The Spellmonger's Honeymoon: A Spellmonger Novella (The Spellmonger Series) Read online

  The Spellmonger’s Honeymoon

  A Spellmonger Novella

  By Terry Mancour

  By Ishi’s hallowed hand are their hearts entangled,

  By Briga’s blessed fire they make their common bed.

  By Luin’s sacred laws they plead troth and trust,

  By Trygg’s holy grace are the lovers gaily wed!

  Seven bottles of mead to share

  For seven nights or more.

  Each cup a toast, each sip a wish

  To bind their lives forevermore:

  A bottle first for happiness, a bottle then for health

  A bottle for togetherness, a bottle next for wealth

  A bottle sipped for harmony, the equilibrium of desire

  A bottle savored for purest lust, which brings the marriage fire!

  A bottle last for love to endure as long as life shall last,

  Saved for they who toast their love when five full years have passed!

  Riverlands Honeymoon Folk Blessing

  That was the song they sang us off to, the morning after our wedding. It was sweet. It was heartfelt. And the sweet, heartfelt words banged against my throbbing skull like iron maces.

  I stepped drunkenly onto the barge, waved at my family, friends and retainers, helped my darling bride aboard (who was likewise feeling poorly, though that had more to do with being seven months pregnant than having too much to drink) and blearily watched the crew cast off as half the town belted out the old honeymoon blessing. I kept waving until we had pulled out into the Burine river and around the bend before I vomited heartily over the side. It was just classier.

  In most places in the Riverlands the giddy period immediately following your wedding is known as your “maidenmoon”, whereas in the Alshari Wilderlands west of here it’s known as your “honeymoon”, and maidenmoon means the point when a maiden reaches menarche. In the Wilderlands menarche is usually called the blood moon. That can be quite confusing, particularly if the two occasions are close together and you’re anywhere near the frontiers between the two.

  But both agreed that no matter the class and station of a bride and groom, they should enjoy a period of leisure and rest to celebrate their nuptials. It was ordained by Ishi and Trygg, of course, to mark the transition a woman makes between maiden and mother. Religious mandate aside, the honeymoon or maidenmoon is a time in which the presumably happy couple could relax, relieved of their responsibilities, and (in the occasion of arranged marriages, more popular among the gentry than the common folk) get to know your new spouse. Perhaps even learning how to pronounce their name correctly.

  Alya and I had known each other for a year, now, so we were past much of the awkward silliness that infests such occasions. We had been through so much, and had waited so long to find each other again, that when we finally did escape from my home village of Talry-on-Burine in the Riverlands after the most tumultuous wedding feast in village history, all we really wanted to do was celebrate in the most simple and pleasant way possible.

  As she was no virgin and I was intimately familiar with her virtue already, just what constituted “simple” and “pleasant” was relative. So we both fell asleep, exhausted, in our little cabin belowdecks and didn’t wake up until the next morning when we were already far downriver.

  Then we consummated the marriage.

  Of course, with my bride pregnant, that made things challenging. She was bearing up well, after the excitement of the wedding, and had only thrown up once since we’d boarded the barge to my twice - from the rich food at the wedding, she insisted, not from illness, and certainly not from too much drink.

  I knew as much. I was checking on the health of the baby zealously, using magic. I did so once before the consummation, and then once after, just as an experiment. That’s a bread-and-butter sort of spell for an ordinary village spellmonger, and I was far above ordinary. Using my eldritch powers to spy on my ripening son was as simple as scrying a village a few miles away. The baby was fine - a little cranky, maybe, from the food and the alcohol and the excitement Alya had inflicted on him, but physically he was perfectly healthy.

  When I assured Alya, she was able to try to relax and enjoy our new married life . . . which included, technically, being on the run from a vicious order of militant regulatory fanatics, the Royal Censorate of Magic. That was my fault. I was wanted for practicing High Magic without their permission, using unlawful magical artifacts and just generally being “that Spellmonger”.

