling their illusions for rounds?”

  “They certainly are.” He chortled with delight. “As if anyone would pay silver for their little tricks. But that’s what they charge in Bennamore, it seems, so we are expected to pay the same. It will be dreadfully boring for you. You won’t have many transactions to record.”

  I didn’t care two bits about being bored. If they would pay me the regular fee to sit by their fire and eat
their food and sleep in a decent bed, with laundry and a bathing room for good measure, I would willingly be bored at their expense.

  “I have to send my best five candidates,” he went on, “but three already have work and can’t give notice until next quarter day. The other is Rive, so you’re a certainty.”

  I laughed. Rive was a drunkard who hadn’t worked at all for years. Tylk was a good friend to me.

  I wore my best clothes for the interview. They weren’t any different from my second or third best clothes, just a little less shabby. My finest sealskin hat and gloves came out for the occasion.

  Outside, a wind heavy with sleet whipped around me, and I cursed my thin coat, which preserved my middle ranking respectability, but left me to freeze. If only I could spare the silver for a winter one.

  From Mistress Jast’s house, I cut through the winding lanes of the lower cliff, an odd mixture of merchants’ houses, craft shops and the occasional grander residence. As the way steepened, the houses became smaller, crammed in, a hodgepodge of styles, with windblown bushes instead of solid hedges or walls.

  I emerged onto level ground with a fine view over the town roofs and the bay beyond. Up here, the wind was fierce, lashing my coat around my legs. My hat was firmly pinned, but I put a hand to it anyway.

  A wide ledge had been carved out of the cliff halfway up, and the Red Hold took up most of it. The building and its high wall were made from the same stone as the cliff, and were hard to see from below. It was easy to understand why a previous Holder had abandoned the unobtrusive spot for a new, more imposing, residence. A narrow path squeezed between the cliff edge and the wall, and then zigzagged up to join the shining road to the new Hold on the cliff top above.

  A wooden gate in the wall stood open and I went through. The house was directly in front of me, a squat box of red stone two storeys high with small windows and an iron-barred door. On one corner a square tower loomed. How I longed to live at the very top, almost as high as the cliff behind, and look out over the walls at that glorious view every day.

  A short path led to the front door. Before I reached it, I heard a commotion and the door crashed open. Two men in servants’ clothes appeared, half carrying and half dragging another man who shrieked in protest. Behind them followed a woman, drably dressed, head down. I recognised her, though, and the man being dragged.

  “Blessings to you, Mistress ab Rive,” I murmured, as the raucous group passed me by. The woman glanced at me, nodded almost imperceptibly, and scurried after the others. I pitied her, going to all the trouble of getting her husband up here, only to have him thrown out. Drunk already, probably. Still, all the better for me. I was the last to be interviewed, and it appeared that none of the others had come up to scratch.

  I stepped through the open door into a vast galleried hall, furnished in the ornate style fashionable a hundred years ago. Two staircases wound upwards, and several doors led off into the interior. As I stood looking around, bemused, a woman in the uniform of a cook bustled out.

  “Ah! You be here about the geese?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  Without a word, she turned and vanished again. This was a strange house, but I supposed mages were strange people, so a little oddity was to be expected.

  The two men who had thrown Rive out came back, entering side by side and almost getting stuck in the door. Then they both tried to close the door at once, each trying to push the other aside. It was all I could do to smother my laughter.

  At last they turned their attention to me. Now that I could see them clearly, their uniforms were different. One was the house controller, but the other’s garments were the wrong colour, and more flamboyant. Bennamorian.

  “Can I help you?” he said.

  Before I could reply, the house controller said, “You must be Mistress Recorder Fen?” I turned to him in relief. At last, someone who knew the proper form.

  “Yes. I’m here for an interview.”

  “Come this way,” the two said simultaneously.

  They marched side by side in front of me down a long corridor, and threw open the double doors at the furthest end. It was fortunate that there was a door for each of them, otherwise they might have had another unseemly scuffle over it.

  The doors clicked shut behind me, and four faces looked up at me in surprise.

  Two were mages, identifiable by the vivid tattoos on their foreheads. The father was perhaps sixty, with a haughty look, and dark hair was sprinkled with grey. The son was around thirty, already stout, with a round, bland face. They wore their hair long, almost to the shoulders, and were clean-shaven. I’d expected colourful robes, but their clothes were more normal, although expensive and cut very full in the Bennamore style.

  The other two wore the armoured leather and tabards of professional soldiers. One was as tall and sturdy as a tree, and just as expressionless. His rumpled clothes, shaggy hair and stubbled chin made me wonder if he’d just got out of bed. The other was a woman, shorter than I was, with broad freckled cheeks, and almost as muscular as the man.

