The Duke's Decision

A young woman sat at a desk, her eyes focused intently on the text laid out in front of her in the ruddy light of the setting sun. Her hair gleamed with orange highlights that didn’t need to borrow from the sunset to gain their color, her hair bound in a careless-looking low ponytail in such a way that the thick auburn strands concealed both of the tips of her ears from view. An unlit lantern sat next to her on the desk. The door opened and closed, slow footsteps shuffling forward.

“Master Warin, is it time to go home yet?” the young woman asked, rubbing her eyes as she yawned, not looking at the elderly wizard standing behind her.

Master Warin laughed. “No, Fiona. I told you, there's no hurry. Just because my attempts to get an audience with the duke have failed doesn't mean we can't stay in York. You can stay as long as it takes to find yourself a suitable husband.” He smiled kindly at her, patting her hand gently.

“We can keep up your training here just as easily as in my tower,” he added encouragingly. “Just keep practicing your spells every day, you've a real talent for it.” He paused for a moment, considering something else he wanted to ask her, but decided against it, watching his ward with pensive fatherly concern.

Fiona turned away to hide her expression and sighed. It was going to take forever to catch the attention of a suitable husband, whatever the auguries said, and she felt stuck. Her shoulders slumped as she thought of the dozens of girls her age and younger who’d gotten married back in town. The last had been nearly ten years younger than her.

“I feel stuck,” she said. “Stuck in my studies and stuck in life.”

The wizard shook his head. The girl he'd taken in as his apprentice and adopted as his daughter was quarter-elven and had been late to reach her full development as a woman. Her hair was the color of burnished copper, and her skin was creamy pale. She was tall, slender, and graceful – no longer a gangly teenager tripping over her own feet.

Those changes had been gradual. He’d barely noticed. As far as he knew, she hadn’t, even if she’d noticed the last of his gray hairs turning to pure white. The wizard could sense the weight of loneliness dragging down upon her. Even her magical progress seemed to have stalled, hampered by her worries and her fear of a future alone.

He patted her shoulder again. “Don't worry, you'll meet a good man soon enough. I promise.”

Fiona glanced back at him, surprised. “You really think so, Master Warin? I'm afraid I'm starting to despair of finding anyone worthy who wants me.”

“I've secured an invitation to a ball at the castle a fortnight hence,” Warin said. “The only thing you'll have trouble catching there is your breath. The men will be lining up to dance with you.”

Fiona’s eyes brightened. “Really?”

“Really. I am a master diviner, am I not?” Master Warin's eyes crinkled.

“One who always tells me that the future is not fixed,” Fiona replied, with a wry tone. “And who tells me exactly what's wrong with every charming man who's ever been ready to pay me a second glance.”

Warin snorted. “It's true, but there's more to it than that. Understanding the world as it is at present is often enough. My daughter has grown into a beautiful young woman, and there are more young men in York than I can shake a stick at. Anything short of dire portents would leave me confident you'll succeed.”

And then, he added to himself silently, maybe you can finally break past the difficulties you've been having with your studies. His adopted daughter would never become a master mage, much less an archmage, unless she found her confidence. If that required finding her a husband, so be it – but that husband had better be truly worthy of Fiona.

The tea-house was bustling with activity as the afternoon wore on. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows across the street as people hurried home from work or home from shopping. Master Warin sat at a small table in the corner with a younger wizard, a local involved with York's new collegium.

Alric, that was the name, Master Warin reminded himself. New names get trickier to learn with every passing year. “I'm sorry,” he said aloud. “What were you saying? I'm afraid I got a bit distracted there.”

“I was just talking about the master alchemist that we're planning to work with. He has a tower of his own near the Byland school,” Alric said. “Which is why it's been hard to entice him to move on site. He doesn't want to disclose the formula, and the solution doesn't ship well in bulk – it’s a little too reactive and glass containers are expensive.”

Warin nodded, and sipped tea. “You're sure it's purely alchemical?”

Alric hesitated. “We can't be sure magic isn't involved in the production process, but the end result is purely non-magical, and it can turn cloth a very bright white. I gather aqua regia is involved.”

“So, you'll have a dying works as part of the manufactory?” Warin asked.

“Not just me,” Alric said. “I'm not even the biggest investor, really. A chap named Edward Taylor is. We could use another wizard on the board, though. Edward has a good head for business, but he hasn't the knack for spellwork. Wouldn't know a magic circle from a crossroads.”

“If I were to invest, I'd be happy to serve on the board,” Warin said. “If, that is, I were to stay around in York. I have a lovely little tower of my own in a quiet little town a couple of miles from the Derwent.”

“That's a shame,” Alric said. “We could use someone with your experience. You know how to do things right, and you're good at seeing all the angles. That's the kind of thing we need.”

“I'm sure you could find someone else with magical experience,” Warin said. He pondered the situation for a moment. “What will the company produce?”

“Mostly textiles,” Alric said. “I'm planning to expand the operation into making bleached paper, but Edward doesn't quite understand how big of a market there is for good bright white paper in the mage schools. Right now, the only way to get sheets so perfectly white is by transmutation, which means whitened paper has been an expensive luxury item, but at the price of an alchemical process, I could move enough product to make a profit shipping it from here to Oxford.”

Warin sipped his tea. “If I'm to invest, I'll want to know more about the company. How many employees do you have?”