  They were the checkered-cloaked clowns who had tried to bust up my wedding and who had threatened Alya’s life, in violation of the laws of gods and men. While we had stopped the pair who had offended me, my ancestors, my parents, the gods, and (worse) Lady Pentandra, there were still teams of them searching the land for any sign of me. There was even a substantial reward, probably the most I’ve ever been worth. So this honeymoon cruise was as much to keep a low profile as a means to get away from life for a week or so.

  The Censorate was scouring the land . . . so I stuck to the water.

  I soothed myself with the fact that our fugitive status should be a temporary situation. While their Order had been recently exiled by ducal decree from the duchy we were currently in, many of the fanatical warmagi had not heard that decree, and most were likely to ignore it anyway. The Censors are just like that, the bloodthirsty bastards. They were magically-talented militant bureaucrats with a license to do pretty much whatever they wanted, including hunt for my head, even if the Duke told them not to.

  That added an even more romantic element to my honeymoon. At any time the idiots in the checkered cloaks could decide to attack us, if they found us, and possible capture or kill us on the spot.

  But believe it or not, I wasn’t worried about the Censorate that much, as I had sent them chasing their tails across the western Duchies. I wasn’t even all that concerned about taking up residence in my new home, after our honeymoon, out of fear of the Censorate. Neither, I discovered, was Alya. The personal changes we faced as man and wife loomed more pressing in our minds. I thought about the first morning, while I watched my new bride sleep.

  We were married now. Husband and wife. Lord and Lady, even, thanks to the gratitude of the aforementioned duke. I’d saved the duchies, won a few key battles for him, and had – by accident – set him up to claim kingship over three of the Five Duchies. He had been grateful. I even had a deed to a quaint mountain domain a few hundred miles to the east where we could settle down and raise the baby, far away from the threat of war.

  But even becoming Lord of a domain seemed pretty minor in comparison to suddenly being someone’s husband. And from the uneasy look on Alya’s pretty face, and the nervous glances she kept shooting me when she awoke, she was just as uncomfortable with the subtle change as I was. Oh, neither one of us was regretting it . . . we just didn’t really know what we were supposed to do now, exactly.

  We knew, intellectually, what it meant. My own parents had enjoyed a long and happy marriage, and Alya’s father had run her family’s creamery with her mother for twenty years, before she’d died. We knew what husbands were supposed to do, and we knew what wives were supposed to do . . . in theory.

  But once we were faced with assuming the new titles and new responsibilities ourselves, we were having some awkward moments.

  Liquor helped.

  “A bottle first for happiness . . .”

  There were seven bottles of mead waiting for us aboard the barge when Alya and I left on our honeymoon. They were a gift from Pentandra, just like in the fo
lksong. The use of her entire barge for the honeymoon was also a gift, actually, but the beautiful basket with seven bottles was an especially lovely and sentimental touch. It was traditional, I knew, a custom of my barbaric Narasi ancestors had brought down from the northern steppes. It was one of the few customs that the Imperials we’d conquered a few centuries ago had adopted, if not eagerly, at least complacently.

  The basket was beautiful. It was made of red-stained wicker, with yellow and pink ribbons woven through the basketry. It was sprinkled liberally with flowers and fruits that she’d had to have imported from the south this time of year.

  “Oh, Min!” Alya had cooed, when she woke up, peed, and started looking around at our cabin in the daylight. She saw the ornate basket, covered with flowers and ribbons, and got teary. “Min, this is magnificent! Do you think . . . do you think maybe she doesn’t hate me?” my new bride asked.

  “Hate you?” I asked, confused. “Pentandra? What do you mean? Penny likes you!” I assured her about my ex-girlfriend and current colleague as I inspected the basket.

  I was a trifle defensive, perhaps. Pentandra was a professional colleague or co-conspirator, depending on how you looked at things. Alya, of course, chose to dwell on the fact that Penny and I had also been intimate, back at the magical academy we’d attended in our youth.

