First Rider's Call

Nothing unusual, she thought.

Lord-Governor D’Ivary now stood before King Zachary. He had ambled into the throne room just as the king was ready to pronounce the long day done, but with eminent patience, Zachary granted D’Ivary an audience and listened as the longwinded lord-governor blustered and complained of refugees from the north flooding into his provincial lands.

Colin Dovekey, one of the king’s advisors, sat in his own chair with his chin propped on his fist, stone-faced but attentive. All others, except for the statuelike black-clad Weapons standing in alcoves along the walls, had abandoned the throne room hours ago. The lingering gold-orange summer light cast hazy columns through the west side windows. Soon pages would enter to light lamps.

“I appreciate your concerns, Lord D’Ivary,” King Zachary said.

Laren watched the king carefully as he gazed down at the lord-governor and his secretary standing at the base of the dais. Zachary’s features appeared placid and unperturbed, his tone even and polite. But Laren, who had known him since he was a boy, noted the slight tightening of his jaw and the narrowing of his brow.

“Begging your indulgence, sire,” D’Ivary said, “but I’m not sure you do appreciate the extent of my concerns.” He was a pear-shaped fellow who had a tendency to thrust his belly about as though his recently acquired power and status were a physical thing. Laren failed to dismiss an image of an overfed rooster.

Hedric D’Ivary had arisen to his current position after the death of his elder cousin. The former lady-governor had left no surviving heirs, forcing the provincial clan elders to debate over who the most suitable successor was. They had chosen Hedric.

The process of choosing a new lord-governor was painstaking and prickly business, for should the current monarch’s line fail, any lord-governor was eligible to assume the monarchy. In the past, this had led to grim and bloody civil war.

Other provinces had recently undergone this process, for many nobles had been murdered during Prince Amilton’s coup attempt a little over two years ago. Several new lord-governors, or “new bloods” as their more established counterparts had taken to calling them, had never expected to rise to such a lofty position in life, and relished their new power. They lacked the tradition and statesmanship of their predecessors. The governing clans were in flux, and so were their loyalties. King Zachary had his hands full.

“These ‘refugees’ as you call them—outlaws and cutthroats I call them—wander the countryside and set up their shanties wherever they please,” Lord D’Ivary said. “Never mind if it’s a field under cultivation or pasture land. It’s thrown the common folk who cultivate that land into disarray, and mark my words, there will be trouble come harvest time. Even our towns suffer. They beg in the streets, these refugees, and resort to thieving when no one hands over what they want.”

Much of what D’Ivary said was true to a degree, Laren knew, without even having to touch her special ability to read him. The other lord-governor feeling the brunt of the northern exodus, Jaston Adolind, had issued a similar complaint. Groundmite attacks in the north had scared enough settlers that whole villages had packed up and moved south into more civilized and protected provincial lands. The towns and farmsteads were ill prepared to accommodate the influx. Adolind, poorest of all the provinces, suffered a good deal more than D’Ivary. While there might be a cutthroat element among some of the refugees, however, most were simply families seeking safety.

“Could it be,” Colin Dovekey said in his gruff voice, “that this is an internal matter which you must resolve within your own province?”

D’Ivary turned to him, jutting his belly out and lifting his chin. Chins, rather, Laren thought. “I would not be here if it were an internal matter. I haven’t the resources to cope with these people.”

Colin raised a bushy gray eyebrow, searing through D’Ivary with hawk’s eyes, an intensity borne of twenty-five years as a Weapon. “Your lands are counted among the most fertile and rich in all of Sacoridia, my lord. You haven’t the resources?”

“Yes, I’ve fertile lands now being occupied by squatters who trample and ruin growing crops and steal livestock. The nobles who look to me have not the resources to patrol every acre of their holdings to remove these people before the harvest is destroyed.”

“Ah,” the king said with a soft intonation. “I now see what resources you are speaking of. You seek to forcibly remove these refugees, but you haven’t the soldiers to do so.”

D’Ivary brightened, thinking he had at last found a sympathetic ear. “Yes, sire. In D’Ivary, we are farmers, not soldiers. This is not something we could do ourselves.”

“Tell me,” the king said, steepling his fingers, “what would you do if you had the necessary troops?”

“I would have them patrol the countryside and weed out the squatters, and return them to the north. Then I would seal off the northern borders except to those who have legitimate business in the province. Armed soldiers would be just the thing. A display of force is the only tactic they’ll understand. They have shown nothing but insolence to provincial and local authorities thus far.”

“So, if I understand your request,” the king said, with a slight smile, “you wish for me to provide you with the force necessary to remove these people. A force bearing the royal banner of Sacoridia.”

D’Ivary grinned. “You understand my needs completely, sire. A king must show his strength to his people.”