“About twenty for operations,” Alric said. “The manufactory will be mostly automated once we've built the machinery. Half a dozen industrial necromancers, the alchemist and a few assistants, and maybe another ten on site supervising and directing. We'll need more at first to get everything built.”

Warin frowned. “That seems rather small to me. I assume you're using skeletons to power the factory? How are you on sourcing those?”

“We do have a problem there,” Alric admitted. “Peasants aren't regularly harvested anywhere in the whole duchy. The population has been growing, but the duke simply hasn't granted rights to any of the local nobility. He doesn't even hunt them himself like the Earl of Durham does.”

“What about skeletons from elsewhere?” Warin asked.

“It costs more,” Alric said. “Either you have to ship them before they've been animated or get them re-imprinted here, and that takes a journeyman necromancer to pull off. We might have to do that, though. I was hoping you might have a lead. Right now, the only affordable option looks like military surplus, even with shipping from London, and those are the ones that didn't pass imperial quality control on intake. Not exactly premium quality workhouse material.”

“I haven't worked much with necromancers,” Warin said. “We do have some skeletons around to keep up the grounds and garden at home, but I've been more concerned with the future. Divination is my main interest these days.”

Diplomatically, the archmage refrained from mentioning that the omens suggested the empire would probably fragment shortly and that under such circumstances a shipment of skeletons from London would probably not be able to make it all the way up to York without being hijacked or destroyed en route. He did not wish to alienate the younger man, even if the local wizard seemed unable to influence the new duke.

“Well, the supply chain is complicated,” Alric said. “Sometimes just figuring out where to find things is the hard part.”

“Yes, I suppose it would be,” Warin said. He took a polite sip of his tea and resigned himself to listening for longer about an investment opportunity he had little interest in.

Fiona sat on the rooftop, watching the River Ouse flow through the city. She was sitting with her knees tucked up under her chin, and she was wearing a plain brown dress and a pair of comfortable shoes. Her hair was bound back in a ponytail, and she was holding a book in one hand. The wind blew across the roof, carrying the scent of wood smoke and damp stone. She looked up from her reading and squinted into the sun. The setting sun cast shadows from the buildings lining the river bank, and illuminated a large wooden barge floating along. A lone figure stood at the bow of the vessel, waving to someone ashore.

She idly wondered what cargo the barge was carrying into York. The young woman stretched and yawned, then rose to her feet. She was getting hungry, and she needed to eat, but she didn't want company. She muttered a few quick words and then stepped off the edge of the roof, floating down to the street below. She walked slowly, savoring the cool evening air. The sky was clear, and the stars were beginning to peek through the darkening midnight blue sky. She stopped at a nearby shop and bought a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese.

When she returned to the roof, she sat down and ate her dinner under the twinkling stars. As she chewed, she thought about her life thus far. She'd grown up on the streets of a fishing village in Cheshire, one of the children left on the doorstep of the assembly hall for the local garrison, a local practice that Master Warin told her dated back to the building's use as a religious temple of some kind. The imperial mage-knight in charge didn't care if some stray children slept in the upper level of the rectory with the building's caretakers as long as they stayed out of the way when the unit was placed on alert or deployed in response to corsairs.

She'd learned its bell tower inside and out before she'd learned her letters. It was a fine vantage point for watching the mage-knight drill his squires in working with formations of imperial skeletons, obsidian-coated bones glittering in the moonlight. She'd learned to beg, scrounge, and steal, as there was often not quite enough food to spare. She'd learned to keep her hair and ears tucked under a cap when she could; the county of Cheshire had been raided by Irish corsairs in living memory, and children with pointed ears or red hair were often seen as an unwelcome reminder of that recent history.

The assembly hall doubled as a local social hall and, twice a week, a schoolhouse. One day, Master Warin had shown up to teach lessons. He'd taught for a month; spoken with the imperial mage-knight; then gone home with his new apprentice. He'd never explained why he'd decided to adopt an underfed ten-year-old quarter-elven village brat who'd barely mastered her letters; as an archmage, he surely could have picked a more adept student, one older and more thoroughly prepared by private tutors. Wizards who delved too deeply into divination magic sometimes made strange decisions, and rarely explained themselves afterwards. Master Warin didn't even tell her he'd adopted her as a daughter until she'd turned thirteen and started asking what would happen if her parents decided they wanted her back.

Fiona shook her head. She'd thought herself very talented when she was younger, and imagined that he'd seen her hidden talent, but lately her progress had stalled. She wasn't sure she'd ever become a master wizard. She tossed the crust of the bread off the edge of the roof. Maybe Master Warin had just wanted a daughter all along, she thought to herself. She knew all too well the feeling of having a person-shaped hole in one's life aching to be filled – as a child, she'd wished for parents. As an adult, I now have another sort of person-shaped hole in my life, she thought to herself, sighing.

She fingered the plain brown dress thoughtfully. Her experience was limited, but she felt certain it wouldn't be appropriate for the ball. The finest clothes she owned were her journeyman's robes, which were very nicely enchanted but unlikely to be fashionable. Briefly, she considered transforming them, then shook her head. She wasn't sure she had the skill to do it well without compromising the existing enchantments. It'd be easiest to simply buy a ball gown, alter its shape and color as she felt fit, and then ask her father to enchant it with appropriate protections.