  That was partially because she specialized in the obscure and scandalous area of Sex Magic, and needed a young and virile partner for research purposes. But she would not have chosen me if there hadn’t been a lot of affection there as well, and I had returned it at the time. That was years ago. Apart from one minor episode (funny story, that), Penny and I hadn’t been intimate in years. But to Alya, Penny would always be my pretty, smart ex-girlfriend.

  I knew they would probably never quite get along – ever since Pentandra had mistaken Alya for a serving girl and ordered her around, the sort of thing to make any woman testy – but after the wedding they seemed to have come to some truce. This barge was Pentandra’s tangible peace offering, I knew, her material wish for our happiness. As was the mead.

  It was odd: it wasn’t that Penny disliked Alya personally. In fact in a lot of ways they were strangely alike. They were both intelligent, capable, competent women, with determined and courageous natures.

  They both loved me, in each their own way. Alya loved me passionately, joyfully, delighting in me as a man and a mate. My profession was, to her, secondary. I believe Alya would have loved me if I’d been a swineherd, not a spellmonger. Or a magelord. Or so I’ve led myself to believe.

  Pentandra was more allured of my intellect and leadership, investing in me a level of trust and respect that I was certain I didn’t deserve and was positive I hadn’t earned.

  Perhaps she was just manipulating me, using me to further her own ends in the kind of convoluted, devious power-play that Remeran magi were famous for. She was certainly capable, and my recent rise to power was just the sort of cover she could use for achieving her own ends . . . I just wasn’t particularly certain what those ends might be.

  And today, I didn’t care. Alya confirmed her love for me in front of Ishi and Trygg and my entire family (and a few knights and a couple of over-achieving Censors), and was bearing my child. Pentandra’s contribution to my honeymoon confirmed her love for me respecting that in Alya I had found happiness. It was far more about our friendship than because we were once lovers.

  I was hoping that the barge and the presents and the mead would help sooth any prickly feelings that might remain, particularly after what Pentandra had done to rescue my wedding and my bride. The fact that Alya had suggested it when she saw the mead was a good sign.

  It wasn’t just any seven bottles of mead, either, I realized. The decorative labels painted on the bottles indicated that each well-aged bottle was from a different temple meadery, scattered all over the Duchies. I knew less about mead than I knew about wine, which wasn’t much, but I could tell by the elegantly painted glass bottles that Penny had paid a pretty penny for these. It was a noble gift. A loving gesture of friendship. Not the kind of gift you give to a woman you hate.

  “She likes me? You really think so?” she sniffed. She was happily weeping, overcome with emotion after our tumultuous wedding. Or just tired and very pregnant.

  “I’m positive,” I nodded, confidently. “I mean, just look at this place!”

  Penny had gone to great lengths to make this barge a pleasure-palace for us. She had never intended on buying it in the first place, but had been forced to in order to make it to my wedding on time. She could afford it – Pentandra is from one of the wealthier families of magi in Remere, and she had amassed a bit of a personal fortune too. But she had invested likely twice as much as she spent on it in up-fitting the humble old boat. I don’t know where she had gotten it done, and when, but I could tell she had used magic liberally and coin even more-so.

  The barge had been freshly painted a bright, fecund green, the trim along the cabins and such whitewashed to gleaming. A new brass bell had been hung at the pilot’s house, and the ropes and fittings all seemed to be either new or recently-scrubbed. The wooden decks had shined when we had first come aboard. It wasn’t a huge barge – barely forty feet long – but it had a deeper draught than most. There was room for an entire cabin belowdecks. A cabin that Pentandra had indulged herself on.

  It was a mere twenty feet long and ten wide, but it had been packed with luxuries and comforts suitable for a duke. A broad bedstead was mounted on gimbles against rocking, its rope slats covered with a sinfully thick goose-down tick, sown with salt against the damp. Layered on top were four thick quilts, each one a riot of color and beautiful design. There were more pillows on that bed than should be allowed by law.