  All four of them stared at me as if I were something dredged up from the depths of the ocean.

  The older mage coughed. “I beg your pardon, but we are expecting someone for an interview.”

  “Yes, that’s me.” I fixed a cheerful smile on my face.

  “Oh.” He picked up a paper, and frowned. “You are… Fen?”

  “I am.” The smile was becoming rather a strain.

  “Oh. I am not sure—” He glanced around at the others. “We were not expecting a woman.”

  “I’m fully qualified.” The smile was definitely slipping now. They had a female guard, of all things, yet they were astonished at the idea of a female recorder? What kind of country was Bennamore anyway?

  “I’m sure your qualifications are quite admirable… in every respect,” said the tall guard, looking me up and down with a distinct leer.

  A joker. Wonderful. I began to wonder if I wanted this job at all.

  The older mage tutted and waved me to a chair in front of a huge desk, seating himself behind it. The two guards moved round so that the woman stood behind me, while the tree was to one side. What possible threat they saw in me, I couldn’t say. The younger mage maintained his post by the window, his nose wrinkled, as if he were offended by some foul smell. Or me, perhaps.

  “I am Lord Mage Losh and my son is Lord Mage Kael. You are… Fen?”

  I thought we’d established that. Maybe magic dulled the brain. “That is how you prefer to be addressed?” I asked, trying to smile pleasantly. “As Lord Mage?”

  He looked astonished. “It is my official title, not a matter of liking, Fen.”

  “Really? We don’t have lords here.”

  “Well, we do in Bennamore!” he snapped. “It is a matter of courtesy.”

  “Then perhaps as a matter of courtesy you would care to use my official title, Lord Mage. I am Mistress Recorder Fen, or just Mistress Fen.” I smiled a little wider.

  The mage fell silent, eyeing me warily as if he wasn’t quite sure whether this was deliberately offensive or a clever joke. The younger mage looked at his father, his face a picture of bewilderment. The tree scratched his nose. No sign of intelligent life there at all.

  I waited. It was just as well to begin on the proper footing, so they understood my position fully. It would be fatal if they mistook me for a servant. There was always the risk they would be insulted and throw me out, but they couldn’t conduct their business without me, so I felt safe enough.

  Sure enough, the older mage decided to be amused by my presumption. “Very well, Mistress Recorder Fen. You are fully qualified, you say?”

  “You have my details, I believe.”

  “Oh, somewhere.” He scuffled paper ineffectually about the desk. “I have not had time to read everything yet. You are employed at the moment?”

  “Not at present, no. I am free to begin whenever you wish.”

  “And why did you leave your pr
evious employer?”

  “He – died.” Best not to confuse them with details. As foreigners, they might not understand the social niceties of the Port Holdings.

  He made sympathetic noises. To my relief, he asked nothing more about it. We moved on to my years of experience, and I was trying to avoid revealing just how many different jobs I’d held over those years, when there were sounds of an argument outside the door. I guessed it was the two doormen again.

  “Your servants aren’t quite settled, by the sound of things,” I said, with another cheery smile.

  He sighed. “There are servants already here. It is most inconvenient. We are having trouble getting rid of them.”

  “Oh, you can’t,” I said briskly. “They’re part of the house, like the furniture. Much better to send your own back to Bennamore. You don’t need them.”

  “We can hardly do that, you know. We have always had our own people. Most awkward to live amongst strangers.”

  “Well, that’s how things are done here. You can keep a few personal servants – a cook or two, a dresser, your bodyguards. But you don’t need two people to carry firewood, or pluck the geese, or open the door. If you leave everything to the house controller, the place will run as smoothly as a well-oiled wagon. You won’t even see the servants.”

  The older mage nodded slowly, digesting this. “Fen – Mistress Fen, I should like to engage you as a recorder, but I hope you will also undertake some special additional duties.”

  Dragon’s scales. Special duties? And we were getting along so well, too.

  I rose smartly to my feet. “I bid you a good day, Lord Mage Losh. The law prescribes my role, no variation is permitted.” One or two had hoped for special duties from me before, but none had suggested it quite so blatantly.

  He jumped up too, and rushed round the desk, his face filled with alarm. “No, no, no, I meant no insult, I assure you! I only hoped—” His hands waved about, as if to wipe out the perceived affront. “Mistress Fen, we are strangers here, alone in a foreign land. We know nothing of your ways. It would be most helpful if you could… advise us. Would that be contrary to your laws?”