And what if that took days? Worse, weeks? Those storming the place would find the dead, not the living. Three days without water would kill a grown man, and it would be a day or less to doom an infant.
Have everyone remaining locked up by the last to leave.
That was the one he was still toying with, but it was still perilous, even if he left the ones imprisoned with adequate food and water. And would they be believed? And what if they were questioned magically?
Have everyone left behind claim that a disease made everyone else run mad.
That wouldn’t be believed for an instant.
There were variations on all those things, but none of them would hold past the Emperor’s inquisitors coming in and applying real questioning.
Well, he thought unhappily, as he left the Court early and paced the gardens in the thin, smoky afternoon sunlight. At least I’m losing the weight I put on.
* * *
—
Delia would never have believed so much could be accomplished in so little time.
The vast combined herds of cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, and goats had been moved upriver to keep them from overgrazing the area around Crescent Lake. Smaller herds of each had been left to supply fresh meat for the common kitchens that had been set up around the Lake. Their owners and tenders followed them with strings of barges as the herds ate their way north and westward. Crescent Lake would have been full of barges from shore to shore if the slow migration to further safety hadn’t already started. The Gates disgorged barges and people on a regular basis all day and night long; Delia reckoned about fifteen thousand people had arrived, with barges they intended to live in trailed by barges of everything they could possibly cram inside from their homes, and as many supplies as they could manage. Entire farms and manors now stood mostly empty back in Imperial Valdemar; not even Lord Merrin’s farms had been spared.
Valdemar Manor was mostly stripped too. Counting on the fact that scryers would only concentrate on where Isla and Hakkon went, there was a narrow path of rooms that looked “normal”; everything else but heavy furnishings had been removed at Delia’s direction. All of the mages were here now, living two and four to a home-barge. So far, none of them had murdered each other.
Having them here, with the power nexus available to them, had made it a lot easier to solve many problems. Like where people were going to get flour; they had grain in plenty, but flour spoiled if it wasn’t used within three months. Two barges had been set up as mills, with several small millwheels powered by magic, instead of one big millwheel powered by water or wind. One of those was here at the Lake, the other at the head of the caravan making its way upstream.
Two of those rivers had proven to be dead ends of a sort . . . but only of a sort. Although the streams ended, it turned out there were settlements of people there. Isla and Ponu had visited each, used their magics to quickly learn the local language, and assured the local leaders that the Valdemarans intended no harm, and would soon be on their way.
And that . . . was where things had taken a turn for the unexpected.
Which was why Delia was mounted on one of the Gold Chargers, a three-year-old, which had been a bit of a feat, as big as the mare was. Her legs were practically splayed out on either side of the saddle; it was not comfortable. The Charger was tethered to the start of a string of barges that was just about thirty long. Ten of them held some of Squire Lesley’s prize pigs, including the Empress and her brood. There were another two strings behind her, and shepherds and herdsmen moving along flocks of sheep and cattle on the riverbanks.
They were all very near their destination, the settlement at the head of one of the two dead-end streams. The locals called this “the Brandywine” in their language, and their little village “Brandywine” as well.
The sun shone down hotly on the expedition, and the air smelled of fresh water and trampled vegetation.
Squire Lesley rode next to her on a fat cob. She looked down at him. “You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked anxiously. “You’ll probably never see your sons and daughters again.”
“My sons and daughters are smart and strong. I love them and they’ll be all right. They can always visit, right? The good folk of Brandywine are my sort of people,” the Squire replied. “When they asked if some of us would join them, and I got a look round the place, I honestly couldn’t imagine myself taking the long journey the mages are saying we should.” He sighed. “I’m too old for such things, and that’s the truth. Uprooting me and my pigs and piling everything into barges and making that crossing took more out of me than I ever thought it would. I’m ready to settle. And these good folk are ready to have us! It seems like providence, to me.”
Delia couldn’t argue with that. The elders of Brandywine and the other settlement, Oakton, had come down the rivers, taken a look at the Valdemaran armada, and had evidently very much liked what they saw. And, truth to tell, it was a good bargain all around. Some of the Valdemaran families got new homes immediately and would not face the great migration that was ahead of the others, and all of those families had at least one elderly member who was spared a grueling journey. Crescent Lake certainly could not support the whole population that had arrived, much less the ten thousand or so yet to come; there was a lot of discussion going on about who would be staying and who would be going.
And the locals got an infusion of new people, new herds, and folk who were no strangers to putting their hands to weapons.
This might be land mostly empty of people, but it was not empty of dangers. The Valdemarans had already encountered some of them—things born of twisted magic that were far more perilous than bears. And there were roaming bands of bandits as well, men who preferred to take rather than produce.
Beyond that—and the locals always seemed to point in different directions—was something called “The Pelagirs.” Marauding monsters, bears, and what was essentially an invasion of foreigners did not make the locals as sick-looking or pale as the word “Pelagirs.”
So two struggling villages were about to get what they needed to stop struggling and start prospering. And as a bonus there was about to be a large town within an easy distance of them. Granted, the “town” was going to take some building yet, but the people would be there, and their skills and tools.
The river made an abrupt turn, and there was Brandywine, with its cluster of thirty houses and its palisade of logs. Actually, all Delia could see from where she sat was the log palisade, the open gate, and a glimpse of a couple of wooden houses that were very different from the stone cottages of Valdemar. And it looked as if the entire village had turned out to cheer the arrival of the newcomers. They also looked very different from the folk of Valdemar; clothing was all of homespun, home-woven materials and colored with local, natural dyes.
All the Valdemarans had gotten the local tongue courtesy of Ponu, so at least there wouldn’t be any difficulty in being understood.