Polgara the Sorceress (39 page)

Once again I took wing and scouted things from the air. The spot that ultimately caught my eye was located on the south side of the lake where a fair-sized river fed that body of water. It was a long, lushly green meadow that sloped down to the lake-shore with the river bordering it to the south. The river bank was lined with ancient white birch trees, and steep, wooded, dark green hills embraced the meadow on the other two sides. The snow-capped Sendarian mountains rose above those wooded hills to the east. There were no villages nor roads in the vicinity, and so everything was fresh and new, awaiting only my hand to make it perfect. I could view the sunrise over the mountains and the sunset over the lake. I immediately fell in love with it.

The spot was perhaps six leagues northwest of the village of Upper Gralt, and about ten leagues northeast of where the farm of a good-hearted man named Faldor is now located.

Garion should be quite familiar with the region, since he grew up there.

Killane studied the location I’d chosen, trying to find something wrong with it, I think, but he finally gave in. ‘Tis adequate,’ he grudgingly conceded. ‘An’ as luck would have it, ‘tis on one of yer own estates, so there’ll be no hagglin’ about buyin’ th’ place.’

‘Adequate?’ I protested.

‘Well – perhaps a trifle more than adequate, I suppose. I’ll be after makin’ a few sketches, if we’ve got th’ time. I see about three locations where y’ might want me t’ build yer manor house. If we’ve got good sketches, we kin spend
th’ winter arguin’ about ‘em when we git back t’ Vo Wacune.’

I’d already more or less decided where I wanted my house, but I didn’t want to seem arbitrary, so I let Killane amuse himself with his sketch-pad while I explored the surrounding meadow and forests.

It was late autumn by the time we returned to Vo Wacune, and by then my vassals had all responded to Alleran’s summons and had been impatiently waiting for me in the palace for over a month.

‘They aren’t happy, Aunt Pol,’ Alleran warned me. ‘Their families have been sworn to mine for generations now, and I’m giving them away like so many old saddles or suits of clothes. You might want to ease into this gradually.’

‘Maybe,’ I replied, ‘but there
are
going to be changes up there, Alleran – fairly major changes – so I’m not really going to be very popular anyway. My vassals are Arends, so I’m sure that they’re all mortally offended by the fact that their new ruler’s a woman. There isn’t much point to pretending to be all sweetness and light, is there?’

‘It’s your duchy, Aunt Pol. You can run it any way that suits you. When should we have the ceremony?’

‘Which ceremony was that?’

‘Each of them has to swear an oath of fealty to you after I’ve released them from their oaths to me.’

‘A transfer of ownership, you mean?’

“That’s a very harsh way to put it, Aunt Pol.’ He considered it. ‘Fairly accurate, though,’ he added. ‘We’ll do it in my throne-room – if that’s all right with you. After the ceremony, I’ll nose about a bit to see if you’re going to need an army to put down any rebellions.’

‘You’re just full of cheer today, aren’t you, Alleran?’ I said acidly.

The ceremony in the throne-room was a formality, of course, but Arends adore formality, so that part went off quite well. I sat imposingly on Alleran’s throne, crowned, ermine-robed, and absolutely dripping regality. After my vassals had all pledged to protect, serve, and defend me with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, I gave them a little speech just to brighten up their day. I
discarded all the archaisms and got right to the point. ‘Now that we’re all one big happy family, my Lords,’ I began, ‘we’ve got a few new rules to put in place. You’ve customarily paid Duke Alleran a certain tithe for the honor of serving him and administering the estates he’s bestowed upon you. Now, Duke Alleran’s far from being a spendthrift, but it seems to me that those tithes might be just a bit excessive. I don’t think I’ll really need all that much money, so why don’t we just cut those tithes in half for a few years and see how that works out, shall we?’

My vassals cheered me for about a quarter of an hour for that bit of generosity. Some of them actually wept. They were Arends, after all.

When silence returned, I continued. ‘Now then, since you won’t be needing so much money to pay your rent, why don’t we improve the lot of your serfs as well? I’ve cut your tithes in half, so you’ll show your gratitude by cutting the amount of goods – and services – you’ve been extracting from your serfs by the same amount. You compel your serfs to work your land, and then you turn around and take at least half of what their own fields produce. From now on, you’ll limit yourselves to one quarter of their labor, and you’ll leave what they grow to feed their families alone.’

