“How do you not know?”
Both Jess and I turn to look over to Clarice as she sits on the orange sofa near the fire. The woman holds a piece of her leather armor in her hand, part of the leg-guard I think, and an oiled rag in the other. Her eyes shift between the both of us before finally lingering on the crown I am wearing. Her gaze reminds me that I am wearing the piece. The rest of my armor has been tossed to the side of the room where everyone else has stacked their own sweaty and bloody pieces, but the crown was easy enough to clean during my bath. A wave of vertigo hit me when I removed it to wash; I think that likely has something to do with the sheer number of attribute points that it gifts me.
Clarice’s mouth works, trying to find words, before the woman jumps to her feet and stalks over to the table we sit at. Two wooden bowls jump when her hand slaps down onto the table, a look of pure and righteous indignation on her face. “You aren’t royalty, are you?”
I blink up at the woman, my mind failing to even comprehend the words. “What?” Across the table, Jess breaks into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“So, you are not Princess Amanandra Corellion?” Clarice asks.
“No,” I manage to say. “You seem to have me confused with someone else.”
“Is it any wonder? You go around wearing a crown, burning people at a whim, ordering others like it was the natural course.” Clarice huffs. Her eyes roam over the note on the table in front of me. The woman closes her eyes and takes a deep and patient breath before turning back to us with a put-upon smile. “I can take it that you are not among the peerage from your country then either, if you do not know Stoneball. If you would like, I can explain this game to you.”
Clarice joins us at the table. Despite the woman’s apparent feeling of being tricked by me, she is pleasant once we begin to really speak. She says that she comes from the continent of Voral, directly south of the one Gale is located on. Though she professes not to care that neither I nor Jess are of noble blood, she seems exasperated at needing to explain anything to us. I don’t blame her for it, the woman strikes me as one that loves to hear the sound of her own voice, and for the first time speaking to an elven noble, I work up the courage to ask the kinds of questions that I restrained myself from out of a sense of propriety.
She explains Stoneball as being a relatively simple game where a group of players meet on a mowed field, each attempting to carry a ball made of stone into the opponent’s goal in order to score.
“So, it is just a ball game?” I ask when Clarice ends her explanation of the finer points of Stoneball, not that there apparently seem to be any finer points. “I have played plenty of those when I was younger. This game sounds boring by comparison. Carry a heavy ball to the other side of the field to score points.”
“If I am being honest, I have never played myself,” Clarice blows a lock of hair out of her face, tucking it behind a pointed ear. “I have been dragged to a few matches by my older brothers, and I do find it boring. The men seem to love it though. You also misunderstand. The ball is heavy, yes, but it grows heavier the longer you hold onto it. It is supposed to encourage passing between teammates, but in the end all it does is give loudmouths and meatheads an excuse to try and show off their strength by carrying it the entire length of the field. It is a game solely reliant upon the strength of those competing. Not the kind of game for third-sons.”
“Why not?” I ask.
The apparent ignorance in my voice seems to catch Clarice up. Her face brightens for a moment, as she nods. “Right. We call the unendowed in Voral third-sons. I think they are called hopeful lords and ladies in the Empire.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jor’Mari shift on his cot. His ability to pretend to sleep is admirable. Where would someone need to learn something like that? My mind returns to the conversation. Hopeful lords are what the nobility calls their children born after the first two children. Remarkably, because apparently, I am as dense as a stone, I quickly understand Clarice’s incredibly complicated term of “third-sons.”
“I don’t understand why they would not play this game as well. Surely, without the burden of preparing for lordship and…whatever it is that inheriting lords and ladies get up to, third-sons would be able to focus on games more. From everything that I have heard about the hopeful lords and ladies in hostels and guilds, they seem like a frivolous lot, whiling away their parent’s money and hoping that they somehow get bumped up the inheritance ladder,” I say.
Clarice squints at me, attempting to figure out if I am joking with her. “I will try not to take that as an insult,” she says.
“Are you a third-son, third-daughter rather?” I ask. Based on the information that my eye revealed to me about the woman, I had guessed that she was a bastard of a nobleman. She lacks the sheen of hair that all true-borns have.
“It is still third-son, even when speaking about women.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” I say, eliciting a snort of laughter from Jess.
“Since when does language make sense? Anyway, yes, I am a third-son.” She stops for a moment, seeming to realize something. “I haven’t introduced myself, have I? Things have been awfully chaotic in the last hour. It appears that we will be on the same team going forward, introductions are in order.” She stands, offering Jess, Jasper, and I a well-practiced curtsy. “My name is Clarice Morningcall, and I am the fifth child of Baron Arghast Morningcall, Baron of Cultina City, Pledged Lord of Count Karfinger, Lord of The Lioncress Kingdom under his majesty King Dravan Co’Listina.”