  An elaborate oil lamp on a brass chain hung overhead, its red-tinted glass panels emitting a warm glow. A small painting of Ishi in an elegant gilded frame portrayed the serene visage of the goddess of love . . . until you took a closer look and realized that it was actually entwined with tastefully erotic figures. The rafters overhead were hung with silks and soft cottons, both to disguise the worn wood and to dampen any loud noises that might emit from the cabin. Bouquets of flowers and sweet herbs filled the cabin with a wholesome scent. There was even a tiny stove we could light, if we needed to keep the river’s chill at bay, and I didn’t feel like using magic.

  A chest at the foot of the bed proved to be packed with glasses, cups, and bottles of other sorts – spirits and wine, mostly, and exotic liquors from Farise. A large wicker hamper hanging from the ceiling was filled with fresh fruits – apples, pears, rentons, handmelons, and even some oranges and lemons from the coast. A leather satchel on the wall held several different mixtures of smoking herbs, along with two new pipes.

  And of course there was the lovely basket with seven bottles of mead in the middle of the bed.

  “So we’re not supposed to come back home until all seven bottles are empty, right?” she asked, as she clung to me. That was complicated by her belly, which was growing larger with our child. The wedding, while elaborate, had been a formality. I’d pledged my love to Alya months before, when she’d told me she was bearing my child.

  “Six. We keep one for when we’ve been wed five years to toast our love, or bring us children, or . . . how should I know? You’re the one who has been married before!” I reminded her – and then immediately regretted it. Alya rarely spoke to me of her first husband. They’d only been married a few months when he’d died. Her face started to fall, and then the troubled expression was swept away by something . . . else.

  “We never got our seven bottles,” she said, remembering fondly. “I’m not certain we would have finished them if we had.” Oh. I knew that look.

  “He was a lusty lad, then?”

  “We were both pretty lusty,” she admitted, grinning while she absentmindedly rubbed her belly. “Ah, the vigor of youth!”

  I studied her face a little. “Alya, if this somehow feels wrong, if—”
>
  “Don’t be silly, my husband,” she said, dismissing my concerns. “I have been waiting months for you to return to me safely. And to do so in such grand fashion was more than I could have imagined. Laden with riches and titles . . . that’s more than a poor country bride is used to. My first husband would be thrilled to see me so happy, I believe,” she assured me. “He would have liked you, I think, and you him. He wasn’t a particularly jealous man.”

  “I’m not sure I can say the same,” I said, kissing her. She giggled self-consciously. I felt a thrill run up my spine.

  I suppose that’s how you know that the mate you’ve chosen is the right one. When even their giggles are precious to your ears.

  “Excuse me, my lord,” the young Remeran valet, Palia, interrupted from the doorway, “Captain Turic asks for direction. Upstream or downstream? Have you a particular destination in mind? And what haste shall we make?”

  “Downstream for now,” I decided. “And no place in particular yet, so, we’re not in a hurry to get there. That may change,” I warned.

  “As my lord commands,” she said, bowing obsequiously. “My lady, my lord, I shall have luncheon prepared within an hour, if you wish.” She wasn’t a particularly pretty maid, and kind of shapeless, but her voice was as sweet as a nightingale and she was well-trained for service. Pentandra did not settle for less than excellence in her servants.

  But I wasn’t in the mood for lunch. I looked at Alya with a different kind of hunger. I had other plans in mind.

  So did the baby. “I am getting hungry,” she admitted.

  “And will my lord and lady prefer to eat on deck, or in your cabin?”

  I looked at Alya. “The deck,” she decided. “I think I’ll be seeing quite enough of this cabin on this journey.”

  The barge, we discovered, was crewed by three: the pilot, Captain Turic, the original owner of the barge, happy to be relieved of the responsibility for cargo, a squinting, weatherworn man. The young, handsome-looking Mate, Orduin, had duties that were poorly-defined but seemed to include everything from welcoming us aboard to stowing our baggage to dealing with the dockmaster to stocking firewood to filling the oil lamps at bow and stern. Then there was the cook, Ylita, a one-eyed crone who seemed content to stay in the galley day and night, muttering darkly to herself . . . and producing one incredible meal after another for us.