‘What?’
a stout, red-faced baron – Lageron, I think his name was – almost screamed.

‘Are you having trouble with your hearing, my Lord?’ I asked him. ‘I said one quarter of his labor and none of his own food. A starving man can’t work very well, you know.’

One of the other barons nudged Lageron and muttered in his ear. Lageron’s expression of outrage softened, and his look grew sly. I was fairly certain that my barons planned to ignore the new restrictions.

‘Just so that we all understand each other here, gentlemen,’ I told them, ‘I’m sure you’ve all heard wild stories about me.’ I smiled. ‘Nobody really believes all those fairy-tables, do they?’

They laughed at that. Then I let the smile slide off my face and put on a fair imitation of one of those expressions my father uses to intimidate people. ‘You’d all better
start
believing, my Lords,’ I warned them. ‘No matter how wild
the stories you’ve heard may be, you’ll find that the reality is far, far worse. Don’t think for a minute that you can ignore the limitations I’ve just placed on what you can bleed out of your serfs. I have ways to know just exactly what you’re doing, and if any one of you exceeds the limitations by so much as one turnip, I’ll look upon that as a violation of the oath you’ve just sworn, and I’ll turn him out of his manor house with nothing but the clothes on his back, and his estate shall revert to me. My eyes are everywhere, my Lords, and you
will
obey me – or take up a life of landless vagabondage.’

I let that sink in for a moment, and then I once again returned to a tone of sweet reasonableness. ‘A change of administration always causes a certain amount of disruption and upheaval, my Lords. Things will go more smoothly once you’ve grown accustomed to my little quirks. If, however, anyone here finds what I’m doing
too
inconvenient, I won’t hold him to the oath he’s just sworn. He’s free to leave the duchy of Erat at any time, and if he can devise a way to carry his lands and his house on his back, he can take them along with him. I should advise you, though, that I don’t think that even my father could do that, so the lands and houses will probably stay right where they are. Let me put it to you in the simplest possible terms. “My realm; my rules.” Are there any questions?’

There was a sullen silence and no questions.

Duke Alleran, however, immediately mobilized a large force and marched it to the south bank of the River Camaar.

That isn’t really necessary, Alleran,’ I told him a week later when I found out what he’d done. ‘I can take care of myself, you know.’

‘Just a precaution, Aunt Pol,’ he told me. ‘The fact that the army’s there might help to keep a lid on people like Lageron. I know all those barons up there, so I know what it takes to keep them in line.’

I shrugged. ‘It’s up to you, Alleran,’ I told him, ‘but
you’re
the one who’s paying all those soldiers. Don’t send
me
any bills.’

‘Nerasin and Corrolin have agreed to help defray the costs, Aunt Pol, and to provide more troops if we happen
to need them. We all want your duchy to be stable, so you might look on those friendly troops lining your southern frontier as our communal investment in peace.’

‘Whatever makes you happy, dear,’ I said, patting him fondly on the cheek.

In addition to the tithes I received from my vassals, there were extensive estates which I owned outright, and Killane advised me that about a quarter of the entire duchy was exclusively mine. I was still determined to abolish serfdom, so it goes without saying that I planned to emancipate my own serfs almost immediately. One of the peculiarities of that repugnant institution was the tradition that a serf who ran away and evaded capture for a year and a day was automatically a free man. If serfdom were abolished on my estates, they would in time come to be viewed as havens of refuge for runaway serfs from one end of the duchy to the other, and a strictly enforced ‘no trespassing’ policy would keep my vassals from amusing themselves by hunting down their departing property. It wouldn’t be long until every able-bodied worker in the duchy resided on
my
land, and there’d be nobody to work the estates of my vassals.

‘They’ll all have t’ be comin’ t’ yer Grace – hat in hand – t’ git th’ manpower fer ploughin’, plantin’, an’ harvestin’,’ Killane said.

‘That’s more or less what I had in mind, Killane,’ I told him smugly. ‘Now, then, let’s get back to the location of my manor house. I want it to face the lake and to be bordered on one side by the river, but set it on a hill to avoid any spring floods.’

When spring arrived, I opened the little vault I had hidden under the hearth in my bed-chamber, quite nearly emptied it of all my surplus money, and sent Killane north to buy materials, hire workers, and begin the construction. ‘Don’t butcher my forests building roads,’ I told him quite firmly.