Without Galea’s help, I doubt I could remember all of that perfectly, though my memory has proved exceptional in the last few months. We all take a moment to introduce ourselves, Jess and I giving the names of the two “sleeping” on the cots in the corner. Jasper stumbles over his words, stuffing as many “your ladyships” into his words as he can. I decline revealing Jor’Mari’s noble heritage; it isn’t my place to speak on. Clarice ends introductions quite surprised that she is the only noble born in the room for all she is aware.
“So, obviously with my severe lack of endowment as the fifth born, I could not compete with my eldest siblings,” Clarice says once she has taken her seat again.”I was fortunate enough to have my native affixes align with two of the essentia my father had won in a tournament when he was still a young knight. Otherwise, I might very well have become one of those layabouts that spend all of their day at Marley’s Tavern, entreating women into their bed with their fancy name and the flash of silver.”
“So, is endowment about inheritance then?” I ask.
“You would have relations with other women?” Jasper asks from his chair at the other table. Three sets of eyes turn towards the man, making him wither. A chuckle that morphs into an exaggerated snore comes from the corner of the room.
“No, endowment, as in the general term. I am not aware if there is another name for it in Gale,” Clarice says, pointedly ignoring Jasper. She looks to Jess for help.
“I don’t know what they call it in Gale,” Jess says. “In the mountains where I am from, it is called endowment, like it is everywhere. At least, everywhere that speaks Castinian,” Jess says, shrugging.
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“I suppose I just do not know what that is then,” I say, looking between the two, watching the shock grow in both of their eyes. “The only time I have ever heard anyone speak of endowment is when men want to talk about their snakes.”
Clarice leans forward, her eyes darting back and forth, searching for words. “I hope that you do not take this as an insult. Are you and your family yeomen, Ms. Devardem?”
I can’t stop a bark of laughter, a bit of self-consciousness leaking in. “My father wishes that he might be a freeholder one day. No, Lady Arghast, my father is a villein. We owe our land and patronage to Lord Timmian. He is a petty noble with only a few small estates to his name, but he is a good man and has been kind to my family.”
“I had heard rumors of how ignorant the Empire kept its peasants,” Clarice mutters. Her eyes widen when she realizes that she said those words aloud. “I truly do not mean to insult you.”
“No,” I say, dismissing her worry with a gesture. “In the past year, I have become very aware of how ignorant I have been my whole life. Please, explain what you mean by endowment to me. I have never heard of it.”
Jess and Clarice share a glance before the elven woman moves into her explanation. The information she reveals to me, speaking as if it is the most simple and self-evident thing, wholly shatters my understanding of the world.
According to Clarice, endowment fits hand and glove with the nobility’s right to rule, a right built on strength and stability. As she explains it, the rulers of nations and kingdoms are empowered by the souls of those that live within the borders of their lands. Kings and Queens are capable of wielding the strength of millions of souls. Each ignorant wrench inside their borders, whether they labor in fields from sunup to sundown, are migratory merchants that travel the roads, or craftsman plying a single trade for their entire lives, imparts a fraction of the power residing inside their souls to their monarchs without any conscious effort. The power of the royalty, especially those in the largest kingdoms the world over, can rival and even outstrip fifth rank magicians. The few examples Clarice gives put my imagination to shame, a king shattering a mountain to dust because it obstructs his view, a queen turning a river to salt to spite a fisherman that denied her, an empress literally lifting an entire town to throw it upside down back into the earth.
The spread of this endowment does not end with the royalty. The nobles beneath the absolute rulers are apportioned a piece of this incredible power, a tithe of the power going to each Duke, then to the Earls, Viscounts, and even the Barons. Even at the lowest, the rank of Baron, the nobility will be able to exercise the power of a third rank magician; there is simply that much power fed to them by the souls inhabiting their lands: the greater the population, the greater the power. Endowment then further spreads, affecting the children of those that hold titles and lands, becoming more diffuse past the first child and dwindling to almost nothing by the third.
Clarice takes in my obvious confusion, trying to relate endowment to the essentia that I know better. The nobility possessing endowment do not have the same magical abilities that a magician might, though they are able to manifest something akin to a soul presence that carries their natural affixes inside. She compares the endowed nobles to attribute specialists, though she claims it is as if they specialize in all attributes simultaneously. They do not keep their place through clever application of power, but through welding overwhelming might and peerless skill.
This power is shared by all people’s everywhere, all lords of any domain that hold an inherent or bestowed sovereignty. It is impossible that I cannot have known about this.
When I was a girl, I saw Lord Timmian’s eldest son lift a cart that had fallen into the road over his head before setting it back on the road. I never thought again about that, the man was a true blood noble, wielding that kind of power was inherent to him and his kin. That is why they are the lords and we are the field hands, craftsmen, indentured servants, and work chattel. If it isn’t their blood and the favor of the gods that give them such majesty and power, if it is only that they have power because of their position, how can anything I was taught in church school be trusted. It sounds so arbitrary, a small distinction, but it sticks in my mind like a rusted nail. Was Dovik right? Have I been lied to my whole life?
