The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) by Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman Read Free Book Online Page A

mildewed rejects from some nobleman’s library, there’s no guarantee that it would be recognizable or even readable. Hollis speaks of a secret language, for instance, and Vespas writes of all public rituals being conducted in a kind of gibberish.”
    Godwin flushed to the roots of his curly brown hair.
    “Even if you could read such a spell, it would prove nothing,” Crabbe added. “If the spell had no effect, it could be argued that it was too subtle to be immediately apparent, or that only a wizard would have the training necessary to cast it successfully.”
    Doctor Tortua, who had to all appearances nodded off during this exchange, roused himself. “They were a disgrace, those wizards, no matter what else they were. All the same, it’s a pity we’ll never know.”
    “We certainly know that there is no such thing as magic,” Crabbe said firmly.
    “Oh, really?” Doctor Tortua looked at him keenly, a quick flash of the man Basil had loved. “And always have known, I suppose. And that would be why the Council of Lords outlawed all magic, eh? Because they didn’t believe in it? One of those little conundrums of history: why pass a law against something that never existed? It’s still on the books, you know: even saying that magic once existed is a civil offense. Forgot that, did you, Roger? I thought you were a scholar of modern history.” He chuckled wickedly to himself. “Well, never mind. Good thing nobody ever pays any attention to what happens at University, or we’d all be in trouble, eh?”
    NICHOLAS GALING HAD STUCK OUT THE LECTURE AS long as he could. Really, he thought, someone should have taken pity on the old fool and stopped him before he got started. Wizards and kings, indeed. It was mildly titillating to hear they’d been lovers back in the mists of time, but it shed no light on the Northern man who’d so upset the City Sessions. Ancient gossip wasn’t modern politics. Wizards were bugabears to frighten naughty children. If the University sheltered a royalist plot, poor, miserable, doddering Doctor Tortua certainly wasn’t at the center of it.
    WHEN THE MONARCHY FELL, THE NOBLES ABOLISHED nearly all of their particular titles. Everyone became a Lord, for to be styled a Lord of that free realm was felt to be honor and dignity enough. An exception was made for the three Ducal Houses: Hartsholt, Karleigh, and Tremontaine. For the great good they had done the country and the ancient lineage they bore, these dukes retained their titles, even though they no longer wore their coronets or took precedence in Council. The duchies did inherit seats on the Court of Honor and they retained the right to choose their own heirs from amongst their relations. The title usually passed conventionally to the eldest male; but there were exceptions. The present Duchess Tremontaine had inherited from her uncle, her mother’s older brother, still remembered as the Mad Duke. He had no legitimate children, nor was he dead when he fled the city under a severe cloud, leaving his sixteen-year-old niece in charge of considerable estates with even more considerable income, as well as fistsful of manor houses, hunting lodges, and city property that included one of the nicest estates on the Hill.
    Katherine was a practical girl, but she never could have done it if he had not also left her his manservant, a boy named Marcus, who had been in charge of keeping track of everything the Mad Duke could not, from estate revenues to his lovers’ names. Very little unsettled Marcus, and he was happy to show the new Duchess Tremontaine the ropes.
    Now, some forty years later, he was still her partner in the Tremontaine fortunes, and she still relied on him for friendship and advice. As the Duchess Katherine sat in her sunny study in Tremontaine House, reading a letter newly arrived from her cousin Jessica, she wondered what Marcus would make of it.
    The letter had been written the previous spring. It was stained and crusted with sea