‘An’ how am I supposed t’ git all that marble t’ th’ buildin’ site, Lady-O?’ he demanded in some exasperation.

‘Killane, dear boy,’ I explained patiently, ‘the building site is right beside that river. Build some barges and float the marble to where you’ll need it.’

He blinked. ‘I hadn’t thought o’ that,’ he admitted. ‘Tis a wonderful clever person y’ are, me Lady.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll be after sendin’ y’ reports on me progress from time t’ time, but I’d take it as a kindness if y’d stay away until if’s all finished. I won’t be after needin’ y’ lookin’ over me shoulder every step o’ th’ way, don’t y’ know.’

‘I’ll be good,’ I promised a bit meekly.

I lied about that, of course. I flew north at least once a week to see how things were coming along, but I didn’t really see any need to let him know about those visits.

Actually, I was far too busy that summer to stand around watching the construction of my manor house. I issued the proclamation emancipating my serfs, and the priests of Chaldan immediately went up in flames. The Arendish clergy was deeply involved in the feudal system, and they recognized the dangers posed by the existence of vast tracts of unserfed real estate adjoining church lands. I was denounced from pulpits from Seline to Sulturn as an ‘abolitionist’. The term didn’t really take hold, though, since the sermons were delivered – for obvious reasons – to increasingly empty churches. The high priest of Chaldan, who owned vast estates down in Mimbre, made a special trip to Vo Wacune to advise me that if I didn’t rescind the emancipation of my serfs, he’d have no choice but to excommunicate me.

That doesn’t really concern me, your worship,’ I told him. ‘I don’t serve Chaldan, you know. My Master’s his older brother, Aldur. Why don’t we just let the two of them hammer this out? The next time you talk with Chaldan, tell him what I’ve done and have him take it up with my Master.’

He stormed away, spluttering to himself.

My major concern that summer revolved around the fact that there wasn’t really anything remotely resembling a legal system in Arendia. The dukes ruled by decree in each of those duchies, and their decrees were largely based on whims. In addition to being profoundly unjust, that
approach to law was decidedly inefficient. I was certainly not going to spend all my time settling disputes and passing judgement on wrong-doers. I needed a body of written laws and fair judges who at the very least could read those laws. What passed for laws in Arendia at that time – and to some extent still does in that troubled land – were little more than a set of arbitrary rules protecting the privileges of the nobility. If there happened to be a dispute between a baron and an ordinary freeman, the baron always won. I’d encountered some of the same kind of thing on the Isle of the Winds during my stay there, and one of Kamion’s major chores had been the codification of the laws. I had certain advantages Kamion hadn’t had, though, so I sent my thought out to the twins and asked them to plunder my father’s – and uncle Beldin’s – libraries for me. I wanted every law-book available.

Then I sent a pair of Killane’s nephews – and a sizeable herd of pack-mules – to the Vale to pick them up for me.

The Arendish Council met at the Great Fair about midsummer that year, and I noted a number of searching looks thrown in my direction as we settled down to business. Quite obviously Alleran, Corrolin, and Nerasin had expected me to be too busy – and too frantic – to even attend the annual get-together.

‘Any problems, Aunt Pol?’ Alleran asked almost hopefully.

‘Nothing particularly significant,’ I replied with a slight shrug. ‘My vassals are beginning to realize that when I say something, I really mean it.’

‘Rumor hath reached me that thou hast emancipated all the serfs on thine own estates,’ Corrolin noted. ‘Was this truly the course of wisdom? Dost thou propose to farm those extensive lands by magic?’

‘Good grief, no, Corrolin,’ I told him. ‘I’ll hire my former serfs to do that for me.’

His eyes bulged and his mouth dropped open in sheer astonishment. “Thou wouldst actually give a serf
money?’
he exclaimed.

‘Unless he wants something else,’ I replied. ‘A good ox, maybe, or a new suit of clothes.’ I frowned. ‘The only
problem I see with money lies in the fact that serfs can’t count past ten – nine if they happen to have lost a finger. That’s going to make payday very tedious. I may have to build some school-houses on my estates to give my former serfs the rudiments of arithmetic and a nodding acquaintance with reading.’