“That is also why lords try to find ways to dispatch their third-sons into some kind of professional order. Becoming an essentia magician is incredibly costly and less than one in two-hundred ever cross the threshold into the third rank, but it is a path for third-sons to go forward. The exceptionally ambitious among us might even manage to make it to the third-rank, and at that point you might be considered on par with your more fortunate peers.” Clarice spins a wooden fork between her fingers, looking into the wall, oblivious to me or anyone else.
“I hope that I can reach that someday, though my ambition might be lacking. The guild associate in Westerly Lanes saw talent enough in me to sponsor me for this event, but if this contest is a true reflection of the young elite among magicians, I might not want to keep the company. It isn’t as if my father is all that rich of a man. Nowadays it seems as if every wealthy merchant is able to secure a set of essentia for their favorite child, turn them into powerful men and women that can carry their business into success.
“That kind of scene is all over Graessa, the capital. Young magicians, drunk on their power, rubbing elbows with their betters, ingratiating themselves. Graessa is lousy with rank two magicians, after all, rank two is a guarantee so long as you can secure a soul cage. They don’t need to risk their lives fighting beasts or each other, they can use their personal power, beauty, and agelessness as their currency, pursuing material wealth. It doesn’t sound like such a bad life. I’ve been told rank two magicians among the shorter-lived races can eke out a few centuries, their true age never catching up with them until just before the end. I could see myself doing that, never risking my life to push myself into the third rank, but a part of me knows it would shame father.
“I could have taken clerical orders. As far as I am aware, piety is the only requirement to climb that hierarchy. I could see myself there, but they would take too much of my freedom I think.”
“That is a lot to think about,” I say, saying anything to try and stop her barrage of information.
“Everyone has to choose how their life is going to play out at some point,” Jess says. “There are myriad paths to power in this world.”
“And what kind of Lord’s daughter would I be if I did not pursue power as my ultimate goal,” Clarice says, stabbing her fork on the table. “Which, I suppose, is why I have become so interested in you, Ms. Devardem.” She catches my eye, and I can see her curiosity, a void in her dark eyes that wants to drag me in. “How did you manage to get your hands on a set of essentia when your family are peasants bonded to the land? The amount of gold needed for even a single essentia is incredible. You could not manage it in a dozen lifetimes based on what a villein is able to scrimp and save.”
“My brother is a brave man,” I say. “When he was still a boy, he took a knife and climbed a mountain famous for the dangerous monsters that lived upon it. When he returned, days later, he brought back with him three essentia. The ritual to integrate essentia is a restricted thing, something that requires a lord’s approval to be done. Corinth was afraid that Lord Timmian would confiscate the essentia that he had nearly died to find out in the wilderness, but the lord owed my father a favor. That was almost twelve years ago now. He has done well for himself, and when he was able, he sent essentia to each of us, so that we would not age and our bodies would not break working the orchard.”
“He must be an incredible man to manage all of that,” Clarice says, whistling.
“He is.”
I don’t know what compels me to lie about how I received my essentia. Corinth only ever sent me a single one, Arabella gave me more than he had. I can’t even remember my brother anymore. All of the stories about him come from either Halford or my mother; I don’t know why my father won’t speak of him to me. In my memory, all I can recall is my brother’s strong back as he walked into the sunset, all of his life ahead of him. Anyone could know, even just by seeing the man’s back, that he had a dream in his heart so powerful that it would shake the world.
A jealousy deep in my gut at the thought of him makes me hate myself. I am not jealous of his power, his strength, or his determination. What I want more than anything is that feeling he must have felt, how it feels to have a dream. Halford had it too, I could see it every day when he woke early to train, in the way that he bent over backward to keep him and his team safe while constantly pushing forward, in the brilliance of his smile when he finally ascended into the second rank. Why do they get to have a dream, while I languish here without anything like that. I can work for a full day as well as any of them, I am smarter than my peers, I am kind, aren’t I? Why then can’t I figure out how to want something so hard that my soul stirs at the thought of having it?
“I think that I am going to go to sleep,” I say, standing.
“Are you feeling alright?” Jess asks as I walk toward the cots.
“I am fine,” I say, flashing a smile that we both know I don’t mean. “I am just tired from all the fighting today. Can you imagine how much mana I have spent? I could pass out any second from fatigue.”
Her eyes linger on me as she collects the bowls and utensils to carry back to the basin of water. “I have a while left before I can sleep. I think that I will cook this meat and anything else we have for rations later. We don’t know the next time that we will have access to a proper stove.”
I curl up in the warm woolen bedding, my head feeling the caress of a pillow for the first time in weeks. I don’t feel it, the moment when sleep overcomes me, but thankfully it is a dreamless sleep. This room itself is more reward for the past few weeks than I could have hoped for. Just a fraction, my opinion of the guild rises, but only just the barest amount.