The Warded Man

Beggar.”
    “There’s nothing for it, love,” Ragen replied. “We have only a few hours before sunset. We can hardly have a tailor come in time.”
    Elissa refused to accept that. She stared at the boy for a long moment, then snapped her fingers, striding out of the room. She returned soon after with a blue doublet and a pair of polished leather boots.
    “One of our pages is near your age,” she told Arlen as she helped him into the jacket and boots. The sleeves of the doublet were short, and the boots pinched his feet, but Lady Elissa seemed satisfied. She ran a comb through his hair and stepped back.
    “Good enough,” she said with a smile. “Mind your manners before the duke, Arlen,” she counseled. Arlen, feeling awkward in the ill-fitting clothes, smiled and nodded.
    The Duke’s Keep was a warded fortress within the warded fortress of Miln. The outer wall was fitted stone, over twenty feet high, heavily warded and patrolled by armored spearmen. They rode through the gate into a wide courtyard, which circled the palace. Dwarfing Ragen’s manse, the palace had four floors, and towers that reached twice that high. Broad, sharp wards marked every stone. The windows glittered with glass.
    Men in armor patrolled the yard, and pages in the duke’s colors scurried to and fro. A hundred men sweated out in the yard: carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, and butchers. Arlen saw grain stores and livestock, even broad gardens far larger than Ragen’s. It seemed to Arlen that if he should close the gate, the duke could last forever in his keep.
    The noise and smell of the yard died as the heavy doors of the palace closed behind them. The entrance hall had a wide running carpet, and tapestries on the cool stone walls. Save for a few guards, there were no men to be seen. Dozens of women moved about instead, their wide skirts swishing as they went about their business. Some were doing figures on slates, while others penned the results in heavy books. A few, more richly dressed than the rest, strolled about imperiously, watching the others at their work.
    “The duke is in the audience chamber,” one of them advised. “He has been expecting you for some time.”
    A long line of people waited outside the duke’s audience chamber. It was mostly women holding quills and sheaves of paper, but there were a few well-dressed men as well.
    “Lesser petitioners,” Ragen advised, “all hoping for a minute of the duke’s time before the Evening Bell rings and they’re escorted out.”
    The lesser petitioners seemed acutely aware that there was little daylight left, and openly argued among themselves as to who ought to go next. But chatter died as they caught sight of Ragen. As the Messenger walked past, bypassing the line completely, all the petitioners fell silent, then followed in his wake like dogs eager for a feeding. They followed right up to the entranceway, where a glare from the guards brought them up short. They crowded around the entrance to listen as Ragen and Arlen entered.
    Arlen felt dwarfed by the audience chamber of Duke Euchor of Miln. The domed ceiling of the room was stories high, and ensconced torches rested on the great columns surrounding Euchor’s throne. Each column had wards carved into the marble.
    “Greater petitioners,” Ragen said quietly, indicating the men and women moving about the room. “They tend to cluster.” He nodded to a large group of men standing close to the door. “Merchant princes,” he said. “Spreading gold around for the right to stand around the palace, sniffing for news, or a Noble to marry off their daughters to.”
    “There”—he nodded toward a cluster of old women standing ahead of the Merchants—“the Council of Mothers, waiting to give Euchor his day’s reports.”
    Closer to the throne was a group of sandaled men in plain brown robes, standing with quiet dignity. A few spoke in murmurs, as others took down their every word. “Every court needs its Holy Men,” Ragen explained.
    He pointed at last to a swarm of richly dressed people buzzing about the duke, attended by an army of servants laden with trays of food and drink. “Royals,” Ragen said. “The duke’s nephews and cousins and second cousins thrice removed, all clamoring for his ear and dreaming of what will happen if Euchor vacates his throne without an heir. The duke hates them.”
    “Why doesn’t he send them away?” Arlen asked.
    “Because they’re Royals,” Ragen said, as if that